A new report that provides a long-term view of the evolution of the world’s power markets suggests that by 2027 building new wind and solar will become cheaper than running existing coal and gas generators in many parts of the world. Between 2016 and 2040, Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s New Energy Outlook projects that $7.8 trillion will be invested in renewables globally.
“One conclusion that may surprise is that our forecast shows no golden age for gas, except in North America,” said report co-author Elana Giannakopoulou. “As a global generation source, gas will be overtaken by renewables in 2027. It will be 2037 before renewables overtake coal.”
The energy sector, which accounts for two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions, will not change quickly enough to meet the Paris Agreement’s target for limiting global temperatures to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels. According to the report, to meet this target, leaders must invest $13.1 trillion—$5.3 trillion more than the $7.8 trillion expected to be invested in renewables by 2040. This will presumably require further changes in technology and policy to increase the uptake of new low carbon investment to meet that target.
What happens with fossil fuel emissions, it says, will largely depend on choices made by the Asia-Pacific region that’s forecast to see major growth in wind, solar and coal.
By 2040, the study suggests energy storage market will be valued at $250 billion or more as battery costs are projected to fall and storage deployment rises. Utility-scale batteries are projected to become widespread in little more than a decade.
Greenland Ice Melt Points to Warming Feedback Loop
As news emerged that Arctic sea ice extent hit a record low in May, a study published in Nature Communications provided evidence that links melting ice in Greenland to so-called Arctic amplification or faster warming of the Arctic than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere as sea ice disappears. The study revealed that changing temperatures at the poles driven by global warming have the potential to affect the jet stream, causing it to bend further north than usual.
“If loss of sea ice is driving changes in the jet stream, the jet stream is changing Greenland, and this, in turn, has an impact on the Arctic system as well as the climate,” said lead author Marco Tedesco, a research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “It’s a system, it is strongly interconnected and we have to approach it as such.”
During July 2015, according to the study, a “cutoff high”—a relatively immobile region of high pressure—allowed sunny conditions to be sustained for many days over northwest Greenland, producing record melting there. The study suggests that the high was linked with a record-breaking northward departure of the mid-latitude jet stream, which is thought to result from the jet stream’s slowing due to a reduction in the temperature difference between polar latitudes and more temperate regions.
According to study co-author Edward Hanna, an earth scientist at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, these cut-off highs are becoming more prevalent in the Arctic, and they may be here to stay because of climate change.
Record Temps Continue in May
Analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies showed that Earth experienced its hottest May on record—1.67 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1951–1980 average. The data, according to the Daily Mail, showed 370 straight months of warm or warmer-than-average temperatures worldwide.
David Carlson, director of the U.N.’s World Climate Research Program, expressed concern about the records: “We are in uncharted territory. Exceptionally high temperatures. Ice melt rates in March and May that we don’t normally see until July. Once-in-a-generation rainfall events. The super El Nino is only partly to blame. Abnormal is the new normal.”
Analysis from the Japan Meteorological Agency showed May to be only the second warmest on record.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.