Will We Make It?

From Degrowth to Eco-modernism

One of the turning points for my career was a course I took during my PhD, 'Energy, Economics, Earth and Ecology'. From that point on, I have only thought at a system level, and have been more excited to contribute to the cause of climate change mitigation than ever before. It broadened my outlook, and I started taking a keen interest in other (more critical) areas that required decarbonizing. However, the course also brought in a lot of pessimism. I became certain that we aren’t going to make it in our fight against climate change.

Climate change is an entirely human-caused problem, and humans will lose the most from it. The planet has seen higher temperatures and five (or six if you count the one, we are living in) mass extinctions. It has rebounded better than before with species suited better to new conditions. In contrast, our species conquered the planet during this small period of time with relatively stable temperatures.

Similar to the tone of the coursework, I delved into philosophies like Degrowth and Donut Economics, which inform about the boundaries on the material and economic aspects and provide a sustainable band (donut) where the well-being of both the planet and its inhabitants are preserved. While I understood the allure behind these movements, I have become increasingly confident that they aren’t realistic. I am told that Degrowth has a large fanbase, and even a political party in France. My problem with Degrowth is that it doesn’t sell well to the masses. You can only sell dreams, growth, and optimism. Elections can definitely not be won on the promise of degrowth, and eventually, if elections aren’t won, the policies aren’t formalized, and the fight is lost.

The idea isn’t wrong. Over time, we have become more distant from the physical realities underpinning the amenities we enjoy and survive on. As a kid, my uncle would ask us where bread came from, and several of us would answer: the supermarket. As the world becomes more digital, the physical realities get foggier, when in fact, every word we type, every newsfeed we scroll through, has a carbon footprint, and a power plant working to make that happen. The material we have on the planet is all we have. I am sure all of us agree that we do not have an infinite supply of Lithium or oil and gas, etc. And yet, we never seem to run out of materials. There are two reasons for this: as the material supply shrinks, the cost becomes increasingly prohibitive for further extraction. The high cost pushes innovations in alternative materials (or sometimes alternative technologies to extract more), reducing the demand further. There are countless examples of the above two factors at work. The materials are limited (in varying amounts), but we have never run out of materials (or not found an alternative). As the cries around Cobalt were getting louder, the industry switched to LFP. Soon, we might switch to Na-Ion if the energy density improvements follow the same trajectory as those of Li-Ion batteries.

The other aspect of degrowth is reducing consumption. In my opinion, most of the compromises people make to support climate causes are ones that would require minimum discomfort or ones that allow you to buy your way through the emissions (offsets or green premium). For whom it is feasible, people are willing to shell out more cash to be environmentally friendly (like installing solar panels on rooftops, buying an EV, going vegan, etc.). These are not compromising per se. The plant-based meat companies are trying very hard to ensure their product tastes just like meat, so the consumer can pay more to get the same flavor. If it came to the point that people had to make significant changes, then most people wouldn’t be loving the planet as much. In other countries, people cannot even shell out extra cash for greenwashing. Anyway, I guess you get the point: humans are not going to compromise significantly to support climate causes. So, the only way forward is to have products that are environmentally benign and provide similar or better quality of life for the adopters.

Leave consumers; even countries don’t have climate change as a priority outside of the non-binding pledges they take in COP conferences. Just like the IEA has misplaced predictions for how much solar is going to grow every year, we have misplaced predictions on when CO2 emissions will peak. Being the realist that I am, I am certain that coal consumption is not going to decrease in the next few years. Earlier, China was the major force accelerating coal usage; now, it will be other nations, like India and Indonesia. The energy demand in these fast-growing nations will far exceed the renewable build-out.

The bigger reason that any 'limiting' philosophy won't work is because pessimism often breeds inaction, and while the going is getting tougher, only optimism has any chance of pushing us past the line. Temperature observations and receding ice cover are regular doses of pessimism for me, but one has to go past it and see what they can do. Eco-modernism is one such positive attitude approach that lays all the weight on technology in solving the climate problem (in my opinion a little too much weight on technology).

I think we have entered a new territory (of energy production and distribution). I am convinced that this new infrastructural build-out will entail a huge bump in CO2 emissions (and not a decrease) in the near term. However, once the sail is set in motion, it will lead to drastic reductions in GHG emissions. What I was worried about is how critical this bump going to be.

The issue here is that different greenhouse gases impact the planet differently. For example, we all know methane has an extremely high global warming potential (84x that of CO2 over 20 years). Methane has a lifetime of nearly 12 years, so the methane emitted today will eventually decompose into CO2 by reacting with the OH radicals in the atmosphere. For constant methane emissions every year, the total emissions in the atmosphere remain nearly constant after 12 years. This means that methane emission is an active thermostat. Reducing methane emissions reduces the global temperature, and vice versa. On the other hand, CO2 stays in the atmosphere indefinitely. A constant addition of CO2 accumulates linearly. Hence, decreasing CO2 emissions merely slows the rate of global warming (and not cools the planet). So the bump is going to hurt us, no matter when it happens.

My other big concern is that of residual emissions. My definition of residual emissions is not the same as in a recent publication . I think the residual term should be reserved for the unaccounted. Residual emissions, hence, is the difference between actual and reported emissions. All our models, pledges, and policies are only targeted towards the reported emissions, and rightfully so. When in fact, the globe will continue warming until actual emissions are reduced to zero. Where they will differ is the junk offsets that companies will continue to buy until they are discredited legally, CO2 emissions not accounted in the supply chain, and several processes that will never be formalized (and accounted for).

The acid test for climate change is the CO2 ppm in the atmosphere, which increased faster in the past one year than ever before . We also touched the 2°C (beyond the pre-industrial era) mark this past week (thankfully came down steeply after that record-high). These are the ultimate truths that we should test our progress against.

I am not certain that we will meet the net-zero targets by 2050. However, I am positive that there will be feedback-driven exponential adoption of clean technologies, the feedback being economics from carbon-taxation. Accordingly, we will overshoot the carbon budget quite soon, but we will be able to reverse the ill-deeds, albeit later than we aimed for.

What does the climate look like for such an overshoot and subsequent drawdown? How many tipping point scenarios will we see, and how many of those will be irreversible?