Green transition: lack of awareness of the magnitude of the problem
andrea.parisi | Published: 27 Jan 2025, 6:02 p.m.
Climate change is a socially contentious issue. Recent years have witnessed iterated social conflicts on the subject, with the raising of green-voicing associations on one side, and strenuous defenders of the status quo on the other side. With the alarm raised by scientists regarding climate change, as well as the awareness of the role of the human population in preserving or altering the environment, the word "green" has been attached to almost anything, from cleaning products to financial investment products, rendering it a highly misused word. Unfortunately, when there are factions battling, the truth behind our reality often gets buried in layers of opinions and misunderstandings, so much so that, for what relates to climate change, the true scale of the problem is now completely lost. All discussions of what is at stake, and the effectiveness of the solutions, have been overcome by the fight between supporters of a necessary phasing out of fossil fuels, and deniers of the very existence of climate change. Each side has accused the other of failing to understand the reality. There is unfortunately, in my view, an explanation for such lack of understanding, which comes from the complexity of the reality we live in.
In this article, I will try to clarify some of the major issues related to climate change. The ideas expressed here come from my understanding, as a scientist, of the current claims to climate change and, on the other hand, my understanding of the economics involved. Briefly, I believe that if on the one hand climate change is truly happening and humans are causing it, on the other hand the complexity of what is going on, including the solution that many government are trying to achieve, are completely miscalculated and likely to cause great damage.
It is worth pointing out that while this article expresses my ideas on the subject, the data I report can be found in various sources around the internet, ranging from news outlets, published articles in journals, company statements (including financial statements), opinion articles. However, this is my own interpretation of what we are facing, and you are, as usual, advised to do your own research.
For the sake of clarity, here is an index of the topics I hope to cover in this article:
- The reality of climate change
- The consequences of climate change
- Why we use fossil fuels
- Environmental activism
- Building the grid
- The true magnitude of the problem
1. The reality of climate change
The world is burning. That is a refrain we have long heard and read in the news. Unfortunately, this is a true fact, and humans are likely responsible. Despite many conflicting reports and analyses, there is an almost unanimous consensus within the scientific community that current human use of fossil fuels is the cause of rising temperatures around the world.1
Indications that the world temperature is rising are more evident than ever. The last few years have recorded extreme weather phenomena, with increasingly hot summers driving highly damaging extreme storms of various kinds. Increased temperatures at the tropics have also favored an influx of cold air from the poles, resulting in extreme cold snaps around the world. Rainfall has increased as a consequence of larger temperature differences between hot and cold air fronts. Sea and ocean water levels have increased worldwide, with visible effects around the world: from the submersion of islands, to increased coastal erosion and disappearing beaches, to the reduction of glaciers and of the Arctic cover.
All the above does not tell us what the cause of this increase in temperature is, but nowadays scientists are almost unanimously convinced that it is not a natural phenomenon, but rather a change due to human intervention in nature. Specifically, the increase of emissions coming from the burning of fossil fuels is the prime cause of this abrupt change in Earth's atmospheric composition. It is worth noting that, to our knowledge, these changes are occurring at a rate which is unprecedented - unseen in Earth's past. Yes, the Earth has experienced hot periods (as well as cold periods), but the changes have occurred slowly over thousands of years. How do we know that it is actually human-led emissions that are heating the planet? Because of physics and our capability to make forecasts. Atmospheric modellers have built quite detailed models of atmospheric dynamics, which are used to make short-term and long-term predictions. The short-term predictions tell us what the weather will be in the next few days; the long-term predictions cannot tell us if it will rain on the same date one year from now, but can tell us about future Earth-atmosphere pair trends: in other words, they can tell us how the mean temperature, precipitable water, and potential destructive power will change in the future. And models are very clear: the only way we can reproduce what is being observed these days is by including the increase in human-led emissions in the model. If these emissions were absent, the mean temperature of Earth would not have increased but would have remained at the level of the start of the 20th century.2
2. The consequences of climate change
The changes to Earth's climate have far-reaching consequences. Personally, I have witnessed at least two of these phenomena in action: the reduction of the extent of beaches in Portugal and Italy, and the disappearance of glaciers over the Alps. I have been travelling for over 20 years to southern Europe for my vacations, with the plane often moving over the Alps. Just on my last trip, I witnessed for the first time a view I will hardly forget. While summer temperatures are typically high over the Alps, when flying over the mountain range, you would still be able to see the white ice cover over the glaciers and less exposed surfaces, with occasionally gray patches where the summer heat would thaw the ice. My last flight, however, displayed a complete gray picture: there was not a single patch of ice that had not melted, with areas where you could see evidence of glacier basins which were completely empty. It was a shocking image, revealing more than ever the extent of damage that the world is facing. The disappearance of glaciers has clear economic consequences: in this case, for instance, it means that many of the economies that depend on these glaciers will be substantially impacted in the medium future.
Switzerland is one of those countries, as it depends substantially on the existence of glaciers. While current studies do not foresee a lack of water, the disappearance of ice caps and the transition to a seasonal water pattern suggest that there will need to be some adaptability in water management. The Po Valley in Italy, instead, is a possible big victim: it represents the economic center of Italy, with a mixture of industries and agricultural productions that will inevitably see a substantial decline in access to water in the future, complemented with possibly frequent flooding events. This, added to the fact that around 10 million individuals live around the area (1/6th of the population of Italy), suggests a problematic future. Other countries, even in the far north of Europe, have seen consequences of climate change: for instance, in the UK, some rivers have run dry for the first time in recorded history during the summer of 2021.
We are naturally engaged in thinking that we can see the changes coming and act on them, but this is clearly not the case with climate change. Up to now, the most that has been seen is a substantial reduction in the level of the rivers coming from the Alps, the Po in Italy being the most consequential case. I really doubt that anyone can think of the Po River running dry, but that is actually the not-so-distant future that one should expect once the glaciers disappear. Early research suggested that 80% of glaciers over the Alps would disappear by 2100, but that might have been an optimistic estimate. If this sounds bad, an even more dramatic outcome awaits countries benefiting from the abundant waters flowing from the Himalayan range. Two-thirds of the ice cover is expected to disappear by 2100, affecting the lives of billions of individuals. And these are just two examples, with many other occurring around the world: glaciers in Montana and Alaska (US), Iceland, Argentina, New Zealand, etc.
These changes are difficult to understand in their fullness. We might see reduction of glaciers, but understanding what it really means when glacier disappears, is not in everyone's grasp. It means an abrupt change in living conditions: areas that were abundant with agriculture and industry will experience a dramatic shift in production capabilities, seriously threatening the foundation of the local communities.
Despite these dramatic forecasts, and despite the extensive damage caused by extreme events that have occurred during the last few years, the true impact of the ongoing climate change has not been fully felt yet, and local economies have been relying on government relief to offset damages. However, since this is a structural problem, not an occasional one, this is an economically unsustainable way to deal with these issues. Financial support for activities damaged by climate change must be financed with taxes, which are paid by other activities. As the extent of the damage is likely to increase, the only way forward must be the reduction of the burden caused by these damages. This approach cannot be embraced when the consequences will become substantial, because at that point, it will be already late to steer the boat. It must be tackled early by getting ready in advance.
3. Why we use fossil fuels
Our world has come to rely on oil at the start of the 20th century, with the introduction of the combustion engine. Petrol, or more generally crude oil, came to substitute coal and wood, which were the main sources of heat for houses and transportation. Coal stores more energy per unit of volume than wood, thus allowing the storage of substantial amounts of energy usable by trains for long-distance travel. Crude oil, on the other hand, not only stores even higher energy per unit of volume than coal but also comes in liquid form, which allows for easier transportation and technically more advanced methods for its use. That is how modern engines overcame coal-based engines. In addition, crude oil has become pervasive in our society: it is the source of thousands of products ranging from gasoline and petrol, to kerosene, natural gas, propane, asphalt, lubricants, and solvents, as well as a number of by-products used in the production of plastics, fertilizers, refrigerants, paints, and so on. It has allowed the production of large amounts of electricity on demand. Oil production is efficient, as it leverages over 50 years of experience. We extract oil from underground deposits, from oil sands, and even from fracturing underground rocks. It is one of the most well-developed, advanced, and efficient industries in modern societies, and it is central to most of our current life. Our everyday life is nowadays so entrenched with oil production behind the scenes, that it is no easy task to push oil aside for an alternative.
4. Environmental activism
The awareness/acknowledgment of the role of fossil fuels in the climate change problem has led to the creation of numerous movements that have targeted the fossil fuel industry as the main cause of these problems. A typical narrative that many people have started to rely on, describes politicians being lobbied by oil companies to maintain their climate-destructive activities, profiting from these activities and distributing dividends to shareholders, thus profiting from the damages and consequences of the emissions they ultimately generate. According to this view, politicians have refrained from dismissing the oil industry and stopping the use of oil, evidently for some personal gain. The substantial pressure from these environmental activists has led to a massive shift in public opinion, and has led many politicians and political parties to become more hostile towards oil companies: in many countries, the search and development of new oil fields have been suspended. In reality, lobbying is inherent to the existence of government: private companies, NGOs, charities, they all lobby politician to try to steer governmental decision towards their goals. Thus, lobbying from oil companies should be compared to lobbying from renewable companies and activist groups.3 We are indeed facing a myopic view of the challenge, which cannot be fully understood without addressing the issues connected with moving away from an oil-based economy.
If on the one hand, environmentalists and a good portion of the public are in favor of limiting the use of fossil fuels, on the other hand the terms "climate change" and "rising temperatures" have been attached to any phenomenon that caused damage in the last few years. If a natural wildfire ravages a forest, it is climate change even when wildfires occurred in the past in neighbouring areas. If rivers overflow because the riverbeds were never cleaned, it is still climate change. This lack of realism and alarmism has caused part of the public to turn against the very idea of climate change, transforming a terrain that should have been up to discussions for a solution, into a battleground between opposing factions. In addition, many alarms raised have turned out to be overstated. There have been maps published showing cities submerged by water, but in reality present predictions indicate rising sea levels by the end of the century between 0.50m to 1.5m in the worst scenarios. The truth is, it is quite hard to make forecasts in the future, and in many cases the causes of land submersion are other than from global warming: in most cases due to human activity, like excessive exploitation of underground water or excessive land development (see for example Jackarta, North Carolina and New York). Yet, rising sea levels are a serious threat in some cases, the most notorious being the case of Tuvalu and the Marshall islands which are threatened by rising sea levels owing to their low elevation. Yet, even in this case, not everyone agrees.
The climate change activism, as well as the alarm sounded by scientists, has led to the adoption, by many governments, of a grand plan to move from a fossil fuel-based world to an electrified one. This would be a world where the use of fossil fuels is close to none, where transportation would occur on electrified rail lines, using electric cars, and electric ships. There are studies on electric planes, but it is not clear at this stage if we will ever be able to substitute jet engines with some overcharged electric jet engine. Yet, once again, this grand-plan has been imposed on people without discussion and, most of all, without a proper analysis of its feasibility. In fact this plan has a big issue which I do not see discussed much in the news: it is a plan likely to fail!
5. Building the grid
The world currently uses a lot of electricity already. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the electric energy consumption in 2022 in the United States totalled 3,810 TWh, shared among residential (38.9%), commercial (35.1%), industrial (25.8%), and transportation (0.2%) use. Transportation only accounts for a tiny fraction of the current total electricity consumption. So here is the problem the world is facing:
a) We should move from an oil-based transportation system to an electric-based transportation system. Transport accounts for roughly 28% of energy consumed (road transport accounts for 25%), and electric energy consumed is about 20% of the total energy consumed. That means that if we wish to remove oil in transport, we need to transform that 28% into electric energy. In reality, petrol engines are not very efficient. Supporters of green transition often point out the the efficiency of a petrol engine is about 20%. That is, for 100 units of energy, only 20 are actually used to move a car, with 80 being lost to heat and friction. In reality, modern engines have efficiency close to 25%, with the latest model achieving 27-28%, and a substantial reduction of CO2 emissions. On the other hand, electric cars have an efficiency close to 90%, but the energy is produced in a power plant and must be transferred and stored into a battery. A power plant using natural gas has an efficiency of about 44%. Taking this into account, if transportation were moved to electric power, the energy required would be 20-23% of the current production, so less than the original 28%. For simplicity, let us assume an optimistic 20%. That means that moving transportation to electric power requires a doubling of the current electric energy production.
b) A sizable fraction of electricity is being produced by fossil fuels, with percentages varying by country (US 60%, UK 35%, Japan 80%, France 13%). Worldwide, this fraction is close to 60%. All in all, that means that we need to (a) build renewable energy farms to cover 60% of our energy production, (b) increase production further by 100%, (c) increase electric grid capabilities by 100%, and (d) build energy storage farms to supply the grid when renewables fail, thus replacing fossil fuels in this instance. Just considering (a) and (b) together, means that we would need to build wind and solar farms for a capacity which far surpasses our current renewable energy production capability (roughly, a 5-fold increase) with the additional issue that solar and wind farms are far more inefficient at producing energy than the current available plants.
in addition, we need 1/4 more electric lines, switches, transformers, etc., and we need a lot of alternative forms of energy storage, forms that have yet to be devised... they could be efficient batteries, gravity-based generators, or fuel cells, capable of storing energy for long stretches of time. All of this, without taking into account that energy consumption increases year by year.
Here comes the major hurdle: how do we build all of this? It is estimated that to fulfill the green transition, the amount of copper required for the next 20 years will be equivalent to the total historical production of copper. In other words, in the next 20 years, we should be able to extract the equivalent of what has been extracted in the last 150 years. Extraction should double between now and 2035, reaching almost 50Mt – an expansion that current exploration trends or projects in the feasibility stage of development are incapable of meeting.
Then there are steel, cement, rare earths, and lithium for batteries. All of these face production constraints as well as geopolitical issues. Major producers of copper and rare earths are China, Russia, and Australia. Current international frictions are not helpful in this respect. In addition, many mines are close to their end of life, while new possible mines in deposit-rich areas are located in pristine or protected natural areas, posing many environmental issues.
6. The True Magnitude of the Problem
If on the one hand global warming is happening, on the other hand moving away from fossil fuels is an extremely complex and costly endeavour. The UK, which is one of the advanced countries along the development of renewable sources, produces about 30% of its energy through renewable sources, but it still heavily relies on gas plants to compensate when the wind is not blowing (or when wind speed is too high) or when demand increases. And still most of the cars run on petrol. Even if cars were moved to all electric, as supported by governments in the UK and Europe, this would not make a difference to the problem of global warming, unless electricity production from non-fossil sources were dramatically increased. We are a very very long way from achieving any factual change.
Pursuing the objective of a green transition tout-court is likely going to be a failure. It can easily lead to skyrocketing costs for raw materials like copper, lithium, and rare earths. These materials are essential for building the infrastructure of a renewable energy future, from solar panels to batteries for electric vehicles. The scarcity will likely drive up prices, making green technologies prohibitively expensive for widespread adoption, potentially stifling the transition before it gains momentum. Currently, we have already seen price increases in relevant materials. With all the caveats mentioned above, the production of copper has been steadily increasing through the years, moving from 16Mt in 2010 to 22 Mt in 2023. While the price has been volatile owing to changes in supply and demand, the 5-year price average has been going up, reaching over a 4-fold increase with respect to the 2000s. Increased costs mean increased energy costs, which would lead to economic difficulties and a widespread increase in poverty, as it is already happening in some countries in Europe: the forced transition could become a social issue, leaving those countries who press towards a green transition with a substantially weakened economy with respect to those countries who take alternative approaches. The cost of materials could exacerbate global inequalities, where only wealthier nations can afford the transition, albeit at high social costs and poverty, leaving the problem of global warming still lurking largely around.
An alternative to a transition to fully renewables, which has been adopted in some countries, is a transition towards a partly renewable and partly nuclear energy production. While nuclear energy is not renewable, its advantage is that it does not directly affect the atmosphere concentration of CO2. However, it also carries environmental issues. Currently the environmental issues are considered in many (but not all) countries to be fully under control, yet nuclear energy does not come cheap. The cost per kWh of the electric energy produced by nuclear power plants has been steadily increasing, approximating the costs of gas produced energy, and is likely to increase further. Projections indicate it might become among the most expensive methods for energy production.
The alternative to all this is, currently, to maintain the status quo. That would mean continuing the path of fossil fuels use, with its own set of dire consequences on economies. Unrestrained use of fossil fuels will likely lead to further increases of CO2 in the atmosphere, exacerbating the effects of global warming well beyond our current predictions. The results will be possible displacement of populations, and health issues due to climate change impacts, as well as flooding of coastal areas which are currently deemed susceptible to current global warming levels. As mentioned above, we have already observed the disappearance of entire islands, and we might witness the disappearance of entire nations in the Pacific.
It is of course important to point out that forecasting the future is always a difficult business: many dire forecasts have turned out to be incorrect. Yet, there is little doubt that we are on the verge of dramatic changes, but the choices we are being faced by politicians and the scientific community are both extreme: on the one hand, a set of widespread disruptive changes towards a fossil-free society, with measures that scientists think might sort out global warming and that are likely going to be extremely costly, causing widespread societal conflicts and moving people into poverty, and likely unable to fully achieve their targets for future generation due to practical limitations. On the other hand, a continuous use of traditional energy sources leading towards further increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and mean temperatures higher than current high levels, with the possible disruption of economies, conflicts, extended geographic and geopolitical issues, which might still likely move people into poverty, with uncertain scenarios for future generation. In any way we look at it, the future of our children and grand-children seems extremely problematic... unless, we abandon the idea of either of these extreme approaches and we get a third way, a way that might tackle global warming affordably.
Currently, I have not heard much discussion on any alternative way: a way that acknowledges the increase in mean temperatures, and instead of trying to put breaks at all costs, tries instead to understand the least damaging path towards the future. That would be a pragmatic path where green technologies are brought in intelligently. Finding a new path forward, currently, is not even part of the discussion as the alternatives being discussed are these two extremes only. 4
- There is nowadays overwhelming evidence that global warming is directly connected with an increase of warming-causing emissions since the start of the industrial revolution in the 19th century.
- It is necessary to mention that some have cast doubts on the way models are built, suggesting that climate models predict climate change as a consequence of increased carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere because this relationship is explicitly programmed into the models. In other words, critics of climate models argue that these models are not genuinely predicting climate change based on observed data or emerging properties but rather are simply reflecting the inputs or assumptions about CO2 and its effects that were set by the modelers. Indeed, climate models are constructed with the understanding that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, whose effects have been well understood since the 19th century, which means its effect on warming is already a built-in assumption. However, this doesn't mean the models are merely echo chambers for pre-determined outcomes. Climate models are not just "black boxes" where you input CO2 increase and get warming out. They are rigorously validated against historical data, including past climates, and calibrated with observations across various parameters (temperature, precipitation, ice coverage, etc.). If the models did not align with observed historical trends or if they failed to predict past climate anomalies with only CO2 as a variable, their credibility would be questioned. While the basic relationship between CO2 and temperature is an input, many aspects of how climate responds to this increase are emergent properties of the model, such as changes in precipitation patterns, ocean circulation, or the behavior of ice sheets, which are not directly programmed but arise from the interactions of various components within the model.
- It goes without saying that whenever money is involved, private interests play a role. So much so that some environmental groups are actually supported by competitors of the oil industry. For instance, companies involved in wind farm construction have been sponsoring organizations opposing the use of fossil fuels. This shows that conflicts of interest are inherent to the confrontation, and an objective understanding of the issues regarding global warming can only be achieved outside of the accusations from both the oil industry representatives and environmentalist groups.
- I have hope that the future will turn out being more forgiving. Most of all, I have faith in human endeavour, and hope that, at some point, it will be convenient to – say – extract CO2 from air; or to build efficient fusion power plants that will power entire countries. We have witnessed large technological advances in the last century, and we might witness a fundamental discovery that will change our chances for the future.
