Why can’t we quit fossil fuels? | Environment | The Guardian
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/17/why-cant-we-give-up-fossil-fuels?CMP=twt_fd
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Given what is at stake, it is no wonder that governments agree global warming must be stopped. But that is where the common sense ends and the cognitive dissonance begins. Because to have a decent chance of not exceeding the already risky global target, we need to start phasing out fossil fuels now at a fast enough rate to bring down emissions globally by a few percent a year, and continue doing so for decades to come.
Now compare that with what is actually happening. As with the climate, to understand the situation properly it is necessary to zoom right out to see the long-term trend. Doing so reveals something fascinating, worrying and oddly overlooked. As scientists from Lancaster University pointed out last year, if you plot a graph showing all the carbon emissions that humans have pumped into the air, the result is a remarkably clear exponential curve stretching all the way back to the mid-19th century. Zoom back in on the past decade and it is clear that for all the mounting scientific concern, the political rhetoric and the clean technology, nothing has made a jot of difference to the long-term trend at the global level – the system level. The growth rate in total carbon emissions in the past decade, at around 2% a year, was the same as that of the 1850s.
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This extraordinary double-think is everywhere to be seen. Take the US. Obama boasts that American emissions are now falling due to rising auto efficiency standards and gas displacing dirtier coal in the energy mix. But the US is extracting carbon and flowing it into the global energy system faster than ever before. Its gas boom has simply allowed it to export more of the coal to other countries such as China – which of course uses it partly to produce goods for US markets. Not happy with increasing US carbon extraction, Obama is also set to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline that will enable Canada to flood the global markets with crude produced from dirty tar sands. So much for carbon cuts.
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It is not just governments that are in near-universal denial about what needs to happen to the fossil fuel sector. Blithely ignoring the fact that there is already far more accessible fuel than can be safely burned, pension fund managers and other investors are allowing listed fossil fuel companies to spend the best part of $1tn a year (comparable to the US defence budget, or more than $100 for every person on the planet) to find and develop yet more reserves.
If and when we emerge from this insanity, the carbon bubble will burst and those investments will turn out to have been as toxic as sub-prime mortgages. ....
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Globally, the vast majority of people want climate change dealt with. But can we bring ourselves to prioritise a safe planet over cheap fuels, flights, power and goods? Can we face calling on our leaders to end the double-think and constrain oil, coal and gas supplies on our behalf? Can humanity muster the restraint and cooperation needed to leave assets worth trillions in the ground?