Source: Cell Press

Articles from this source (14)

Post-growth: A viable path to limiting global warming to 1.5°C

  2024-02-08 (or before) in Cell Press

Existing climate mitigation scenarios tend to project a high GDP growth, even though growth leads to increased energy use and emissions. We show that pathways of low growth make it possible to pursue ambitious mitigation with a slower build-up of low-carbon energy and lower improvements in energy efficiency. Low growth is typically associated with poverty and social challenges; however, we argue that novel post-growth interventions could decrease social inequalities while also helping to protect the climate.

  Tagged under: Degrowth | Economic Growth | Climate Change Mitigation

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Coming in from the cold: Heat pump efficiency at low temperatures

  2023-11-01 (or before) in Cell Press

Heat pumps have emerged as a key tool in the global transition toward clean and reliable energy and have been identified in multiple net-zero scenarios as the most important future heating technology. A question frequently raised is how well these devices perform when temperatures drop below freezing. This commentary responds to this question by analyzing field studies with real-world performance data of air-source heat pumps.

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Potential pension fund losses should not deter high-income countries from bold climate action

  2023-06-24 (or before) in Cell Press

Governments in advanced economies must consider potential social repercussions of stranded fossil-fuel asset ownership. We show that the vast majority of stranded assets (two-thirds of the total) are held by the wealthiest 10% of individuals. Stranded asset losses constitute less than 2% of the wealth of the top 10%. Given this stark inequality, any potential financial loss incurred by low and middle groups can be compensated at low cost by governments and poses no credible deterrent to ambitious climate policy.

  Tagged under: Fossil Fuels | Finance

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Time to pay the piper: Fossil fuel companies’ reparations for climate damages

  2023-05-25 (or before) in Cell Press

The calls for climate reparations are rapidly growing in the scientific literature, among climate movements, and in the policy debate. This article proposes morally based reparations for oil, gas, and coal producers, presents a methodological approach for their implementation, and quantifies reparations for the top twenty-one fossil fuel companies.

  Tagged under: Oil Industry

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Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition

  2023-04-10 (or before) in Cell Press

Decisions about how and when to decarbonize the global energy system are highly influenced by estimates of the likely cost. Here, we generate empirically validated probabilistic forecasts of energy technology costs and use these to estimate future energy system costs under three scenarios. Compared to continuing with a fossil fuel-based system, a rapid green energy transition is likely to result in trillions of net savings, even without accounting for climate damages or climate policy co-benefits.

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The Unintended Side Effects of Bioplastics: Carbon, Land, and Water Footprints

  2022-11-03 (or before) in Cell Press

In this Perspective, Brizga et al. assess the potential environmental consequences (in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and land and water footprints) of substituting petrochemical plastics with bioplastics produced from renewable feedstock. Global bioplastic production is not sufficient to meet European packaging demand, and substituting petrochemical plastic packaging with bioplastic results in increased land and water use. Unless we find ways to decrease plastic demand, efforts to address plastic pollution using bioplastics are likely to prove temporary and inadequate.

  Tagged under: Renewable Energy | Greenhouse Gases

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Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition

  2022-09-13 (or before) in Cell Press

Decisions about how and when to decarbonize the global energy system are highly influenced by estimates of the likely cost. Here, we generate empirically validated probabilistic forecasts of energy technology costs and use these to estimate future energy system costs under three scenarios. Compared to continuing with a fossil fuel-based system, a rapid green energy transition is likely to result in trillions of net savings, even without accounting for climate damages or climate policy co-benefits.

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The homogenization of avian morphological and phylogenetic diversity under the global extinction crisis

  2022-08-15 (or before) in Cell Press

The global extinction crisis will lead to widespread losses of morphological diversity. Hughes et al. show that predicted species extinctions drive far greater declines of ecological strategies than predicted, with important ramifications for humans as ecosystem services are lost. In contrast, phylogenetic diversity declines as expected.

  Tagged under: Predictions | Extinction

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Carbon capture and storage at the end of a lost decade

  2022-05-30 (or before) in Cell Press

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) provides a direct means to achieve the transition to net-zero. We show that the gap between what is expected from CCS and what has been delivered is still significant. Facility deployment, proven storage capacity, and storage rates must increase to play a part in CO2 mitigation. There must also be a greater global effort with government and multinational corporation engagement, and a rapid step-change in policy to avoid disillusionment toward the usefulness of CCS.

  Tagged under: Net Zero | Climate Change Mitigation | Carbon Capture and Storage

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Storage Requirements and Costs of Shaping Renewable Energy Toward Grid Decarbonization

  2022-05-15 (or before) in Cell Press

Solar and wind energy can help to decarbonize electricity production but require other technologies, such as energy storage, to reliably meet demand. We study systems combining intermittent renewables with storage and other technologies and compare their electricity costs to alternatives. We estimate that in high-resource regions, with optimal resource mixes, low storage energy capacity costs (

  Tagged under: Renewable Energy | Solar Energy | Electricity | Electricity Grid | Wind Power

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Tropical deforestation accelerates local warming and loss of safe outdoor working hours

  2021-12-18 (or before) in Cell Press

Tropical deforestation is associated with local warming, but the extent to which this warming impacts populations across the tropics remains understudied. We examine deforestation-associated increases in heat exposure across the tropics. We find that recent tropical deforestation was associated with an increase in heat exposure for 4.9 million people, including 2.8 million outdoor workers. Furthermore, future global warming will exacerbate these impacts. These results highlight the importance of the local cooling services that tropical forests provide for populations vulnerable to climate change.

  Tagged under: Deforestation | Climate Change | Climate Change Impacts | Trees

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Rhetoric and frame analysis of ExxonMobil's climate change communications

  2021-11-18 (or before) in Cell Press

This is the first computational assessment of how ExxonMobil has used language to subtly yet systematically frame public discourse about climate change. We show that ExxonMobil uses rhetoric mimicking the tobacco industry to downplay the reality and seriousness of climate change, to present fossil fuel dominance as reasonable and inevitable, and to shift responsibility for climate change away from itself and onto consumers. Our work is relevant to lawsuits, policy proposals, and grassroots activism seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for deceptive marketing.

  Tagged under: Exxon | Climate Change | Activism

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DEFINE_ME

  2021-10-25 (or before) in Cell Press

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DEFINE_ME

  2020-09-20 (or before) in Cell Press

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