The Australian mining magnate and climate campaigner lashes out at oil and gas supremos he says are "selfish beyond belief".
  • Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest is attending the COP28 climate conference in the United Arab Emirates.
  • He says energy bosses should have their heads “put up on spikes” for not committing to phase out fossil fuels.
  • It comes as some companies, including the national oil company of the UAE, defy calls for a wind-down of fossil fuel use.

Quote with context:

And he took particular aim at the oil and gas bosses who were dismissing the calls, describing them as “selfish beyond belief”.

He said their actions were jeopardising the lives of millions of people in overwhelmingly poor countries who were at risk of “lethal humidity”, or an inability to cool themselves down. “If you can’t cool yourself you’re actually an oven burning around 100 watts all the time,” Dr Forrest said.

"If you can [sic] get rid of that heat energy, you cook.

"And when these deaths occur — and they’re occurring now, but when they occur at much larger-scale — I want these so-called people who are very smart to be held to account.

“It’s their heads which should be put up on spikes because they wilfully ignored and they didn’t care.”

  • levi
    2·
    7 months ago

    It’s not all bad news.

    West Aus is getting big into renewable hydrogen. Basically using solar farms to crack hydrogen from sea water.

    Last time I read up about it there were three new cracking facilities under development.

    The whole process seems so magical to me as a non-science person, basically selling sun & sea water as a form of energy that for all intents and purposes has no waste products.

    • sqgl@beehaw.org
      2·
      7 months ago

      All I can find is this government PDF where there is no mention of investing in the renewables they plan as input.

      I fear there is a scammy intention to build the infrastructure, promising green hydrogen then “in the meantime” just use gas to produce blue hydrogen.

      • levi
        1·
        7 months ago

        From my other comment:

        The largest in the South East of Western Australia is the Western Green Energy Hub which could generate 50GW of wind and solar energy and use that to produce 3.5m tonnes of green hydrogen every year. It will take several more years before a final investment decision is made and another decade to construct, but that’s the nature of large scale projects.