In a world where the urgency of global warming looms larger than ever, Thomas Walsh attempts to sift through the haze of fact and fear, as the world gets real about climate action
Welcome to the Anthropocene, where humanity's impact on the planet has become undeniable. With atmospheric CO2 levels surpassing 425 parts per million (ppm) and global warming rising by over 1.1°C since pre-industrial times. We stand on the brink of a new epoch, perhaps even the Pyrocene. The Anthropocene signifies an era where human activities have become the dominant force shaping Earth's systems, from climate to biodiversity. Pyrocene highlights the increasing prevalence of wildfires influenced by human activity on the globe. In this uncertain landscape, it's easy to oscillate between doomerism and naive optimism. However, what truly lies ahead for us?
There’s much to be dismal about. We’ve known that CO2 concentrations have been climbing since the early 20th century and it didn’t take too long to realise that this could be a problem. At 350 ppm in 1989 Margaret Thatcher raised the prospect of “irretrievable damage to the atmosphere, to the oceans, to the earth itself” at the UN General Assembly. At 363 ppm in 1997, developed countries signed the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions and at 380 ppm in 2006, Al Gore tried to sound the alarm bells with the release of An Inconvenient Truth. Then, at 400 ppm in 2015, the Paris Agreement was adopted by 196 countries. The world had agreed to limit global temperature increases to 2°C, and ideally below 1.5°C. Everything has changed since then - a lot more than school strikes and soup attacks on paintings.
Generating heat and electricity is, by no small margin, the leading source of CO2 emissions globally. Despite pseudo-scientific efforts to paint all fossil fuels with the same brush, gas power plants are drastically cleaner than coal in terms of both greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution. This switch, bringing with it geopolitical implications that need no mention here, has enabled the carbon intensity of electricity in Europe and the US to decline moderately but consistently in recent decades. Six key technologies, some old and some new, are unlocking true decarbonisation of electricity: wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear reactors, batteries and hydro & geothermal power plants. The latter are only available where geography and geology permit.
Uptake of clean energy technologies has been explosive. Nuclear power will reach all-time record output in 2025 and renewables will surpass coal and supply 37% of power by the following year. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), clean energy growth will meet the entirety of new demand over the next three years, soon sending emissions from electricity generation into structural decline.
Good news extends to the transport sector. Following early failed attempts to decarbonise transport with biofuels, 1-in-7 new cars sold globally were electric in 2022. The preliminary estimate for 2023 is 20%. In Norway, the share was well over 85% and in China it was around 33%. Uptake of EVs is quick, but existing internal combustion engine vehicles will remain on the roads for many years. Beyond cars, freight trucks contribute 29.4% of transport emissions, aviation 11.6%, and international shipping 10.6%. A pathway for these sectors isn’t yet clear, nor is it for many industrial processes and steel & cement production.
Thanks to this step-change in clean energy development, the IEA has predicted that emissions will peak in the mid 2020s. Dr. Will Smith of the UCD School of Mechanical & Materials Engineering tells the Observer that he is doubtful of IEA estimates, due to the widespread gap between government policy and implementation. He stresses the importance of the uncertainties at play, particularly economic growth rates, and believes that 2028-2030 is a more plausible timeframe.
Dr. Will Smith of the UCD School of Mechanical & Materials Engineering tells the Observer that he is doubtful of IEA estimates, due to the widespread gap between government policy and implementation. He stresses the importance of the uncertainties at play, particularly economic growth rates, and believes that 2028-2030 is a more plausible timeframe.
Smith is also a self professed sceptic of some of the technology options that the IEA and IPCC use to model pathways consistent with the achieving net-zero emissions by mid century and limiting temperature rise. Regarding carbon capture and storage, “the costs are likely very high; the legalities are likely tortuous; the supply-chain is undeveloped; and the long-term storage issue is not yet resolved.” As for hydrogen, adored by policy makers and distrusted by engineers on the basis of efficiency and practicality, Smith says “it might eventually work some time in the future” but “won't make any meaningful contribution for at least ten-twenty years, if it ever does.”
When emissions eventually peak, it won’t necessarily be followed by a nose-dive to zero. Over 80% of global energy is derived from fossil fuels today, and a long plateau may trail the peak. Economics may dictate that the lower the demand for fossil fuels, the cheaper they become, tempting us back for more.
Unlike carbon dioxide, a cumulative greenhouse gas, methane is short lived in the atmosphere. Lasting approximately twelve years and emitted from agriculture, the oil & gas industry and the decomposition of waste in landfill, methane is a potent greenhouse gas responsible for 0.3°C of anthropogenic warming. The gas has been horribly misrepresented by the metric ‘Carbon Dioxide Equivalent’. Due to the short lifetime of methane in the atmosphere, sustaining a source of methane that has been around for decades at current levels results in very little additional warming. If an old source of methane is reduced by 0.3% annually, it produces negligible further net warming. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), expressing methane emissions in terms of carbon dioxide equivalents “overstates the effect of constant methane emissions on global temperature by a factor of 3 to 4, while understating the effect of any new methane emission source by a factor of 4 to 5 over the 20 years following the introduction of the new source”. The corollary of this is that any short term reduction in methane emissions can actually produce a global cooling effect. Much of the methane emissions from the oil & gas industry can be cut at negative cost. Short and medium term methane cuts are central to most climate & energy pathways.
A cynical narrative persists that progress on reducing emissions in countries like the UK, Germany, and France is mainly due to deindustrialisation, i.e. the offshoring of the energy intensive manufacturing of goods to China. While this is a factor, the scientific consensus is that eighteen countries (and counting!) have achieved sustained CO2 emissions reductions for at least ten years, accounting for both domestic emissions and the embodied carbon in imported goods. Furthermore, the lifecycle emissions in imported goods are poised to decrease as emerging economies leapfrog to cleaner technologies earlier in their economic development, thanks to falling costs. It’s fair to draw attention to greenwashing and dishonest carbon accounting, but dishonest to deny the data showing that progress is possible.
Eighteen countries (and counting!) have achieved sustained CO2 emissions reductions for at least ten years, accounting for both domestic emissions and the embodied carbon in imported goods.
Just a decade ago, predictions of catastrophic warming exceeding 4 degrees were all too common. What's the outlook now? As of 2021, the IPCC set the median projected warming at 2.8°C by 2100, based on government ambitions. Policies and ambition, however, don’t tend to align and a more likely increase of 3.2°C was caveated. The most optimistic forecast comes from the IEA's 2023 World Energy Outlook, which anticipates a rise of only 2.4°C by 2100. While any warming above 2°C warrants serious concern, why not take a brief moment to appreciate how quickly we’ve changed trajectory since we started trying?