Preberite spodnjo nit Joja Michella, ki bo jeseni izšla v obliki znanstvenega članka v EJEEP. Michell je naredil dekompozicijo izpustov CO2 na glavne komponente (prebivalstvo, BDP/prebivalca, energetsko intenzivnost BDP in intenzivnost emisij v proizvodnji energije) in simuliral, kako realističen je scenarij razogljičenja. Ugotavlja, da če hočemo do leta 2050 zmanjšati emisije CO2 blizu ničle, bi ob nadaljevanju sedanjih trendov glede energetske intenzivnosti in intenzivnosti emisij morali zmanjšati življenjski standard (BDP na prebivalca) na svetu za več kot 40% (popolna odrast), kar je seveda absolutno nerealistično. Če hočemo obdržati življenjski standard in ga normalno povečevati (rast BDP/preb po 1.5% letno), bi ob trendnih tehničnih predpostavkah glede energetske intenzivnosti in intenzivnosti emisij morali cilj glede razogljičenja prepoloviti.

Smo torej pred dilemo nižji standard ali manj ambicioznosti glede razogljičenja? Ne nujno. Odgovor se skriva v intenzivnosti emisij na enoto energije. Glede slednje namreč dosedanje politike v razvitih državah (zamenjava premoga pri proizvodnji električne energije z OVE vetra in sonca) ne dajejo in ne morejo dati ustreznih rezultatov. Kajti prehod iz premoga na OVE vetra in sonca (zaradi variabilne narave delovanja sončnih in vetrnih elektrarn ter potrebe po nadomestnih kapacitetah) pomeni dejansko prehod iz premoga na plin, kar pomeni zgolj tretjinsko razogljičenje proizvodnje električne energije. Če pa bi električno energijo iz premoga in plina zamenjali z jedrsko in hidro energijo, bi se izpusti CO2 zmanjšali za do 95% (glede na premog). Če torej resno mislimo z razogljičenjem, tega s soncem in vetrom ne moremo doseči, ampak moramo poseči po bolj zanesljivih virih energije.

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World will miss 1.5C warming limit – top UK expert Former head of the UN climate science body told the BBC’s Today programme he was very pessimistic. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66256101

When I started thinking about the relationship between growth, technology and emissions, I quickly came across the widely used Kaya identity.

This decomposes emissions into a number of key indicators and ratios: population, GDP per capita, energy per unit of GDP and emissions per unit of energy.

I found it surprisingly difficult to find clear decompositions of the historical data and forecasts and scenarios using the identity — perhaps I didn’t look hard enough. Anyway, I decided to have a go myself.

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…ko se počutiš, kot da bi izdal kolege sotrpine, ko jih po 180 kilometrih trpljenja prehitiš v zadnjih 50 metrih

Pri Mateju ni običajnih floskul, ni šampionske vzvišenosti, ni taktiziranja, so zgolj iskrenost, čustva in sočutje do sotrpinov, ki se po mesecih trdih priprav soočijo v 3-tedenskem brutalnem gladiatorskem boju, kjer bi si vsak zaslužil zmagati.

Financial Times je prejšnji teden prenesel alarmantno izjavo nemškega ministra za gospodarstvo Petra Habecka: »To je kot vojna napoved«. Ta izjava se ni nanašala na rusko invazijo na Ukrajino ali na kitajske vojaške vaje okoli Tajvana, pač pa na množico subvencij in davčnih olajšav za proizvajalce, ki so jih uvedle ZDA za privabljanje investicij v industrijo.

Na poslovni konferenci se je Habeck pridušal: “[Američani] želijo imeti polprevodnike, želijo solarno industrijo, želijo industrijo vodika, želijo elektrolizerje”. Jeza ministra Habecka je po eni strani povsem upravičena. Ameriška uvedba subvencij v okviru zakona z zavajujočim imenom (»zakon o znižanju inflacije«) res pomeni napoved trgovinske vojne. Pomeni trgovinsko vojno na subvencijskih steroidih. Tovrstne politike (proizvodne in izvozne subvencije) so bile doslej za članice Svetovne trgovinske organizacije (WTO) eksplicitno prepovedane. Toda ker se je njena najmočnejša članica (ZDA) odločila, da teh dosedanjih pravil ne spoštuje več, tudi WTO temu ne oporeka in tega ne sankcionira.

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Meni še vedno Bruceova najboljša pesem iz njegovega najboljšega albuma Nebraska. Zgodba!

Zanimiva konverzacija med ameriškim državnim sekretarjem Henryjem Kisingerjem in kitajskim predsednikom vlade Zhou Enlaijem leta 1971 o pogojih za sklenitev mirovnega sporazuma med ZDA in Vietnamom. Pazite na pasuse glede tega, da se morajo ZDA “zaradi ohranitve časti” kontrolirano umakniti iz Vietnama in da iz enakega razloga ne morejo pristati na plačilo vojnih reparacij, lahko pa kasneje odobrijo “prostovoljno pomoč”. Bomo videli, če bodo ZDA zagovarjale enake standarde, ko se bosta o miru pogovarjali Rusija in Ukrajina.

Excerpt from conversation between Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Beijing, 9 July 1971.

Source: Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute je naredil hvalevredno nalogo, na podlagi spremljanja znanstvenih objav je oblikoval poseben sledilnik prvenstva v kritičnih tehnologijah (ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker). Ta sledilnik kaže, kako je Kitajska v zadnjem desetlrtju postala vodilna na 37 izmed 44 kritičnih tehnoloških področjih. V bistvu je vodilna povsod, razen (še) pri dizajnu polprevodnikov, superračunalnikih in kvantnih računalnikih, umetni inteligenci in cepivih.

Da se ne mučim z opisovanjem, spodaj je executive summary zadnjega poročila. Kot boste lahko videli, EU držav ni nikjer (vmes je ponekod na 2. ali 3. mestu V. Britanija zaradi svojih univerz). Nauki? Ha, ha. Zahteva velika vlaganja v znanost, raziskave in razvoj, privabljanje top tujih talentov, financiranje tehnoloških start-upov in scale-upov itd. Pa seveda ciljna javna naročila (javna uprava, vojska, varnost, ki ustvarijo povpraševanje po invencijah in inovacijah.

Aja, pa zanemarite propagandna sporočila spodaj, kot so, da je problem, ker s tem avtoritarna oblast prevzema globalno moč v tehnologijah, ki niso podvržene civilnemu nadzoru (global power and influence to an authoritarian state where the development, testing and application of emerging, critical and military technologies isn’t open and transparent and where it can’t be scrutinised by independent civil society and media) ali da ima Komunistična partija Kitajske željo po uporabi sovražnih metod kaznovanja držav ali podjetij ter omejevanja dostopa do tehnologije drugim državam (to use coercive techniques outside of the global rules-based order to punish governments and businesses, including withholding the supply of critical technologies). Ne vem, kaj išče takšna propaganda v takšnih primerjalnih analizah. Našteto namreč velja za ZDA, ki imajo prakso uvajanja tovrstnih tehnoloških sankcij.

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Western democracies are losing the global technological competition, including the race for scientific and research breakthroughs, and the ability to retain global talent—crucial ingredients that underpin the development and control of the world’s most important technologies, including those that don’t yet exist.

Our research reveals that China has built the foundations to position itself as the world’s leading science and technology superpower, by establishing a sometimes stunning lead in high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains.

China’s global lead extends to 37 out of 44 technologies that ASPI is now tracking, covering a range of crucial technology fields spanning defence, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials and key quantum technology areas.¹ The Critical Technology Tracker shows that, for some technologies, all of the world’s top 10 leading research institutions are based in China and are collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country (most often the US). Notably, the Chinese Academy of Sciences ranks highly (and often first or second) across many of the 44 technologies included in the Critical Technology Tracker. We also see China’s efforts being bolstered through talent and knowledge import: one-fifth of its high-impact papers are being authored by researchers with postgraduate training in a Five-Eyes country.² China’s lead is the product of deliberate design and long-term policy planning, as repeatedly outlined by Xi Jinping and his predecessors.³

A key area in which China excels is defence and space-related technologies. China’s strides in nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles reportedly took US intelligence by surprise in August 2021.⁴

Had a tool such as ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker been collecting and analysing this data two years ago, Beijing’s strong interest and leading research performance in this area would have been more easily identified…

Had a tool such as ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker been collecting and analysing this data two years ago, Beijing’s strong interest and leading research performance in this area would have been more easily identified, and such technological advances would have been less surprising. That’s because, according to our data analysis, over the past five years, China generated 48.49% of the world’s high-impact research papers into advanced aircraft engines, including hypersonics, and it hosts seven of the world’s top 10 research institutions in this topic area.

The US comes second in the majority of the 44 technologies examined in the Critical Technology Tracker. The US currently leads in areas such as high performance computing, quantum computing and vaccines. Our dataset reveals that there’s a large gap between China and the US, as the leading two countries, and everyone else. The data then indicates a small, second-tier group of countries led by India and the UK: other countries that regularly appear in this group—in many technological fields— include South Korea, Germany, Australia, Italy, and less often, Japan.

This project—including some of its more surprising findings—further highlights the gap in our understanding of the critical technology ecosystem, including its current trajectory. It’s important that we seek to fill this gap so we don’t face a future in which one or two countries dominate new and emerging industries (something that recently occurred in 5G technologies) and so countries have ongoing access to trusted and secure critical technology supply chains.

China’s overall research lead, and its dominant concentration of expertise across a range of strategic sectors, has short and long term implications for democratic nations. In the long term, China’s leading research position means that it has set itself up to excel not just in current technological development in almost all sectors, but in future technologies that don’t yet exist. Unchecked, this could shift not just technological development and control but global power and influence to an authoritarian state where the development, testing and application of emerging, critical and military technologies isn’t open and transparent and where it can’t be scrutinised by independent civil society and media.

In the more immediate term, that lead—coupled with successful strategies for translating research breakthroughs to commercial systems and products that are fed into an efficient manufacturing base—could allow China to gain a stranglehold on the global supply of certain critical technologies.

Such risks are exacerbated because of the willingness of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to use coercive techniques⁵ outside of the global rules-based order to punish governments and businesses, including withholding the supply of critical technologies.⁶

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Speccifično, finančni minister Lindner bo z namenom varčevanja porezal izdatke za raziskave na področju kvantnih računalnikov. Kaj bodo Nemcem kvantni računalniki in tehnološka tekma z ZDA in Kitajsko?!

The trouble with austerity is that it always, without exception, hits public investment and ultimately economic growth. Investment is the part of national or federal spending that can be cut the easiest. It is happening again, in Germany, where the consequences of the 2024 austerity budget are slowly emerging. 

Euractiv reports that one of the many savings Christian Lindner identified to meet his 0.35% deficit goal for next year was the budget for quantum computing research. Having missed out on the digital revolution in the late 20th century, on digital business models and digital industry in the 21st century, Germany has now identified the next big industrial trend to sacrifice at the altar of austerity. Previously, during the pandemic, the government scoped out quantum computing as an area worthy of support to compete with the US, China and Japan. But that was then.

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Kako interpretirati tekst novinarja Davida Ignatiusa (sicer zaupnika Anthonyja Blinkena) v Washington Postu, da je 18 mesecev vojne v Ukrajini za ZDA in zaveznice Nata prineslo izredni strateški dobiček (windfall) za relativno nizke stroške (če zanemarimo Ukrajince)? Kot arogantni, nemoralni cinizem hegemona ali kot hladno realpolitično oceno? 

Jaz bi rekel, da je Ignatius v svoji, kot ji pravi, “midsummer accounting” imel v mislih slednjo interpretacijo. Ignatius v svojem članku nehote potrjuje pravi namen te ameriško sprovocirane proxy vojne v Ukrajini. Pač cilj ZDA je bil vedno, od 1990 naprej ter nato eksplicitno izražen leta 2008 na zasedanju Nata v Bukarešti, da ZDA svoj vojaški vpliv prek Nata prenesejo na meje Rusije. Ukrajina je pač služila kot sredstvo za dosego tega cilja. In čeprav ZDA ni uspelo Nata neposredno spraviti v Ukrajino, pa jim je uspelo Nato razširiti še v Finsko in Švedsko (glede slednje zadeva še ni in morda tudi ne bo kmalu končana). Hkrati je ZDA uspelo spraviti Nemčijo k pameti (k pravim “vrednotam”) in iz ruskega plina (na 5-krat dražjega ameriškega). Torej je bilo letošnje poletje triumfalno za ZDA in Nato zavezništvo?

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Odziv na tale spodnji zelo korekten članek na spletni strani RTV Slovenija je danes precej vznemiril nekatere slovenske kao liberalce. Pogovori ali pogajanja o sklenitvi miru še ne pomenijo, da katerakoli stran popusti ali izgubi oziroma da sploh pride do dogovora, pomeni pa željo po sklenitvi miru kot boljše opcije od nadaljevanja slabe vojne. Toda zakaj je že omenjanje nujnosti / potrebnosti začetka pogajanj o miru za liberalce tako nesprejemljivo?