By Paul Homewood
It takes them awhile to catch up, doesn’t it!!
Global decarbonisation efforts will need to be seven times greater if the world is to stand a fair chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C, according to a new PwC report which found decarbonisation has slowed to its lowest level since 2011. EURACTIV’s media partner edie.net reports.
PwC UK’s latest Low Carbon Economy Index (LCEI), published today (19 September), found that reaching the Paris Agreement’s 2C limit for global warming would require the global economy to reduce its carbon intensity by 7.5% every year up to 2100. The report notes that this is five times faster than the current decarbonisation rate of 1.6% – less than half the decarbonisation rate witnessed in 2015 (of 3.3%), when the Paris Agreement was introduced.
In order to meet the more ambitious target of the Paris Agreement – limiting global warming to 1.5C which has been requested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC’s) special report – decarbonisation rates must reach 11.3% annually. That is seven times greater than the current rate, which has slowed to its lowest level since 2011.
Global emissions actually increased by 2% in 2018, due to a 2.9% increase in energy demand. The report warns that extreme heat and cold weather patterns contributed to this growth in demand, and will likely exacerbate decarbonisation efforts in the future. In total, 69% of the increase in energy demand was met by fossil fuel production.
I’m not quite sure how they conclude that “Global decarbonisation efforts will need to be seven times greater” when emissions keep increasing. They obviously have to fall to meet Paris targets.
They are, of course, using the meaningless carbon intensity measurements, which tell us nothing about actual emissions.
Meanwhile Reuters report that China is pushing ahead with massive new coal power projects:
SHANGHAI (REUTERS) – China’s total planned coal-fired power projects now stand at 226.2 gigawatts (GW), the highest in the world and more than twice the amount of new capacity on the books in India, according to data published by environmental groups on Thursday (Sept 19).
The projects approved by China amount to nearly 40 per cent of the world’s total planned coal-fired power plants, according to the Global Coal Exit List database run by German environmental organisation Urgewald and 30 other partner organisations.
The new China projects would be more than Germany’s existing installed power capacity of around 200 GW by the end of 2018.
China’s installed thermal capacity is currently 1100 GW, so this new tranche will add about an extra 20%.
Why all of this should come as a surprise to anybody is beyond me. It has been obvious to anyone who has bothered to actually check the facts, instead of getting swept away with the make believe generated when the Paris Agreement was signed.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
September 19, 2019 at 01:36PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.press.
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