The FT has reported that:
Extreme weather drove the growth in energy demand last year to its highest level since 2010, triggering warnings of a “vicious cycle” fuelled by reliance on heating and cooling systems that could worsen the world's carbon emissions crisis.
Energy group BP said in its closely watched annual market review that energy consumption grew 2.9 per cent in 2018, led by China and the US, despite modest economic growth and strengthening oil and gas prices.
Have the feedback loops that could make the climate crisis so much worse already begun to have an impact?
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Probably, as sea water warms up its ability to absorb and sink CO2 is reduced, this could be the reason for some of the increase, but sadly fossil fuel use is going up rapidly despite the advaces in renewables. It seems that emissions are inextricably linked to economic activity and improvements in lifestyle (whatever that means) so unless we can more or less decarbonise the economy, how are we going to make any impact?
Desp
With great difficulty…
It will take a major incident, which can immediately & indisputably be proven to have been caused by climate change, before we all wake up…!
Even then Trump will not believe it…!
Although energy consumption rose, there is no reason why the rise could not have been met by renewables. That it was not is reflective of the fact that the build out of renewables is not proceeding fast enough. In the case of hot climes and air conditioning – PV coupled to an air conditioning unit that also generates a block of ice (google “Ice bear”) can provide day time and after-sunset cooling, heat pumps and or hydrogen provide an answer to the need for heat. The tech is all there – the political focus is not.
In the UK, there is no government (at a meeting last week in London – the BEIS representative admitted that there is no UK government), in the EU, the current crop of political dolts are more focused on migration & have declared this will be the focus of the new commission – sthus will they focus on symptoms – not causes.
As the internal XR Commission group notes: the top bananas are badly informed (if they are informed at all) and usually incapable of making decisions – mainly because they lack the knowledge to identify the best options. What they want is a fully worked out solution – presented to them – on a plate. I have no doubt this situation is repeatedin all EU member states and globally – policial elites with feet of clay.