this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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Environment
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Still, that it’s possible at all to conceive of bending the curve in the near term after more than a century of relentless growth shows that there’s a radical change underway in the relationship between energy, prosperity, and pollution — that standards of living can go up even as emissions from coal, oil, and gas go down.“That puts us in this race between the really limited time left to bend the emissions curve and start that project towards zero, but we are also seeing this sort of huge growth, an acceleration in clean technology deployment,” Grant said.
There will still be year-to-year variations from phenomena like El Niño that can raise electricity demand during heat waves or shocks like pandemics that reduce travel or conflicts that force countries to change their energy priorities.
In its own analysis, the International Energy Agency reports that global carbon dioxide emissions “are set to peak this decade.” The consulting firm McKinsey anticipates that greenhouse gases will begin to decline before 2030, also finding that 2023 may have been the apogee.
Many governments are also contending with higher interest rates, making it harder to finance new clean energy development just as the world needs a massive buildout of solar panels, wind turbines, and transmission lines.
The next few years will shape the warming trajectory for much of the rest of the century, but obstacles ranging from political turmoil to international conflict to higher interest rates could slow progress against climate change just as decarbonization needs to accelerate.
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