It turned out why rapid and deep decarbonization of global energy is impossible
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President Putin, by decree, approved the Climate Doctrine (CD) of the Russian Federation, which expresses concern about the unprecedentedly high rate of global warming and the increasing impact of human economic activity on the climate. In the 20th century, humanity, as technology developed, increased energy consumption 10 times, speed of movement 100 times, and weapon power 1000 times. By type of fuel, coal (43%) ranks first in emissions, followed by petroleum products (34%) and natural gas (23%). The hyperdependence of global energy on fossil fuels has led to the release of more than 2 trillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, about half of which is absorbed by the world’s vegetation and the World Ocean (MO), and the second half is accumulated by the atmosphere.
Man, in pursuit of producing more and more energy, has a dangerous impact on the entire earth’s space: every kWh of energy produced by man warms the planet by 22 kWh through the greenhouse effect. Climatologists around the world have concluded that the observed “widespread and intensifying climate change” is a consequence of emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) that are shaking the Earth’s climate system (CS), the main components of which are the oceans, atmosphere, land and biosphere.
The consequence of anthropogenic GHG emissions and global warming are increasing extreme natural phenomena: meteorological (tropical and extratropical cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, precipitation, frost, drought); hydrological (floods, mudflows, flooding, coastal abrasion, tsunami); geophysical (earthquakes, rock bursts, landslides, avalanches, volcanic eruptions, permafrost degradation).
By 2020, the temperature of the planet’s land surface increased by 1.2°C, and the Russian land surface by 2.3°C. On the shores of Greenland and on the coast of Russia, the warming trend is very high – 0.8°C/10 years. Continental ice in Antarctica, Greenland and Alaska is melting at a rate of up to 500 billion tons per year, accelerating the rise in sea level, which has now risen by 240 mm. The frequency of extreme hydrometeorological disasters increased to 600 per year, and precipitation over land increased by 3%. Permafrost is thawing at a rate of 80 thousand km2/year, southern species of birds, plants and insects are moving north en masse. Warming creates thermoelastic stresses in the rocks of the earth’s crust, causing the frequency of strong earthquakes with a magnitude of more than six to exceed 200 per year and continues to increase. Warming is activating magma chambers – over the past hundred years, the frequency of volcanic eruptions has almost doubled – to 70 per year.
Calculations show that if current GHG emissions continue, the Earth’s climate system will have the following consequences by 2100: global temperature will rise to 2.6°C, the sea level will rise to 820 mm, the frequency of hydrometeorological disasters will increase to 1300 per year. All this will be accompanied by an increase in the number of droughts, heat waves, forest fires, floods, and crop failures. Already today, countries in Southern Europe are reporting water shortages and predicting a 7% decline in economic growth by 2100.
The catastrophic consequences of rising global temperatures are pushing humanity to take drastic measures to reduce GHG emissions. The countries of the European Union, experiencing a shortage of energy resources, quickly found their bearings and created, in essence, a religion of “quick action” to decarbonize the energy sector. The collective West developed the Paris Agreement (PA) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, making it a kind of bible of a new environmental religion. The PS recommends that the global community subordinate its climate action to achieving two goals by 2050: achieving zero CO2 emissions, ensuring “carbon neutrality,” and preventing global temperatures from rising above +2°C. Let me immediately note that both of these goals are utopian and unattainable.
The climate summit in Dubai (COP-28) sent the world community, in general, the right signal about the “beginning of the end” of the era of fossil fuels, to which humanity is so firmly hooked. COP-28 recommended that all countries submit a detailed plan for how they intend to reduce GHG emissions by 2035. Most likely, these plans will remain on paper: we see how the USA, China, India, and EU countries are increasing the use of coal and oil. Everyone understands that it is impossible to quickly abandon fossil fuels, without which darkness and hunger will come. Yet the summit supported the utopian goals of the CoP and proposed halving GHG emissions by 2050, mistakenly believing that after this global warming would not exceed +2°C. Calculations show that the warming temperature of +2°C could have been maintained in the long term if humanity had ensured carbon neutrality back in 1985, when the concentration of anthropogenic GHGs in the atmosphere did not exceed 100 (ppm). The current potential of anthropogenic GHGs accumulated in the atmosphere has long exceeded the temperature limits outlined by the Paris Agreement and supported by COP-28.
There is no doubt that the main measure of climate regulation is the transition of the dominant production of fuel energy to the production of renewable energy. However, it should be taken into account that all types of renewable energy sources in the aggregate are not capable of replacing the entire volume of energy produced using fossil fuels. The “rapid and deep” decarbonization of energy imposed on the entire world by the collective West will lead to an equally rapid and dramatic reduction in energy consumption and a decline in people’s quality of life.
Decarbonization should not be seen as an end in itself that must be achieved “at any cost” in isolation from the production of the required amount of global energy. Possible scenarios for reducing GHG emissions must be considered taking into account the lost production of fossil fuel energy and the possibility of commissioning replacement RES capacity.
Let us note once again that, taking into account the limited spatial resources of the planet and the assimilation capabilities of the biosphere, all known renewable energy sources in the aggregate will not be able to fully replace the declining fuel sector of the energy sector. It is no coincidence that well-known energy strategies assume a reduction in global energy consumption by 20–40% by 2100 relative to the current level. Indeed, a complete abandonment of fossil fuels will lead to a decrease in energy production and corresponding severe socio-economic consequences. We are already seeing protests by environmental activists against the European Green Deal, pouring soup and tomato juice on paintings by Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci in museums in London and Paris. We see protests by farmers who go to the barricades because of the crisis in the agro-industrial complex of the European Union countries.
The intensive decarbonization scenario proposed by the Paris Agreement and the COP-28 summit cannot be implemented for technical and socio-economic reasons. This or that decarbonization scenario must be adopted taking into account the opinion of people living on Earth regarding how willing they are to sacrifice part of their well-being for the sake of the well-being of future unborn inhabitants of the Earth.
Humanity must choose some moderate decarbonization scenario. For example, this: “coal and oil” CO2 emissions by 2100 will gradually decrease from 35 to 12 Gt/year; the production of “fuel energy” decreases from 82 to 32%; the use of gas as the most environmentally friendly fuel is not reduced; “zero emissions” are achieved by 2150. This scenario makes it possible to fully replace lost fuel energy by 2100 with the synchronous commissioning of the necessary renewable energy capacity.
The results and consequences of today’s efforts to curb climate change will be seen many years later by our distant descendants due to the inertia of the Earth’s climate system. Under a moderate decarbonization scenario, global warming will continue until 2300, until an equilibrium temperature of 6°C is reached. It will take our planet almost 300 years to return to the radiation-equilibrium state from which it was removed by human economic activity at the beginning of the twentieth century. It will be possible to live on a “warmed up” planet only in high latitudes outside the tropical zone, for example in Argentina, Russia, Canada and Greenland.
Thus, the main goal of the Paris Agreement to keep global warming within +2°C is unrealistic; this temperature limit will be overcome in 2070. In the current situation, the first priority way to fight for the comfortable existence of humanity on a warming planet should be measures to adapt living space to inevitable global climate change. It is these necessary actions that the Climate Doctrine of the Russian Federation (clause 22) provides for in order to minimize the catastrophic consequences of global warming on Russian territory.
Newspaper headline:
The Iron Tread of Global Warming
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