Why 2024-2034 Are Going To Look Very Different In Terms Of Climate Collapse And Its Impacts Than The Preceding Decade

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For almost a decade, climate scientists and environmental leaders have coalesced around a rallying cry: “Keep 1.5 alive.” It’s a reference to the historic pact nations reached in Paris in 2015 to try to limit Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Now, in a year expected to be the hottest on record, the aspiration of that era appears dead. Instead, the world has entered a new one, where clean energy is rapidly growing — but not fast enough to keep temperatures in check.

Planet-warming emissions — which need to go to zero to stop the rising temperatures on the planet — are instead plateauing at historically high levels, thanks to increasing global energy demands and political resistance to phasing out oil and gas. Earth’s average temperature will breach the 1.5 C limit this calendar year, according to recent estimates. Although formally crossing the goal will require temperatures to remain above that level for multiple years in a row, most scientists believe that the planet will hit that mark sometime in the coming decade.

Other momentum behind policies to curb climate change is slowing, too. Under President-elect Donald Trump, the United States is poised to leave the Paris agreement and roll back a wide range of environmental policies. And negotiators at a global climate summit that concluded this week in Baku, Azerbaijan, opted to remain silent on a previous promise to be “transitioning away” from the fossil fuels driving global warming. Rob Jackson, a climate scientist at Stanford University and chairman of the Global Carbon Project, said in an email that hurtling toward the globe’s key target is sobering. “I never expected the world to blow past the 1.5 °C threshold so casually, as we’re doing today,” he said. “Two decades ago, no one believed that could happen.”

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But the demand for power is also rising, complicating these efforts. According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency, countries are expected to add electricity demand equivalent to the entire nation of Japan every year — thanks to the growth of EVs, the rapid build-out of AI data centers, and a surge in a need for air conditioning in developing countries. That growth in demand means that even as clean energy is added to the grid, fossil fuel use hasn’t decreased. And unless countries close coal and gas plants and shut down oil drilling, emissions won’t start to come down. “Two things can both be true: Clean energy is breaking almost every record you can imagine,” Bordoff said. “And oil use is going up, and gas use is going up, and coal use is going up.” Though developing countries have contributed only a fraction to historic fossil fuel-related emissions, their populations are growing — and so is their capacity to pollute.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/27/global-warming-fight-paris-agreement-future/