The climate problem

I’ve always been confused by what “fighting climate change” actually means. Does it mean turning down the heat to conserve energy? Should I stop eating cheeseburgers? Does driving an electric car actually help the environment?

It’s clear to most people that climate change is a massive problem, and I’m sure that if you ask ten friends about the impact they think it will have over their lifetime, each one can rattle off a couple possible outcomes. Rising sea levels. More extreme weather events. Food shortages. And so on. But if you ask those same people what we should be doing to solve it, I bet you’ll get ten different answers.

Some people might argue that we should be switching to renewables instead of fossil fuels. Others might say that renewables cost too much, and that we should instead focus our efforts on nuclear energy. Yet others might say that cars are the main culprit, and that making everyone drive an electric vehicle would fix everything. And others might have no idea where to start at all.

After realizing I didn’t have a good answer to this question, I decided that doing some research on climate change may help me (and others) figure out a response. This article will be an attempt to figure out two basic questions:

1. What goals do we need to hit to prevent climate change from getting significantly worse?

2. What are the best ways to meet these goals, realistically?

In terms of pathways to meeting those goals, I’m going to focus on reducing emissions from electricity generation in the United States. This is because it is very difficult to figure out how to reduce emissions for an entire country, let alone the world. By the end of this article, I will not even have done the former. I chose to focus on electricity production because it’s responsible for a quarter of the country’s emissions, and innovations that might help further decarbonize the environment (like electric cars) are dependent on developing a carbon-neutral power grid.

However, it’s important to note that there is no single solution to climate change. Because sources of emissions are so broad, reducing emissions will require a mix of new legislation and technological innovations across many sectors. I hope to one day extend this into a series of articles where I analyze opportunities for decarbonization in each of these sectors, but today is not that day.

Let’s start with the first question.

What are the goals we need to hit internationally to prevent climate change from getting significantly worse?

According to a 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we should make sure the Earth doesn’t warm by more than 1.5°C in order to avoid potentially catastrophic damage to humanity and the planet. The report drives home the urgency by giving the world a “carbon budget”: a limit on the amount of carbon dioxide we can emit into the atmosphere before warming past 1.5°C becomes unavoidable. The report estimates that for a 66% chance of meeting this target, we can emit about 420 billion more tons of CO2. At our current rate, this gives us about 6 years.

However, there seem to be a growing body of scientists who argue that meeting this 1.5°C target is extremely unlikely. A Washington Post article recently simulated 1,200 possible climate scenarios using models from the IPCC, and found 230 scenarios resulting in the world having warmed less than 1.5°C by 2100. After filtering out scenarios where warming soared well above 1.5°C before coming back down by the end of the century, or near-impossible carbon reductions (e.g. large drops in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025), there were only 26 remaining scenarios. Most notably, they all involve pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere faster than we emit it by 2050. Because of this, an organization called Scientist Rebellion advocates for restricting warming to 2°C instead, arguing that the original target is implausible. This target allows us about 18 extra years of emitting carbon at our current pace.

The difference between 1.5°C and 2°C may not seem large, but the impacts of exceeding 1.5°C are massive. For example, the IPCC estimates that the difference between the two targets could constitute a 0.1 meter difference in sea level rise, which could affect several hundred million people. While hitting the original target isn’t technically impossible, it would be wise to prepare for a world with warming upwards of 1.5°C.

What are the best ways to meet these goals, realistically?

Since I’m focusing on U.S. electricity generation in this article, I found several strategies people are trying to use to cut emissions within this sector:

1. Making existing power infrastructure more efficient without necessarily switching away from fossil fuels. This includes solutions such as carbon capture and storage or using less carbon-intensive fossil fuels in place of others (e.g. replacing coal with natural gas).

2. Completely replacing fossil fuel-driven power plants with sustainable sources. For example, this would mean replacing a coal plant with a solar farm or nuclear power plant.

3. Introducing new, experimental technologies to the electricity generation market, such as nuclear fusion.

I didn’t include legislation as a “strategy” because I don’t consider it an action in itself - for example, passing a bill that imposes a carbon tax may incentivize power plants to invest in clean energy, which would be a form of the second strategy. Before we go through each of these strategies, it’s worth looking at historical data to get a better idea of what has successfully caused emissions to decrease in the past.

EPA data from the past thirty years show several declines in recent years. Until the 2008 recession, emissions across all sectors were either trending upwards or relatively stable. The recession generally decreased demand across sectors, which had quite a pronounced effect on emissions from transportation and electric power. The U.S. experienced a similar drop during the early 1980s recession, which isn’t shown on this graph. In 2020, energy consumption declined due to the pandemic, again causing a massive drop in emissions.

However, there have been several other declines in the last decade, which have been largely attributed to swapping coal out for natural gas, investing in wind energy, and reducing electricity use. Since 2008, the amount of electricity produced by wind has increased seven-fold, while electricity from natural gas has doubled. As wind and natural gas have become cheaper, it makes sense to switch to them, regardless of their impact on the climate.

There’s a problem here. Economic downturns seem to be the best catalyst for quickly decreasing emissions, but I doubt anyone would even consider trying to induce a recession to help the environment. This could be good news though; the fears of an impending 2023 recession might actually help us cut emissions by encouraging power plants to invest in cheaper options now. More broadly, financial incentives actually seem to be helping the environment, particularly in the South and Midwest.

Take Georgia, for example. According to the Energy Information Administration, Georgia “does not have a renewable energy portfolio standard, nor does it have a voluntary renewable energy target”, but it has decreased energy-related emissions by over 10% in the past decade. In contrast, California’s energy-related emissions actually increased slightly over the past decade until the pandemic, while New York’s has remained relatively constant.

Georgia’s progress seems to come mostly from investing in natural gas and renewables, a trend which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. This year, the Georgia Power Company submitted a proposal to close most coal plants in favor of natural gas and renewables. Additionally, the state has attracted companies such as Hyundai, which recently began construction of a $5.5 billion electric car plant.

Since Georgia’s land is cheaper on average than states like New York or California, it’s able to attract large manufacturers working on clean energy. This investment stimulates the local economy, helps drive down the state’s emissions, and allows other states to reap the benefits. As Georgia increases the supply of more sustainable technologies such as electric vehicles or solar panels, it becomes easier for states with climate targets to meet their goals. This demonstrates that climate legislation doesn’t necessarily need to be passed in every state in order to make progress.

So far, we’ve seen relative success from the first two strategies: switching to less carbon-intensive fossil fuels and/or replacing them with renewables. But will this be enough to help Georgia become carbon-neutral within the next one or two decades?

An analysis done by the Rocky Mountain Institute on Georgia Power’s past and projected emissions shows that although they have made significant progress, their current proposal will not be enough to reach the 1.5°C target.

To achieve carbon-neutrality, a much larger investment in renewables will need to be made. The good news is that other companies and the general public can influence these proposals. In 2019, the Georgia commission forced Georgia Power to double its solar capacity because of testimonies from renewable companies. However, there could be pushback if Georgia Power cites the reliability issues of renewable energy.

Since solar - for example - is entirely dependent on the weather to generate electricity, there need to be reliable fallbacks in case it isn’t particularly sunny and there are peaks in electricity demand (e.g. a heat wave makes people max out their ACs). In this case, natural gas would serve as the backup.

This was the case during California’s blackouts in the summer of 2020. High temperatures strained California’s power grid, which draws over two-thirds of its power from renewable sources. However, for a less energy-intensive state like Georgia, this is much less of a concern. This should allow them to ramp up sustainable energy and eventually phase out natural gas, but we’ll see what happens.

In summary

What I took away from all of this is that climate policy and economics don’t necessarily have to conflict, which I used to think usually was the case. We’re in an interesting place economically - sandwiched between the pandemic and a possible looming recession. The silver lining is that this seems to have caused increased momentum in terms of cutting emissions - just take the Inflation Reduction Act’s $369 billion investment in clean energy as an example.

There’s a lot I couldn’t address in this article, such as the benefits and drawbacks of renewables, or decarbonization progress across other sectors. Overall, although international carbon neutrality will be difficult to achieve, I’m much more optimistic in the transition to sustainable technologies than before I started writing this article. We’ll see how that changes as I write more.