Today, the Paris-based International Energy Agency released
its 2014 World
Energy Outlook, an annual data dump outlining where the world's energy use
patterns are heading in the future. The basic upshot is that planet
Earth is definitely moving in a cleaner and greener direction -- just
not fast enough to save us from dangerous climate change.
First, the good news: In the future the IEA projects that
global demand for the dirtiest fuel -- coal -- won't grow nearly as quickly as
it has in the past. In fact, coal demand will level off, IEA says, thanks
largely to environmental policies being adopted around the world (including the
US's own Clean
Power Plan).
Overall coal use is expected to plateau and rise only very
slowly after 2020. In this scenario, with coal use declining in the U.S.,
Europe, and China, India is actually expected to surpass the U.S. and become the
second largest coal consumer toward the end of this decade.
Meanwhile, the IEA also projects a stunning growth in
renewable sources of electricity -- wind, solar, and hydropower in particular.
By 2040, it expects renewables to power 33 percent of global energy demand, as
opposed to the current 21 percent, even as subsidies to strengthen the growth
of renewables begin to subside:
The report does note, however, that governments around the
world are still subsidizing dirty fossil energy much more than they're
subsidizing renewables. As of 2013, reports IEA, world fossil fuel subsidies
totaled $550 billion, four times the amount devoted to clean energy.
Which partly explains why despite an overall greening of
world energy patterns in the next 25 years, the IEA says we are going to
miss climate goals and end up with quite a lot of warming (barring a very
significant course correction). The agency cites "the failure to transform
the energy system quickly enough to stem the rise in energy-related CO2 emissions
(which grow by one-fifth to 2040) and put the world on a path consistent with a
long-term global temperature increase of 2°C." (It was not
immediately clear how much the just announced U.S.-China deal to
jointly reduce greenhouse gas emissions changes this picture.)
We have some 1000 gigatonnes of carbon left to emit to
the atmosphere before locking in a dangerous amount of warming above 2
degrees, and on the current course we'll use it all up by 2040, says
the IEA. In order to stop that, we'll need four times the current investment in
renewable energy -- an increase up to $ 1.5 trillion annually around the world.
The IEA's conclusion about our carbon budget busting
trajectory is highly consistent with that of a 2 page box that was, quite
controversially, dropped
from the latest "synthesis report" of the United Nations'
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The upshot of all this? Here's one way to think about it:
Right now, when it comes to energy the world is kind of like a person who vows
to get in shape, goes out and spends heavily on exercise gear, gym
memberships, and personal trainers -- but never works out enough, and never
cuts back enough on the pizza and french fries.
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