Climate crisis worsens with 2022 emissions – 03/11/2023 – Marcelo Leite

The International Energy Agency (IEA, in English) tried to sweeten the pill, but the world suffered a new increase in greenhouse gases last year. “Global emissions rose less than initially feared,” the agency announced ten days ago.

The Pollyanna spirit seems to govern the report “CO Emissions_two in 2022″, which makes an overview of climate pollution generated by the energy sector. In focus, gases such as carbon dioxide (CO_two) resulting from the burning of fossil fuels for transport and electricity, which exacerbates global warming.

“The risk of runaway emissions growth from switching back to coal amid the global energy crisis fails to materialize as renewables, electric vehicles, heat exchangers, efficiency and other factors have contained the CO2 rise._two’ squirmed the IEA writer.

Compared to the 6% jump in 2021, the 0.9% growth can be considered small, especially in view of the 3.2% increase in world GDP. Two years ago, the planet’s economy was recovering from the impact of the Covid pandemic, and the increase in emissions reflected this recovery.

Then 2022 began, and with it the war in Ukraine. Dependent on natural gas from Russia’s aggressor, Europe revived mineral coal, the most damaging of fossil fuels for the climate, whose emissions increased by 1.6%.

Oil prices went even further, 2.5%. Still, they remained below levels seen before the pandemic.

As the IEA points out, the rebound was partly offset by the advance of renewable energies, such as wind and photovoltaic electricity. There is still no data for 2022, but in 2021 these clean sources had progressed by 7% — still, short of the speed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement (2015).

That’s the point: in order to prevent the atmosphere from warming by more than 2ºC, preferably not exceeding 1.5ºC, carbon emissions would have to drop by at least 45% by 2030 and reach zero by 2050. To reach the first goal, less than eight years to go, and they continue to grow, when they needed to retreat.

In this context, global warming will reach close to 3ºC by the year 2100, a bleak scenario. With the increase of 1.1ºC already in place, the 21st century has seen an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as rains on the north coast of São Paulo, forest fires, droughts and deadly heat waves.

In 2100 my granddaughter Marina will possibly still be alive, aged 78 (the life expectancy of women in Brazil should be 76 years, with the increase in mortality from Covid). She and her contemporaries will pay the price for our inability to respond to the greatest threat humanity has ever created for itself.

Don’t be fooled by the feeling of relief brought by the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the field of environmental policies. He promised zero deforestation, yes, because the main Brazilian source of greenhouse gases is the fruit closest to hand and a chant that Europeans and Americans like to hear.

The president is facing, however, the most retrograde Congress, riddled with ruralists who don’t care about the Amazon forest, the cerrado and the Atlantic forest. In addition, Lula has a fixation with Petrobras’ fossil fuels and has been boasting about building hydroelectric plants in the Amazon.

Yesterday’s man with yesterday’s ideas, in short. By the way, like Putin, Biden, Zelensky and co. Sorry Marina, you obviously can’t count on us.

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