A new report released on Tuesday by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) offers a bleak outlook for the future if the world continues in its failure to make drastic cuts in carbon emissions.
The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2019, says that global greenhouse gas emissions must now be reduced by 7.6% every year for the next ten years, starting in 2020, a goal the world has come nowhere close to achieving to date. Despite the Paris Climate Accord, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise, on average by 1.5% a year. Because of our procrastination, such goals become harder and less achievable the longer we fail to act. “Every year of delay beyond 2020 brings a need for faster cuts, which become increasingly expensive, unlikely and impractical,” said the UNEP report.
The actions of the Trump administration have reversed a trend in the US that saw a decline in CO2 emissions until last year when they rose by 2.7%. The Trump adminstration has announced it will withdraw the US from the Paris accord in 2020.
Meanwhile, the nuclear power industry continues to impede progress in renewable energy deployment by grabbing state and federal subsidies and trying to reframe itself as "renewable" energy. In a recent article in Forbes magazine, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, delivered a detailed analysis showing how the slowness and expense of nuclear power impedes renewable energy development. "Costly options save less carbon per dollar than cheaper options," Lovins wrote. "Slow options save less carbon per year than faster options. Thus even a low- or no-carbon option that is too costly or too slow will reduce and retard achievable climate protection." And, Lovins adds, average nuclear operations, "now cost more than new modern renewables, with or without their temporary subsidies."
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