Demand for fossil fuels will peak by 2025 if countries meet their climate pledges, according to the latest World Energy Outlook 2021 from the International Energy Agency (IEA). However, this year’s 386-page outlook – calling itself a “guidebook” for the upcoming COP26 climate summit – highlights the gaps between the policies already in place, the ambition set out in countries’ climate pledges and the significant additional efforts needed to keep global warming below 1.5C. These gaps can be closed over the “crucial” decade to 2030, the IEA says, with a “massive” push for wind, solar and other low-carbon electricity; a “relentless” focus on energy efficiency; a “broad drive” to cut methane from fossil-fuel operations; and a “big boost” to clean-energy innovation. It says a successful transition towards 1.5C would avoid “immense risks” from climate inaction and create a $1.2tn market for clean energy that would rival the current size of the oil industry.
Carbon Brief 13th Oct 2021 read more »
The Energy Mix 13th Oct 2021 read more »
Cutting air pollution and red meat consumption are among a series of climate change measures that would cut deaths and increase average life expectancy, medical experts have said. A report by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society outlines policies and behavioural changes that it says will improve health and save lives both now and in the long term. Phasing out fossil fuels would cut deaths from air pollution, and reducing consumption of red and processed meat and eating more fruit and vegetables would increase average life expectancy by about eight months, as well as reducing deaths from heart disease, stroke and cancer, the paper says.
Times 14th Oct 2021 read more »
Nicola Sturgeon has refused to condemn plans to drill in the controversial Cambo oil field after warning about the knock-on effect of rejecting the plan. In a question-and-answer session after giving a Ted Talk to an audience in Edinburgh on the impact that small countries can have on climate change, the first minister was pushed on her position about the project off Shetland. She has been accused of sitting on the fence after urging Boris Johnson, the prime minister, to reconsider the drilling licence for the field but refusing to oppose it outright. But Sturgeon suggested yesterday that jobs could be at risk and fossil fuels would have to be shipped into the UK if the development did not get the go-ahead. “We’ve got to be careful that we don’t leave communities and people behind in that transition,” she said. “We’ve got to be careful we don’t switch domestic production to imports of oil and gas. That would be counterproductive.”
Times 14th Oct 2021 read more »