181. “Hot Air” from Tony Blair - May25

18 snips

May 26, 2025

Michael Barnard, a partner at Cleantechnica and climate writer, dives into the Tony Blair Institute's controversial climate report, revealing its flaws and the media's romanticized reception. He highlights Climeworks' surprising ineffectiveness in carbon capture, showcasing the challenges that lie ahead. Additionally, Barnard critiques political figures like Tony Blair, stressing the need for a generational shift in climate strategies, especially by learning from China's successful green initiatives.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Overreliance on Carbon Capture Tech

The Tony Blair Institute climate report relies heavily on carbon capture and direct air capture (DAC) tech.
This focus overlooks existing scalable, low-cost renewable technologies already available.

INSIGHT

Primary Energy Fallacy Explained

The "primary energy fallacy" wrongly assumes energy use always rises with transitions.
Electrified economies use energy more efficiently, lowering total demand despite growth.

ANECDOTE

Climeworks' Minimal CO2 Capture

Climeworks, championed by Tony Blair's report, captured only 105 tons of CO2 despite $800 million funding.
This output is less than emissions from a single London-New York flight, revealing major inefficiency.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) recently released a widely publicized report titled “The Climate Paradox”, which has garnered significant positive attention from outlets such as the Guardian, the BBC, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, and much of the European press.

Beginning with the statement, “Climate action has reached an impasse,” the report, authored by Lindy Fursman (who holds a PhD in Sociology from UC Berkeley), outlines several key “facts” that have been effectively debunked by experts like Michael Liebreich in his Substack and Michael Barnard in Cleantechnica.

The TBI concludes with a series of recommendations, the most prominent being the call to “accelerate and scale technologies that capture carbon, alongside significant investments in engineered carbon-dioxide removal technologies, including direct air capture (DAC) solutions”. To emphasize this message, the cover of TBI’s report features an image of Climeworks’ plant in Iceland. Climeworks, a Swiss engineering company with 500 employees, has received $800 million in equity and subsidies from major players such as Partners Group, the GIC (Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund), Baillie Gifford (an early investor in Tesla), Swiss Re, and Microsoft.

However, last week, Climeworks faced a major setback when it was revealed that despite receiving substantial funding, the company had only captured 105 tonnes of CO2—not 105,000, but just 105 tonnes (less than a single flight London – New York) —despite the strong backing of tech giants like Stripe, Microsoft and Shopify.

This revelation has sparked widespread concern and warranted a prompt discussion with Laurent Segalen, Gerard Reid and Michael Barnard to assess the implications. The conversation will explore the credibility of the TBI’s stance on energy, the broader potential of DAC, and whether this technology is, in fact, a case of "Deception, Amateurism, and Con."

Links:
Michael Liebreich substack:
https://mliebreich.substack.com/p/why-tony-blair-needs-to-reset-his
Michael Barnard Cleantechnica
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/05/05/tony-blairs-new-climate-reset-report-promotes-delay-not-action/
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/05/15/climeworks-dac-fiscal-collapse-the-brutal-reality-of-pulling-carbon-from-the-sky/