Time is running out: Experts’ stark warning about how fossil fuels can accelerate climate catastrophe

Latest Reports Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) It was final. It is necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a very short time to reach the 1.5°C or 2°C target.. However, this situation will not be possible if governments continue or even encourage the use of fossil fuels. Given this horizon, experts have identified other options. One of them is based on the fact that By 2025, a peak in emissions will be achieved, which will drop significantly by 2050.

By the numbers, global warming is already showing its consequences. according to United NationsAnd the More than 30 million people have been displaced due to the consequences of climate change and the damage caused by extreme weather events is observed almost daily.. For this reason, given the fact that the standards set in the Paris Agreement will not be reached, but can end up two and a half times higher than the established schedule, the last document can be summed up in one word: an alarm.

“Deep cuts and, in most cases, immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors”The experts pointed out when referring to what should be the next steps for the countries of the world to reach the established limit. At present, the planet is already registering a warming rise of more than 1.1°C and it continues to increase. The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, although experts also point to methane, which should be reduced by about a third in the next 10 years.

If this cycle is maintained, at the end of this century, the increase in temperature will be 2.8 ° C. A number that will affect not only in the form of severe natural disasters (drought, floods, heat waves, fires), but also as biodiversity loss and species extinction. Mode “completes the picture of the climate crisis facing humanity”.

for this reason, Experts presented three scenarios for a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, always compared to 2019, and their relationship to an increase in temperatures:

– In order for the temperature not to exceed 2 ° C by the end of the century, emissions in 2030 should decrease by 27% and in 2050 by 63%

– In order not to exceed 1.5 ° C, by 2030 it should decrease by 43%, and by 2050 by 84%.

Excessive increase, peak and decrease: The third option focuses on a peak of more than 1.5 °C in 2025, a sharp decrease of 23% in 2030, and a decrease of 75% by 2050.

Fossil fuels in the spotlight

Regarding the consumption of fossil fuels, the numbers are clear: if it reaches 1.5 degrees, by 2050 global use of coal should be reduced by 100% compared to 2019, while the use of oil should be reduced. by 60% and gas by 70%.

Another point made by experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is carbon dioxide capture technologies. Although it states that these tools do not replace or replace the use of fossil fuels. Because, although it can help achieve this goal, in the words of the scientists, it is still very expensive and marginal. Scientists warned that they “cannot fully compensate for the delay in work in other sectors.”

“It’s time to stop burning our planet and start investing in the abundant renewable energy that surrounds ussaid about it António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations. In this tone, he stressed the decline in the costs of renewable energies, as experts noted that between 2010 and 2019, the prices of solar power generation fell by 85%, in wind energy they fell by 55% and in lithium batteries 85%.

Guterres also noted that a change should be made and subsidies for fossil fuels, which are currently affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, should be avoided. “Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies will reduce emissions, improve government revenues and macroeconomic performance, and produce other sustainable environmental and development benefits.The document from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change asserts, although it acknowledges that, in the short term, ‘negative distributional effects’ can be detected for the most vulnerable. Therefore, they suggest that measures be put in place to ‘redistribute the income that has been saved’.

“Energy systems powered mostly by renewable energy are becoming increasingly applicable”, emphasized from the IPCC and noted that “although operational, technological, economic, regulatory and social challenges persist, a variety of systemic solutions have emerged to accommodate large shares of renewable energies in the energy system.”

Another point addressed in this report is the need to abandon the use of fossil fuels for transportation. “Low-emission electrified electric vehicles offer the greatest potential for decarbonization in road transportAs they explained, if the goal is to increase the temperature of the planet to 1.5 degrees Celsius, then carbon dioxide emissions from this sector should decrease by 59% by 2050. Whereas if the temperature is 2 degrees Celsius, they will have to go Back 29%.

“The global economic benefit of limiting warming to two degrees exceeds the cost of mitigation in most of the literature reviewed.The IPCC experts emphasized, while warning that “current development pathways can create behavioral, spatial, economic and social barriers to accelerate mitigation.”

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