Zero to Hero? Achieving Net Zero Emissions

Quick note! The IEA report is all about reaching net zero by 2050, but the latest research (published just a couple of days ago) indicate this is likely insufficient for limiting warming to 1.5°C. Still... as I've always said: every fraction of a degree matters. And it's never too late to stop punching ourselves in the face. Net zero in 2050 would still be worlds better than net zero in 2060!

hydroelectric...

I would strongly recommend you watch Mark Mills, The Energy Transition Delusion.

Net zero emissions is a scam

Our guiding principle has always been, "If it feels good, it is good." We will never abandon our philosophical foundation.

Delicious

It seems that many are so focused on "decarbonizing the Energy" that we are missing the greater point. Net Zero is meaningless without degrowth and a re-imagining of our economic system. Net zero and "economic consumerism" are definitionally incompatible. You could, in fact, call Net-Zero alone without stopping making things, especially under the "planned obsolescence" [it's designed to break the day the warrantee is up] a half-assed solution.

Can you please talk a bit about how small buisness owners can make their buisness carbon negative. One of the big problems I think is that small mom and pops places want to but cant hire like a team of climate scientist. How does a buisness even know what the enviormentally friendly thing to do is? Also is it better to brand enviormentaly friendly or jyst be good for tge enviorment in secret so thst people thst dont cares dollar go to it?

hold the international hoarder class, who own and profit from all the industrial capacity that was forced out of our countries causing economic devastation, accountable; instead of piling manipulative sin taxes and regulations on the working class

Great video, but I think a part you are missing from your analysis is that economies right now rely on continuous growth, and according to the science we have, there’s no real way to detach economic growth from energy use.If we don’t change our economies to not require growth, then it’ll be nearly impossible to decarbonize as much as we need, let alone curve other extractive and unsustainable methods we are using to keep our economies growing.

We’re gonna do this! I feel like the tides are turning.

(And when we do, the skeptics of the future will say, “SEE! Only a couple degrees warming! No bid deal, alarmists” after we/humanity spent a century of work to keep warming at that level. Ah, well!)

Good work Adam

Thank you for these much-needed educational videos. Well, needed by me at any rate. Anybody else?

i am not sure if i missed it. but did you say anything about carbon capture and if the iea incorporates that in the plan? (bc we know how we feel about that... 🙃)

It’s still not warm enough in the UK to grow grapes that rival French wines. The Romans had very many vineyards in England a few in northern areas.
In the medieval warm period which lasted more than a hundred years grapes were once again grown and historical records show this was not just a regional event.
Check out what climate scientist William Happer says about CO2. It’s a great benefit to the world and is greening the planet. There are many other scientists saying the same thing. Even doubling CO2 to 0.0840 from its current 0.042 is only calculated to raise temperatures by 0.7°C. Hardly a crisis.
All the alarmist predictions for the last 50 years have never come to pass. Sea level has been rising by 2-3mm per year for the last 150 years and its rate is not changing.
USA state temperature records are still mostly in the 1930’s, and only 3 states have theirs in the 2000’s.
I have solar panels and storage batteries and they are not reliable.

Battery storage as a solution for renewable energy? Please ask any mathematician to calculate how much land such storage facilities would take up. The same goes for "carbon capture". Utter nonsense.

People go on and on about all we need to "do" when doing is precisely the problem. We have fertilizer and tractors and maternity wards these days. Survival hasn't been a real labor intensive enterprise for some decades. It's a subset of humans propped up by subordinates needs overcome to stop the doing, not more doing needing done.

It's time for science communicators to team up with socialist activists. Simply saying "degrowth" is nice & all, but a capitalist economy incentivized by profit cannot do it. It'd be recession every year.

I prefer the intergalactic energy agency!!!!

Adam, I respect that you have worked really hard and studies - but the reality is that this content has very little relevance to the UK. Try and get on a plane and have the same conversation in Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Africa, USA etc. The UK has the least contribution to make to something conceptually similar to net 0 which is not possible unless you advocate genocide and mass global starvation. The idea that we should get the British taxpayer to spend billions/trillions to shut down the economy, shut down food production, drive little electric cars and have heat pumps and solar panels that barely work and not even make a dent in global emissions is just dumb. It's more than dumb, it's typically "British". The irony of all of this is that the greens make everyone stop driving and flying, farming, and energy so expensive that only the wealthy will be able to afford heating and travel, but the real problem is that the surface of the earth has been turned into a manmade desert - so we spend the next twenty years trying to fix one of the side effects i.e. emissions, making several people and groups very wealthy, while not addressing the actual cause at all.

I do not want to say this, but your degree(PhD)seems rather uninformed about reality.

❤

Please protest at the homes and families of the CEOs of oil companies and mining companies. They are the top 5% of income earners.

Please stop protesting and blocking my road with banners and gluing yourselves onto the road.. We are the bottom 50% of income earners.

Sophmoric at best. I know your target audience is not intelligent people, but even kids are smart enough to ask tough questions that will rip this video apart. I'm not arguing against improving our environment, but I am saying, this is the main problem with this sort of content: in infantilizes the public instead of being honest and forthright. Just stopping oil cannot work since even the renewables you're praising can't exist with the millions of petrochemical derivatives that make the technology possible. Also, natural gas in some climates is more efficient and sustainable than electric powered appliances. An example is hot water heating. Simple electric resistance water heating is extremely inefficient. Heat pump water heaters are all electric and are much more efficient.... unless you're in a very cold climate at which point, natural gas fueled burners heating water is far more efficient. So one size fits all solutions WILL NOT WORK.

Lovely condescending video, however you do realise that energy transitions go towards concentrated sources Wood->Coal->Oil->Gas so you suggest we use an intermittent, defuse, geographic specific, limited lifespan solution which during the years low interest rates and massive subsides only replaced about 5% of the world's energy?

Most of us feel powerless to what we can do to reduce our emissions. What do you do personally to help reduce your emissions? It does not seem like much for a single person to make changes but if more people commit it can make a big difference. Thank you as always for your very informative videos.

I like the way you put it that we either have to reach net zero or adapt to really dangerous climate. Very simple and powerful argument.

Thank you for your reasonable, and even gentle way of explaining all of this

You need a replacement for fossil fuels and to convince China, Russia, India etc. And do this without bankrupting the world. I bet you lose lol

Thanks for laying out some of the solutions, Adam! It's nice to have some inspiration and motivation every once in a while...

I'm not convinced that net zero by 2050, will stop us at 1.5c anymore. Since we will likely be at 1.5c long before that.

Sounds impossible!

Great video! Really appreciate your work :)

"Net Zero" is itself a flawed goal. Saying we need to get to net zero is great, but it ignores the CO2 that's already up there. The phrase "Net Zero" gives a false impression that when we reach that goal we have finished. Rather, it's only the first step, as the CO2 that's already up there is still heating the planet even after we stop adding more CO2. We need to be looking beyond just net zero. We need to be looking at "Net Negative". We need to be looking at how we are going to undo the damage, not just at how we are going to stop doing the damage.

I have a question (may require a small grain of NaCl to digest)

I have been waiting to see if any concerned climate change activists have computed the carbon foot print of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. I know we are all doomed to die by man made carbon dioxide emissions so this seems important to me. I don’t know much about science since I am a retired chemist who only worked a few years in the chemical industry so I am wondering if there any really smart people, perhaps even high school students here or in Europe who can help an old dummy figure this out. I am making a helpful list of things to consider below.

Carbon dioxide Sources
Fuel used to ship people and supplies to war zones, be sure to include both sides since this is everyone’s Earth.
This fuel is used by planes, trucks, tanks non-nuclear ships such as destroyers, escorts, transports or gunboats. You can exclude the nuclear subs and aircraft carriers since the are “Green” electric vehicles, however the planes and missiles they carry would contribute to their carbon foot prints. The good news is that any nuclear detonations will send particulates into the atmosphere thereby blocking out some solar gain, a win for us all!

The destroyed buildings, forests and other infrastructure needs to be included as most of the stuff will have been burned. Unfortunately you also need to include the carbon foot print of rebuilding all of that stuff, assuming there are still people to inhabit them.

Be sure not to include the nuclear carriers and subs (unless they burn up and sink), then they will need to be replaced. Do not include any electric vehicles such as cars, trucks, electric fighter planes, electric tanks, electric drones of any size. Of course you must include any payload that they fire. And the carbon foot print needed to replace these Green conveyances plus any spent ordinance.

People and animals: The people involved in these wars won’t be commuting to work so that is a big savings of carbon dioxide but they will still be generating more or less the same carbon foot print elsewhere so let’s call that a wash. Unfortunately we need to consider the dead animals and people because they will have a final carbon foot print (in some cases literally). As they decompose back to their constituent elements which includes some carbon. Lucky for us however, their carbon foot printing days are over, and as soon as they completely decompose their contribution ceases. They will not be able to be father/mother/them-ers of any offspring so that is another big win for us all. One cautionary note, don’t forget the Baby Boom that will certainly follow the war when the lonely soldiers return home, if history teaches us anything.

I am certain I have missed a few things such as Nitrogen and Sulfur oxides that will be emitted by rocket exhaust ,cannon fire bombs and bullets. Also, carbon foot print to the extra food that needs to be grow to replace the destroyed land/crops need to be calculated. I believe the even those who starve will continue to have a carbon foot print until they leave their final carbon foot print (see above). I leave that calculation to those who are wiser than me.

Assuming that the carbon dioxide results of this calculation may be somewhat higher than a net zero, it becomes important to figure out who is to blame for the weak (I hesitate to say idiotic) leadership that has allowed the wars to happen, but I don’t want to offend anyone so I will just leave that quest to others.

im surprised you didnt bring up agrilcuture when talking about reducing methane emissions considering that's where the majority of those emissions come from

What about agricultural footprint?

What about the minerals? Where are we going to get all the minerals to fuel electrical industries?

Eliminate Planned Obsolescence to stop unnecessary manufacturing.

What do you mean the GDP won't tolerate that. The Grossly Distorted Propaganda is only believed by dunnies.

I love your videos. You always manage to make me feel better.

Thanks Adam, I'm glad you're still making new videos. I love your style.

"Ørsted said it had cancelled the Ocean Wind I and II schemes because of high inflation, rising interest rates and supply chain bottlenecks."
From the Guardian. Hornsea seems to be in trouble as well now. The low electricity prices make the projects uneconomical 😬

What about the benefits? I don’t know that we need to stop using fossil fuels at all.

Can you do a video on Alex Epstein’s arguments from his book, Fossil Future? I’m curious how he’d respond to your response as I find his arguments very convincing.

Net zero is a silly slogan that makes me cringe. There is no net zero. There is only reduction in emissions, and it is critical to do that now.

Key is getting Oil money and Oil states to convert to 100% renewables then finance Africa/Asia to also convert to renewables!!!