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As with the UK, there is an alarming habit (at the moment) within the EU, to make grandiose targets for cuts. Is this one of those or does the EU actually stand a chance of meeting this?
Well between 1990 and 2019 the EU cut its emissions by roughly 24% – a not insignificant achievement.
There has been a constant argument that the cost of moving to renewable energy is too high. However, it is becoming clearer and clearer. Our descendants will quite rightly have a very low level of respect for us.
The idea of saving a small amount of investment now, and not worry about the trillions that this will cost in the future is quite disgusting. What is more foolish, is that while many of these clean technologies do cost now, they will save far more money in the future.
Throughout human history, the human race has fought to leave a better life for their children. Are we seriously saying that we are the first generation who is going to say we don’t care if we make life harder?
IRENA did the analysis, and the found that while global energy demands are likely to double by 2050, 86% of the 2050 demands could be met from renewable energy. The majority of this increase could be met through wind and solar. However, progress is not constant; Trumps foolish solar tariffs the USA lost 20,000 solar energy jobs – talk about America first!
The faster the transition, the greater the impact on the climate change fight. We dont just need to clean up our act, we are going to have to deal with all the damage from the last 2 centuries, and the quicker we make the change, the less clean up we will have to do.
Street lamps do not consume a great deal of electricity. Unfortunately, as there are many of them this rapidly builds up.
A new turbine that spins horizontally rather than vertically may make a big difference. Apart from anything, these turbines will be forced to turn as traffic passes, guaranteeing plenty of electricity each day. While these turbines are never going to make large amounts of power, given the large number of street lamps around the UK, it could generate a lot of power (it is estimated that it could create 6mw of power a day, enough to power a small village.
With an endowment, to rival a host of small countries, the clout that Harvard should have in terms of divesting from fossil fuels could be vast.
Unfortunately they are dragging their feet. Apart from the bad look that this give, it is also a highly dangerous way of working – there is an increasing concern that many fossil fuel companies will be left holding vast rights to drill will be worthless as they wont be able to sell the oil.
If all cars and lorries go electric (and it is looking increasingly like it will, and faster than expected) this will cut out the bottom of the oil market. Also with kites and sails, ships are increasingly going electric and renewable, and even planes are getting in on the act oil might become less and less useful.
It has already been shown, that it is cheaper to set up a solar or wind farm than it is to continue to burn coal or oil until the end of the powerplants life – as the numbers move even further, it is going to become impossible to ignore.
In 2016 a special type of bacteria was found on a Japanese dump. While incredibly fast progress is being made, experts warn that their use is still probably years away. The other concern, is that they may leak into the environment. If this were to happen damages could be incredible.
While proportionally a small percentage of human emissions, the emissions of seafaring trade currently amounts to roughly 2% of our emissions.
The thing is, that with the huge advances in wind technology it would be possible to save a great deal of money and emissions.
A recent test of a ship kite, was found to save 10-15% (the creater of one of these systems suggested saving of 20% or more) of the fuel per day, a saving of $1000-1500 – which is quite something. While the kite systems currently cost a million or so, this will still be paid of in a couple of years. Furthermore this price is likely to fall as the technology becomes more mainstream.
The human race has been emitting carbon at an extreme rate for several centuries. Before we started burning things for the energy locked up inside them, the worlds carbon sinks and its carbon taps were in relatively stable harmony. For long periods of the earths existence, carbon absorbed by plants equalled the carbon emitted by breathing and volcano eruptions among other sources.
There are a variety of other carbon sinks. The earths oceans absorb carbon, while they can absorb huge quantities of carbon, this acidifies the water, which means that we dont want to rely on that to to great an impact.
Continue reading “Is one of our carbon sinks less reliable than we thought?”It is an unfortunate fact, all over the world, that people have chosen to live near the sea. There are many reasons for this, but the basic fact is that this is often the most productive land.
The problem now, though, is that all these peoples lives are liable to change. This is because small rises in sea levels could make them homeless. As much as 1 billion people live at low enough elevation to make this a threat.
Countries like Bangladesh are very flat, and it is estimated that as many as 20 million people within Bangladesh would become homeless by 2050 under current trends (this assumes that we meet our carbon cut targets. There would be many others that would be lost.
Forgetting the hundreds of millions of people in the developing world, there are famous buildings and places which should underline this issue in the west as well.
Buckingham palace would be under water up to the first floor if we fail to act. A temperature rise of 1.5 degrees C would merely bring the water level to the front door. Many other famous buildings such as the pentagon, the tower of London and Tokyo tower in Japan would all be lost.
This is all a long winded way of stating, that even with the dramatic cuts the world is hoping to make over the next few decades, many people on earth are still likely to loose their lives have their lives changed dramatically, in most cases for the worse.
According to Lord Adair Turner, population decline should not be feared. It is certainly true that if the population of the UK were to shrink, so would our carbon emissions. Of course, this suggestion might have come with more authority if it had been made while he was still in post.
We have, in the last couple of centuries, unfortunately set up the financial world in such a way as to need a growing population. An increasing size of financial market in each country is required (according to current expertise) yet while there are some gains to be had in efficiency by each person, it is not possible for people to become more efficient endlessly. Furthermore, by this metric, a falling population would be a bad thing, as this would necessitate a shrinking market – even if it were shrinking slower than the population.
Continue reading “The former head of the British financial services authority has suggested population decline and smaller families are good for the Climate; and?…”This encompasses an area about the size of South Carolina, and is made up of about 75% forest with the rest peat.
Much wildlife live in these forests including orangutans, so this move is good for both carbon emissions and biodiversity.
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