View Thread

New review of our collective failure to reduce carbon emissions

  • 1.  New review of our collective failure to reduce carbon emissions

    Posted 10-20-2021 09:52
    New review paper on three decades of failure to reduce emissions

    https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104

    Title: Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven't We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?

    Abstract
    Despite three decades of political efforts and a wealth of research on the causes and catastrophic
    impacts of climate change, global carbon dioxide emissions have continued to rise and are 60%
    higher today than they were in 1990. Exploring this rise through nine thematic lenses-covering
    issues of climate governance, the fossil fuel industry, geopolitics, economics, mitigation modeling,
    energy systems, inequity, lifestyles, and social imaginaries-draws out multifaceted reasons for our
    collective failure to bend the global emissions curve. However, a common thread that emerges
    across the reviewed literature is the central role of power, manifest in many forms, from a dog-
    matic political-economic hegemony and influential vested interests to narrow techno-economic
    mindsets and ideologies of control. Synthesizing the various impediments to mitigation reveals
    how delivering on the commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement now requires an urgent
    and unprecedented transformation away from today's carbon- and energy-intensive development
    paradigm.

    ------------------------------
    Good health to you and yours,
    Nicholas Poggioli

    University of Michigan
    ONE Communications Team
    www.nicholaspoggioli.com
    ------------------------------