Power County Wind Farm. Image from Energy.gov via Wikimedia Commons.

George Harvey

We have a lot of work to do on the climate crisis. We have everything we need to do it, in terms of equipment and knowledge, but there is still a big question about how it will be done.

COP28, the 28th climate change conference held by the United Nations, happened in Dubai, UAE, in December of 2023. The expectations were not high. This was partly due to different nations having different opinions about the war in Ukraine, and partly the result of the war in Gaza, between Hamas and Israel. It was partly due to poor relations between China and the West, including the United States. But the issues that had some relevance about climate change were the exception.

Sultan Al Jaber, the president of the COP28 conference, happened also to be the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. He has been accused of saying that there was “no science” behind calls for phase out of fossil fuels to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Some people said that he was using the conference to make deals with other countries on oil sales. We are trying to save our climate, and the accusation that COP28 was being used to make oil deals are disturbing.

Nevertheless, there was some progress at COP28. Among them was that Al Jaber announced before the conference ended that he respects science and believes that a phaseout of fossil fuels is inevitable. While the agreement of COP28 did not call for phasing out the use of oil, it did call for countries to “end their dependence” on fossil fuels. There were issues of global health and food systems discussed. More to the point for this article, however, was a call for countries to triple their renewable energy capacity by 2030.

Only a bit more than half a year has passed since COP28 ended. Now, the good news is that the goal of tripling our renewable capacity can be achieved. The bad news is that it will not be easy. What we have to do, globally, is to see renewable energy capacity increase at a rate of 16.4% annually through the year 2030.

That sort of increase would be a lot easier, if we had no war in Ukraine, or between Israel and Hamas. It would be a lot easier if there were no conflicts between the China and the United States and Europe.

China

China takes a huge place in our path to building renewable capacity and phasing out fossil fuels. This is clear, even though Chinese companies are still building new coal-burning power plants. The reason it is so clear is that China is building renewable energy capacity at a rate that is nearly twice as great as all other countries of the Earth put together. DW published an article on this in July, “China wind, solar capacity nearly twice the world’s,” but it was just one of many publishing the same data.

The fact that China can do this is partly because of the country’s command economy. It may also be in part because the leadership really does not care whether investors get any return on their investment. So, the coal-burning plants can be built, because they have short-term value to the government, but if it is convenient for the government, they can be shut down early.

There is a lesson for us in China’s success, however. China was able to build up its industry very quickly to produce renewable generating capacity, electric vehicles, batteries, and so on. If we in the United States try the right approaches to do the same, we will do it. The same is true for Europe. China is about four years ahead of us in renewable energy, but we can make that up.

I am put in mind of the unified approach we had toward World War II. Very few people among us can remember that era, and fewer yet understand how the federal government got us into building what we needed to win the war. It is worth reviewing from history, because we may have to do something like it to win the fight against climate change.

People remember that many things, from sugar to gasoline, were rationed during the war. What fewer people remember is that rationing was rather severe in unexpected ways. For example, no family of ordinary size was allowed to have more than five tires.

Do we have to be so strict to address climate change? I will point out that each of the last twelve months was the hottest for that month in history. And the ten hottest years in history all happened in the last ten years. And yet, a major political party has nothing about this looming problem in its political platform.

We can only choose how to act on the climate if we act now. Five years from now will be too late.