Surprise! CO2 Output From Global Power Generation Beats Pre-Pandemic Levels By 5% In 2021

[hatrack]

Carbon dioxide emissions from the global electric power sector rebounded in the first half of 2021 to above pre-pandemic levels, according to an analysis, signaling that the world has failed to engineer a “green recovery” and shift decisively away from fossil fuels. As electricity demand jumped from last year’s lows, the London-based think tank Ember found, it outpaced the growth of renewable energy. That pushed global electricity-related emissions 5 percent above where they stood before the coronavirus outbreak.

The new findings have major implications for the upcoming U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, where negotiators hope to forge a pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions and keep the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to preindustrial levels. They also suggest that a surge in electric vehicles, which President Biden and many other world leaders support, will tax the electricity grid as developers work to add wind and solar.

EDIT

Pandemic-related shutdowns curtailed transportation and energy demand more broadly in countries across the globe, helping spur a drop in greenhouse gas emissions. The Global Carbon Project estimated that daily global carbon emissions dropped by 17 percent in April 2020 compared to the average rate the year before. But even those changes did nothing to prevent atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide from reaching a record high this May, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, at nearly 419 parts per million.

Several energy experts said the new statistics underscored that the temporary economic downturn did not represent a fundamental change in the way in which businesses produce power across the globe. “The only thing surprising about a rebound in emissions as economies recover from pandemic lockdowns is that anyone is surprised by it,” said Jason Bordoff, a dean of Columbia University’s climate school and founding director of its global energy center. “Emissions are the result of a complex, massive and capital-intensive energy system, and the underlying infrastructure for how we make electricity, steel and much more did not change in the last 12 months. So it is not surprising that emissions rebounded as economies opened back up and that energy infrastructure ramped back up.”

EDIT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/24/global-climate-change/

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. No surprise

We are on the highway to Hell, and cannot push the accelerator any further down. The extractive industries will get every dollar they can, consequences be damned.