The world climate reality is very clear, we do not have much time left to avoid the overflow of increasing climatic phenomena.
The environmental deterioration throughout the planet over the past year has been an important alert for humanity to act without delay, in a globally coordinated manner, to overcome the existing passivity on this issue, which is crucial for our future.
The World Meteorological Organization has just pointed out the environmental severity registered on the planet last year, highlighting the following facts: -Important fires in Pakistan, -Extensive droughts in Africa -Unprecedented melting of alpine glaciers -The Greenland ice sheet lost mass for 26 consecutive years and for the first time rain was recorded instead of snowfall, -The rate of sea level rise has doubled in the last 40 years.
-Great heat waves in Europe India, Pakistan and China, where no less than 40% of the world's population lives, have registered record temperatures. In our country, record temperatures have been registered in the center and north of the country.
The world is facing a great climate challenge, but at the same time it is also facing a global energy crisis, generated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia is an important exporter of fossil fuels, that is, pollutants, the prices of these fuels, such as gas, have grown strongly last year with values higher than those of the last decades.
Fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) have been increasing their production and consumption year after year since the Industrial Revolution, currently representing no less than 80% of world energy production.
The environmental impact of this increase has been, and continues to be, negative.
The United States government Observatory located in Mauna Loa (Hawaii), has been measuring daily the accumulated CO2 emissions that surround our Earth and that will remain in the atmosphere for many centuries.
Since the measurements began in 1956, increasing increases in these accumulated emissions have been recorded, a logical result of the fact that since the Industrial Revolution, the annual flow of these emissions has been growing year after year.
The current figures for Mauna Loa indicate that, at the current rate of emissions, we would cross the critical barrier of accumulated C02 in the next decade. We are depleting the available margin of global contamination, everything points to pointing out that delays in acting will continue to increase economic costs. environmental and social, the challenge is evident in the collective task to move towards a new generation of energy without emissions.
Of course, China and the United States should accompany these efforts, taking into account that these two nations represent almost half of the annual emissions of all 200 nations in the world.
Due to all the current evidence, the International Energy Agency alerts us, highlighting that if new and different energy policies are not implemented globally, polluting emissions will continue to increase, pointing out that the era of fossil fuels should already be part of humanity's past.
The historic era of "clean energy", that is to say without emissions, among which we find wind, solar, hydro and nuclear, and also new forms of energy such as hydrogen, must begin without delay.
This radical change in the global energy matrix will require increasing investments, with the goal being that by the middle of this century, in just 27 more years, polluting energy emissions will be eliminated.
Achieving this goal requires the rapid expansion of clean energy, pointing to the fact that in the next decade these clean energies represent no less than 40% of the total, that is, double what they currently are.
The task that humanity must face is complex, because we must take into account that by the middle of this century the world population will have grown by 1.7 billion inhabitants, at the same time as the world production of goods and services, which grows year by year, by 2050 it will be double the current one.
Naturally these expansions will tend to increase world energy consumption.
Keep in mind that if we want to eliminate energy emissions by 2050 we must start this year, the electricity sector can lead this process by modifying its main forms of generation, promoting the rapid expansion of clean energy.
The result of this modification will be the reduction of the consumption of fossil fuels from now on, moving rapidly towards a totally “clean” electricity generation.
The great change to promote should be the drastic reduction of the world production of all fossils, thus strengthening a new global energy scenario without polluting CO2 emissions. It is good news to note that this positive process is already being promoted by the reduction of costs of major renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
Another piece of good news, highlighted by the International Energy Agency, is that the use of hydrogen is increasing. The countries were summoned by the United Nations to the recent world meeting in Egypt to address the care of our Earth.
27 of these meetings have already been held, the first taking place in Berlin in 1995, the results have not been encouraging for the future of the Earth, since polluting emissions not only have not decreased since then but are now no less than 53%. elderly.
We have wasted a lot of time, it is time to effectively agree among nations on the best way to care for our Common Home. The transition to a future with clean energy is not a simple task, but the longer we take, the higher the costs.
Alieto Aldo Guadagni is a former Secretary of Energy, member of the University of Belgrano and the Argentine Academy of Environmental Sciences
