Part Four / What We’ve Done About It

4.4 We are not moving in the right direction

All online sources accessed on

  1. according to climate scientist Peter Kalmus’s calculations Kalmus, P., ‘Today the world’s biggest carbon capture facility turned on’, Twitter, 9 September 2021, https://techstory.in/orca-worlds-largest-carbon-capturing-facility-just-opened-in-iceland/, https://www.businessinsider.nl/the-worlds-biggest-carbon-removal-plant-just-opened-in-a-year-itll-negate-just-3-seconds-worth-of-global-emissions/.

    we are talking about turning them into several weeks Every year we currently emit around 42GT of CO2. That means ca 0.8GT of CO2 per week. As an example, the IEA Net Zero 2050 roadmap (from 2021) estimates the global CO2 capture by 2050 to be 7.6GT of CO2 per year. That equals around 9.5 weeks of today’s emission levels. The CO2 capture in the year 2050 by Direct Air Capture (DAC) alone is estimated to be ‘just under 1 GT’.
    https://www.unepfi.org/industries/investment/net-zero-asset-owner-alliance-backs-call-to-scale-up-carbon-removal-from-atmosphere/, https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/deebef5d-0c34-4539-9d0c-10b13d840027/NetZeroby2050-ARoadmapfortheGlobalEnergySector_CORR.pdf.

    all their pathways and pledges are dependent
    https://unfccc.int/news/cop26-update-to-the-ndc-synthesis-report.

    only a bleak 2 per cent
    https://www.iea.org/news/with-only-2-of-governments-recovery-spending-going-to-clean-energy-transitions-global-emissions-are-set-to-surge-to-an-all-time-high.

    highest level since the presidency of George W. Bush
    https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-business-science-environment-and-nature-6ac8ff49970e4b052489678b40e3ba82..

    coal-fired electricity reached an all-time high
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/global-2021-coal-fired-electricity-generation-surges-record-high-2022-07-21/.

    second-biggest emissions rise ever recorded
    https://www.iea.org/news/global-carbon-dioxide-emissions-are-set-for-their-second-biggest-increase-in-history.

  2. subsidized by $5.9 trillion in 2020 Parry, I. W. H., et al., Still Not Getting Energy Prices Right: A Global and Country Update of Fossil Fuel Subsidies, International Monetary Fund working paper, 24 September 2021, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Still-Not-Getting-Energy-Prices-Right-A-Global-and-Country-Update-of-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-466004.

    2 per cent had been invested in green energy International Energy Agency, ‘Sustainable recovery tracker: monitoring progress towards sustainable recoveries from the Covid-19 crisis’, 2021, https://www.iea.org/reports/sustainable-recovery-tracker.

    China is planning to build forty-three new coal power plants Gunia, A., ‘China is planning to build 43 new coal-fired power plants. Can it still keep its promises to cut emissions?’, Time, 20 August 2021, https://time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/.

  3. expected to rise by 16 per cent by 2030 Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement: Synthesis Report, 17 September 2021, https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_08E.pdf.

    wildfires in 2021 created the equivalent of 6,450 megatonnes of CO2 Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, ‘Wildfires wreaked havoc in 2021, CAMS tracked their impact’, 6 December 2021, https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/wildfires-wreaked-havoc-2021-cams-tracked-their-impact.