James Hansen and Pushker Kharecha - The Acid Test: Global Temperature in 2025

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Who are you arguing with?

You’re saying a lot of stuff, most of it irrelevant to anything I have said. You’ve yet again posted the same table from an appendix. (Have you read the report?)


https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2024

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1.5.3 Clean power needs to scale up faster to get on track for net zero emissions

While clean power is gaining momentum, today’s policy settings and market conditions do not deliver fast enough growth to move onto a pathway to net zero emissions. In the NZE Scenario, which does move countries collectively onto such a pathway, global clean power generation increases twice as fast to 2035 as in the STEPS. To close the gap between the STEPS and the NZE Scenario through to 2035, clean power needs to expand 1.5-times faster in China, 1.9-times faster in advanced economies, and three-times faster in the other emerging market and developing economies. The faster uptake of clean power in the NZE Scenario leads to an 85% reduction in unabated coal-fired power and a 55% reduction in unabated gas-fired power by 2035, compared with a 35% reduction for coal-fired power and virtually no change for natural gas in the STEPS. To create the widest path possible to net zero emissions, all clean power technologies make a bigger contribution to reducing emissions than they do in the STEPS, though these contributions are differentiated by how mature and accessible the technologies are, by their respective costs, and by technology preferences in various economies, which are often expressed through differences in national policies.



Despite their growth in the STEPS, solar PV and wind need to expand more than any other clean energy technologies to close the gap between the STEPS and the NZE Scenario, with the latter calling for an additional 7 000 TWh of solar PV and 5 000 TWh of wind by 2035 (Figure 1.17). The additional growth required in the NZE Scenario reflects the widespread availability of solar PV and wind, the strong policy support they enjoy in most countries and their cost advantages, since they are now the cheapest new sources of electricity in most markets. In the case of solar PV, it also reflects the excess manufacturing capacity that already exists, and which is anticipated to augment in the coming years (IEA, 2024d). A number of actions need to be taken to deliver the additional solar PV and wind called for in the NZE Scenario: these will vary from country to country but are likely in many cases to include taking immediate steps to address permitting and licensing issues, resolve grid connection delays and accelerate deployment of batteries and other energy storage technologies. Special efforts are needed to scale up financing for clean power in emerging market and developing economies outside China (section 1.8).

Vital as solar PV and wind are, the deployment of a wide set of dispatchable low-emissions sources, including hydropower, bioenergy and nuclear power, is essential for affordable and secure clean energy transitions. The NZE Scenario calls for about 1 000 TWh more hydro by 2035 than the STEPS does, and for about 650 TWh more bioenergy. While they are both mature technologies, their potential for growth is more limited than that of solar and wind, not least because of the limits on resource availability. There is also a gap of about 1 400 TWh between the NZE Scenario and the STEPS on nuclear power. This is significant, but much smaller than those for solar PV and wind: not all countries choose to use nuclear technology, and it involves relatively high initial costs and long construction times.

If the power sector is to lead the way to net zero emissions, new low-emissions options need to be brought to market by 2035. Small modular reactors are one of these technologies, and their development helps to accelerate the contribution of nuclear in the NZE Scenario. The deployment of carbon capture technologies and the use of low-emissions hydrogen and ammonia are also important, since they can be used to reduce emissions from existing coal- fired power plants which between them would use the entire remaining carbon budget to 1.5 °C if operated as they are today (IEA, 2022). By 2035, fossil fuels with CCUS and low- emissions hydrogen and ammonia start to make an impact in the NZE Scenario: together they deliver an additional 1 100 TWh over what is in the STEPS, setting them up to play an important part in decarbonising energy beyond 2035.

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