Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
Can't wait to see the articles in 10 years about how major countries are phasing out coal in the next 10-20 years.
Again.
Can’t wait to see the articles in 10 years about how major countries are phasing out coal in the next 10-20 years.
The US still has work to do but have you SEEN the decline in coal use here over the past 15 years? Right now I think the US is back to using the same amount of coal that it did in 1965! As a percentage of energy use it's at the level it was in 1949!
Coal use in the United States absolutely fallen off a cliff since 2008.
The optimist in me is pumped about those stats, but the cynical pedantic asshole in me wants to point out >0≠0
Mostly I was just commenting on the fact that I keep seeing articles every few years about how some country or other has gone back on its promises to cut X by Y percent.
Thanks for sharing the facts, though! My cynical side needs to see stuff like that to keep it at bay.
The progress isn't reported on nearly enough and it leaves people feeling cynical and hopeless.
It isn't just burning coal either as US Production of coal is also down nearly 60 percent from its peak.
I'm still not sure we can get them ALL turned off by 2035 but we are on a clear long term trend-line of coal reduction.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. We might get there, and we have to start somewhere.
I hope I'm wrong about reading the articles again.
Between 2012 and 2022 electricity generation from coal has gone down from 2400TWh to 1427TWh for the G7. Most of that comes down to the US, Japan and Germany in that order.The UK and France have basicaly no coal left, besides some rarely running plants and Italy and Canada do exit coal a bit slowler, but do not have too much left anymore.
To look a bit closer. The US has the inflation reduction act and is building out renewables at record pace, while gas is killing coal in most places. The speed in decline is rather rapid. Japan has closed down its nuclear power plants after Fukushima, but is restarting them about now, so a decline in coal consumption is possible. Germany did phase out all its nuclear power plants until last year, but still managed to have a decline in coal electricity generation, due to building out renewables fairly quickly. This means that should go even faster.
So yeah, this might happen. Japan is the one to watch though. It really does not built much clean energy these days.
There have actually been a few reversals from major corpos regarding climate change recently. It should be a positive thing, but I just feel like they’re seeing some scary-ass fuckin data. And their revenue predictions are due to take a nosedive when 60% of the population dies from wildfires, flood, famine, and civil strife, and now they’re working to protect their bottom line.
This is actually a new commitment. There have been large-scale cuts to coal uses in several of the countries already, with the UK dropping to near zero.
To add a little colour, the UK has only one left and it's set to close in the next 6 months.
Great to hear that Japan is phasing out coal.
Also replacing a lot of it with sea-shipped LNG which is not significantly better. Possibly not at all better.
Hey I mean tbh at least they’re not actually burning coal, so they don’t have to dig it out of the ground and whatnot. But yeah, sea shipped and lng - not great to be sure
Me too, though it's going to take a bunch of on-the-ground action to go from a commitment to an actual phase-out.
If I could find a taker I would bet my life savings, and the next 10 years worth, that this will not happen in 10 years. I'll be shocked if it happens in my lifetime and I'm not even 40.
I could bet against you, but well.i like money too
Well the UK at least has this one sorted.
The last remaining one is a few miles from my house, and is scheduled to be closed in September.
They going to build anything there? Wind/solar and use the grid connection?
Or is this going to be another wood burning thing?
Looks like it will be demolished rather than converted for wood burning.
What they'll build there is anyone's guess. I can find articles getting very excited about it being an "energy hub for innovation and business", which means absolutely nothing, and makes me think they've received no concrete offers but want a lot of money for the land...
Yea that's horseshit.
Bet the land isn't even that valuable. Old power station land probably not even close to an urban hub. Who wants that?
This is legit the picture they've got on their site trying to sell it.
I'm going to guess it ends up being an ASDA warehouse or something.
Edit: I forgot HS2 was supposed to stop right next to it, before it was cancelled. It might have been worth something then. But now it's just some coal dust polluted land. I'm guessing they're not going to be allowed to sell it for housing due to that.
Oh the HS2 think maybe could have done something good. Might have been worth removing tonnes of soil and replacing it with tonnes of soil.
Can't be remotely as valuable now. HS2 was such a cock up. I'm actually reading a book about railways. Fuck could the Victorians get stuff done. Pick and shovel, no messing.
The only problem will be the right wingers who complain.
Here in Australia, many trainee pilots actually fly near a coal power plant as part of their first nav training. You can smell it LONG before you're anywhere near it. I seriously don't think people realise just how bad Coal is, and how far the pollution stretches for (if they did, they'd immediately change their mind and want to dump it)
The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States
I seriously doubt the US's ability to do this.
Macron just doubled France's coal production...
That's the beauty of announcing this now: France can start exporting to other countries outside the G7 and offer cheap coal. Then France (or whichever G7 country) can wind down the coal production in line with the country's domestic usage.
Now it isn't lying when you say that coal production is down (happy enviros) and the country is doing it's part to lower emissions (happy constituents). The numbers also show that hydrocarbon sales are up in foreign countries that have become addicted to cheap fuel (happy corps).
As long as you don't look at the numbers going into this, it's going to be a bundle of good news in 10 years. No actual change to the climate and global emissions but it looks good on paper!
No actual change to the climate and global emissions but it looks good on paper!
I can't speak for France but here in the United States the use of coal has absolutely fallen off a cliff since 2008. It's down by nearly 60% since then and overall coal use is about what it was in 1965.
Edit: Coal production is also down by about the same amount. So maybe France is playing the "raise it before lowering it" game but that's not happening in all of the G7 nations.
France had 0.9TWh of coal electricity production last year. That is 0.5% of electricity generation.
What are the exceptions? There’s always exceptions.
Except if y'all forget about the promise, in time for us to make another 10 year goal!
The exception is that this is just about coal and electricity/heating and only in the G7 countries.
None that I can tell. Digging up and burning coal is a fairly expensive way to generate electricity, and the particulates it produces kill a lot of people. So its in peoples' interest to put a stop to it.