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What is it about?

This editorial in the Institution of Civil Engineers’ [ICE] proceedings journal Energy was being published during a year when more than 40% of the world's population is eligible to vote in democratic elections. India, with nearly 970 million eligible voters emits some 3.0 Gt of GHG emissions per annum [pa] or 7.3% of the global total. The ruling party – the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] led by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi - lost its majority in the June elections and now needs to govern in a coalition. This is significant in that it is a major player in climate change negotiations. On the very last day of the Glasgow Climate Summit [COP26] in Glasgow in late 2021, the G77 group of developing countries plus China [effectively guided by India’s then environment minister, Bhupender Yadav] objected to the wording “phase-out coal” in the final document and, after tense ‘huddles’, it was replaced by the expression “phase-down coal”. The then BJP-administered Indian Government subsequently pledged only to achieve net-zero emissions [i.e., carbon neutrality’] by 2070, in contrast to the internationally agreed target of net-zero by 2050, and thereby slowed progress in mitigating world GHG emissions. The European Union [EU-27] also went to the polls in June, with more than 400 million people eligible to vote. It emits around 2.8 Gt pa of GHGs or 6.7% of the global total. Both the ‘hard right’ and ‘far left’ groups in the European Parliament made gains at the expense of the centre, although the centre-right [Christian-democrat and conservative parties of the European People’s Party {EPP} group] still has the largest block. This shift may lead to a ‘watering down’ of the flagship EU Green Deal, as a number of parties on the ‘populist right’ have been critical of the project. In the UK, with just about 47 million eligible voters, a snap General Election will take place on 4 July. It is an influential climate change player, that hosted the 2021 Glasgow Climate Summit [COP26], in partnership with Italy, notwithstanding the fact that Britain only emits some 0.5 Gt of GHGs or around 1% of the world total annually. Of the two major political parties, the governing Conservative Party [led by the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak] has recently been diluting its commitments to climate change mitigation, whilst the opposition Labour Party [headed by Keir Stammer, now Prime Minister] has traditionally been more enthusiastic in terms of meeting a net-zero target by 2050 with an aspiration to make “Britain a clean energy superpower”. At the time of writing, opinion polls gave Labour over twice the potential vote share of its Conservative competitor. Finally, the United States of America [USA] – having roughly 244 million eligible voters - has both Presidential and Congressional elections scheduled for early November 2024. It is another major GHG emitter – second only to China - that discharges some 4.7 Gt pa or 11.2% of the global total, so that changes in the Executive and Legislature could damage US climate change commitments. The current Democrat President Joe Biden, for example, has been active in supporting the global net-zero GHG emissions target for 2050 alongside renewable energy developments, whereas his challenger, former Republican President Donald Trump, is likely to push the USA further away from a 2050 net-zero pathway as he demonstrated in his first term.

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Why is it important?

In 2023 the world experienced record-breaking temperatures and extreme weather events. These have included dramatic floods in Libya that killed more than 6000 people and damaged critical infrastructure in that already civil-war-ravaged country, and severe wildfires in Canada that burned an area the size of Syria. Global warming (sometimes-called ‘global heating’) is, at least in part, contributing to such events. Trace gases in the upper atmosphere, and clouds nearer the surface, then reflect a proportion of the Sun’s rays back out into space. The land and oceans absorb the solar radiation that does get through the atmospheric blanket. These warmer surfaces in turn re-radiate infrared, or long-wave, thermal radiation back to the atmosphere. Some of the trace gases then absorb, or trap, this heat in an analogous manner to the action of glass in a greenhouse. Consequently, these radiation-absorbing gases are termed ‘greenhouse gases’ [GHGs]. Human activities since 1950, primarily those that involve burning fossil fuels, have led to dramatic increases in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide [CO2]; the dominant GHG with an atmospheric residence time of 50-200 years; with 20–60% remaining airborne for a thousand years or longer. These CO2 concentrations have risen from 330 parts per million (ppm) in 1975 to about 420 ppm in 2023. Such changes in atmospheric concentrations of GHGs affect the energy balance of the global climate system, giving rise to higher surface air temperatures, and the resulting extreme weather events. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], in its most recent [2023] scientific assessment, asserts that human activities, principally through GHG emissions, have ‘unequivocally’ caused observed global warming since the mid-20th Century, with mean global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850-1900 levels in the last decade. Global mean sea levels are continuing to rise, with the extent of Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice well below average.

Perspectives

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The ICE Energy journal now has a ‘strapline’ of ‘energy transitions in the era of climate change’, and that reflects our recognition of the importance of the mitigation of GHG emissions. Energy systems are at the heart of this agenda, and thus our interest in the outcome of COP28. It took place after a Global Stocktake [GST] of progress made by signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change that aimed to keep temperatures “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”. The achievements at COP28 were mixed, and disappointed many delegations [including those from the climate-vulnerable countries at high risk from extreme weather events]. The results of the GST identified a significant GHG emissions gap between actions needed to “keep 1.5° C alive” and those identified in the GST that were being carried out. National GHG emissions reduction targets submitted prior to the summit would result in a 2.4°C global warming by the end of the century; a long way short of the 1.5°C aspiration. However, if further pledges, for example, by India [of achieving net-zero emissions by 2070] were fully achieved, then estimated global warming would peak at around 1.9°C before falling to 1.8°C by 2100]. The Parties at the COP28 UN Dubai Climate Summit did agree to “transition away from fossil fuels” in order to reach ‘net-zero’ anthropogenic GHG emissions [or carbon neutrality] by 2050, and to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030. But many regretted the absence of references to the phase-out or phase-down of fossil fuels.

Professor Emeritus Geoffrey P Hammond
University of Bath

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This page is a summary of: Editorial: Towards Net-Zero ‘Greenhouse Gas’ Emissions by 2050, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Energy, July 2024, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1680/jener.2024.177.3.95.
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