What steps can be taken to address climate change while simultaneously addressing global energy demands? This is what a recent study published in Environmental Research Letters hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the connection between social and environmental global agendas and what this could mean for future scenarios. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, and the public better understand the connection between climate change and energy use and how the two are interconnected more than initially thought.
For the study, the researchers used a series of computer models to simulate future scenarios regarding energy needs and how climate change could impact this need. In the end, the researchers estimate a more than 90 percent decrease in the number of people worldwide that will not be able to meet their bare minimum requirements for energy. Additionally, the researchers found that required energy needs are smaller than previously estimated.
“Providing the services that people need worldwide is unlikely to destroy the planet – at least not from an energy perspective. Meeting climate objectives and ensuring decent living for all is within our reach, but it requires immediate and decisive action to reduce emissions,” said Jarmo Kikstra, who is a research scholar in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program (ECE) and a PhD candidate at the Imperial College London and lead author of the study.
This study comes as climate change continues to ravage the planet while straining energy needs and supply chains due to extreme weather events, including record heat and more violent and frequent hurricanes. Therefore, studies like this can help develop better methods for combating the societal and environmental challenges associated with climate change going forward.
What new connections between climate change and global energy demands will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Environmental Research Letters, EurekAlert!
