{"id":135749,"date":"2025-11-15T04:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T04:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/135749\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T04:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T04:06:09","slug":"if-we-stick-to-the-current-climate-trajectory-were-gonna-fry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/135749\/","title":{"rendered":"If we stick to the current climate trajectory we’re gonna fry"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world is on track for 2.6 \u00b0C of heating. That\u00a0headline should terrify everybody the way it terrifies climate scientists. The latest comes from media coverage of the International Energy Agency\u2019s\u00a0519-page World Energy Outlook 2025<\/a> report released Wednesday. The IEA also notes that the ongoing green transition \u2014 which has been an encouraging counterpoint to climate pessimism \u2014 is slowing down, thanks in large part to the Trump regime\u2019s outright war on renewables.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve become numb to the numbers. Polls show repeatedly that despite what\u2019s happening with the climate right this minute, and despite what scientists have warned us is yet to come, only a small fraction of Americans include climate as a top priority for action. As any activist can tell you,\u00a0lots of people don\u2019t want to talk about climate at all.<\/p>\n

At one level, this is understandable given the dystopian horror show being visited on us by the regime and all its acolytes, including a big chunk of establishment media. There are plenty of immediate impacts to worry about: rising food and housing prices; crippling regulatory agencies; slashed budgets; killing\u00a0programs and grants; erasing\u00a0old \u2014 and refusing to gather new \u2014 data on a range of matters; kicking out immigrants who have lived here decades or all their lives; and mucking around with Medicaid, Medicare \u2014 and soon enough quite probably, Social Security. Under these circumstances, it\u2019s not hard to understand why climate isn\u2019t very high on most people\u2019s roster of concerns.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot2025-11-13at8.37.23AM.png\"<\/p>\n

Not so for Native peoples faced with sea-level rise on the Alaska and Louisiana coasts, or the families and businesses of a drought-ridden Southwest, or the workers in much of the country ever more affected by extreme heat, or the people on the Atlantic coast suffering \u201c100-year floods\u201d every 10\u00a0years.<\/p>\n

Two-point-six degrees Celsius (4.7 \u00b0F) of warming is, for most, an abstract statistic. However it translates into the collapse of ice sheets, the drowning of coastlines, the eventual loss of millions of lives to heat, hunger, and floods. It means an Earth that would feel\u00a0alien to the one our grandparents knew. And if the predictions of our current trajectory are right, it means we are\u00a0failing, utterly, to act in time to deter this.<\/p>\n

At the COP30 climate summit now conferencing in the Amazon city of Bel\u00e9m, Brazil, delegates are again pledging \u201cambition,\u201d again vowing to \u201caccelerate\u201d the \u201ctransition.\u201d But the IEA \u2014 whose reports have long been treated as the gold standard for energy forecasting \u2014 projects that global greenhouse-gas emissions will continue rising through 2050 <\/a>under current policies. In its so-called \u201cStated Policies Scenario,\u201d which assumes governments actually follow through on their announced commitments, the agency notes that the aspirational limit of 1.5 \u00b0C (2.7 \u00b0F) is all but dead. And as we have repeatedly learned over the decade since the Paris Agreement was signed, only a few nations are on a trajectory to meet those commitments. It\u2019s also clear that some nations \u2014 the United States aggressively among them \u2014 are not just missing their commitments, they\u2019re retreating from them.<\/p>\n

If this were a movie, it would be the scene where the alarm starts flashing red and the protagonist finally yanks the emergency brake. But in the real world, the train keeps accelerating.<\/p>\n

The Mirage of \u201cPeak Oil\u201d<\/p>\n

Just months ago, IEA reports were being heralded \u2014 especially by Western governments \u2014 as proof that fossil-fuel demand had peaked. \u201cThe age of oil is over,\u201d policymakers reassured us, as if the market itself were solving the crisis. But the 2025 Outlook is a cold shower (unless you\u2019re\u00a0hip deep in shares of\u00a0fossil-fuel companies).<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s\u00a0\u201cRevived Policy Scenario\u201d now shows no peak in oil or gas demand this decade. Instead, consumption will keep climbing for another quarter-century, it predicts. Fossil-fuel companies, far from winding down, are ramping up. New exploration projects are planned in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and West Africa. U.S. liquefied-natural-gas exports are set to triple. According to IEA data, investments in oil and gas infrastructure remain double what would be compatible with a 1.5 \u00b0C pathway. The so-called \u201cenergy transition\u201d is being built atop a mountain of oil, gas, and coal.\u00a0The outcome? Renewable energy is expanding as an add-on instead of a substitute, grafted onto an unchanged fossil economy. A hybrid monster.<\/p>\n

x<\/p>\n

The IEA has brought back the Current Policies Scenario (CPS) in the World Energy Outlook (WEO).<\/p>\n

I think this will be useful. Fossil CO2 emissions keep rising, when they should be falling. It is time to admit that. So I hope the CPS can help address this issue.<\/p>\n

www.iea.org\/reports\/worl…<\/p>\n

1\/<\/p>\n

\u2014 Glen Peters (@glenpeters.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-11-12T10:25:30.428Z<\/a><\/p>\n

Said<\/a>\u00a0Rachel Cletus, senior policy director for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe IEA\u2019s latest report underscores the daunting challenge ahead for rapidly decarbonizing the world\u2019s economy but also highlights the opportunity for tremendous wins for consumers\u2019 pocketbooks,\u00a0public health\u00a0and addressing energy\u00a0poverty\u00a0that pathway provides.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the world on the brink of overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius, it\u2019s crucial to prioritize renewable energy, energy efficiency and a climate-resilient energy system. A fast fair phaseout of fossil fuels\u2014coal, oil and gas\u2014is also essential, yet nations continue to recklessly expand these polluting sources of energy at odds with climate goals. All too many political leaders are beholden to entrenched fossil fuel interests who are profiting off perpetuating a fossil fuel-based economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cContrary to the IEA\u2019s framing, cooperation and collaboration among countries will be key to accelerating the manufacture and deployment of clean energy technologies globally.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt COP30, we need world leaders to live up to the commitments they made in Dubai to advance a clean energy transition within this critical decade. Richer nations must also provide finance to lower-income countries to enable this transition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe choice for decision-makers should be clear: either they invest in a fast, fair transition to clean energy that brings overwhelming benefits, or they will force people to face the rapidly escalating harms and costs of unchecked climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Math of Catastrophe<\/p>\n

Every fraction of a degree of added warming magnifies disaster. At 1.5\u00b0C, hundreds of millions face extreme heat waves every five years. At 2\u00b0C, those heat waves come every year. At 2.6\u00b0C, vast regions of the tropics become uninhabitable for outdoor work. Crop yields collapse. Water crises multiply. Sea-level rise displaces tens of millions. Coral reefs vanish entirely. Arctic summer ice becomes a memory.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t \u201cclimate change\u201d anymore; it\u2019s climate disintegration. The \u201csafe operating space\u201d for humanity \u2014 what scientists call the planetary boundaries \u2014 is being breached on multiple fronts. And the world\u2019s governments, knowing this, continue to approve new drilling leases and subsidize fossil fuels to the tune of $1.3 trillion annually. Even in Brazil, whose\u00a0COP30 hosts have a good recent record on deforestation and talk smart about acting on climate, oil leases in the Amazon River delta are being pondered.<\/p>\n

Unless you agree with Trump and crew that solar panels and wind turbines don\u2019t actually work, our problem isn\u2019t technological or scientific. It\u2019s political and economic. As Glen Peters of the CICERO Center for International Climate Research<\/a> put it, \u201ca system that talks transition while investing in the opposite.\u201d Oil and gas majors are planning 25 years of expansion, locking in infrastructure that will keep emissions rising through mid-century. These aren\u2019t just business decisions\u2014they are death sentences written in corporate shorthand.<\/p>\n

Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare\u00a0\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0The Guardian,\u00a0\u201cA world at 2.6\u00b0C means global disaster,\u201d adding that could mean passing tipping points including\u00a0the\u00a0death of coral reefs<\/a>\u00a0and the transformation of the\u00a0Amazon rainforest into\u00a0savanna.\u00a0\u201c[These and other changes\u00a0mean]\u00a0the end of\u00a0agriculture\u00a0in the UK and across Europe,\u00a0drought\u00a0and monsoon failure in Asia and\u00a0Africa, lethal heat and humidity,\u201d he explained. \u201cThis is not a good place to be. You want to stay away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

What drives this madness is the logic of profit in a carbon-addicted capitalism. Fossil fuels remain the most lucrative commodities on Earth, and governments \u2014 especially those of the United States, Canada, and the Gulf monarchies \u2014 are structurally dependent on their revenues and geopolitics. Wall Street and the City of London bankroll extraction because for rank-and-file shareholders and CEOs alike, quarterly returns trump civilizational\u00a0survival. As one climate advocate told <\/a>Olivia Rosane at Common Dreams, \u201cThe fossil fuel industry is still running the show, and the IEA is simply describing the theater\u00a0of the absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot2025-11-13at10.53.48AM.png\"<\/p>\n

Justice on Paper<\/p>\n

At COP30, delegates from the Global South are demanding a \u201cjust transition\u201d \u2014 a reordering of global energy and finance that puts justice, not profit, at the center. They are right to insist on it. The poorest nations, responsible for a fraction of historic emissions, are bearing the brunt of the damage. Yet even as the by now\u00a0hoary term\u00a0\u201cjust transition\u201d makes its way into speeches and communiqu\u00e9s, the funding to make it real remains microscopic.<\/p>\n

Loss-and-damage finance, promised at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, has trickled in at a rate that would\u00a0barely\u00a0cover the flood damages from a single hurricane season. Debt-burdened nations are told to invest in clean energy while paying interest to the very banks that financed the fossil boom. Climate justice becomes another diplomatic slogan.<\/p>\n

A genuine just transition would mean massive wealth transfers: hundreds of billions annually in grants, not loans; cancellation of odious debts; technology sharing without patents; and democratic control of energy systems. It would mean planning, not markets, guiding the shift\u2014an end to the illusion that private capital will decarbonize out of the goodness of its heart. But at COP30, as in every COP before it, it appears that the proposals that could make such transformation real are being politely ignored. However, the summit isn\u2019t yet half over.<\/p>\n

U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres called the likely failure to stay below 1.5\u00b0C \u201ca moral collapse.\u201d \u00a0He\u2019s right. But the phrase doesn\u2019t quite capture the scale of betrayal. The moral calculus is obscene: every new well, every gas terminal, every pipeline built in 2025 and beyond is a guarantee that somewhere, a village will drown or a harvest will fail.<\/p>\n

This is the dark heart of what Naomi Klein has\u00a0called disaster capitalism\u00a0<\/a>\u2014 a system that monetizes catastrophe and sells us the ashes as growth. It is, in Orwellian fashion, a politics of doublespeak \u2014where \u201cnet zero by 2050\u201d serves as a permission slip for more emissions today, and \u201ccarbon capture\u201d is the alibi for endless extraction.<\/p>\n

What Is To\u00a0Be Done<\/p>\n

The math is pitiless, but not hopeless. Every tenth of a degree avoided still saves lives. The world can still slam the brakes, but only if it abandons the too gradual incrementalism that has defined climate diplomacy for three decades. The steps are not mysterious; they are simply politically inconvenient:<\/p>\n

No new fossil-fuel development. Expanding is collective suicide.<\/p>\n

Redirect subsidies and finance. The $1.3 trillion annually propping up fossil fuels should be redirected to renewables, efficiency, and adaptation\u2014especially in the Global South.<\/p>\n

Public ownership and democratic planning. Energy transitions cannot be left entirely to corporations whose fiduciary duty is profit. There are models for alternatives at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

Repair and redistribution. Wealthy nations owe a climate debt to the developmentally emerging\u00a0ones. Paying it is not charity; it is restitution.<\/p>\n

Mobilize like it\u2019s war\u2014because it is.<\/p>\n

If we do not confront the fossil-fuel titans, overhaul global finance, and reclaim democracy over energy,no future COP will\u00a0rescue us. The fires, floods, and hunger we are already seeing will be\u00a0mere appetizers. We need to get off this path before the main course arrives.<\/p>\n

None of this can, obviously, be done with the current U.S. Congress and president. Changing both means a key aspect of climate activists\u2019 work going forward has to be focused on electing candidates who take the crisis\u00a0seriously and act on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crossposted from The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places<\/a>
You can also catch me at meteorblades.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world is on track for 2.6 \u00b0C of heating. That\u00a0headline should terrify everybody the way it terrifies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-135749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}