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Ecowatt Blog

The Basics of Geothermal Energy Production

As you know, here at Ecowatt we’re passionate about alternative energy sources. Since the invention of the combustion engine and subsequent dawn of the Industrial Age, mankind’s primary source of energy has been via the burning of fossil fuels – generally in the form of coal. The burning of these fuels are by far and away the leading driver of climate change due to the carbon they release in the combustion process. 

If we are to prevent the Earth from warming to disastrous transformative temperatures, we need to switch to alternative energy sources immediately! One of those alternatives being increasingly examined is “Geothermal Energy”. You may well have heard the term, but many people are unsure about its exact mechanism and where it even comes from. 

Considering Geothermal Energy is one of the keys to fighting off climate change, it’s imperative that we understand exactly what it is and how it works, so in this post we’re going to run through the ins and outs of one of Earth’s most natural and abundant sources of energy.

What Is It?

Geothermal energy is essentially the perpetual generation of heat and energy via a process known as “nuclear fusion”. In a similar way to how the sun burns perpetually, Earth’s core is burning through minerals and elements at extreme temperatures, and causing reactions similar to that of the Sun’s “nuclear fusion”.

While the fusion at Earth’s core and other planets is on a much smaller scale than what is happening on the Sun, the principle is the same. The process is known as “radioactive decay”, and is a continual process that started when Earth was formed more than 4 billion years ago via various frictional and gravitational forces. This radioactive decay is caused by elements such as Potassium-40 decaying, which in turn causes the Potassium’s nucleus to change, emitting massive amounts of energy known as radiation.

This process happening at Earth’s centre creates substantial heat (5,000˚ celsius) and radiates outward through the entire planet. The heat dissipates as it gets closer to the surface, losing approximately 25˚C per kilometre, but in some parts of Earth such as deep tunnels, caves, trenches and cavities, that heat escapes causing unusually warm conditions.

These conditions are mostly created by extremely hot pockets of “magma” deep in Earth’s crust. Magma is liquid rock (too hot to be solid) formed 60 kms below the surface, which escapes into chambers closer to the exterior. At 1500˚C, these magma chambers warm up nearby rocks or underground aquifers (pockets of water), and in turn expel hot water in the form of geysers, mud pots, hot springs, and steam vents – many of which are popular tourist sites around the world.

Some of the more famous sites include the monkey-inhabited Jigokudani hot spring in Japan, the enormous Blue Lagoon in Iceland, and quite possibly the most prominent of all: “Old Faithful” in Yellowstone National Park, California, erupting boiling hot water on average every 92 minutes. 

These sites create perfect opportunities for energy engineers to capture and use for the sake of generating electricity. Of course, electricity is generated by heat, and all forms of electrical generation use various fuels to create heat – whether that be burning coal, oil, nuclear devices or even solar power.

If, however, you can access heat directly from Earth’s core, you cut out that middle process of trying to generate your own warmth! And this is exactly what geothermal energy offers.

Electrical architects have developed numerous forms of heat extraction from these various geothermal sites, and simply convert the heat into electricity via the standard process of “electromechanical generation”.

Famous Noboribetsu hot springs, Hokkaido, Japan

Why Is It So Important ?

Geothermal Energy is such a critical player in the fight against climate change because it is, in essence, “free energy”. We, as humans, do not need to burn anything at all in order to generate the heat, we simply need to harvest the heat that is already there.

This heat being emitted from the Earth’s core is a process that has been occurring for over 4 billion years, and is estimated to continue doing so for another 91 billion years! This heat escapes in a myriad of forms all over the globe, and is effectively “unlimited”, the only limit we have is accessing it. Tapping into geothermal energy requires all kinds of digging, mining, construction and engineering, and sometimes governments are disincentivized from pursuing it because it is quite simply cheaper to build a coal power plant than to engineer a geothermal one.

Geyser in Armenia Nagorno Karabakha

The Race Is On

This however is changing, and as the planet races to find solutions to our carbon crisis, politicians are increasing their allocation of financial resources to geothermal technologies. Rather than continue burning copious tons of coal and converting it to CO2-saturated smoke, it makes more sense than ever to simply tap into the heat already waiting to be accessed in millions of locations around the world under the Earth’s surface.

Ecowatt  is actively sourcing geothermal projects, starting with a 75 MW project in Turkey. We hope to increase our geothermal portfolio, and believe this energy source is a critical solution in the global climate change crisis!

References:

National Geographic Geothermal Report:

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/geothermal-energy

Magma heat:

https://www.usgs.gov/news/volcano-watch-magma-whats-hot-and-whats-not

Earth’s Core:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/core 

Geothermal availability:

https://www.enelgreenpower.com/learning-hub/renewable-energies/geothermal-energy/advantages

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Ecowatt Blog

What Is The Green House Effect

There are so many terms associated with climate change that it is becoming difficult to keep track! The confusion is so rife that it is even providing fuel for climate change deniers. How can the confusion of climate change terminology be used as ammunition for naysayers? Take this prime example:

These deniers refute the existence of “climate change” by using evidence of out-of-the-ordinary cold snaps and extreme cold weather patterns. Their reason for this refutation? They have heard the term “global warming” used so regularly that they cannot comprehend that the phenomenon would bring extremely cold weather.

“How can global warming exist when this has been the coldest Winter on record?” they quip.

It’s a sad reality that many people just do not understand the basics of weather patterns and systems, and how Earth’s climate biome operates. But it’s also important to consider that with so many moving parts involved in Earth’s climate, accurate communication is imperative.
So, as a company passionate about helping planet Earth fight the onslaught of warming temperatures, we want to help bring some clarity to this specific instance. To do so, we need to examine the effect known as “The Greenhouse Effect”.

What is it?

The Greenhouse Effect is exactly why we as a species are faced with the overwhelming challenge of “global warming”, but more specifically, why our global climate is changing (hence: climate change – the more accurate term in our international fight).

Example: Your Car On A Hot Day

Have you ever got back to your car after an hour or two shopping at the local grocery store on a sunny day, and found it just too hot to climb into? Especially when you’ve left all of the windows closed!

In many instances, the steering wheel is too hot to even touch, and god help you if you have black leather seats! The best thing to do is to open all the windows to allow the hot air to be released before even entering. This is in essence the simplest way to understand the “Greenhouse Effect”.

The overwhelming heat energy of the sun enters the car’s windows, heating up the car’s interior, but the closed windows don’t allow that heat energy to escape. The sun’s energy is a form of radiation, and can enter the car’s windows easily, but the heat that this energy creates cannot return out of those windows.

This is known as the greenhouse effect because of the famed gardening tool known as a “greenhouse”. (They’re called greenhouses because they produce beautifully green plants and flowers). A greenhouse is used when farmers or gardeners need more heat and humidity than is naturally available in the area where they live. The house absorbs the sun’s radiation, heating up the interior, but the sealed off house of panels or transparent canvas prevents that heat from escaping – creating the perfect environment for plants that need warmer temperatures. Greenhouses work especially well in colder regions of the world, even in Winter. As long as there is sun, greenhouses can be incredibly effective for gardeners.

Hopefully by now you’re starting to understand this phenomenon in relation to Earth’s entire climate?

Applied To Earth

The Earth’s atmosphere is about 100 km thick, which in the grand scale of the planet is thinner than the skin of an apple! This atmosphere is made up of a number of layers, and the lowest one, the Troposphere (at 16 kms from Earth’s surface), is the layer where most of Earth’s heat gets recycled and can’t escape.

Now, of course, Earth has had an atmosphere for millions of years trapping heat inside it and creating the perfect climate for life. But it is only in the modern age that this atmosphere has started to change, causing the climate to shift in catastrophic ways.

Standard gases in the atmosphere like water vapour and certain amounts of carbon create a layer that prevents Earth’s heat from escaping. But since the industrial age, humans have been releasing overwhelming amounts of additional carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) into this atmosphere, causing much less heat to escape than normal.

Mankind has released almost double the amount of carbon into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial age, increasing it from 280 ppm (particles per million) to 421 ppm at the last reading. This carbon, trapped within the Troposphere, makes for an even “thicker” layer of glass (remember the car example) that lets far less heat out than ever before.

In addition to this, the carbon itself warms up from the Sun’s radiation, and the more carbon there is, the warmer the Earth’s temperature will get. 

This is, in its simplest form, the Greenhouse Effect. And while there are some nuances to the science, this is where we get the term “global warming”. This effect has been increasing the Earth’s surface temperature for the last 150 years. But this “warming” effect causes extreme heat and cold. This is because increased heat increases the evaporation of the Earth’s oceans, and thus causes stronger cloud systems, which in turn create stronger cold fronts, snow storms, hurricanes etc. (Of course, in other parts of the world, where there is less water vapour in the region, the land gets parched, and we get drought and heat waves.)

What We Can Do About It: Green Energy Sources

It is for this very reason that we at Ecowatt are so adamant about turning back the climate clock! Mankind not only needs to drastically reduce the amount of carbon it is emitting into the atmosphere, it also needs to absorb the already emitted carbon.

The first step is to indeed cut back on carbon emissions. We simply cannot allow there to be much more carbon released into the atmosphere! The easiest way to do that is to transition to green energy, a subject we at Ecowatt are passionate about.

We have decades of experience in manufacturing and engineering renewable energy plants, from solar to wind, even to waste product bio-energy. We are actively working in the likes of Hungary, Turkey, Romania among others to produce some of the most effective green energy solutions available. These plants currently produce over 350 Megawatts of electricity, all generated entirely by energy naturally available on planet earth, without any combustion or burning required.

What We Can Do About It: Carbon Credits

In addition to dramatically decreasing the amount of carbon in our atmosphere, quite possibly even more crucial is the technology of absorbing carbon already there. As mentioned numerous times here on the Ecowatt blog, this is known as “carbon capture”, and there are a number of ways of doing so.

The easiest way to do it, and one that we are actively pursuing in many regions globally, is to simply plant more trees! As widely understood, trees absorb remarkable amounts of CO2, and are critical in our fight against climate change. 

Part of the reason we have lost the climate change battle in recent years is because of our horrifying deforestation work around the globe. To keep up with paper and mineral needs, forests have been cut down at alarming rates, and these were literally the “lungs” of our planet. These forests must be replaced in order to get back to a healthy equilibrium on Earth.

Reforestation and afforestation are two forms of carbon capture work that we are pursuing. Reforestation is the replanting of large tree forests which had been cut down and not replaced. Afforestation is the identification of new land and planting new forests where none had existed before. 

If ever there was a time to invest in the future of our home, it was now.

References:

Greenhouse Effect:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

Troposphere:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troposphere 

Earth’s atmosphere:https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2919/earths-atmosphere-a-multi-layered-cake/

Earth’s CO2:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth

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Ecowatt Blog

How is Fashion Fueling Climate Change?

Winter is here, there’s a nip in the air, and you need to head to the store. You pull on your favourite cotton sweater, and slide into your favourite name brand sneakers. As you pull them on, like always, you’re confronted with the embedded label in the shoe’s soles: “Fair pay for our manufacturers.” It makes you feel good to know the consumables you purchase come from companies who prioritise the health, safety and wellbeing of their workers.

You head out the front door, and carry on your way.

While your conscience may be (rightly) satisfied in knowing you’re supporting a well-meaning company who places a strong emphasis on staff welfare, are you aware of what your favourite brand contributes to climate change? 

As, arguably, the most important factor to the future of humanity, addressing and prioritising climate action should be a key focus for all companies, and recent data shows that fashion companies have been ignoring it for years.

While aviation may appear to be the biggest culprit for emitting CO2 to Earth’s atmosphere, new research is revealing that the fashion industry is a bigger perpetrator. The United Nations has released a report that the fashion industry contributes somewhere between 8 and 10% of global CO2 emissions! That is, quite frankly, frightening.

How is it that the aviation industry, emitting 2.4% of global CO2, has drawn the ire of the world’s activists and yet the fashion industry has largely escaped scrutiny? It’s certainly time for a change.

Most of the fashion industry’s offences are related to its use of raw materials, with cotton using approximately 2.5% of the world’s farmland. The polyester in almost all clothing sold today requires oil in its manufacturing process, and in total the industry uses 342 million barrels of oil every year to produce it. The dying of various fabrics and clothing items requires 43 million tonnes of chemicals each year. And with the World Bank expecting clothing sales to increase by 65% by 2030, something needs to be done urgently.

At Ecowatt, we are fervently dedicated to seeing global carbon emissions be reduced in our quest to help the planet reach net zero by 2050, so we would like to challenge the industry to these points that must be considered in order to reduce its horrifying carbon footprint:

1. Change The Mindset Of The Consumer 

The fashion industry is one that thrives off the trendiest and latest. It is an endless cycle of convincing the consumer that there is always a better dress, a hipper shirt, a more stylish pair of boots, etc. In addition to the marketing that drives the latest trends, many clothes are not designed to last, and in fact “designed to become obsolete”. 

By simply reducing the cycle of new fashion purchases and producing more durable items of clothing, the industry could halve its carbon emissions within a decade. Just by doing this step alone!

2. Reduce Energy Consumption Along The Supply Chain

Large fashion brands have gargantuan operations, from warehouses, chain stores and offices. If each of these three pillars in their supply chain were able to seriously address their energy consumption, we would immediately begin to see the sector’s CO2 emissions reduced.

British online fashion and cosmetic retailer ASOS recently focussed on this very objective, and began by switching to energy-efficient light bulbs in one of their key warehouses. This warehouse cut its energy use by 76%!

Hugo Boss did a similar analysis on their transport operation, and switched a large chunk of their logistics from air freight to rail freight, and are on target to cut emissions by 95%!

3. Actively Offset Emissions

If all brands did such analyses such as Hugo Boss or ASOS, we at Ecowatt have no doubt the entire industry could reduce CO2 emissions considerably, and help in the goal to global net zero achievement. Ecowatt is actively engaging with several fashion brands in addressing their carbon footprint, and drawing up strategic plans to offset their current emissions.

An easy first step into carbon footprint reduction for major fashion brands is simply to ensure they are offsetting their emissions. The solutions that we at Ecowatt have tailored, specifically for industries just like the fashion industry, allow for immediate transformation. These solutions are the very simple investment into carbon credits and tokenised green assets designed by the Ecowatt engineering team.

We are developing technology that will enable fractionalised and therefore mass investment into renewable power stations and social impact projects. These types of solutions are simply for industries like that of fashion to begin their journey to net zero and make swift headway into undoing the damage so much of their supply chain has already done.

Conclusion 

We’re passionate about the sustainable use of clothing and cosmetics. We understand that everyone loves to look their best and feel as comfortable as possible. But these luxuries do not need to come at the expense of the climate, and in turn the whole of humanity itself.

In a world where the climate is one of the most talked about topics today, clothing and textiles should be produced in a far more sustainable fashion. As a global company working with numerous blue chip brands, we’re proud to be working with this industry to make a difference and be part of fashion’s transformation to a net zero industry!

References:

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Ecowatt Blog

Ecowatt Announces Xylo Carbon as Climate Impact Project Originator

The ultimate green investment platform Ecowatt has partnered with Xylo Carbon to ensure the feasibility and sustainability of strategic capital allocation.

DUBAI, 7 November 2022.

The ultimate green investment platform Ecowatt has partnered with Xylo Carbon to ensure the feasibility and sustainability of strategic capital allocation.

Ecowatt accelerates climate action by directing significant funding into two main portfolios which generate carbon credits. The ‘Green Asset portfolio’ contains existing and forthcoming wholly-owned renewable power stations and wind farms. The ‘Impact portfolio’ contains a host of climate and social impact projects across Africa and Europe, including both nature-based and technological solutions.

Ecowatt CEO Thomas Puskas said: “One of the most important aspects of finding and funding projects that generate carbon credits is to ensure they are both legitimate and sustainable. A rigorous due diligence is required to ensure that they are investment ready and do indeed perform as they allege. This is why our partnership with Xylo Carbon is so beneficial to our operation.”

Xylo Carbon is a sustainability consultancy based in London who assist in bridging the gap between private capital and high-quality, large-scale, nature-based and technological solutions. Thanks to Xylo Carbon’s in-depth industry knowledge and expertise, this notable partnership will ensure each project incorporated into Ecowatt’s Impact Portfolio is legitimate and sustainable for all stakeholders, including the communities directly affected.

As a green investment platform aiming to accelerate climate action through democratised sustainability investments, Ecowatt’s partnership with Xylo Carbon looks set to be a perfect fit.

Nature-based solution projects will be developed in accordance with Verified Carbon Standard or Climate, Community & Biodiversity methodologies, in line with the IUCN global standards to ensure validity and quality of the offsets.

“We are delighted to join forces with Ecowatt,” said Xylo Carbon MD Suhul Haile. “We have already begun to leverage our extensive industry network to develop, conduct due diligence and monitor the global pipeline of carbon and social projects that have the highest potential and integrity.”

The considerable partnership comes off the back of the Future Innovation Summit 2022 held in Dubai, where Ecowatt was bestowed the Climate Impact Accelerator Award.

Ecowatt’s Global Marketing Director, Lauren Haworth said, “2022 has been an extraordinary year for us. We have been recognised by numerous role players in the industry, and after the success of the Future Innovation Summit in Dubai, we are now ready for our next chapter. We have an explicit focus on authenticity, transparency and sustainability of everything that we do, starting with the collaboration with Xylo Carbon.”

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Ecowatt Blog

5 Ways to Combat Climate Change

In his scientific exploration “Enlightenment Now”, Harvard University’s DR Steven Pinker outlines how humanity is making sensational progress, citing real data that will surprise you. The data is real, verifiable and encouraging. But one challenge is highlighted as a critical need to be addressed: Climate change.

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Ecowatt Blog

Is Green the new Gold?

The year is 1848, Sacramento Valley is sprinkled with white powder from the heavens in a cold January. The USA is in the midst of a tense negotiation with possessors of the land, Mexico, who days later would cede their territory to the Yanks.

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Ecowatt Blog

How does Reforestation Combat Climate Change?

With a population now teetering on 8 billion people, the amount of carbon dioxide we as a developed species are releasing into earth’s atmosphere is astonishing. The current data shows that humanity is emitting 99.45 million tonnes of CO2 each day, which, as anyone with any comprehension of the “greenhouse effect” would know, is a recipe for global disaster.

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Ecowatt Blog

How is Climate Change Creating Food Scarcity?

It’s now glaringly obvious that climate change is having a serious impact on everyday human life. We’ve recently witnessed devastating floods in Pakistan and India, and scorching drought in most of Europe. Every month seems to bring more news of severe calamity brought on by mother nature. 

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News & Media

How can Clean Energy Impact the Bottom Line?

Clean energy is given an enormous amount of media attention these days, so much so that it’s hard to imagine that 80% of the world’s energy is still produced from the combustion of fossil fuels. And while that share is projected to drop to 56% by 2050, it’s still staggering considering we are told daily about renewable energy exploits.

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News & Media

A new IPCC report says the window to meet UN climate targets is vanishing

Turns out timing is everything.There are moments when world events combine to rescue the truth of old lines from mere cliché.

The release of the latest landmark report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this week was one of them.

If you were to distill the thousands of pages of “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Working Group III Contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report” detailing our shrinking window to avert climate catastrophe into a single line , it would simply be this:

Timing is everything.

Everything, because the report delineates with clinical precision the steps to something like a livable future and exactly how much time the world has for each . (Spoiler alert: Less than we thought.)

But everything also, because at a moment when the human tragedy in Ukraine has forced a global conversation on fossil fuels and our energy future, the report is exactly what the world needs to hear right now.

THREE YEARS TO TURN THE CORNER ON FOSSIL FUELS

The toplines of the report will not surprise anyone who’s been paying attention to the headlines on climate recently. In a nutshell, we have just three years – not decades – to reach the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions (aka “peak emissions”) planetwide before rapidly reducing fossil fuel use and reaching net-zero levels by 2050.

Three years, that is, to have any reasonable chance at holding global warming to something like 1.5 degrees Celsius, the danger line after which climate-fueled destruction threatens to go from “quite bad” to “downright Biblical” with projected human suffering growing exponentially with every fraction of a degree above 1.5.

The stakes are huge. Miss this goal and emissions keep rising, which the report estimates could lead to warming of 2.2–3.5 degrees (Celsius) by 2100.

PEAKING GLOBAL EMISSIONS: A MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB

Needless to say, peaking global emissions in just three years is a tall order. One of almost Everest-like proportions.

Despite years of promises by the international community and the historic accomplishment of the Paris Agreement, the report authors underscore that global emissions continued to grow over the last decade from 2010–2019.

Perhaps most concerningly with respect to 2025, a recent study shows that the first and third-greatest polluting nations – China and India, respectively – both rosebetween from 2019–2021. China’s current Paris Agreement commitment calls for the country to peak emissions “before 2030” but doesn’t specify a year. India, meanwhile, doesn’t plan to peak emissions before 2040 at the earliest.

(To be clear, India and China are not the sole villains in the global emissions picture, as both are working to develop and pull millions out of poverty. The US and EU, for example, are in no position to throw stones.)

The result, the report notes is that: “Without a strengthening of policies beyond those that are implemented by the end of 2020, GHG emissions are projected to rise beyond 2025, leading to a median global warming of 3.2 [2.2 to 3.5] °C by 2100.”

In short, the world is not doing enough. Not nearly.

THERE IS STILL A PATH TO A BETTER FUTURE. JUST.

There is an implicit note of hope here. For all the task of reaching net zero by 2050 is a huge one, we can still do it. But it’s going to take an unprecedented effort and we’re talking about making it by the proverbial skin of our 2050 teeth.

Much of the report is given to the steps we need to take quickly to accelerate just energy transition and social transformation. Some of the key takeaways here:

  • It’s going to take an all-of-society approach.
  • “All global modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot, and those that limit warming to 2°C (>67%) involve rapid and deep and in most cases immediate GHG emission reductions in all sectors.”
  • It’s going to mean shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy sources on a massive scale.
  • “Modelled mitigation strategies to achieve these reductions include transitioning . . . to very low- or zero-carbon energy sources.”
  • Energy transition alone won’t be enough to hold warming to 1.5 degrees – we need carbon removal technology too.
  • “[D]eploying carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods to counterbalance residual GHG emissions.”
  • Acting on climate and accelerating energy transition will make life better – and be cheaper than the alternative.
  • “The global economic benefit of limiting warming to 2°C is reported to exceed the cost of mitigation in most of the assessed literature.”
  • Wealthy nations have to step up and support developing countries at much higher levels than are currently pledged.
  • “Accelerated financial cooperation is a critical enabler of low-GHG and just transitions, and can address inequities in access to finance and the costs of, and vulnerability to, the impacts of climate change.”
  • The future of billions in developing nations depends on rapid energy transition and ambitious climate action.
  • “There is a strong link between sustainable development, vulnerability and climate risks. Limited economic, social and institutional resources often result in high vulnerability and low adaptive capacity, especially in developing countries.”
  • Perhaps most important, many of the tools we need for rapid emissions cuts – from better use of land resources to improving demand and efficiency to effective electric vehicles – are in our hands today.

THE TIMING MATTERS

There was, of course, no way for the IPCC to know it would be releasing the report at a time when the war in Ukraine is the backdrop to almost everything. And when the world is grappling with the real and wide-ranging costs of fossil fuels like perhaps never before.

But that’s exactly what’s happened. Even before Russian tanks rolled across the border, the EU was working on a new energy strategy to wean the bloc off Russian gas within the decade and – critically – accelerate the pace of clean energy transition. As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden told policymakers at a conference on February 19, “We are doubling down on renewables. This will increase Europe’s strategic independence.”

The war has – for Europe – added new urgency to this effort, with the EU now scrambling to cut its reliance on Russian gas by more than two-thirds this year. Meanwhile, in the US, President Biden has pointed to renewables as the path to not only providing true energy security and fighting global warming, but also protecting families from painful fuel prices.

What happens next and how quickly these statements turn into concrete policies is still an open question. Both the US and EU face real but solvable challenges to get to clean energy economies, and the Drill Baby Drill contingent in Congress is seizing every opportunity to argue for more of the same dirty energy that got us here in the first place.

With the world asking how can we keep the lights on without propping up murderous petro-state dictators and protect working families from crippling energy prices, the short-term strategy seems to be a lesser-of-two-evils approach, with Europe trying to trade Russian gas for US alternatives in a global game of energy musical chairs.

Long-term, simply trading one source of the same fossil fuels that got us here for another and expecting peace and democracy to flourish and low prices to return forever sounds a lot like the popular definition of insanity (i.e. doing the same thing twice and expecting different results). Vladimir Putin being far from the only petro-state dictator with a violent turn, and 2022 being not our first oil price spike rodeo.

Let’s be clear: this is a decision point, not just on how we heat our homes in 2022, but what the world looks like in 2052. And this is why the timing of the IPCC report matters, effectively reminding world leaders that responding to what Ukraine’s top climate scientist – and previous IPCC contributor – has called “a fossil fuel war”with more pipelines, terminals, and more is just an invitation to climate disaster: “The continued installation of unabated fossil fuel infrastructure will ‘lock-in’ GHG emissions (high confidence).”

The simple truth is that we cannot drill ourselves to safety or energy security. We cannot pretend the climate bill for doing so will not come due with devastating interest. The only path forward – for our families, our democracies, and our planet has to be to accelerate the just transition to clean energy already underway across the globe.

The stakes are clear. The steps we have to take – peak emissions by 2025 and rapidly reduce fossil fuels to reach net zero by 2050 – are too. It’s now or never. The timing of our collective response is everything.

TAKE ACTION

Learn how you can make a difference on climate when it matters by becoming a Climate Reality Leader. Join us for an upcoming training in Las Vegas, Nevada from June 11–13 and get the tools, know-how, and network to lead the fight for solutions.

Source: www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/ipcc-report-what-world-needs-hear-now