Remember to bear news like this in mind when teahadists in Congress yell that any government action on climate change will cripple American business:

Each year, the International Energy Agency produces a report in which it considers trends in energy use and makes projections for the future. Usually, these reports simply take recent trends and project them forward, but this year’s is somewhat different: its author uses a mixture of current trends and the projected impact of countries’ pledges for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and subsidies for fossil fuels. This results in some eye-popping figures. Globally, we’re subsidizing fossil fuel use to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, at a rate of over five times the subsidies going to renewable energy. And our inaction on climate goals has tacked $1 trillion onto the cost of reaching them—in 2009 alone.  [...]

In 2009, the total subsidies were $312 billion, which may seem high until you hear the 2008 figure: $558 billion, boosted by countries’ responses to the high fossil fuel prices that year. Most of the subsidies went to help cut the costs of using oil and natural gas products; another substantial chunk went to electricity use.

Clearly, subsidies of this sort occur in Western democracies, but the biggest contributors tend to be fossil-fuel rich countries, such as those in Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, although India and China also do a hefty amount of subsidizing.  [...]  Earlier this year, however, the G20 members agreed to bring this practice to an end, which the report’s author thinks is a very good idea. “Eradicating subsidies to fossil fuels,” he concludes, “would have a dramatic effect on global energy balances, enhancing energy security, reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollution, and bringing economic benefits.” He estimates that a complete global phase out would cut carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of the annual output of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

The report looks forward to what the energy economy might look like by 2020 and 2035. The first scenario considered involves projecting use patterns forward based on the pledges made by nations at the Copenhagen climate conference that year. Unfortunately, the IEA concludes, these pledges are insufficient to meet the stated goal of stabilizing the climate after a rise of 2°C (an atmospheric concentration of 450 parts per million of CO₂). Instead, the “timidity of current commitments” means that we’re looking at an atmosphere with 650ppm, which would commit us to 3.5°C of warming. So, the second scenario considered what it would take to put us on a path to 450ppm.

For the 650ppm scenario, coal and oil use decline in the OECD countries (primarily Europe and North America), but expand significantly in China and the developing nations. In general, 93 percent of the growth in energy use occurs outside the OECD, with China accounting for over a third of it. This growth is enough to ensure that we don’t hit peak oil before 2035, although use has flattened out by then. In contrast, we would need to reach peak oil before 2020 to have the 450ppm scenario be realistic. The decline from that peak will need to be driven by increased use of plug-in hybrids and electric cars, combined with the decarbonization of electricity.

Update: Never mind: God said that we don’t need to worry about climate change:

Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who will seek the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship maintains that we do not have to worry about climate change because God promised in the Bible not to destroy the world again after Noah’s flood.