scholarly journals COVID-19 and economic recovery in compliance with climate targets

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Diesendorf
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Temporary Reduction ◽  
Climate Targets ◽  
State Economy ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Small Benefit ◽  
Dangerous Climate Change

Non-technical summary A small benefit of the disastrous COVID-19 pandemic has been the temporary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, this paper asks: what strategies can return people to work without returning to the old high-emissions economy? How can we modify the old economic system to reduce environmental impacts while rebuilding employment? Technological change, such as replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy (RE), is necessary but, in an economy that's growing, unlikely to be sufficiently rapid to avoid dangerous climate change. Degrowth in physical consumption, especially by the ‘rich’ 10%, towards a steady-state economy, is needed as well as low-carbon jobs.

2. Why do we need renewables?

2020 ◽  
pp. 16-29
Author(s):  
Nick Jelley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Internal Combustion Engines ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
Dangerous Climate Change ◽  
Low Carbon Energy

‘Why do we need renewables?’ describes the dangers of fossil fuels and explains the importance of renewable energy as an alternative. It shows that the use of fossil fuels causes global warming and climate change, leading to widespread concern, and also to a growing realization of the harm caused by the air pollution from coal burning and from internal combustion engines in cars and lorries. These threats are causing a switch away from fossil fuels to renewables that is gaining impetus from the growing awareness of the increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather seen in recent years. This transition is also being aided by the falling price of clean energy from renewables, in particular, solar and wind farms, which will become the dominant sources. The area of land or sea required for these farms is readily available, as are the back-ups required to handle their variability. Alternative supplies of low-carbon energy are examined. In the Paris Agreement in 2015, it was recognized that carbon dioxide emissions must reach net-zero by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change.

Alternative scenarios for the future of the Canadian boreal zone1

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W.N. Steenberg ◽  
Peter N. Duinker ◽  
Irena F. Creed ◽  
Jacqueline N. Serran ◽  
Camille Ouellet Dallaire
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Adaptive Capacity ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Boreal Zone ◽  
Low Carbon Economy ◽  
Carbon Economy

In response to global climate change, Canada is transitioning towards a low-carbon economy and the need for policy approaches that are effective, equitable, coordinated, and both administratively and politically feasible is high. One point is clear; the transition is intimately tied to the vast supply of ecosystem services in the boreal zone of Canada. This paper describes four contrasting futures for the boreal zone using scenario analysis, which is a transdisciplinary, participatory approach that considers alternative futures and policy implications under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity. The two critical forces shaping the four scenarios are the global economy’s energy and society’s capacity to adapt. The six drivers of change are atmospheric change, the demand for provisioning ecosystem services, the demand for nonprovisioning ecosystem services, demographics, and social values, governance and geopolitics, and industrial innovation and infrastructure. The four scenarios include: (i) the Green Path, where a low-carbon economy is coupled with high adaptive capacity; (ii) the Uphill Climb, where a low-carbon economy is instead coupled with low adaptive capacity; (iii) the Carpool Lane, where society has a strong capacity to adapt but a reliance on fossil fuels; and (iv) the Slippery Slope, where there is both a high-carbon economy and a society with low adaptive capacity. The scenarios illustrate the importance of transitioning to a low-carbon economy and the role of society’s adaptive capacity in doing so. However, they also emphasize themes like social inequality and adverse environmental outcomes arising from the push towards climate change mitigation.

PRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC HOT WATER IN A SUSTAINABLE WAY BY USING A COMBINED SOLAR - TLUD SYSTEM

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radu Radoi ◽  
Ioan Pavel ◽  
Corneliu Cristescu ◽  
Liliana Dumitrescu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Solar Thermal ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Automation System ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Domestic Hot Water

Fossil fuels are an exhaustible resource on Earth, and their use pollutes the environment massively. The population of the planet has grown a lot, and for the production of domestic hot water, to ensure a decent standard of living, it is necessary to consume increasing quantities of fossil fuels. The very high level of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere leads to an increase in average of annual temperature and climate change. Climate change is manifested by the melting of the ice caps, which has the consequence of increasing the level of the seas and oceans. Climate change also leads to extreme weather events such as floods, heat waves or the appearance of arid areas. Risks to human health have increased through deaths caused by heat or by changing the way some diseases are spread. Risks also exist for flora and wildlife due to rapid climate change.Many species of animals migrate, and other species of animals and plants are likely to disappear. Climate change also leads to costs for society and the economy due to damage to property and infrastructure, which have been more than 90 billion euros in the last 30 years, just because of the floods. In order to reduce the effects of environmental pollution, ecological energy production solutions need to be expanded. The article presents the creation of an experimental stand of a Solar - TLUD stove combined system for the production of domestic hot water in a sustainable way. TLUD is the acronym for "Top-Lit UpDraft". The advantage of the combined heat system is that it can provide thermal energy both during the day and at night. If the atmospheric conditions are unfavorable (clouds, fog) and do not allow the water to be heated only with the solar panel, TLUD gas stove can be used to supplement the energy. The TLUD stove has low Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Particulate Matter (PM) emissions. After gasification, about 10% of the carbon contained in the biomass is thermally stabilized and can be used as a "biochar" in agriculture or it can be burnt completely, resulting in very little ash. The stand is composed of a solar thermal panel, a TLUD stove, a boiler for hot water storage and an automation system with circulation pumps and temperature sensors. To record the experimental results, a data acquisition board was used, with which data were recorded from a series of temperature and flow transducers located in the installation. Experimental results include diagrams for temperature variation, available energy and heat accumulated in the boiler. Keywords: combined thermal system, TLUD stove, domestic hot water, solar thermal panel, data aquisition system

scholarly journals TENDENCY OF GLOBAL CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES IN THE WORLD IN THE LAST TEN YEARS

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isak Karabegović
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Production ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Small Hydropower ◽  
The World

It is well-known that, in the past decades, the burning of fossil fuels was identified as the major cause of climate change. Climate change mitigation is becoming a central concern of global society. Limiting global warming to below 2 °C above the temperature of the pre-industrial period is the key to preserving global ecosystems and providing a secure basis for human activities, as well as reducing excessive environmental change. The ambitions increased at an accelerated pace with a dramatic expansion of net zero-emission targets. Increasing pressure from citizens and society has forced countries to intensify their climate plans, while the private sector has bought a record amount of renewable energy. An energy system based on fossil fuels must be replaced by renewable energy with low carbon emissions with improved energy efficiency. That applies to all consumers of fossil energy: cities, villages, building sectors, industry, transport, agriculture, and forestry. The paper explores and presents the strategy of energy development of renewable energy sources in the world. The application of new technologies that have led to developing renewable energy sources is presented in detail: wind energy, solar energy, small hydropower plants, biomass, and their increase in the total share of energy production, i.e., reduced fossil fuel use in energy production. Investments in new technologies used in renewable energy sources have led to increases in employment worldwide. Analysis of the trend of increased energy production from RES (Renewable Energy Sources) with investment plans, the employment rate for each energy source, and the development of renewable energy sources in the coming period are provided.

scholarly journals Estimated climate impact of replacing agriculture as the primary food production system

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Hugh MacDougall ◽  
Joeri Rogelj ◽  
Patrick Withey
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Primary Production ◽  
Production System ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Food Production System

Abstract Global agriculture is the second largest contributor to anthropogenic climate change after the burning of fossil fuels. However the potential to mitigate the agricultural climate change contribution is limited and needs to account for the imperative to supply food for the global population. Advances in microbial biomass cultivation technology have recently opened a pathway to growing substantial amounts of food for humans or livestock on a small fraction of the land presently used for agriculture. Here we investigate the potential climate change impacts of the end of agriculture as the primary human food production system. We find that replacing agricultural primary production with electrically powered microbial primary production before a low-carbon energy transition has been completed could redirect renewable energy away from replacing fossil fuels, potentially leading to higher total CO2 emissions. If deployed after a transition to renewable energy, the technology could alleviate agriculturally driven climate change. These diverging pathways originate from the reversibility of agricultural driven global warming and the irreversibility of fossil fuel CO2 driven warming. The range of reduced warming from the replacement of agriculture ranges from -0.22 [-0.29 to -0.04] ºC for Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP)1-1.9 to -0.85 [-0.99 to -0.39]ºC for SSP4-6.0. For limited temperature target overshoot scenarios, replacement of agriculture could eliminate or reduce the need for active atmospheric CO2 removal to achieve the necessary peak and decline in global warming.

Co-movements of financial volatilities in a changing environment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Martins
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Factor Model ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
High Carbon ◽  
Volatility Model

<p>Anthropogenic climate change has been attributed mainly to the excessive burning of fossil fuels and the release of carbon compounds. On average, 75% of the primary energy is still being produced by means of fossil fuels. In order to mitigate the global effects of climate change, a transition towards low-carbon economies is thus necessary. However, given current technology, this transition requires investments to shift away from high-carbon assets and so the effectiveness of changes in investment decisions depends highly on the expectations about policy change (e.g. regarding carbon pricing). The systemic implications of disruptive technological progress on the prices of carbon-intensive assets are thus compounded by the geopolitical nature of transition risk. If investors are pricing transition risk, this implies prices of high-carbon assets should all be responsive to climate-related policy news. For modelling the dynamics of volatility co-movements at the global scale, we propose an extension to the global volatility factor model of Engle and Martins (\textit{in preparation}). To allow for richer structures of the global volatility process, including dynamics, structural changes, outliers or time-varying parameters, we adapt the indicator saturation approach introduced by Hendry (1999) to the second moment and high-frequency data. In the model, climate change is interpreted as a source of structural change affecting the financial system. The new global volatility model is applied to the daily share prices of major Oil and Gas companies from different countries traded in the NYSE to avoid asynchronicity. As a proxy for climate change risk, we use the climate change news index of Engle et al. (2019). This index is a time series that captures news about long-run climate risk. In particular, we use the innovations in their negative (or bad) news index which is based on sentiment analysis.</p>

scholarly journals Environmental sustainability of biofuels: a review

2020 ◽  
Vol 476 (2243) ◽  
pp. 20200351
Author(s):  
Harish K. Jeswani ◽  
Andrew Chilvers ◽  
Adisa Azapagic
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Water Footprint ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Environmental Consequences ◽  
Methodological Choices

Biofuels are being promoted as a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels as they could help to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the related climate change impact from transport. However, there are also concerns that their wider deployment could lead to unintended environmental consequences. Numerous life cycle assessment (LCA) studies have considered the climate change and other environmental impacts of biofuels. However, their findings are often conflicting, with a wide variation in the estimates. Thus, the aim of this paper is to review and analyse the latest available evidence to provide a greater clarity and understanding of the environmental impacts of different liquid biofuels. It is evident from the review that the outcomes of LCA studies are highly situational and dependent on many factors, including the type of feedstock, production routes, data variations and methodological choices. Despite this, the existing evidence suggests that, if no land-use change (LUC) is involved, first-generation biofuels can—on average—have lower GHG emissions than fossil fuels, but the reductions for most feedstocks are insufficient to meet the GHG savings required by the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED). However, second-generation biofuels have, in general, a greater potential to reduce the emissions, provided there is no LUC. Third-generation biofuels do not represent a feasible option at present state of development as their GHG emissions are higher than those from fossil fuels. As also discussed in the paper, several studies show that reductions in GHG emissions from biofuels are achieved at the expense of other impacts, such as acidification, eutrophication, water footprint and biodiversity loss. The paper also investigates the key methodological aspects and sources of uncertainty in the LCA of biofuels and provides recommendations to address these issues.

scholarly journals The international political economy of nature and society: from climate emergency to climate justice in our common home

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 172
Author(s):  
Rey Ty
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Reasonable Doubt ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Security Models ◽  
The Rich ◽  
People First

Longitudinal scientific evidence proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the problem of climate change is reaching a point of no return, upon which Earthly and human survival depends. The major contributors of climate change include industry, transportation, agriculture, and consumers, over which corporate globalization controls, which consume fossil fuels, such as oil, coal, and gas that produce greenhouse gases. Climate change impacts access to clean water, human health, forests, coastal areas, biodiversity, and agriculture. Our tasks ahead include: 1) exposing and opposing flawed economic, political, social, cultural, and security models that destroy nature, cause mal-development, and widening the gap between the rich and the poor and 2) proposing new cooperative models that put sustainability and equality—nature and people—first, especially the poor and the oppressed, before profits.

scholarly journals Research and Outlook on Northeast Asian Energy Interconnection

2020 ◽  
Vol 209 ◽  
pp. 04006
Author(s):  
Yi Gao ◽  
Zhe Liu ◽  
Xinzhi Xu ◽  
Yanfen Guo ◽  
Jun Li
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Northeast Asia ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative Methods ◽  
High Dependency

Northeast Asia is the most developed region in Asia with large energy demand, and plays an important role in the global economic development. Northeast Asia has been facing severe challenges in ensuring energy security, protecting the environment, and coping with climate change, because of their high dependency on fossil fuels and imports of oil from outside the region, and inverse distribution between energy resources and demand. In order to actively respond to climate change, promote the transition to low-carbon energy and sustainable development in the region, achieve the grand purpose of economic prosperity, social progress and ecological protection, this study is conducted with a focus on power grid interconnection in Northeast Asia. Based on the historical energy and power data in Northeast Asia, this paper studies the development trends of energy and power demand in future by combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Considering the distribution of clean energy bases, this paper proposes an energy interconnection scheme in Northeast Asia with high clear energy penetration scenario. To form the Asia-Europe energy interconnection, the construction of the Asia-Europe interconnection channels is briefly analyzed in this paper.

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