When it comes to understanding the true nature of Net Zero by 2050, I have one huge request: could everybody please stop flourishing their particular ‘get out of jail free’ cards – whether that’s a nuclear card, or a hydrogen card, or a 100% renewable electricity (100% RE) card.
There are no get out of jail free cards. We’re trapped in an energy-intensive way of life, driven by frenetic consumerism, causing massive damage to both people and the planet, and putting at risk the very future of humankind. There is no energy-based solution to this meta-impasse: the only way we’ll avoid an accelerating slide into civilisational collapse is by transforming that suicidal way of life.
Energy is a sub-system of that much bigger economic system – though it is, to be sure, the most important sub-system. And the most important aspect of that sub-system is EFFICIENCY.
Whatever combination of supply-side options we may have settled on by 2050, it’s the efficiency with which we acquire and use every one of those units of energy which matters most – not whether those units are renewable, nuclear or hydrogen.
http://www.jonathonporritt.com/getting-real-about-net-zero/
