Half of the world’s emissions reductions will require technology that does not have commercial use

If the world hopes to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions by the middle of this century, nearly half of the emissions will come from technologies that are only in the early stages.

This discovery, in A report The International Energy Agency (International Energy Agency) released a report on Tuesday pointed out the need to invest heavily in research, development and scale-up of clean energy technologies.

The IEA’s roadmap aims to eliminate energy-related emissions by 2050 and to control global temperature rise within 1.5°C. It includes a roadmap for technologies that hardly exist or are too expensive today. Important role. These include batteries filled with more energy, clean hydrogen used as fuel or feedstock for industrial processes, liquid biofuels used in aviation, and equipment that cheaply captures carbon dioxide emissions from factories and natural gas or coal-fired power plants.

The report also emphasized the need to invest heavily in tools to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These include direct aerial capture machines, which already exist, but are very expensive today, and so-called bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (or BECCS), that is, we can use plant materials as fuel and capture the production during the combustion process. Of any emissions thoughts. .

The IEA’s findings have sparked a debate about whether the world needs to focus on developing new technologies to combat climate change or actively deploy our existing technologies.

American Climate Czar John Kerry Trigger online backlash Speaking to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) this weekend: “Scientists told me that to achieve net zero emissions, 50% of the emissions reductions we must reduce come from technologies that we don’t yet have.”

For its part, the IEA describes it as a technology that is “currently in the demonstration or prototype stage” or “not yet commercially available.”

But the report clearly shows that the world has no choice between innovation or deploy. It sets out a timetable that shows how fast we still need to build the technology for the goals we want to achieve by the middle of this century.

By 2030, the world must add more than 1,000 gigawatts of wind and solar power generation capacity each year. Total power system Today in the United States. By 2030, sales of electric passenger vehicles must reach 60% of new sales, and by 2035, half of the heavy trucks purchased must be electric vehicles. By 2045, heat pumps must be used to meet half of the global heat demand, and heat pumps can run on clean electricity.

In short, we need to make rapid progress in all areas at once.