Renewables on course to overtake coal by 2030

Source: Financial Review

by: Pilita Clark

Wind, solar and other types of renewable power will overtake coal to become the world's top source of electricity in just 15 years if the pledges countries are making for a global climate change deal this year are met.

The leaders of the Group of Seven nations last week backed a goal to phase out emissions this century and sharply reduce greenhouse gases by 2050

The striking finding by the International Energy Agency shows renewable power could soar from just over a fifth of global electricity generation today to nearly a third by 2030 - a bigger share than either coal, gas or nuclear plants.

This shows today's energy companies are making a "major fatal error" if they assume climate action is not going to affect their businesses, said Fatih Birol, the IEA chief economist.

Renewable power will overtake coal if climate pledges are kept

Source: FT.com

Wind, solar and other types of renewable power will overtake coal to become the world’s top source of electricity in just 15 years if the pledges countries are making for a global climate change deal this year are met.

ft.com

The striking finding by the International Energy Agency shows renewable power could soar from just over a fifth of global electricity generation today to nearly a third by 2030 — a bigger share than either coal, gas or nuclear plants.

Greenhouse effect from fossil fuels felt almost immediately

Within months, CO2-trapped heat surpasses warming from combustion

BURNING UP  The heat radiated by burning fossil fuels such as natural gas, shown, is overshadowed within months by the greenhouse gas effect of the released carbon dioxide, new research shows.

The planet quickly feels the burn from the lasting effects of fossil fuel combustion, new research shows.

When a fossil fuel burns, it radiates heat and releases carbon dioxide. Once in the atmosphere, some of that CO2 can linger for thousands of years and trap heat that would otherwise leak into space. Over

The entire West Antarctic ice sheet might collapse

Surely that's a bit sensationalist?

Not really. Ice cores reveal growing evidence of sudden, dramatic shifts in climate over the past 10 000 years that have occurred within a few decades as a result of "flips" in ocean circulation.

Are there any other cataclysms in the offing?

One fear is that the entire West Antarctic ice sheet might collapse, sliding into the ocean and raising sea levels worldwide by several meters. Even the most pessimistic experts say this is only a worry if the world warms by about 4 degrees C, which is outside the range of mainstream predictions for the next century. And even then, what glaciologists mean by a collapse is still a slow process. It would take several hundred years for all the ice to slide into the sea.

Will there be global warming everywhere?

Maybe not. Climate modellers admit to being very uncertain about how global warming will affect particular regions. This is because much of our weather depends on circulation patterns, which could alter in unexpected ways. 

Crudely, however, modellers expect many coastal regions to become wetter, while continental interiors will become drier, causing some deserts to expand. Warming will probably be greatest in polar regions, mirroring climate changes this century in both the Arctic and Antarctic.

Local climate could also be altered by changes in ocean circulation. Western Europe could be particularly vulnerable. At present, it is kept exceptionally warm in winter by the Gulf Stream, which is part of the ocean conveyor belt. 

Take that away and British weather would be like the Hudson Bay, which is at the same latitude. If the conveyor belt slackens, or the path of the Gulf Stream shifts, that is precisely what could happen. So British hopes of a climate like Bordeaux in the 21st century could be cruelly dashed!

Sulphate particles? Don't we make them, too?

Right again. One of the nice ironies of this story is that sulphate particles (acid rain) from burning coal and oil help to shield the more industrialised countries from the full impact of global warming. In some places, such as central Europe and parts of China, they may have overwhelmed the warming, producing a net cooling. 

Other aerosols, such as dust from soil erosion and "desertification" can also moderate warming. But even if you find the idea of using one form of pollution to protect us from another, there is a problem. Whereas the average CO₂ molecule in the atmosphere lasts for about a century, sulphates and other aerosol molecules persist for only a few days. 

This means two things. First, if you turned down the power stations, the world would get much hotter within a few days. Second, aerosols do not accumulate in the atmosphere in the way that CO₂ does. If you carry on burning a given amount of fossil fuel, the cooling effect of the sulphates will remain constant, while the warming effect of CO₂ will keep on increasing. So sulphates are not a solution.

Anything else that could shield us from global warming?

Yes, volcanoes. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, it threw a huge amount of debris into the stratosphere that partially shielded the surface of the Earth from incoming solar energy. Particularly effective was Pinatubo's emissions of large amounts of sulphate particles that scatter sunlight. 

Computer models successfully predicted that in the short term, the debris would cool the Earth's atmosphere. The models also predicted that as the volcanic debris cleared in 1992 and 1993, average temperatures would swiftly return first to the level of the 1980s, and then, by the middle of the 1990s, to the slightly higher levels that would be expected with the ongoing buildup of greenhouse gases. 

See "Blowing hot and cold" feature.