The world is losing the war against climate

change
Leaders | In the line of fire

Rising energy demand means use of fossil fuels is heading in the wrong direction

Aug 2nd 2018

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EARTH is smouldering. From Seattle to Siberia this summer, flames have consumed swathes
of the northern hemisphere. One of 18 wildfires sweeping through California, among the
worst in the state’s history, is generating such heat that it created its own weather. Fires that
raged through a coastal area near Athens last week killed 91 (see article). Elsewhere people
are suffocating in the heat. Roughly 125 have died in Japan as the result of a heatwave that
pushed temperatures in Tokyo above 40°C for the first time.

Such calamities, once considered freakish, are now commonplace. Scientists have long
cautioned that, as the planet warms—it is roughly 1°C hotter today than before the industrial
age’s first furnaces were lit—weather patterns will go berserk. An early analysis has found
that this sweltering European summer would have been less than half as likely were it not for
human-induced global warming.

Yet as the impact of climate change becomes more evident, so too does the scale of the
challenge ahead. Three years after countries vowed in Paris to keep warming “well below”
2°C relative to pre-industrial levels, greenhouse-gas emissions are up again. So are
investments in oil and gas. In 2017, for the first time in four years, demand for coal rose.
Subsidies for renewables, such as wind and solar power, are dwindling in many places and
investment has stalled; climate-friendly nuclear power is expensive and unpopular. It is
tempting to think these are temporary setbacks and that mankind, with its instinct for self-
preservation, will muddle through to a victory over global warming. In fact, it is losing the
war.

Living in a fuel’s paradise

Insufficient progress is not to say no progress at all. As solar panels, wind turbines and other
low-carbon technologies become cheaper and more efficient, their use has surged. Last year
the number of electric cars sold around the world passed 1m. In some sunny and blustery
places renewable power now costs less than coal.

Public concern is picking up. A poll last year of 38 countries found that 61% of people see
climate change as a big threat; only the terrorists of Islamic State inspired more fear. In the
West campaigning investors talk of divesting from companies that make their living from
coal and oil. Despite President Donald Trump’s decision to yank America out of the Paris
deal, many American cities and states have reaffirmed their commitment to it. Even some of
the sceptic-in-chief’s fellow Republicans appear less averse to tackling the problem
(see article). In smog-shrouded China and India, citizens choking on fumes are prompting
governments to rethink plans to rely heavily on coal to electrify their countries.

Optimists say that decarbonisation is within reach. Yet, even allowing for the familiar
complexities of agreeing on and enforcing global targets, it is proving extraordinarily
difficult.

One reason is soaring energy demand, especially in developing Asia. In 2006-16, as Asia’s
emerging economies forged ahead, their energy consumption rose by 40%. The use of coal,
easily the dirtiest fossil fuel, grew at an annual rate of 3.1%. Use of cleaner natural gas grew
by 5.2% and of oil by 2.9%. Fossil fuels are easier to hook up to today’s grids than
renewables that depend on the sun shining and the wind blowing. Even as green fund
managers threaten to pull back from oil companies, state-owned behemoths in the Middle
East and Russia see Asian demand as a compelling reason to invest.

The second reason is economic and political inertia. The more fossil fuels a country
consumes, the harder it is to wean itself off them. Powerful lobbies, and the voters who back
them, entrench coal in the energy mix. Reshaping existing ways of doing things can take
years. In 2017 Britain enjoyed its first coal-free day since igniting the Industrial Revolution
in the 1800s. Coal generates not merely 80% of India’s electricity, but also underpins the
economies of some of its poorest states (see Briefing). Panjandrums in Delhi are not keen to
countenance the end of coal, lest that cripple the banking system, which lent it too much
money, and the railways, which depend on it.

Last is the technical challenge of stripping carbon out of industries beyond power generation.
Steel, cement, farming, transport and other forms of economic activity account for over half
of global carbon emissions. They are technically harder to clean up than power generation
and are protected by vested industrial interests. Successes can turn out to be illusory. Because
China’s 1m-plus electric cars draw their oomph from an electricity grid that draws two-thirds
of its power from coal, they produce more carbon dioxide than some fuel-efficient petrol-
driven models. Meanwhile, scrubbing CO{-2} from the atmosphere, which climate models
imply is needed on a vast scale to meet the Paris target, attracts even less attention.

The world is not short of ideas to realise the Paris goal. Around 70 countries or regions,
responsible for one-fifth of all emissions, now price carbon. Technologists beaver away on
sturdier grids, zero-carbon steel, even carbon-negative cement, whose production absorbs
more CO{-2} than it releases. All these efforts and more—including research into “solar
geoengineering” to reflect sunlight back into space—should be redoubled.

Blood, sweat and geoengineers

Yet none of these fixes will come to much unless climate listlessness is tackled head on.
Western countries grew wealthy on a carbon-heavy diet of industrial development. They must
honour their commitment in the Paris agreement to help poorer places both adapt to a warmer
Earth and also abate future emissions without sacrificing the growth needed to leave poverty
behind.

Averting climate change will come at a short-term financial cost—although the shift from
carbon may eventually enrich the economy, as the move to carbon-burning cars, lorries and
electricity did in the 20th century. Politicians have an essential role to play in making the case
for reform and in ensuring that the most vulnerable do not bear the brunt of the change.
Perhaps global warming will help them fire up the collective will. Sadly, the world looks
poised to get a lot hotter first.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "In the line
of fire"