- Assuming no significant changes in non-energy CO2 or other GHG emissions, sustaining last year’s 0.66% annual decline in energy-related CO2 for the next three years should be sufficient to achieve the US Copenhagen Accord target of a 17% reduction below 2005 levels by 2020. But this pace of decarbonization will still leave the US considerably short of it’s Paris Agreement pledge of a 26-28% reduction from 2005 levels by 2025, as highlighted in our annual Taking Stock report last May. A 1.7-2.0% average annual reduction in energy-related CO2 emissions is required over the next eight years to meet that target, assuming no changes in other gasses. To achieve long-term emissions reductions consistent with the 2-degree temperature target in the Paris Agreement, an even faster rate of decarbonization is required.
Long way to go, but good to see some hard numbers on progress.
Coal use in the United States is going to keep declining, replaced by a mix of natural gas and wind and solar. Eventually there will be declining progress here, though. Declining carbon intensity in the power industry has had no impact on how energy is used by end users. Flip a switch and the light comes on. It may be an LED light rather than an incandescent, but it comes on same as it always did. The same isn't true of lower carbon intensity transportation. Plug-in hybrids come close, and I hope there are some good options for them when it comes time to replace my car. Maybe I'm overly pessimistic, but I don't see transportation or even personal transportation carbon emissions declining any time soon.
I personally believe that a strong set of taxes based on the polluter pays principle can have a tremendous effect on the actual use of energy. Regarding transportation; electric vehicles are starting to grow exponentially over here: BEV are battery-dependant electric vehicles, as opposed to plug in hybrids on the right. Those two massive peaks on the right graph were two tax breaks for plug-in hybrids that was largely a miserable waste of Dutch taxpayers' money. But it shows that you can get people to move towards alternatives. With rapidly improving battery and charging capacities as well as an expanding public charging network there's certainly a dent to be made in those transportation graphs. The models I help build put EV adoption at 10% by 2025.
Is there data available on what effect those sales have had on emissions from personal cars or what the expected emissions are in out years? The article mentions the flat demand in the electric industry. Flat demand makes it easy to replace higher cost, older power plants with newer ones (which by happy coincidence are lower emission). My assumption is the number of miles driven continues to climb, and the emissions saved by EVs will be offset by more usage from traditional cars.