With all the talk about global climate change (and lack of talk during the Republican presidential debates), it may be easy to miss the fact that not all the news is doom and gloom. Consider that:
- The Paris Accord in 2015–Ministers from 195 countries agreed to restrict fossil fuel consumption with a goal to limit global warming to 2 degrees Centigrade.
- Whether the world can hit the agreed to targets remains to be seen, but the global carbon emissions has leveled off in 2014 and 2015. While part of that may be due to a slowdown in the Chinese economy, global economies grew while carbon emission shrank. That fact seems to have been lost on the Republican presidential candidates, who promise to walk away from the Paris Accord in order to protect the American economy.
For more information, there is a nice write-up in the Economist, which you can read here. - Another sign for optimism comes from the fact that a larger percentage of new energy generation is coming from renewable sources, primarily wind. So, even as economies grow and consume more power, they can still release less carbon. For more information, try this article in Bloomberg on the booming US renewable energy market, which you can read here.
- Most significantly, China is making the transition to renewables, and faster than their emissions targets would dictate. This would hint that fast growing global economies can continue their expansion without depending solely on coal to power their factories. For more information, try this Cleantechnica article by clicking here.
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