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from the did-you-check-to-turn-the-lights-off dept.
Germany's economy nowadays emits as much carbon dioxide as it did in the 1950s, when it was 10 times smaller.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), carbon dioxide emissions trends for 2019 suggest clean energy transitions are underway. Global power sector emissions declined by some 170 Mt, or 1.2%, with the biggest falls taking place in the advanced economies of the European Union, Japan and the United States. There, CO2 emissions are now at levels not seen since the late 1980s, when electricity demand was one-third lower.
In these advanced economies, the average CO2 emissions intensity of electricity generation declined by nearly 6.5% in 2019. This is a rate three times faster than the average over the past decade.
This decline is driven by a switch from coal to natural gas, a rise in nuclear power and weaker electricity demand, combined with the seemingly unstoppable growth in renewables. These now constitute over 40% of the energy mix in Germany (wind power +11%) and the United Kingdom, where rapid expansion in offshore wind power generation is happening.
The bummer lies with the rest of the world.
There emissions continue to expand with close to 400 Mt last year. About 80% of that increase is happening in Asia. Coal demand here continues to expand, accounting for over 50% of energy use.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday February 12 2020, @08:39PM (2 children)
>What I mean is that if we dropped emissions down to 1880 levels, the heating would not stop nor would temperatures trend to 1880 levels.
Actually they would - just not immediately. There's roughly a 50-year lag on CO2 absorption - i.e. if we cut global emissions to 1880 levels today, it would take 50 years for atmospheric CO2 levels to return to 1880 levels, at which point the planet would be well on its way to cooling back towards 1880 temperatures. The total energy influx from the sun remains relatively constant, and the atmospheric greenhouse gas levels determines how hot the planet has to be to radiate the same amount of energy back into space to maintain equilibrium.
Of course that assumes that we haven't crossed any environmental tipping points that will keep accelerating things without us - which is a far more complicated question since we really don't understand all the processes that well. The consensus still seems to be that we haven't done so yet though, with the tipping point somewhere in the range of +4C to +8C over pre-industrial global temperatures, while we're still creeping up on +2C
The rest of your argument about other countries roles are reasonably valid, though it's worth noting that the U.S. , EU, and China combined make up over half of the total emissions, and China is committed to making the shift as well - they're already responsible for more annual solar buildout than any other nation - they are just also building a lot of fossil fuel generating infrastructure as well.
And you have to figure that most of the problematic nations are relatively poor - and as market forces drive renewable energy below the cost of fossil fuels, they will naturally shift over. That's already beginning to happen - as the lifetime cost of solar becomes cost-competitive with coal, an increasing amount of new buildout is favoring solar rather than fossil fuels. But the poorer you are, the more important the up-front cost is compared to the lifetime cost. As technology improves, driven by demand in the developed nations, the cost of solar will steadily get closer to the up-front cost of new coal plants. But that only happens if the wealthy nations, who already had their industrial revolution that got us into the current situation, keep investing heavily in renewables (and energy storage) to keep driving the cost down.
And of course, totally aside from the environmental considerations, the faster we get off fossil fuels, the sooner we eliminate the ongoing environmental devastation associated with fossil fuels. Not to mention greatly reducing the international tensions and warfare revolving around securing access to energy sources.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13 2020, @08:25AM (1 child)
Err.... what have you been smoking? And who the fuck is stupid enough to mod this "Interesting".
Learn the fuck about Carbon Cycle.
https://scied.ucar.edu/carbon-cycle [ucar.edu]
Those thousands of millions of tons of coal are not going to sequester themselves in 50 fucking years. It will take closer to 50,000 years for CO2 levels to return to 1880 levels.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday February 13 2020, @03:37PM
Nope.
Try learning a little more yourself - whoever you've been listening to is giving you a ridiculously pessimistic assessment.