Our Energy Transition Beckons

I gave a talk back in November on what I see as the urgent necessity of a paradigm shift for humanity. It opened with a blunt warning to draw a line in the sand for the planet, the life it sustains, and humanity's future.

The final version of the IPCC’s report was released yesterday. I read some of the report’s supporting materials and found the authors warning of severe challenges and calling for radical change in the way we interact with the planet. Others seem to be getting the same message.

The AP called out the report noting that “Climate change is likely going to make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer, gloomier and way more dangerous in the next 18 years with an “unavoidable” increase in risks.” And the New York Times cited it in claiming, “The dangers of climate change are mounting so rapidly that they could soon overwhelm the ability of both nature and humanity to adapt unless greenhouse gas emissions are quickly reduced.” (Emphasis necessary.) So while it often feels like we're just doing this to ourselves, it's important to remember that we’re also putting life on Earth at risk. We're already in the sixth mass extinction event, which is also the first human-caused one. We now have species going extinct at a rate tens of thousands of times higher than the “background rate,” which is the measure of species extinction “without human interference.”

What's the plan?

The chart below is from the IPCC report’s Summary for Policy Makers. It models the coupled systems of human society, climate, and ecosystems (including biodiversity). The left side models the current state of affairs. In it, human society produces greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change. That, in turn, impacts ecosystems and hinders their ability to provide us with the livelihoods and ecosystem services they provide us with. (I’d add that they are also the platform on which human society exists.) At the center of that side of the model, it has a group of risks stemming from climate hazards overlapped with the vulnerability and exposure of human systems and ecosystems (and their biodiversity). The greater the climate hazards, the bigger the danger to humanity and life in general.

On the right is a desired future state. It replaces the risks at the center with human-related factors of health, well-being, equity, and justice, alongside ecosystem health and planetary health.

To achieve such lofty, but necessary goals, we have to upgrade the system that human society operates on, the current driver behind all these problems. Take→Make→Waste is a dead end. Resources must cycle. Energy production can no longer be a burden to the climate. Bring on Humanity 2.0.

A wake-up call

The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to prevent “the global average temperature from rising 2°C (3.6°F) above preindustrial levels,” while also pursuing efforts to keep it below 1.5°C (2.7°F). We expect heatwaves, droughts and floods, rising seas, ocean changes, arctic ice thaws, species loss, and a host of related problems by the time we hit 1.5°C, and we’re already 1.1°C above preindustrial levels.

Again, we’re only aiming to keep it below 2°C, and one assessment puts us on target for an increase of 2.7°C. Those projections were worrisome enough on their own, and then late last year, reports came out telling us that methane releases were significantly worse than previously believed, so we’re well off the mark.

The IPCC released its new report in the shadow of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, which has brought global energy systems into the spotlight. Russia is a major exporter of fossil fuels, and many European nations (and the US) depend on it for their energy needs.

Fuel prices were already high, and they are climbing in response to the invasion. Many have pointed to these circumstances in arguing for increasing supply. (Check out the tweet below where Brad Sherman, a member of Congress who is a California Democrat, puts the blood of Ukrainians on the hands of Saudi Arabia if they choose not to increase oil production.) But as discussed, we’re not making the progress we need to deliver on our climate commitments.

Given our circumstances, this moment should be the wake-up call for a paradigm shift.

Pre-butting the State of the Union

President Biden has his State of the Union address tonight. He'll talk about things like the US economy, the administration’s handling of the pandemic (we’ll set that aside for today), and the invasion of Ukraine. I’m sure he’ll also mention the IPCC report or at least climate change.

On the economy, David Dayen just published an article claiming that “Biden will target the ocean shipping cartel” for collusion during the pandemic. That sounds fantastic, but I hope he doesn’t stop there, as the problem seems widespread. How could so many firms shift from needing help to record profits in these circumstances without gouging/collusion?

With all of this in mind, I’d like to offer a ‘pre-buttal’ to the thing I think he won’t address, our need to get off f fossil fuels in short order. Sure, he might talk about the need to maintain our energy independence and increase renewables, but that won’t get us where we need to go.

We have a moment where things that have never approached the Overton window might suddenly be possible. President Biden should seize the moment and go all-in on a better future for humanity. We need a massive program to drive the shift to renewables, both within the US and beyond, as we can do far more beyond our borders than within them.

Look what can be done when the will is there.

More importantly — and this is the hard part — we need to commit to drastically reducing our energy use until we stand up renewables to replace current fossil fuel use. We need to determine what is and isn’t necessary for survival, and how much of the non-necessities we need to turn off to at least reach our commitment to cap warming at 1.5°C. Doing so would make us actual leaders on this front, and it would incentivize innovation to bring more of the wants back into use. Doing otherwise is a commitment to a hellish future that will make us the villain of our descendant’s stories.

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