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The world has the means to avert the greatest ravages of global heating – but we must deploy them immediately, while eliminating the fuels and activities that threaten to warm Earth beyond safe levels. This is the conclusion of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a consortium of the world’s top scientists convened by the UN.
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Wind turbines, electric vehicles, regenerative farming and heat pumps – the technologies and techniques capable of ending the fossil fuel era are now well known. The report says that the debate continues over the best combination of tools to peak emissions by 2025. What have we learned about how to use them all effectively?
Tommy Wiedmann, an IPCC lead author and professor of sustainability research at UNSW Sydney in Australia, says that opportunities to cut carbon emissions cheaply have multiplied since 2014, mostly due to “the plunging cost of renewables”. Even so, the greenhouse gas emissions that are reduced as a result to industrial processes becoming more efficient were more than offset by a growing global economy.
“Technology is not a silver bullet. To have a chance at Global emissions to be halved by 2030We must reduce our consumption of high-carbon products and live more environmentally-friendly lifestyles. Like all other changes required, these cannot be incremental,” he says.
Also, it will be easier to replace sources of pollution by low-carbon alternatives if high-emitting countries start consuming less energy.
The importance of dealing with climate change fairly was reiterated in the new report. This means that countries and entities responsible most for greenhouse gas emissions should support low-emitting countries through technology and aid.
Arunima Malik, another lead author and a senior lecturer in sustainability at the University of Sydney, says: “Emissions reduction policies must be inclusive and avoid unintended consequences such as exacerbating existing poverty and hunger. The transition to a low-carbon world should be equitable and leave no one behind.”
The report also included the following: These are the quickest ways to cut your emissions.. According to Frank Jotzo, another lead author and a professor of public policy at Australia National University: “The IPCC identifies clean electricity and agriculture/forestry/land use as the sectors where the greatest emissions reductions can be achieved, followed by industry and transport.
“There are other low-emissions areas such as in buildings and production as well as shifts of consumer demand. Overall, half the options to cut emissions by 50% cost less than US$20 a tonne.”
On that point about land use, Annette Cowie – lead author and adjunct professor of soil and plant science at the University of New England in the US – says that the land “has a central role in getting to net zero [emissions] through measures that remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and store it, such as tree planting [and] soil carbon management”.
The transport sector is still a carbon-wheezing laggard. In 2019, all the world’s cars, buses, lorries and trains produced nearly a quarter of total emissions.
Thomas Wyness/Shutterstock
Transport emissions should be reducedBy 2050, it is possible to reduce the current levels by as much as 90%, according to Alan Jenn (assistant professional researcher in transportation at University of California, Davis). “That sort of drastic reduction would require a major, rapid rethinking of how people get around globally.”
You may have noticed a shift from internal combustion engine vehicles that run on fossil fuels to electric ones. The number of electric passenger vehicles sold has doubled between 2021 and 2021, accounting for about 9%. “Falling costs for renewable energy and electric vehicle batteries, in addition to policy changes, have slowed the growth of climate change in the past decade,” Jenn says.
But, he says, how much “electrifying the transportation system” can “cut greenhouse gas emissions ultimately depends on how clean the electricity grid is. China, for example, is aiming for 20% of its vehicles to be electric by 2025, but its electric grid is still heavily reliant on coal.”
Expanding access to teleworking is another way to reduce travel and commute time. Schemes that allow people to share bikes or scooters “can get more people out of vehicles entirely”, Jenn says. And since 8% of global emissions come from vehicles in urban centres, “efficient city planning” is needed to “help [people]From cars to public transportation [using] strategies that avoid urban sprawl and disincentivize personal cars”.
The IPCC does not publish landmark scientific reports in a vacuum. To create its new report, The IPCC examined studies published before Oct 2021. “Since then,” according to Myles Allen, a professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford, and Hugh Helferty, a chemist at Queen’s University Ontario in Canada, “wholesale prices of most fossil fuels have more than doubled”.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and The unfolding energy crisisThey say that it could make it easier to stop climate change or harder depending on how the problem was framed.
“The invasion has highlighted both the dangers of ignoring [the]Responsibility [of producers]for fossil fuels, and an option to embrace it. Who are the producers of fossil carbon dioxide? The vast bulk of fossil carbon dioxide comes from products produced and sold by fewer than 80 companies – all of whom are doing rather well at the moment…
“Until we adopt the principle that anyone producing or selling fossil fuels is responsible for disposal of all the carbon dioxide generated by their activities and products, we aren’t going to stop climate change. And we will when we do. It really is that simple.”
