October 1, 2023 7:16 am

political implications

The Washington Post asks What the world would look like without fossil fuels, which can be summed up as "out entire way of existence depends on a huge amount of energy almost all of which we get from oil". The rough idea they are explaining is that if we just stop building more wells and mines, things will gradually get more expensive and it will take a huge amount of time and resources to transition to other sources, but turning it off directly is unrealistic.

Overall it tells a nice story, but what struck me was a paragraph at the end:

“The biggest worry I have is: ‘What are the implications of the clean energy transition in some of the segments of the population that are badly affected?’” Birol said. “In a not very well-planned transition, there could be a bit of a backlash with political implications.”

Basically, the transition will hurt a bunch of people, specifically the ones that are already under a smack-down. "Backlash with political implications".

How about humanitarian implications? How about inequality, or general unfairness? Is the real problem here that it's politically inconvenient?

Calling it "political" is such a euphemism.