PATHS TO SUCCESS

The most important global target set in 2015 at the Paris conference to fight climate change is getting to net zero by 2050, this means that the amount of greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere will be in balance with what is removed. Under this scenario, the warming stops increasing, however, greenhouse gases will remain at high levels in the atmosphere, and this means that the catastrophic climate events we are experiencing will continue to occur. True success requires reverting the warming by going back to pre-industrial greenhouse gases concentrations, which will have to take place after 2050 as just getting to net zero is already a very difficult challenge.

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2050 might seem far away, but it is a rather short time to change the way our society functions today. Furthermore, if we truly want to succeed, we must start immediately with an ambitious but realistic plan and make continuous progress against our target of net zero. Also targeting 2050 and accomplishing little until 2040 will again result in failure. We need to immediately break from the past of setting long term targets, and instead develop clear, reachable, year by year targets and plans for each country. The results must then be monitored and each countries need to be held responsible annually for lack of progress.

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Although it will be truly challenging to reach net zero by 2050, we believe that we have all the technologies needed to succeed.  The primary challenge is lack of government leadership and global coordination. Unless this changes and governments understand that climate change is a crisis for all nations, we will continue to fail. The path to success involves first and foremost treating climate change as an existential threat for all nations.

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​For now, let us hope that nations, especially the large greenhouse gas emitters, get together and start treating climate change as a war. Then we still need a plan and armaments. Unfortunately, in our view, credible plans for guiding global action do not yet exist. Currently, governments have targets without plans and global institutions offer plans without government acceptance. In our view, the plans that do exist are too complicated for governments to rally behind and enforce. For a plan to succeed and gain acceptance, it must first and foremost focus on the right issues and be achievable. Second it must have clear targets that are easy to monitor, progress must be incentivized, and corrective actions must be applied when targets are not met.

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SUCCESS = ACHIEVABLE PLAN + ANNUAL TARGETS + INCENTIVES + MONITORING + PENALTIES

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Our recommendation to achieve net zero focusses on four critical areas:

1) Make all electricity renewable and electrify everything possible

2) Replace Fossil Fuels with Renewable Fuels

3) Reduce Methane Emissions 

4) Massively Upscale Carbon Capture to balance remaining emissions

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In this plan, renewables electricity comes from low carbon emitting technologies such as wind and solar, hydropower and geothermal.

 

Renewable fuels include biomethane, biodiesel and green hydrogen made with renewable electricity as well as fuels made from captured carbon dioxide and green hydrogen.

 

Methane emissions are reduced by eliminating fugitive methane emissions from fossil fuels operations as well as from human and animal waste.

 

Remaining greenhouse gas emissions are balanced by removing (capturing) carbon dioxide from chimneys as well as the atmosphere and either storing it in underground caverns or utilizing it in products.

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If we control these four areas, we control greenhouse gas emissions. Targets for these four specific areas are relatively easy to set, ideally, in consultation with industry. Monitoring and incentivizing these four areas are also relatively easy and therefore so is enforcement. Once the targets are set, monitored and enforced, governments must not get involved in telling industry how to reach targets, this should be figured out by the private sector. On the other hand, they must hold industry accountable if they fail to reach targets.

 

The good news is that in August 2023, in the Stocktake report, experts from the United Nations, for the first time, came up with very similar recommendations. This report is the 8th year review on progress made under the Paris Agreement. The report clearly states that not enough progress has been made in the last 8 years and for the first time the experts are clearly stating that fossil fuels must be phased out unless their emissions are abated by carbon capture. In their words:

 

“Scaling up renewable energy and phasing out all unabated fossil fuels are indispensable elements of just energy transitions to net zero emissions. Electrification, energy efficiency and demand-side management, as well as energy storage, are also important elements in net zero energy systems”. 

 

Today, there is a lot of activity on climate change, all of which are worthwhile but hard for governments to set targets, monitor and enforce. These include efficiency improvements, new manufacturing processes, new modes of transportation, new type of meats, etc. Setting targets is a challenge for many of these areas, as government can’t be expected to make targets on a myriad of industrial processes nor should they set targets on something that is consumer preference based.  In addition, while these areas will reduce the use of fossil fuels or methane emissions, they will never get us to net zero.

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Continuing with our war against climate change analogy, once we have targets, we still can’t go to war unless we have arms and supply lines. Fortunately, for arms, we have made great progress on technologies that give us a good chance to meet the targets. As far as supply lines are concerned, governments will need to incentivize the use of the key technologies to ensure that there are many healthy providers. Furthermore, winning wars cost money and we must set aside a percentage (low single digit) of the global GDP to pay for the war. While this amount of money is significant, there will be significant benefits besides survival.

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In the 1960s, President Kennedy set the US on a war like footing to put a man on the moon ahead of the Russians. At the height of this program, in 1966, 4.4 % of the US Federal Budget (nearly one percent of the GDP) was spent on the moon program. The project was wildly successful in reaching a stretch target, but it turned out to be extremely beneficial to the US economically as well, thanks to the myriad of new jobs created from the technological spin outs from the program. We believe that something similar will happen if we properly plan and fund climate change and the benefits will be more than just survival of our way of life, we will also create economic and health benefits which will easily pay for the investment in climate change.     

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In order to succeed, there has to be coordinated action from the various factions.

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