This week in class, we deliberated the issue of energy and sustainability. This conversation stimulated my interest.
The cause for concern about the trajectory of our energy consumption and production seems to be two-pronged. One prong relates to concerns about climate change, and the other relates to concerns about sustainability.
First up: climate change.
Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. The number of natural disasters has increased by a factor of five over the 50-year period, driven by climate change, more extreme weather and improved reporting. By 2100, lobal sea level is projected to rise at least 12 inches and global average temperature is projected to rise between 2 and 9.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise, largely due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities.
Second: sustainability.
Since these fossil fuels require millions of years to form, for human purposes, the supply of fossil fuels on Earth is effectively fixed, as they will be depleted faster than they can replenish. By some predictions, we will run out of oil in 50 years, natural gas in 53 years, and coal in 114 years. There is debate surrounding this issue, however. New technologies for oil and gas exploration and extraction have enabled fuel production to greatly exceed previous estimates of reserves. In fact, in recent years, the size of U.S. reserves have actually grown as a result of technological innovation.
Even if claims of scarcity are indeed overwrought, the threat of climate change remains imminent.
Politicians and governments have taken action to address this issue.
The Paris Agreement is an important example.
The Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by 196 Parties in Paris on December 12th 2015 and entered into force on November 4th, 2016. Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. To achieve this long-term temperature goal, the Agreement requires economic and social transformation working on a 5- year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by countries. By 2020, countries submit their plans for climate action known as nationally determined contributions. The Paris Agreement reaffirms that developed countries should take the lead in providing financial assistance to mitigate emissions in countries that are currently industrializing.
Another broad political proposal is the Green New Deal.
The Green New Deal is a congressional resolution that lays out a grand plan for tackling climate change, introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. The resolution is nonbinding, so even if Congress approves it, nothing in the proposal would become law. It calls on the federal government to wean the United States from fossil fuels to curb greenhouse gas emissions across the economy. It also aims to guarantee new high-paying jobs in clean energy industries. To achieve those goals, the plan calls for the launch of a “10-year mobilization” to reduce carbon emissions in the United States. It envisions sourcing 100 percent of the country’s electricity from renewable and zero-emissions power, digitizing the nation’s power grid, upgrading every building in the country to be more energy-efficient, and overhauling the nation’s transportation system by investing in electric vehicles and high-speed rail. The plan’s total cost is estimated to be as high as $93 trillion.
Time will tell how politicians proceed with energy policies like these to tackle the climate crisis.