But over the past three years, something genuinely shocking has happened. Global CO2 emissions from energy have stayed flat, even as the world economy has kept chugging along, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency. It’s the first time that’s happened without a sharp economic slowdown (as in the early 1980s): [...]
This pause in CO2 emissions growth, the IEA says, was driven by “growing renewable power generation, switches from coal to natural gas, improvements in energy efficiency, as well as structural changes in the global economy.” Notably, US energy-related emissions fell 1.6 percent in 2016, thanks to the ongoing shift from coal to cleaner natural gas, wind, and solar. Chinese coal consumption appears to be declining (though stats can be unreliable there), led by a shift away from heavy industry. And Europe’s emissions stayed flat last year. [...]
Deep decarbonization means changing all of that — electrifying sectors that can be electrified (like heating or transport) and advancing cleaner technologies for the rest (like carbon capture for cement, or biofuels for airplanes). Plus dealing with forestry, agriculture, and so on. In many cases, we’ve barely begun. [...]
The good news is that scientists and companies are slowly developing techniques for controlling methane: infrared cameras to detect (and help plug) methane leaks from natural gas pipelines; new types of feed that cause cows to belch less (no, really); even new genetically engineered rice varieties that don’t transfer as much methane from flooded paddies into the atmosphere. It’s solvable. And methane lingers in the atmosphere for a much shorter period than CO2, so action here would show quick results.
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