Deep ‘decarbonization’ by 2050 currently not plausible, study finds

Some climate theories aren’t plausible either, including the one that thinks that atmospheric goings-on are more important than ocean dynamics like El Niño and La Niña. But the fear show must go on.
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Today the Hamburg-based Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS) publishes a new, essential study on climate futures, reports Phys.org.

The study represents the first systematic attempt to investigate whether a climate future with net-zero carbon emissions is not only possible but also plausible.

The authors examine plausibility from a technical-economic perspective, but also with regard to the societal changes necessary for such a future.

They conclude that deep decarbonization by 2050 is currently not plausible—the current efforts to bring about societal transformation need to be far more ambitious.

The European Union is now increasing the ambition of its climate goals, and the German Federal Constitutional Court has recently committed Germany to implementing more ambitious climate action.

So, are we already on the path to a climate-neutral future? “Which climate futures are plausible is not only a physical question, it is at present especially a social one,” says CLICCS Speaker Prof. Detlef Stammer from Universität Hamburg.

“In the Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook we investigate the transformative power of social processes and have developed a completely new method for doing so. We’ll then combine the outcomes with findings from the natu-ral sciences, allowing us to narrow down, step by step, what’s plausible.”

The key factors being explored, also referred to as social drivers, include: United Nations’ climate policy, national climate legislation, protests and social movements, divesting from fossil fuel industries, and media coverage.

Crucially, none of the ten social drivers assessed in the Outlook appear to have enough momentum to reach deep decarbonization by 2050.

Yet reaching deep decarbonization by mid-century is vital if the climate targets laid out in the Paris Agreement are to be achieved.

Full report here.