Rising temperatures worrying the globe

In a report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a detailed road map of what it would take for the world's nations to slash carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050. That would very likely keep the average global temperature from increasing 1.5 Celsius above pre industrial levels - the threshold beyond which scientists say the Earth faces irreversible damage. While academics and environmentalists have made similar recommendations before, this is the first time the IEA has outlined ways to accomplish such drastic cuts in emissions. That's significant, given the fact that the influential agency is not an environmental group but an international organization that advises world capitals on energy policy.

Formed after the oil crisis of the 1970s, the agency's reports and forecasts are frequently cited by energy companies and investors as a basis for long-term planning. Several major economies, including the United States and the European Union, have recently pledged to zero out their emissions responsible for global warming by midcentury. But many world leaders have not yet come to grips with the extraordinary transformation of the global energy system that is required to do so, the agency warned. Net zero emissions doesn't mean countries would stop emitting carbon dioxide altogether. Instead, they would need to sharply reduce most of the carbon dioxide generated by power plants, factories and vehicles.

Any emissions that could not be fully erased would be offset, such as by forests or artificial technologies that can pull carbon dioxide directly out of the atmosphere. To reach that goal of net zero worldwide by 2050, every nation would need to move much faster and more aggressively away from fossil fuels than they are currently doing, the report found. For instance, the annual pace of installations for solar panels and wind turbines worldwide would have to quadruple by 2030, the agency said. For the solar industry, that would mean building the equivalent of what is currently the world's largest solar farm every day for the next decade. For now, the world remains off course.

Last month, the agency warned that global carbon dioxide emissions were expected to rise at their second-fastest pace ever in 2021 as countries recovered from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic and global coal burning neared a high, led by a surge of industrial activity in Asia. We're seeing more governments around the world make net-zero pledges, which is very good news. But there's still a huge gap between the rhetoric and the reality, experts opine. President Joe Biden has made climate action a top priority of his administration and is pushing for an aggressive pivot away from fossil fuels at home and abroad.

But his own pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gases at least 50 per cent below 2005 levels by the end of this decade faces significant political obstacles. At a virtual summit of 40 world leaders that Biden hosted last month, Japan, Canada and Britain joined the European Union in committing to steeper cuts but China, India and Russia did not. The unevenness in global action comes even as scientists warn that the damages from rising temperatures are already reverberating around the globe.