Getting to Net-Zero Carbon Emissions

The editors of the Washington Post write approvingly of an International Energy Agency (IEA) report arguing that achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 would be difficult but possible:

The agency rejects fantasies that everyone will suddenly eschew air conditioning and walk to work, figuring that behavioral change will drive only 4 percent of emissions cuts. Moreover, some 785 million people lack access to electricity. For them, the priority is getting this essential service, not how that happens. The goal must be to advance living standards everywhere while cutting the environmental impact.

This would require “a singular, unwavering focus from all governments — working together with one another, and with businesses, investors and citizens,” the report declares. An efficiency drive — changing the technology people use to build buildings, heat homes, produce goods and do practically everything else — would reduce overall global energy demand by 2050 while serving an economy more than twice as large. A massive renewables ramp-up would make solar the largest energy source, with photovoltaic capacity jumping twentyfold between now and mid-century. By 2030, the envisioned solar boom would require installing every day the generation capacity of what is currently the world’s biggest solar farm. Wind would leap elevenfold. Emissions-free nuclear power would continue to play a big role.

Electric vehicle sales would vault from 5 percent of the car market today to 60 percent in 2030. This would require building the equivalent of 20 of Tesla’s massive “gigafactories” every year this decade. Oil demand would drop so rapidly that companies would stop exploring for more, focusing instead on extracting oil from existing wells. While natural gas would play a large role in the transition, drillers and transporters of the fuel would slash emissions from leaky equipment.

All that is the easy part, relying on known technology that already exists at scale. Greening industry, shipping and aviation would require massive new investment in research and deployment. For example, not-ready-for-prime-time hydrogen technology could fuel power plants, trucks and ships, and biofuels could power planes. Much of this would happen after 2030, but only if concerted effort began now.

I’m happy to stipulate that if you ignore enough costs, negative externalities, and run-on effects while overestimating the benefits and assuming linear or better than linear improvements in technology practically anything becomes possible although difficult.

Probably the biggest assumption is this one:

If every country followed the script, the IEA and the International Monetary Fund reckon that massive energy-sector investment would boost global GDP by 0.4 percentage points per year, and people’s total energy costs would rise only modestly as efficiency drove down how much energy they needed to maintain their lifestyles.

while I disagree strongly with this line of thinking:

The agency found that the Earth would warm 2.1 degrees Celsius by 2100 if every nation met its current commitments. That is much higher than the 1.5 degrees scientists recommend. On the other hand, it is also far better than if governments had done nothing.

since it assumes linearity or something approaching it which is rarely a good assumption.

While I agree that greatly reducing emissions by 2050 is possible I don’t believe that the path to doing it looks much like the one they’re advocating if only because highly populous countries like China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil are unlikely to go along with the program. I remain skeptical that the production of electric vehicles can be scaled up by an order of magnitude in 10 years and, indeed, I suspect that EVs are a blind alley because the savings realized depend so much on how the energy used to produce them or power them is generated.