How Big is the Decarbonization Challenge?
A new dashboard has the answer for every country in the world
I’ve just released a new data dashboard — Decarbonization Around the World.
The site allows you to explore rates of decarbonization for countries and regions around the world. Decarbonization is a reduction in the ratio of carbon dioxide emissions to GDP. Every climate mitigation policy seeks to accelerate the rate of decarbonization — when that rate exceeds the rate of economic growth, emissions go down. Approaching net zero this century requires a significant acceleration in decarbonization.
The image below shows decarbonization for the world, U.S., and EU from 1965 to 2025 — and no signs of any acceleration in the era of climate policy.
The site also allows you to get a sense of the scale of the decarbonization challenge that each country faces. The figure at the top of this post shows that for the U.S. to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions (from fossil fuels) — assuming growing energy demand at 0.3% per year — would require the equivalent of more than 1,500 new 1 GW nuclear power plants (about 1.2 coming online every week, starting now) or more than 1.3 million new 3 MW wind turbines (more than 1,000 per week).
If you assume that all the waste heat from combustion can be forgone (some can, not all of course), then these numbers are reduced to 0.7 nuclear plants or over 500 wind turbines per week — still a huge number.
You can adjust any of these variables to explore different scenarios.
You can download figures and data. I encourage you to share what you find on your favorite social media platform and to tag me when you do. Click on the button below to start exploring.
Check it out — it is work in progress, so suggestions, critique, and advice are all welcome!
A quick request — please click that “❤️ Like” button before you go.
Appreciated!
Check out my other new dashboards as well:
US Extreme Weather and Climate Change
and the new
All this new work is supported by THB paid subscribers
Thank you!
I note that the US has done as well as the EU despite the EU's disastrous green energy investments. The reason is that US energy policy has been driven by cost reduction with a massive switch from coal to natural gas. This is something Europe could easily do as well and it would reduce energy costs dramatically. They are not fracking either even though there are massive deposits that hold huge reserves of natural gas. This just shows again that European civilization is committing cultural suicide and in the case of Canada literal suicide with their program to let people kill themselves.
And when we get to the point where there is too little CO2 in the air and all the plants (and consequently all humans) die? Do we even know what that level is? Everyone keeps talking of a 'tripping point' where irreversible global warming occurs. What about in the other direction - what happens if there is *too little* C -> CO2?