Is oil really close to peaking? Report Nyt
According to the International Energy Agency, “peak oil” is near. Yet despite the rapid growth of electric vehicles and solar energy, other efforts to combat climate change are lagging. The New York Times article
Cleaner energy technologies, such as electric cars and solar panels, are spreading so rapidly that global use of oil, coal and natural gas could peak within this decade, but countries will still need to take more aggressive measures if they want limit global warming to relatively safe levels, the world's top energy agency said Tuesday.
WHAT THE INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY SAYS
In a new report, the International Energy Agency published an updated roadmap of what it would take to reduce global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions to near-zero by 2050. Doing so would likely avoid that global temperatures rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels, a goal that many world leaders have endorsed to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate disruption.
The Agency presented the first version of the road map in 2021 and said at the time that immediate action was needed to achieve the goal. Since then, progress has been uneven. On the one hand, global investments in low-carbon energy have increased by around 40%, reaching $1.8 trillion this year. And the rapid expansion of solar energy and electric vehicles has largely been in line with what the previous report recommended, particularly in places like China, the United States and Europe.
WHAT IS MISSING FROM CLIMATE ACTION
But the world can't solve climate change with solar power and batteries alone, new report warns. Countries will also need to clean up factories that produce steel and cement, upgrade electricity grids to accommodate new amounts of renewable energy and make greater use of technologies such as nuclear power or clean hydrogen fuels.
On many measures, countries are still moving too slowly.
While it is still technically possible to contain global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius, the report says the window has "narrowed." And geopolitical conflicts, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and tensions between China and the United States, could make the task more difficult.
“We have the tools to reach net-zero emissions targets,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. “But the biggest concern for me is the growing political fragmentation between countries. There is no path to net zero without fair and effective international cooperation.”
To reach net-zero emissions, nations would need to reduce most of the carbon dioxide emitted by power plants, factories and vehicles. Emissions that cannot be completely eliminated should be offset, for example, by forests or technologies to extract carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.
ANTICIPATE THE DEADLINES FOR ZERO NET EMISSIONS
Most countries have set net-zero targets: The United States and the European Union aim for 2050, China for 2060 and India for 2070. But to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the report , governments should bring forward the deadlines, ensuring that rich countries reach net zero before mid-century.
Achieving these goals would require major transformations. This year, all countries are expected to stop approving new coal plants beyond those currently under construction. By 2025, governments should phase out the sale of new gas and oil furnaces to heat buildings, switching to cleaner electric heat pumps. By 2030, electric cars will account for 65% of new sales globally, and the amount of wind, solar and other renewable energy installed around the world will triple from current levels.
Nations should also start reducing emissions from heavy industry. “We don't see much happening at the moment,” Birol said. “Producing a ton of steel still creates about the same emissions as 20 years ago.”
CLEAN HYDROGEN, STEEL, CO2 CAPTURE
The report recommends investing in technologies such as clean hydrogen, which can be made from electricity and used in steel mills, and carbon capture, which traps emissions from smokestacks and buries them underground. However, this year's report focuses less heavily on carbon capture than its predecessor, noting that the technology has so far performed poorly.
If countries took all these measures, global demand for fossil fuels could decline by 20% by 2030. In this situation, governments would not need to approve major new oil or gas fields, and those that are developed could struggle to find customers.
WHAT ABOUT OIL?
The agency's prediction that global oil demand could peak this decade has drawn some criticism. In a recent statement, oil cartel OPEC warned that such forecasts are highly uncertain and could lead countries to underinvest in oil and gas projects. If demand for fossil fuels does not fall as expected, the cartel said the lack of supply could lead to “energy chaos”.
Birol clarified that the report does not call for a halt to all investments in oil and gas. Even in a net-zero scenario, countries will continue to use oil and gas for years to come, and many existing fields are currently in decline. That means some investment will be needed to extract more oil and gas from existing fields, so that supply doesn't shrink faster than demand, creating painful price spikes.
“The key to reducing emissions is to focus on reducing the use of fossil fuels,” Birol said. “But we also need to carefully manage investments in supply, so that the transition goes smoothly.”
(Extract from the eprcommunication press review)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/picco-petrolio-roadmap-iea/ on Sun, 01 Oct 2023 05:35:15 +0000.