U.S. hoping, planning for climate catastrophe
November 12th, 2009Forget “green growth”. Judging by the hard numbers, only two economic factors produce reliably good environmental outcomes: high energy prices and recession.
That’s what Mark Lynas writes at the New Statesman. We need to go cold turkey to kick our addiction to oil:
Unfortunately, these two drivers of emissions reductions are also the two things that everyone seems desperate to avoid.
The good news is, as fossil fuels begin to price themselves out of the market, they could make up for the failure of politicians to do anything to slash emissions.
But remember, the biggest historical contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, and the biggest ongoing threat to climate stability, is coal. Production of this dirtiest of all fuels has been rising for most of the past decade, led by the surging use of coal for industrial uses and to generate electricity in China.
The U.S. Energy Information Agency is projecting an almost 50% increase in coal consumption from 2006 to 2030. That’s the same thing as projecting climate catastrophe.