Global emissions to peak by 2025

Global emissions are expected to peak by 2025. This is exciting. It sounds like solar is the main reason.

https://electrek.co/2023/10/23/iea-predicts-that-global-emissions-will-peak-by-2025/

2025 is only 14 months away.  I honestly don't believe that.  I myself have moved now to 100% solar, but I look around and still see everyone else oblivious to their consumption.  Once I even see people obeying the speed limit, I will start to change my mind.

Michael Qulek wrote:2025 is only 14 months away.  I honestly don't believe that.

Nor do I. The most populous nations on Earth are building coal fired power plants at a breakneck pace, and grid scale storage for renewable energy is a long ways off.

I think many people get the impression that if they reduce their electrical bill to net zero, they've covered their part of the equation. What many people don't realize is their percentage of all the industrial power usage that most people won't be able to cover with their solar panels.

I'm thinking things like municipal water pumps/sewage treatment as daily overhead, embodied energy in roads and the cost to make road building materials, and all the industrial energy that makes things that we buy every day. Many of us permies are I think, more aware of such issues, and we often try to live lighter on the land, but I'm with Michael and Douglas in thinking that there are not enough of us to accomplish this in just 14 months.

That said, I haven't read the article yet and the word "peak" means just that - we will stop going higher. But that doesn't mean we'll start reducing emissions, nor does it say whether we'll reduce emissions fast enough to slow the speed at which the Canadian Arctic is warming.

There are also a great many interacting forces at play which could easily tip things one way or another. I personally would put my efforts towards encouraging people around me to live lighter on the land, plant a garden, turn off lights when they leave the room, and not waste so much food that they buy! I do hope our global leaders will keep the pressure up on the big guys for me, but I'm going to keep working at the community level.

I can only hope that more progress is going to be made. I know that a few paper mills in New York that I am in contact with are trying to resurrect seized up or dilapidated hydroelectric generators with varying success at this time. This isn't to save the planet, but instead to keep local costs low. It might seem kind of silly, but the end result is a positive. A site that I have worked at can roughly provide all the electrical power they would need to run, and when the site is not in operation the hydro's still run and send power to the grid. This does not correct the natural gas consumption for the boilers at the site but it lessens the overall impact.

Just as well, as the point where we reach 1.5C above has been brought forward!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67242386

So I did a little digging and it looks like it’s peak emissions from electricity generation. Nothing about transport, housing or food production.

If someone wants to try to find the actual data, here’s the summary of IEA’s report. https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2023/executive-summary

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Michael Qulek wrote:2025 is only 14 months away.  I honestly don't believe that.

Nor do I. The most populous nations on Earth are building coal fired power plants at a breakneck pace, and grid scale storage for renewable energy is a long ways off.

Hold on, at least China is trying to do something about their transport sector. Their high speed rail system makes us in the west look stupid.