ANTALYA, Türkiye — The world is coming together to change course on global warming. Global energy demand has other plans.
This year’s United Nations climate conference, which opens Monday in this seaside town, must confront the grim new reality that the world is now certain to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels, the most ambitious target nations agreed on in 2015.
The UN said last month that the world’s best hope now is to keep temperatures from rising above 1.8 degrees – with the slim possibility of invoking unprecedented political action and massive amounts of carbon removal technology to bring them back to 1.5°C.
Yet even this new scenario is quickly becoming out of reach – despite the global rise of clean energy. Efforts to combat fast-acting pollutants such as methane face obstacles. And the sudden emergence of a trillion-dollar data center economy, combined with skyrocketing cooling needs around the world, are boosting the use of fossil fuels, three years later. countries agreed start getting rid of oil, gas and coal.
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