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Scientific American
Save 20% on Print & Digital
March 21, 2023
5 min read
SCIENTISTS JUST WARNED WE NEED TO CUT EMISSIONS BY 60 PERCENT, BUT THE U.S. IS
YEARS AWAY
The IPCC’s latest climate assessment says the world must cut greenhouse gas
emissions by 60 percent by 2035, but the U.S. is already behind on a less
ambitious target
By Jean Chemnick
In an aerial view, traffic backs up at the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge toll
plaza on February 16, 2022 in Oakland, California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Climate Change
CLIMATEWIRE | The United Nations' latest climate assessment has upped the ante
for energy policy in the United States, making it clear that rich nations need
to cut their emissions more deeply than some of the most ambitious targets.
The report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change introduced a
new deadline that the world must meet to avoid the most catastrophic climate
impacts. To limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius, it found that global
greenhouse gas emissions must decline by 60 percent by 2035 compared with 2019
levels (Climatewire, March 20).
That translates to a 67 percent emissions cut by 2035 from a 2005 baseline — the
year the United States uses as a benchmark. Even if the country met the Biden
administration's goal of cutting emissions by 50 to 52 percent by 2030, it would
have a long way to go in five years to make a 67 percent cut a reality.
“That is extraordinarily challenging,” said Robbie Orvis, senior director of
modeling and analysis at Energy Innovation.
One reason is what he called "capital stock turnover." The Biden
administration's target relies on getting people or companies to upgrade to more
efficient or cleaner models when their old equipment needs to be replaced. The
Inflation Reduction Act provides incentives for those upgrades — whether it be
cars or coal-fired power plants — and upcoming regulations will likely boost the
switchover as well.
That gradual switch, however, may not be fast enough for the IPCC target.
“To hit a target like 60 percent below 2019 by 2035, you start having to have
people replace equipment before it's reached the end of its useful life,” Orvis
said. “And that is, from a policy standpoint and an economic standpoint, much
more challenging.”
A report released last week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which
provides energy statistics for the government, hints that the United States
might be running behind on its 2030 commitment to the Paris Agreement. And after
2030, the low-hanging fruit — like switching to electric cars and replacing gas
heaters — will have been picked, leaving the harder-to-decarbonize sectors.
CURATED BY OUR EDITORS
* FAST, DEEP CUTS IN EMISSIONS ARE NEEDED TO AVOID 'CLIMATE TIME BOMB'
Andrea Thompson
* WORLD EDGES CLOSER TO MEETING CLIMATE TARGETS BUT NOT FAST ENOUGH
Andrea Thompson
* HOW CLIMATE CHANGE WILL HIT YOUNGER GENERATIONS
Andrea Thompson
* THERE'S STILL TIME TO FIX CLIMATE--ABOUT 11 YEARS
Mark Fischetti
It's a challenge that the world's climate scientists say is necessary to
overcome to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Also on Monday, U.N.
Secretary-General António Guterres called on rich nations to stop adding
greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by 2040, 10 years earlier than the net-zero
target set by the United States and many other developed countries.
Scientists say the 1.5 C temperature goal relies on a net-zero world by 2050,
but major developing players including China and India have not pledged to stop
emitting until decades later.
ACCELERATING CHANGE
It has been nearly two years since President Joe Biden promised the world that
the United States would slash emissions by 50 to 52 percent by 2030 compared
with 2005 levels.
Since he made that pledge at a 2021 Earth Day summit, Congress has passed a
major climate spending bill, and EPA has started its regulatory push to tamp
down pollution from sectors like power and oil and gas.
But indicators continue to show that the United States is not yet on track to
deliver on Biden's 2030 pledge.
Last week, EIA released its Annual Energy Outlook for 2023. The outlook
projected future energy trends and emissions out through 2050, based on policies
in place as of last November. That included the Inflation Reduction Act, which
includes $369 billion in climate investments.
Even so, EIA predicted that U.S. energy-related carbon emissions would only
decrease between 25 and 38 percent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels — well shy
of the 50 percent mark.
The analysis doesn’t include non-CO2 greenhouse gases and sinks and is limited
to emissions from fossil fuel combustion. It also doesn’t consider future
regulations, state policies or even certain Inflation Reduction Act programs.
Experts also say EIA relies on some pessimistic assumptions in its outlook,
especially when it comes to how quickly Americans will swap their
gasoline-fueled cars for electric vehicles in response to new incentives and
targets from several key states. Analysis firms including Energy Innovation have
estimated that the Inflation Reduction Act puts the United States within grasp
of a 40 percent emissions cut by 2030.
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But the EIA report is a cautionary sign, covering the sectors whose emissions
will determine the success or failure of the 2030 target. It also shows
emissions reductions petering out after 2030 — when the United States would need
to see even deeper cuts to meet the IPCC's recommendation for dramatic cuts by
2035 and 2040.
Inflation Reduction Act incentives also will begin to phase out in the early
2030, right when some of the easiest and lowest cost opportunities to green the
U.S. economy will have to be realized.
“The low-hanging fruit is kind of in the electricity sector,” said Energy
Innovation's Orvis. While electric vehicles, heat pumps or other investments
that promise to bend the emissions curve for other sectors are cost-effective,
getting people to replace equipment that is still working is difficult and
requires aggressive policy, he said.
“Your real constraint becomes time and how quickly you need to decarbonize,” he
said.
The EIA outlook shows power-sector emissions falling by 15 percent between 2022
and 2025, from about 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to about 1.3
billion metric tons. By 2030, such emissions could fall by 63 percent compared
to 2022, to 782 million metric tons, according to EIA.
But after 2030, those reductions slow down. Power-sector emissions drop 8
percent between 2030 and 2035 to 723 million metric tons and then 10 percent by
2040 to 707 million metric tons.
The power sector is a bright spot in EIA’s analysis. The outlook projects
industrial emissions will decrease in this decade but rebound in 2031 and trend
upward for most of the 2030s and 2040s. Industrial emissions in 2050 would be
only about 4 percent below their 2022 levels.
The EIA outlook doesn’t try to predict what policies might be in place in the
future that might continue to bend the curve.
“I think the hopeful question is whether a decade of the incentives in the
Inflation Reduction Act accelerate the rate of change in the U.S. in a way that
makes science-based targets like this possible,” said John Coequyt, director of
U.S. governmental affairs at RMI, referring to the IPCC report’s targets.
While a 67 percent cut in emissions by 2035 is “very aggressive,” he said,
“Things are starting to change more quickly than people thought they would.”
Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2023. E&E
News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.
Jean Chemnick is a reporter with E&E News.
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