Climate change may still be an existential threat to humanity, but as Earth Day 2024 approaches on Monday, some of those most concerned about the planet are not selling doom but optimism. They are spreading the word.
They say there are many good things. There are significant advances made in the fight against climate change, decades of work that have led to the aversion of other environmental disasters, and the reality that hope can help spur the actions needed to tackle the climate crisis.
“People think we haven't made any progress in the 50 years since the first Earth Day. We're in a worse position now than we were in the 1970s, and there's no point in environmental activism.” said Hannah Ritchie, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford in the UK who studies sustainability in relation to climate change.
Quite the opposite is true. Climate-smart progress that seemed impossible even 10 years ago is now commonplace. And humanity has faced and solved large-scale human-induced global environmental problems three times in the past 50 years.
Some climate scientists think climate change could be added to the list this Earth Day.
Although that reality is still far away, we have made more progress than you might think. It's like humans having to climb the world's tallest mountain, says Katherine Hayhoe, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy and distinguished professor of climate science at Texas Tech University.
Wind and solar power are the cheapest electricity on the planet. Heat pumps come up in most heating and cooling discussions. Electric cars are now mainstream.
On Monday, the Biden administration announced $7 billion in grants to bring solar power to more than 900,000 homes in low-income and disadvantaged areas, and additional funding for climate-friendly activities. Offer will be made. The White House announced that the president's actions will save more than $350 million a year in electricity costs over the next 25 years, or about $400 per household.
“It's like climbing the highest mountain in the world. No matter how much you walk and walk and climb and climb, you never seem to get any closer to the top,” Hayhoe said. But when he looks back, he realizes how far he has come. ”
Even former Sen. and Vice President Al Gore, who famously began warning Americans about global warming in 1981, is feeling a little more positive.
In March, he acknowledged to USA TODAY that things weren't moving fast enough, but added, “We're getting through this, we're gaining momentum, and we'll soon be overcoming the crisis itself.” he said.
Three major climate wins in 50 years
Humanity has already achieved remarkable victories on other major and seemingly intractable environmental problems.
The insecticide DDT was considered a miracle in the fight against mosquitoes and other pests when it was first introduced in the 1940s. It wasn't until the late 1950s that scientists connected the dots between declining bird populations and new wonder chemicals. DDT thinned egg shells, causing nesting mothers to crush their babies and endangering many species, including the bald eagle.
But DDT was banned in 1972, and by 2007 the bald eagle had made such a comeback that it was removed from the endangered species list.
Or look up at the sky and think about the ozone layer, which protects us from UV rays. In the early 1980s, scientists first discovered a hole in an important protective layer of the atmosphere. Without it, fields would burn and the outdoors would become unviable. Despite the cost and the enormity of the problem, countries around the world signed the Montreal Protocol to phase out the chlorofluorocarbons that caused the hole. Ozone is currently repairing itself and is expected to return to 1980 levels by 2060.
Then came acid rain, a byproduct of burning coal that contains sulfur. Beginning in the 1950s, it killed off forests, lakes, and streams across large swathes of the Northeast, and public awareness of the dangers increased in the 1970s. The Clean Air Act of 1990 helped limit sulfur emissions, and levels began to fall.
Global CO2 emissions could reach a peak next year
When considering the grim news about carbon dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere, the root cause of global warming, it is important to remember that history.
Last year, they reached 420 ppm, the highest point in human history. This is an increase from his 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution. During this time, global temperatures have increased by about 2 degrees Celsius.
But there are other things happening that have received less attention but are very promising. Experts, including the International Energy Agency, say that using scenarios based on current policy settings, global carbon dioxide emissions will probably peak next year, and certainly by 2030.
This means that 2023 is very likely to be the year when greenhouse gas emissions reach their highest level on record, and that number will only continue to decline.
Although this will not replace all the CO2 that has been pumped into the Earth's atmosphere since the mid-1700s, it is an important milestone and shows that the energy shift is already well underway. is showing.
last year:On Earth Day, scientists tell us what 2050 will be like. Their answers may surprise you.
IEA Director-General Fatih Birol said last year: “The transition to clean energy is happening all over the world and there is no stopping it.” “It's not a question of 'if', it's just a question of 'how soon'.”
However, current emissions levels are one-third higher than needed to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Celsius. Therefore, global per capita emissions still have to be significantly reduced. But while progress is being made, Ritchie said that progress is not always obvious to the public.
Clean energy is now the cheapest energy
That progress is backed by more good news. Clean energy from solar and wind power has become much cheaper and much faster than many climate experts expected.
“The world is in a fundamentally different place than it was in 1970. Even just 10 years ago, we were in a completely different position,” said Ritchie, whose book, It's Not the End of the World: Our “How to become the first generation to build a sustainable planet'' was published in January.
Solar, wind, and battery power are now dramatically cheaper than they were a decade ago. By 2023, electricity from wind and solar will be significantly cheaper than electricity from coal, nuclear, and natural gas.
The unsubsidized cost of wind power has fallen by 66% since 2009, while the unsubsidized cost of solar power has fallen by 84%, according to an analysis by Lazard, a financial advisory firm that publishes annual estimates of the total cost of electricity generation. It fell.
Ritchie said that even five years ago, he was quite pessimistic because the cost of clean energy was so high. It doesn't worry her anymore.
“We've seen this really dramatic change,” she said. “Solar and wind have gone from being the most expensive energy technologies ever to being cheaper than fossil fuels. This is a fundamental shift and will change the speed at which we transition to low carbon technologies. .”
Costs are changing so rapidly that even experts have difficulty keeping up.
“If you look at the data from just a few years ago, you can see that we're way behind,” Ritchie said.
These changes are occurring not only in the United States but around the world. Although China remains the world's largest carbon emitter and continues to build coal-fired power plants, it is also transitioning extremely rapidly to renewable energy.
According to S&P Global, new solar, wind and hydropower in China will account for 59% of the world's new renewable energy in 2023.
“Last year alone, China installed as much solar power as the United States has installed in its entire history,” Ritchie said.
The International Energy Agency also says demand for oil, coal and gas will peak by 2030 as the number of electric vehicles increases around the world and China continues to shift to wind and solar power. There is.
Its predictions are based on current policies in countries around the world.
It remains too high to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global average temperature rise.
But Hayhoe points out that when the first national climate assessment was released in 2000, temperatures were predicted to rise by up to 7.2 to 9 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. It is currently predicted that by the end of this century the world will warm by 4.8 degrees. “And every time we take another step up the mountain, that number goes down,” she said.
There's hope on the horizon
Ritchie says that while the efforts needed to solve climate change may seem daunting, they are actually less serious than one might think. “Solutions overlap, so by working on one problem you can improve others at the same time,” she said.
Keeping this front and center can be difficult. The same voices that have denied climate change for decades are now adding so-called fatalism to their toolbox, saying it is too late and there is no hope.
Mr Hayhoe said even those devastated by climate change could become frozen in their inaction.
“There are people who get very panicked and fall into this very unhelpful fatalism,” she said.
Meanwhile, Gore is also someone who is in awe of human progress.
“If you had told me years ago that by 2023, 80% of the world's new electricity generation would come from solar and wind, I would have thought, 'Wow. “That's great!'' But that happened last year. If someone told you that 20% of new cars sold around the world were going to be electric, that would also be unbelievable.'' told USA TODAY in March.
“I often quote the late economist Rudy Dornbusch's famous quote: Things take longer than you think, but then they happen faster than you think,” he says.
Contributor: Michael Collins, USA TODAY
