With 151 countries, 257 cities and 969 companies having announced net-zero targets, it is clear that much of society now understands the need to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by mid-century in order to limit dangerous warming.
However, there is less agreement on the actions required to get there.
Since the COP26 UN climate summit in 2021 agreed to a “phasedown of unabated coal”, a growing group of nations have been pushing for a “phase out” of all fossil fuels.
So far, consensus on this remains elusive.
In our new study published in Nature Communications, we explore what the mitigation scenarios compiled in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sixth assessment report (AR6) say about phasing out fossil fuels.
We found that, across all scenarios, global coal, oil and gas supply must decline by an average of 95%, 62% and 42%, respectively, from 2020 to 2050 in order to limit long-term warming to 1.5C with no or limited “overshoot“.
While there is relative consensus in these pathways about the pace of decline needed for coal and oil, the long-term role of gas is highly variable.
We found that scenarios with more gas were reliant on potentially unachievable levels of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) .
If CDR is limited to levels judged plausible by experts, then gas supply must fall twice as quickly to 2050 – by 84% rather than 42% – in order to limit warming to 1.5C. Rates of reduction for coal and oil also increase to 99% and 70%, respectively.
Overall, our research points to the need to rapidly cut the supply and demand of all fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – if the world is to avoid dangerous warming.
Global fossil fuel reduction pathways
The last two annual UN climate summits saw governments failing to agree to the phase out of all fossil fuels.
In response to this year’s “global stocktake” – an assessment of whether countries are on track to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals – some governments and civil society have put forward options including calls to end fossil fuel exploration well ahead of 2030 and to phase out fossil fuel production by 2050.
To help inform these ongoing debates, we analysed the hundreds of mitigation scenarios that were assembled in the latest IPCC report. We explored what they say about the speed and feasibility of different fossil fuel reduction pathways in line with keeping warming below 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The starting point for our work was the 94 scenarios assessed by the IPCC to limit warming to 1.5C with no or limited overshoot, known as “C1” pathways. The majority of these scenarios suggest substantial reductions in coal and oil supply – whether for energy or non-energy uses – between now and mid-century, as shown by the left and centre panels in the figure below.
However, they show less consensus around the role of gas, with some scenarios seeing an almost complete phaseout by around 2050, while others see continued or even increasing supply out to 2100 (right panel).
Across all 94 scenarios, the central reductions in global coal, oil, and gas between 2020 and 2050 are 95%, 62% and 42%, respectively.
Our next step was to dig into why the gas pathways differ so widely among the C1 scenarios. To do this, we looked at a range of other variables in these 1.5C pathways to see what else is needed in scenarios with higher or lower gas use this century.
As can be seen in the top left panel in the figure below, three typologies of global gas pathways can be identified:
- 1. “Fast decline” pathways showing rapid reductions between now and around mid-century (dark blue line).
- 2. “Slow decline” pathways showing relatively more gradual reductions (mid blue).
- 3. “Rebound” higher-gas pathways showing a near-term decline followed by an increase after around mid-century (light blue).
We found that the modelled gas pathways are largely influenced by three factors, which can also interact with one another and which primarily vary by model family and scenario design.
These factors are carbon pricing, constraints on the availability of CCS and CDR, and constraints on renewable energy deployment.
(We note that CCS can be coupled to fossil fuel use, bioenergy use, or direct air capture; the latter two constitute novel CDR methods. Conventional CDR relies on land-based measures, such as afforestation and reforestation.)
For example, the “REMIND” model family has some of the highest carbon prices, imposes the most stringent assumptions on the global and regional CO2 storage potential and injection rate, and assumes some of the lowest levelised costs of electricity from wind and solar compared to other models. Consequently, all but one C1 scenario from REMIND are grouped into the “fast decline” and “slow decline” clusters.
Conversely, many C1 scenarios generated by the “MESSAGE”, “GEM-E3”, and “WITCH” model families display the “rebound” pattern.
These models typically place no or relatively less stringent constraints on CO2 storage potential and injection rates. Moreover, many of the scenarios from these models are generated under a particular design protocol, in which carbon prices initially increase, but then stabilise or decrease after net-zero CO2 emissions are reached around mid-century and mitigation efforts are relaxed.
Given real-world evidence that the phase-out and phase-in of technology systems are typically highly path-dependent, we argue in our paper that gas-rebound pathways require a more careful evaluation of underlying modelling assumptions, specifically in relation to CCS.
Keeping 1.5C in reach
As a next step, we looked at how the decline of coal, oil and gas would be affected, if 1.5C pathways are restricted to reflect likely real-world constraints on the availability of CCS and CDR.
In 2020, researchers conducted a survey to ask experts to estimate the likely “feasible potential” of three CDR methods, given technical factors such as geological CO2 storage capacity, as well as non-technical factors, such as sustainability considerations and governance constraints.
As the figure below shows, if CDR is limited to what experts think is reasonably achievable, then staying below 1.5C would mean that global production and use of gas would have to be cut twice as fast, to 84% below 2020 levels by 2050 (dashed blue line in the right-hand panel), rather than the 42% implied by the full set of C1 pathways (solid blue line). The corresponding cuts for coal and oil become 99% and 70%, respectively.
Our analysis finds scenarios with long-term high reliance on gas are contingent upon high levels of deployment of CCS and CDR.
Moreover, we show that such high dependence on CCS and CDR is most likely driven by inadequate model representation of real-world constraints on their potential, as well as on energy system path dependencies.
Our findings show that when CCS and CDR are restricted to plausible levels, gas use must also decline rapidly if warming is to be limited to 1.5C, along with coal and oil. This suggests that narratives around gas as a “bridge”, “transition”, or “cleaner” fuel may be misplaced.
A climate mitigation strategy that entails a fossil fuel phase out with limited CCS and CDR reliance would also bring about localised, near-term benefits from reduced air and water pollution, human rights violations, and biodiversity loss, among others.
To date, few governments and companies have been willing to acknowledge that, to limit warming to 1.5C, the production of all fossil fuels must also be reduced alongside other key climate actions, such as scaling up renewable energy, energy efficiency and electrification, as well as reducing methane emissions from all sources.
Our findings show that, to keep the 1.5C goal in reach, the production and use of gas – as well as coal and oil – will need to decline rapidly and substantially between now and 2050.
The post Guest post: Why all fossil fuels must decline rapidly to stay below 1.5C appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: Why all fossil fuels must decline rapidly to stay below 1.5C
© Harriet Spark / Grumpy Turtle Film / Greenpeace
The banner drop is a distinctive part of the Greenpeace repertoire.
The moment of the unfolding is intrinsically dramatic. It is the reveal; when the moral and scientific truth of a situation is unveiled to the world. The wrong is being labelled—not through a written submission, or a social media post, or a statement in a meeting—but in words emblazoned in real physical space, chosen and occupied with precision, for all to see. There is jeopardy and transgression. And there are consequences—for the activists and for Greenpeace, as well as for the target of the communication. One of the reasons the banner remains such an effective tool in our toolbox is because of its undeniable clarity in cutting through, driving change and accountability in a way that few other tactics can. It is naming the wrong: in giant, clear letters.
We’ve hung these massive messages at environmental crime scenes, corporate headquarters, and iconic landmarks; on government buildings, ships and planes—in locations all around the world, for years.
My own memories unfurl even as I write this, but because the campaign to stop Woodside at Scott Reef is so pressing, what immediately springs to mind are two of our banners in that campaign: one on a crane outside their Perth HQ, and another on some of their corroding industrial junk at sea. What about you? Is there a particular banner that you picture when you think of Greenpeace?
The banners can attract global attention, but they have quiet beginnings. Each one is made by hand, often by volunteers. It is the invisible labour behind each spectacular public moment. One of the key pieces of equipment in our workshop at Rainbow Warrior House is the sewing machine. Sometimes our workshop is full of people and noise; at others it is quiet, the only sound being the gentle, purposeful, whir and buzz of a banner being sewn. It is usually our warehouse manager, Kieran Holmes, on the tools, head over the machine, carefully pouring over the raw canvas or tarp as the banner takes shape. Kieran’s one of those people who seems to be able to turn his hand to almost anything, but you wouldn’t know it because he’s old-school modest. In addition to being incredibly skilled, Kieran’s an all-round beaut human to have in the heart of our headquarters; never too busy to take the time to show a newcomer, or curious visitor, around his domain.
Once the banner is sewn up, the lettering needs to be outlined. This is done on a magnetic wall—a fit-for-purpose feature at Rainbow Warrior House, where the banner is held up with magnets, and the edges of the letters neatly traced from a projection.
Next comes the painting. It usually starts late in the afternoon, sometimes going into evenings and weekends, with volunteers, staff, mates crowded around, brushes in hand. It is a calming meditative feeling of shared purpose, giving each letter its visual heft, the colour building power and presence with each stroke.
Then you stand back, stretch, and look at the message, now ready.
S A V E S C O T T R E E F
Throughout history, every great push for social change has required some form of invisible labour; preparation in the form of quiet things seldom seen, but vital. It is the enabling work of love instantiated in action. And of course, so much of the time it has been women who have done this labour, so that the men could get the chance to make the speeches and stand on the podiums. The inaugural Greenpeace voyage to stop nuclear testing in 1971 had a male-only crew, but wouldn’t have happened without the ideas and work of women behind the scenes.
It is what we do together, after all, that changes the world. Sometimes that work happens on a stage, a ship on the wild seas, or up the side of a building. But mostly, it is the hidden diligence of those who care and contribute to all the enabling work that makes a change once thought impossible, inevitable. It is Kieran at his sewing machine. It was Dorothy Stowe doing the administrative work of the ‘Don’t Make A Wave Committee’ that became Greenpeace.
When we think of social change, it is the sturm and drang that we remember. The drop of the banner, the chant of the crowd, the raising of the new flag. But look behind the curtain, and there’ll be a crew of people who are taking responsibility for the administration, the sewing and the painting, making the food, checking the bus timetables, getting stuff done. And behind them are even more handsinvisibly donating time and trust; the financial, material and expert resources that make it all possible. There’s love, camaraderie and know-how at every stage.
We are social and cooperative creatures by nature. And we human beings have been stitching for millenia, sewing the possibilities of our common future. Political and corporate bullies and algorithmically manipulative platforms would have us forget this, and abandon who we are. But we should be in no doubt that the brighter prospects for ourselves and life on earth continue to be stitched and painted; collaboratively and with love, by the diligent hands of millions of people who care, each day, in every community and city across the world.
With Love,
David
Q & A
I always get great questions when interviewing prospective new team members. One that came up again recently was: “Is Greenpeace actually one organisation?”
Around the world, people know Greenpeace by our one global name, united by a shared mission: securing an Earth capable of nurturing life in all its magnificent diversity, with a particular focus on climate and biodiversity. Behind the scenes, though, we’re organised as a network of 25 legally autonomous national and regional offices, including Greenpeace Australia Pacific, working alongside Greenpeace International.
That structure gives us the best of both worlds: we work together leveraging the power of a global network on the issues that matter most, while each office remains legally independent and deeply connected to the communities, cultures and political realities where we’re embedded. Local knowledge informs global action, and global collaboration strengthens and supports local campaigns.
It’s a model that has enabled Greenpeace to take on some of the world’s biggest challenges for over five decades–while withstanding challenges and attacks from governments and corporations. Global enough to tackle global problems, local enough to understand our communities and the natural places we love.
If you’re curious to learn more, you can read about the Greenpeace Global Network structure here.
Steven Stone is acting director of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Office of Science
In 1934, American economist Simon Kuznets presented a paper to Congress advocating for a new way of measuring economic performance.
The United States was reeling from the Great Depression, and Kuznets – a future Novel prize winner – wanted to gauge just how badly the country’s economy had been dented.
His metric, which would come to be known as gross domestic product (GDP), was a breakthrough. But as pioneering as it was, Kuznets saw its limitations.
“The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income,” he wrote in the 1934 paper.
Some nine decades on, we have largely forgotten that message. GDP has become a barometer of economic progress, a kind of one-number-that-rules-them-all upon which national policies turn and governments rise and fall.
With the climate crisis deepening by the day – as evidenced by the heatwaves and wildfires now searing Europe – our attachment to GDP is looking like a problem.
In a single-minded pursuit of GDP growth, humanity is inadvertently feeding several environmental crises that, over the long run, threaten to make most of us poorer, sicker and more miserable. Climate change alone could slice 20 per cent off global GDP by 2100 – a staggering number.
Clear-cutting boosts GDP not wealth
We need to broaden our vision and definition of economic success before it’s too late.
I grew up in the 1970s and 80s surrounded by the mixed hardwood forests of the northeastern United States. For me, the trees were a refuge, a place to run, discover and savor the history and mystery of the land and its people.
Those experiences with my friends were more important than the amount of money in my pocket. And they led to a realization early on in my career as an economist: that wealth is about more than just income.
This is one of GDP’s most significant oversights.
With every forest we clear cut and every ounce of fossil fuel we burn, GDP rises. But through those actions, we are whittling away at the natural world, which supplies us with food, water, medicine, clean air and countless other essentials.
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By focusing only on GDP, we’re ignoring what’s happening to the natural assets on which our prosperity ultimately depends. It’s like we’re driving a car and only looking at the speedometer, not the energy remaining in the battery.
That is the difference between measuring income versus measuring wealth.
The answer to this dilemma lies in looking beyond GDP. We must start considering a broader range of indicators when making policy decisions.
From an environmental perspective, that means measuring and valuing natural assets like forests, water, soil, biodiversity and clean air. By assigning a value to nature, decision-makers can better understand the economic consequences of, say, strip-mining a mountain top or letting plastic waste overwhelm a river.
There is still some debate over how exactly to do this kind of natural capital accounting. But that’s not a reason to dismiss it, as many have done. It took years of refinement to end up with the GDP formula we have today.
Costa Rica’s example
The idea of looking beyond GDP isn’t only a theoretical debate. Countries and communities around the world have started to make economic decisions based on their natural assets. A prime example is Costa Rica, a biodiversity hotspot where a years-long effort to conserve land and seascapes has led to a boom in tourism. That in part helped elevate the country into the club of high-income nations.
This kind of environmentally focused economic decision making can pay huge dividends. By stabilizing the climate, ending pollution and halting the loss of the natural world, humanity could save millions of lives a year and create US$20 trillion in economic benefits annually by 2070, found the Global Environment Outlook 7, a 2025 report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The report was funded by the European Union among others.
I began my career as an economist before moving to UNEP, which focuses on solving the world’s thorniest environmental problems. During that time, I’ve come to appreciate that “wealth” means more than simply “income.” True prosperity means being able to provide for ourselves now and into the future. Anything short of that is an empty kind of affluence – and ultimately doomed to be short-lived.
As deadly heat blankets our cities, species slip into extinction and the planet struggles with rising toxicity and pollution, I am convinced that we can do better at measuring what matters. And that means updating and expanding how we measure economic progress.
The post As fires burn and temperatures soar, it’s time to imagine a world beyond GDP appeared first on Climate Home News.
As fires burn and temperatures soar, it’s time to imagine a world beyond GDP
Amira Odeh Quiñones is a hydrologist and Caribbean organiser for the 350.org climate campaign group
El Niño, likely to be one of the strongest in modern history, has arrived on Caribbean shores.
Drought is slowly creeping up on our islands. But unlike the fiery wildfires ravaging parts of Europe, there’s no smoke signalling the damage being done, no sirens to warn of the danger. Only announcements from public health officials to stay indoors and remain hydrated — as if outdoor workers and farming communities have the luxury to heed such advice.
During El Niño, strong atmospheric winds alter rain patterns and trap heat across the Caribbean. But while we have experienced El Niño many times before, it has become very visible in recent years how climate change is making this natural phenomenon worse.
Across the Greater Antilles, temperatures are soaring past 38°C (100°F), with real-feel indexes reaching a gruelling 43°C in parts of Puerto Rico where I live. Cuba has it worse. Widespread power outages mean that methods for cooling down are unavailable for most of the day, leaving millions of vulnerable people at risk of heat stroke when temperatures hit 38°C.
Santa Marta coalition tested as co-chair Colombia turns back to fossil fuels
During the last strong drought a decade ago, I had water only two days a week in my home. Today, there are many families whose taps are about to run completely dry. Water authorities have already begun strict rationing in some municipalities, with more on the list scheduled for rationing if conditions don’t change.
Water rationing is far more than an inconvenience; it is an immediate health risk. This means thousands of people need to constantly haul heavy buckets up flights of stairs just so they could bathe, cook, stay hydrated – the basics of survival.
Heat causes health problems
Puerto Rico is home to roughly 300,000 elderly residents. Many live alone, isolated and without support. They risk severe physical injury when carrying heavy water containers, and are wont to suffer from silent heat exhaustion in unventilated rooms.
Furthermore, when water shortages force residents to store water in open household containers, it inadvertently creates breeding grounds for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Paired with scorching temperatures that tend to shorten the mosquito breeding cycle, the region is facing explosive outbreaks of dengue fever that endanger our most vulnerable: children and the elderly.
The economic fallout is equally devastating. Dry fields mean millions of dollars in lost crops, forcing small agricultural businesses to collapse, needing urgent government relief to survive. Extreme fuel shortages have already paralyzed Cuba’s agricultural sector, cutting food output by 60% – the El Niño dry spell threatens to decimate it.
At sea, warmer ocean waters fuel massive influxes of sargassum seaweed. Rotting sargassum chokes our beaches, destroying the local tourism industry that so many working families rely on. Tangled seaweed also damages nets and boat engines, slashing fish catches and driving up equipment costs for local fishers.
In the south of Puerto Rico, the coastal town of La Parguera is currently witnessing a historic amount of sargassum on its shores. This has halted most of the boating activity in the area, which is the seaside town’s main tourist draw and economic driver.
All over the Caribbean, from town halls to local group gatherings, the story I hear is always the same: constant headaches, lost work hours, failing health, and a sense that quality of life is silently being stolen. The compounding effects of heatwaves, drought, and marine destruction are exhausting our people, our islands.
Climate change to blame
Climate change makes each El Niño year hotter and more damaging. Higher baseline global temperatures increase the energy and moisture available for extreme weather. Latest projections show that El Niño may push the monthly global average temperature past 2°C of warming for the first time in early 2027. In the Caribbean islands, that will not just be breaking records – it’ll be breaking lives.
Recently, I had the opportunity to share a panel with climate scientists behind what is known as the field of “attribution science” – or the science that compares today’s climate conditions to what the Earth’s climate would be like without human activity, particularly burning fossil fuels. They’re unequivocal: it’s no longer a question of whether extreme weather is caused by climate change, it’s just a question of how much.
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Attribution science recently got a boost from the U.S.’ top scientific advisory body. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recognized that researchers’ methods have advanced considerably in recent years, resulting in better assessments on how much extreme weather can be attributed to human-caused climate change. It noted that attribution findings could be relevant in some types of legal cases, including those seeking damages from oil companies for climate impacts.
This crisis, which is already taking a heavy toll on our communities’ survival, needs real, urgent, and structural action that goes beyond aid. With similar droughts now gripping parts of Asia and Africa, we’re falling into the familiar narrative of treating the looming humanitarian crisis as if no one was to blame, as if it is being caused solely by a natural phenomenon we can’t control.
It’s not. The world was already on fire before its regular visitor, El Niño, came. While we need humanitarian action, we need climate action too, in order to permanently put out the flames.
The post When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño appeared first on Climate Home News.
When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño
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