Decarbonization

• [New] The EU that year set a goal of reducing GHG emission by 40% in 2030 compared with 1990.
• [New] As well as emissions targets, a growing number of countries will ban the sale of new fossil-fuel vehicles starting in 2030, adding pressure on carmakers to develop electric vehicles.
• [New] Governor Brown announced an executive order directing California to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and to be net greenhouse gas negative thereafter.
• [New] By 2030 the world must triple emission reductions to reach 2 degrees centigrade and reduce 5 times to reach 1.5 degrees centigrade.
• [New] The EU could choose to prioritise climate change and co-opt China into a strategy of carbon neutrality by 2050.
• [New] The United Nations calculated last year that to stay within the 1.5 degrees limit, emissions would need to fall by 7.6% each year from 2020 to 2030.
• [New] With coronavirus vaccines now in distribution, we expect economic activity to pick up again in 2021, but without meaningful structural changes in the carbon intensity of the US economy, emissions will likely rise again as well, they wrote.
• [New] The average global temperature is expected to increase from 2.6 degrees Celsius to 4.8 degrees Celsius by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase.
• [New] Carbon neutrality Peru's textile sector aims to become a carbon neutral industry in the medium term with a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, in line with Peru's commitment.
• [New] Five nuclear reactors are expected to close in 2021 which will set a record for the most nuclear capacity retirements in one year, reflecting competition from cheaper sources of renewable energy and low natural gas prices.
• [New] The world needs urgent cuts to climate emissions every year of this decade but CCS can not deliver anything meaningful until the 2030s, if at all.
• [New] Technology that recruits electric vehicles as battery storage could cut the cost of the electricity grid by £900 million per year and slash the carbon intensity of EVs
• [New] ThyssenKrupp plans to run the entire Duisburg-Hamborn steel mill using hydrogen to replace pulverised coal, thereby reducing steel emissions by 20% by 2022 as its key first step.
• [New] China's recent pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is particularly important, given the size of its population and economy, which accounts for more aggregate (though not per capita) emissions than the US and Europe combined.
• [New] The technology group Wartsila and Grieg Edge, the innovation hub of Norwegian shipping group Grieg Star, are jointly running a project to launch an ammonia-fuelled tanker producing no greenhouse gas emissions by 2024.
• [New] California has already mandated that all new vehicles be carbon free by 2035 and its entire power grid be carbon free by 2045.
• [New] Even if all the countries that have set carbon-neutral targets can meet their commitments, the global temperature will still exceed 2.1 degrees Celsius by the end of this century from pre-industrial levels.
• [New] Producers in one of the UK's most iconic industries will be playing their part in reducing carbon emissions, with 17 distilleries today receiving the first phase of £10 million government funding to go green.
• [New] The AI Council's report highlights the role that algorithms have to play in healthcare, but also defense and climate change: it is estimated that the various applications of AI alone could save up to 4% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
• [New] Australia is committed to slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Last updated: 17 January 2021