The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a landmark report warning that global warming must be kept to 1.5˚C. This would entail a zero carbon world by 2050.....

1. This week’s UN warning of climate chaos:
is the total world rewrite they say
we need doable?
An analysis in 10 pictures and charts
Jeremy Leggett

2. Preface
The slides are from the Future Today chronology
of selected developments in climate, energy, tech
and the future of civilization: www.jeremyleggett.net
The powerpoint version of this summary includes source urls
as notes, and is available free for any use in this folder:
http://bit.ly/2xHZlu8

3. 7th Jan
2016
7th Oct
2018
Landmark UN scientists’ report confirms difference
between 1.5˚C & 2˚C global warming is ruinous
IPCC concludes that for 1.5˚C limit, emissions must be cut from 2010
levels by 45% by 2030, and to net zero by 2050 (20% and 2075 for 2˚C).
This requires reconfiguring of the human world within a generation.

4. 7th Jan
2016
7th Oct
2018
The IPCC 1.5˚C emissions trajectory entails systems
transitions that are “unprecedented in scale….”
“In 1.5°C pathways with no or limited overshoot, renewables are
projected to supply 70–85% of electricity in 2050 (high confidence).”
Net global CO2 emission pathway
1980 20202000 2040 2060 2080 2100
BilliontonnesofCO2peryear
“…but not necessarily
in terms of speed, and
imply deep emissions
reductions in all
sectors, a wide
portfolio of mitigation
options and a
significant upscaling of
investments in those
options.”
42
Budget: 580 GtC02
for a 50% chance
of limiting global
mean surface air
temperature
to 1.5˚C

5. Let us start with that requirement for 70-85%
renewable electricity by 2050. What happens if
we model electricity using a lowest-cost
approach with technology available today,
plus real data for weather?
(But not considering intensive energy-efficiency
measures, which offer many even lower-cost options)

6. 2015
7th Jan
2016
6th Nov
2017
First 100% RE global power system model published
using full hourly resolution at global – local scale
Energy Watch Group / Lappeenranta Technology University
Coal
Gas
Hydro
Wind
Oil
Nuclear
Solar
Bioenergy
69%
18%
8%
2%
RE
22%
LCOE
€70 MWh
€52 MWh
20302020 2040 2050
…and it finds that, making choices
purely on economic grounds,
renewables provide well over 90%
by 2050.

7. But what about the rest of energy demand?
Transportation, heating, heavy industry etc

8. Jerome Pecresse, GE Renewables: “We are inventing things that we did
not even imagine three years ago …renewable baseload is coming fast.”
“Utilities dispel all doubts about renewables' ability
to power planet”: Recharge on Eurelectric summit
7th Jan
2016
6th Jun
2018
Francesco Starace,
Enel CEO:
electrifying the
transport sector “is
not only a winning
strategy, it’s a
must.”

9. Mark Dooley, Macquarie Capital: “while it makes sense that an
aluminium producer is in the vanguard (Norsk Hydro’s giant wind plans),
there is every reason to expect that all heavy industrial will follow.”
7th Jan
2016
24th July
2018
Heavy industry turns to renewables, including
aluminium smelters, cement plants & “green steel”

10. What about the “significant upscaling of
investments” that the IPCC highlighted?

11. “$300 bn is less than the amount of losses in the United States alone
from weather and climate disasters in the single year of 2017.”
7th Jan
2016
9th Aug
2018
$2 trillion a year clean-energy investment needed
for 100% decarbonisation by 2050
Annual Global Renewable Energy Capex
Source:DNVGL.Asof9/30/18.
Datafrom2015-2050isestimatedorforecast.
7th Jan
2016
9th Aug
2018
From “The Race of Our Lives”: investment guru Jeremy Grantham’s update
of his classic on climate change in holistic context

12. A report by CERES sees realistic opportunities in the tens of trillions of
dollars across an array of asset classes in multiple sectors.
The “clean trillion” - the extra needed on average
through 2050 for Paris 2˚C - is “eminently feasible”
7th Jan
2016
10th May
2018
Summary of conclusion in the original 2014 CERES report
on closing the clean energy investment gap

13. How would this total system change
go down with citizens around the world?

14. 7th Jan
2016
13th Nov
2017
82% in 13 countries believe it is important to create
a world fully powered by renewable energy
This is the largest ever such study:
26,000 people surveyed by Edelman for Orsted

15. Spectacular cost reductions - real, present,
and ongoing - are making all this possible….
….and they pose existential threat to one of
the most powerful set of vested interests
the world has ever seen

16. “Wind and solar are going to be cheaper than the operating costs of
coal and nuclear, even the best coal and the best nuclear.”
“Our one material advantage is in the
accelerating burst of green technologies”
Unsubsidized Levelized Cost of Renewable Energy over Time
Source:Lazard,asofend2016
“….better than anyone
expected 10 or even
5 years ago”
7th Jan
2016
9th Aug
2018
7th Jan
2016
9th Aug
2018

17. Case for coal and gas plants is “crumbling” as wind,
solar and battery costs plunge
7th Jan
2016
28th Mar
2018
Bloomberg New Energy Finance says its latest conclusions
have “chilling” implications for fossil generators.
• Global LCOE falls 18% YOY for
both onshore wind and PV in
first six months of 2018
…to $55/MWh and $70MWh
respectively
• Offshore wind down 5% to
$118/MWh
• 79% fall in lithium-ion battery
costs since 2010

18. Conclusions
1. The total system change that the IPCC warns is
imperative is eminently doable in the energy sector
2. It would actually cost less to do this than to persist
with the status quo, or anything like it
3. Most of global emissions derive from energy use,
and the other emissions sectors are dependent on
energy – so if we can decarbonize in energy, we have a
good chance of doing so in land use etc

19. Conclusions
4. To stop the energy system change happening
(should they choose to do so) oil and gas interests will
have to fight very dirty, including - in the case of some
petrostates, because of the popularity of clean energy
- actively subverting the world’s liberal democracies
4. And that couldn’t happen in today’s world
….could it?

20. Key developments summarized daily on
Future Today: www.jeremyleggett.net
7th Jan
2016
2018
onwards