Is it possible to meet mainstream climate goals?

At the COP21, held in Paris, 196 countries agreed to keeping the increase in global temperature well below 2.0 degrees above pre industrial levels. This decision was backed by a decade of research into the subject of climate change. In fact, scientists around the world all came to the conclusion that if temperatures reached that magical 2 degree mark, they wouldn’t go back down for a while. In other words, 2 degrees was the limit before the world would be at a tipping point. Ice caps melting, ecosystems being destroyed, forest fires, and more carbon being released into the environment. Now in 2015, the projection was that without significant reductions in emissions, the world would reach between 2.8 and 4.6 degrees above pre industrial levels by 2100.

Since COP21, thankfully, much has changed. Governments such as the UKs have legally obliged themselves to become carbon neutral (whether to not that is going well would have to be a different discussion). Much more research has been conducted, new technologies such as renewable energy, carbon capture and even liquefied natural gases have been developed, which have all certainly made a difference. But most importantly, most people now understand and are educated about climate change, it is no longer a question of “wether it is real?” or “wether humanity caused it?” It is a question of “what do we need to do?”

That question is something that I hope this article will make you think about a bit deeper.

Mainstream media, parliaments and companies all report about renewable energy, carbon storage or decreases in their emissions. Don’t get me wrong, that’s all really good and positive, it will help at least delay climate change. But is it enough?

The problem here boils down to energy use. It is clear that the growth of renewables is barely enough to compensate for the growth in global energy use. And even then, it is clear from the data below that fossil fuel consumption is also growing in order to cope with demand. Fossil fuel use is growing. It isn’t going down.This problem isn’t due to transport either, renewable energy can really only be used to generate electricity. Electricity for commercial use, electricity for (some transportation), electricity for hydrogen production perhaps? But electricity can’t be used for iron and steel production, you can’t chuck electricity in furnaces, you can’t use it to power planes. Those sectors are also growing, which causes fossil fuel use to grow as well. Due to this, over the past 40 years, the share of energy globally produced by renewable energy has hardly gone up.

Even then, energy use only accounts for 73% of carbon emissions. The other 13 billion tonnes of CO2e emissions come from a variety of sectors, agriculture, cement, waste and industry.

Let me quickly summarise – fossil fuel use is going up, CO2e emissions are also increasing, 2024 was the hottest year since well, ever, and large parts of California have just burnt down.

At the current rate, the world will not be able to reach its target of 2 degrees. It wont even be close. Progress is being made, but it is too slow.