The world’s use of clean energy “is rapidly growing”, reports the Washington Post, “but not fast enough to keep temperatures in check…”
Many experts say it will be the economics of clean energy that defines the future of the planet — and how developing countries choose to meet their growing electricity demands. “What happens in emerging and developing economies in the next decade in some sense is the whole ballgame,” said Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Global greenhouse gas emissions could peak as soon as next year, according to the International Energy Agency, but are not on course to drop sharply enough to contain warming. The world would have to cut its emissions roughly in half by 2035 to meet the 1.5 C target, scientists warn, in part because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries.
Instead, the U.N. projects that nations’ current policies will lead to 3.1 C of warming by 2100, or as little as 2.6 C if the strongest pledges are kept. This would represent substantial progress from when the Paris agreement was adopted, when scientists expected a 4 C (7.2 F) rise in temperatures by century’s end… Still, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts “dangerous and widespread disruption” on the current path. The Greenland ice sheet might tip into irreversible collapse, according to the IPCC, threatening cities from New York to Shanghai, while extreme heat and humidity could make large swaths of the world effectively uninhabitable. Scientists also expect a growing toll of disease, crop failures and weather disasters. It would likely take thousands of years for Greenland’s ice to completely vanish, but other impacts — like the death of coral reefs worldwide and month-long heat waves — could come in a matter of decades. If countries wish to avoid these consequences, they will have to spend vast sums on adaptation. From now through 2030, poor nations will need up to $387 billion per year to adapt to mounting climate disasters, according to a recent U.N. report…
[Much of the progress on curbing emissions] has come from the United States’ switch from coal to natural gas and renewables, and the European Union’s rapid embrace of wind and solar power… But the demand for power is also rising, complicating these efforts. According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency, countries are expected to add electricity demand equivalent to the entire nation of Japan every year — thanks to the growth of EVs, the rapid build-out of AI data centers, and a surge in a need for air conditioning in developing countries. That growth in demand means that even as clean energy is added to the grid, fossil fuel use hasn’t decreased. And unless countries close coal and gas plants and shut down oil drilling, emissions won’t start to come down.“Two things can both be true: Clean energy is breaking almost every record you can imagine,” Bordoff said. “And oil use is going up, and gas use is going up, and coal use is going up.”
