Climate and energy transition report: 2023 assessment report

2024-01-15 2024-01-15T18:50:27Z

Arabia Weather - The numbers are ready. The year 2023 was the hottest in history ever by a large margin. The planet is now 1.48°C warmer than it was before the fossil fuel revolution.

Now global warming is accelerating, and 2024 is likely to set another record because the latter half of last year saw an El Niño weather pattern that continues to influence global weather. According to NOAA, the last colder than average year was 1976.

Weather disasters in 2023

The United States saw a record number of billion-dollar weather disasters in 2023. Canadian fires in June also led to an unprecedented acceleration in air quality warnings in the Northeast and Midwest in the United States, with New York temporarily experiencing the worst air quality in any country. city in the world. Wildfires have also devastated the island of Maui.

Elsewhere in the world, Libya, Guam, Malawi and Peru experienced horrific floods. According to the United Nations, drought now affects a quarter of the human population. Recovery costs were relatively higher in developing countries based on the cost per capita.

Solving the problem of climate change

The solution to climate change lies in reducing and reversing the long-term trend of increasing annual concentrations of greenhouse gases in the planet's atmosphere. So, let's see what the numbers say in this regard.

The level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth's atmosphere now exceeds 420 parts per million, compared to 315 parts per million in 1958 when the first direct measurements began. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by more than 2 parts per million in the past several years.

Additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from human activities that release carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) into the air. US carbon emissions fell by 3% in 2023, primarily due to the ongoing national shift from burning coal to burning natural gas to generate electricity. But worldwide carbon emissions are up 1.1% compared to 2022. And since climate change is a global problem, it's the global statistics that matter.

Emissions are energy related

Most emissions are energy-related, so phasing out fossil fuels in favor of low-carbon energy alternatives is vital. While it is still too early to report final data on renewable energy additions in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted last June that global renewable generation capacity would increase by 440 GW for the year (total renewable generation capacity Worldwide, including hydropower, it is about 4,500 GW).

However, some confusion can sometimes arise due to a lack of distinction between production capacity and actual generation, as solar and wind installers typically only generate at 20 to 50 percent of their theoretical capacity due to fluctuations in sunlight and wind speed.

Let's look at the actual generation numbers Of the approximately 30,000 TWh of electricity generated globally in 2022, 8,500 TWh (29 percent) came from renewables, and more than half of that was from hydraulic power.

Distinguish between “electricity” and “energy”

We must be careful to distinguish between “electricity” and “energy,” which is another common source of confusion. The share of electricity in final energy consumption remains constant at about 20 percent. After accounting for conversion factors, renewable energy sources (including solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, biofuels and conventional biomass, i.e. burning wood for cooking and heating) provide about 16 percent of the world's total primary energy.

Nuclear power also has relatively low levels of carbon emissions, but its share of total global energy has fallen to its lowest level in decades in 2023, and nuclear power projects are notoriously slow and expensive to launch.

To achieve net zero emissions by 2050 (which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change considers necessary to limit the rise to 1.5°C) by providing 100% of total global energy from renewables, we will need an almost ten-fold increase in renewable energy production, even in The condition of no growth in overall global energy demand during that period.

We would have to increase annual solar and wind capacity additions far beyond the current order (10 times or more) compared to the current record rate. It will also be necessary to accelerate the transition to electricity in sectors such as transportation, manufacturing, agriculture and others.

In its “Roadmap to Net Zero” report issued in September 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) acknowledged that such increases in renewable energy would be extremely difficult to achieve and instead suggested that 19 percent of final energy would still be coming from fossil fuels by 2050 and that final energy consumption will be reduced by 26 percent.

To remove the resulting emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that 1 billion metric tons per year of carbon dioxide will need to be captured by 2030, with that number rising to 6 billion tons by 2050. Mechanical carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies have received The direct-air technology (DAC) needed to do this has been criticized for its high cost, excessive power consumption, and poor performance in achieving the desired goal.

Currently, about 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide is captured annually, almost all of it by forests, with only 49 million metric tons enjoying storage in carbon removal technology projects worldwide. About 80% of the captured carbon is used to improve oil recovery.

At the same time, more than 37 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide are released by human activities, mainly as a result of the combustion of fossil fuels.

We can conclude from these performance scale numbers that, at the beginning of 2024, humanity is not on track to avoid catastrophic climate change. The possibility of achieving the target of limiting the rise to 1.5°C (the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement) is now very slim. In fact, this threshold may be exceeded within the next few years.

If world leaders sincerely hope to change these trends, radical action will be needed that includes a reassessment of current priorities, not only with respect to fossil fuel subsidies but also with respect to the continued growth in energy-related economic activity globally. Otherwise, we may be headed toward fulfilling the old saying: “If you don't change direction, you'll end up where you were headed.”