Global warming: not all bad news
While climate change remains a serious concern, these global trends show we have reason to be optimistic
IT’S usually all doom and gloom: global warming is out of control and, if we don’t do something about it, our precious planet will continue to get sucked into the vortex of hell. But in the midst of the madness comes some good news. The tide is slowly starting to turn, thanks to innovations ranging from cheap renewables to lab-grown meat and electric cars. A series of fast-moving global megatrends, spurred on by trillion-dollar investments, indicates that humanity might be able to avert the worst impacts of global warming.
No one is saying the battle to prevent catastrophic climate change – floods, droughts, famine, mass migrations – has been won. But these megatrends show the battle is not yet lost.
“We’re not going to get through this without damage but we can avoid the worst,” says Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “I’m optimistic, but there’s a long way to go.”
Also cautiously hopeful is climate economist Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics. “These trends are the start of something that might be enough – the two key words are ‘start’ and ‘might’.”
THE TRENDS 1 METHANE: GETTING TO THE MEAT
Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the main greenhouse gas, but methane and nitrous oxide are more potent and, unlike CO₂, are still rising. The major source is livestock farming, in particular belching cattle and their manure.
Unless the world’s appetite for meat and dairy foods is radically curbed, there’s no way to beat global warming.
The task looks daunting – people hate being told what to eat. But just in the past year a potential solution has burst onto the market: plant-based meat, which has a tiny environmental footprint.
What sounds like an oxymoron – food that looks and tastes just as good as meat or dairy products but is made from plants – has attracted heavy investment.
The buzz is particularly loud in the USA, where Microsoft boss Bill Gates has backed two plant-based burger companies. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, believes plant-based foods can make a “meaningful dent” in tackling climate change.
Perhaps more telling is that major meat and dairy companies – such as the USA’s biggest meat processor, Tyson, and multinational giants Danone and Nestlé –are piling in with investments and acquisitions.
The Chinese government recently put $300 million (more than $3,5 billion) into Israeli companies producing labgrown meat, which could also cut emissions. New plant-based products, from chicken to fish and cheese, come out every month. Plant-based milks – soya, almond, oat and others – are about 10% of the market and a billion-dollar business in the USA. And, in the past year, sales of other dairy and meat substitutes climbed 8%, with some lines, such as yoghurt, shooting up by 55%. “I believe that in 30 years or so we’ll no longer need to kill any animals,” Virgin boss Richard Branson says. “All meat will either be [lab] or plant-based, taste the same and be much healthier for everyone.”
2 RENEWABLE ENERGY: TIME TO SHINE
The most advanced of the megatrends is the renewable energy revolution. Production costs for solar panels and wind turbines have plunged and are continuing to fall. In many parts of the world they’re already the cheapest electricity available and installation is soaring: two-thirds of all new power in 2016 was renewable.
China is leading the surge but the impact is being felt around the world.
In the USA, enthusiasm for green energy hasn’t been dented by President Donald Trump committing to repeal key climate legislation: $30 billion (R350 billion) has been invested since he signed an executive order in March last year.
3 KING COAL: DEAD OR DYING
The flipside of the renewables boom is the death spiral of coal, the filthiest of fossil fuels. Production appears to have peaked in 2013. The speed of its demise has stunned analysts.
In 2013 the International Energy Agency expected coal burning to grow by 40% by 2040 – today it predicts just 1%.
The cause is simple: solar and wind energy are cheaper. But a second tipping point is needed. That will occur when renewables become cheaper to build than running existing coal plants, meaning that the latter will shut down.
If renewable costs continue to fall as expected, this would happen between 2030 and 2040. At that point, says Michael Liebreich of Bloomberg Energy Finance, “Why keep digging coal out of the ground when you could just put up solar?”
4 ELECTRIC CARS: IN THE FAST LANE
Slashing oil use – a third of all global energy – is a huge challenge but a surging market for battery-powered cars is starting to have an impact, driven significantly in part by fast-growing concerns about urban air pollution.
In the past year virtually all major carmakers have committed to an electric future, with Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover announcing that they’ll end production of pure fossil-fuelled cars within three years.
If current growth rates continue, as economists expect, 80% of new cars will be electric by 2030.
5 BATTERIES: LOTS IN STORE
Batteries are key to electric cars and, by storing energy for when the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing, they’re also vital when it comes to enabling renewable energy to reach its full potential.
A megatrend is crushing prices for lithium-ion batteries, which are down 75% over the past six years.
The International Renewable Energy Agency expects further falls of 50-66% by 2030 and a huge increase in battery storage, linked to increasingly smart and efficient digital power grids.
6 EFFICIENCY: NEGAWATTS OVER MEGAWATTS
Just as important as the greening of energy is reducing demand by boosting energy efficiency. It’s a no-brainer in climate policy, but it can be tricky to make happen as it requires action from millions of people.
Still, good progress is being made in places such as the European Union (EU), where efficiency in homes, transport and industry has improved by about 20% since 2000.
Improving the efficiency of gadgets and appliances through better standards is important: a new UN Environment Programme report shows it makes the biggest impact of any single action apart from rolling out wind and solar power.
7 FORESTS: SEEING THE WOOD
The global destruction of forests for agriculture and timber causes about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions.
This is the biggest megatrend not yet pointing in the right direction: annual tree losses have roughly doubled since 2000.
“Climate policy is massively underfunding forests – they receive only about 2% of global climate finance,” climatologist Michael Wolosin says.
New research has shown that better land management could deliver a third of all the carbon cuts the world needs.
Wolosin says there are grounds for hope that new forests can be planted. In the past two decades, tree-planting in China, India and South Korea has removed more than 12 billion tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere – three times the entire EU’s annual emissions, Wolosin says.
“There are tremendous developments in the march against global warming but change has to be radical,” climate economist Nicholas Stern warns.
“Will we have the political and economic understanding and commitment to turn things around? I hope so.”
© DAMIAN CARRINGTON/GUARDIAN NEWS & MEDIA