Rural communities first to suffer under Net Zero; no comment from NIMBYs

The general malaise of the ‘not in my back-yard’ crowd when it comes to the real world consequences of net zero fantasies is not surprising, however we’ll keep pumping out examples of such situation whenever we come across them.

In the article below, a study into the effects of energy and transport poverty on rural communities across the globe finds that the impacts are much larger for such populations, when compared to the hunting grounds of NIMBYs in the inner cities, due to a variety of factors, all of which are quite easy to predict and, alas, address, if only fossil fuels were not being taken off the table for such situations (which are still extremely common around the world, of course – again, this article is about first world locations such as England and Australia; imagine the developing world!…).

Instead, we once again see the immoral trading-off of the simple survival, let alone aspirations, of many billions around the world currently in energy poverty, in favour of a crude, simple reduction in global fossil fuel usage with the still very uncertain hope that a future Earth with slightly less atmospheric CO2 (itself a highly unlikely outcome given recent indications) will somehow make any difference, whatsoever, to anything…

Either way, those currently in energy and transport poverty probably won’t be around to enjoy such a supposedly much-improved future climate…

KEY QUOTE:

The dual threat of energy and transport poverty is likely to be especially common where disadvantaged households are disproportionately concentrated in peripheral, typically rural, localities, such as Wales, Australia, France, and much of Eastern Europe, the study authors noted.

The study warns that the impact of energy poverty and transport poverty can be circular and mutually reinforcing, for example, where unaffordable or inaccessible transport also impacts a household’s ability to attain domestic energy services, and so can contribute to the reproduction of structural inequalities.

ARTICLE / SOURCE:

Rural communities most exposed to risk of energy and transport poverty, new study finds – Mirage