Electricity is the key to modern existence. It powers the machines that keep food fresh, coffee hot, and cream cold. Electricity is used to make clothes, gadgets, and pharmaceuticals. It’s how people communicate with each other every day. (Come on, when’s the last time you wrote a letter with pen and paper?) Electricity is essential for both minor conveniences and manufacturing, and everything in between.
However, the way humans produce electricity—primarily by burning fossil fuels—is causing climate change. The world’s energy sector accounts for around 34 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. And the demand for energy is expected to double by the year 2050.
This activity explains how the energy sector is currently driving climate change and explores the technology and policies that can lead to a greener future.
Energy-Sector Mitigation: What’s Holding Us Back?
If all this green energy technology exists, why hasn’t society completely replaced fossil fuels?
There are many reasons why the green transition hasn’t been achieved yet. Partly, the delay is due to technical and logistical challenges.
For example, wind, solar, and hydropower systems need to be where the natural resources are. You can’t build a hydropower plant without a flowing body of water. However, it’s not always the wettest or sunniest or windiest where the most people live. So, electrical grids need to be updated and expanded to carry the renewable energy from where it can be most effectively produced to where it’s consumed.
Also, renewables like wind and solar are intermittent. This means they only produce energy when it’s windy or when it’s sunny. However, people need electricity when the air is still and after the sun has set. That intermittency challenge is solvable though, largely with giant batteries. Humans can store extra energy produced during the windier and sunnier times in the batteries and then use that energy later as needed; however, the critical minerals required to make those batteries can be relatively rare, or difficult to process, and some are concentrated in just a handful of countries.
One of the largest issues that have been holding back renewables is economics. For a long time, renewable sources of energy were more expensive than fossil fuels. That has been a big concern for policymakers because increasing electricity costs can also raise the prices of goods and services produced using electricity. Energy price increases are not only unpopular but also can reduce economic growth.
Fortunately, renewables have become much cheaper in recent years and are now competitive with fossil fuel pricing in many cases. Advocates expect that increased affordability will encourage individuals, businesses, and public-sector leaders to install more renewables moving forward.
How to make the energy sector greener
Policymakers have plenty of options available to accelerate the adoption of alternative energy.
- Subsidize alternatives: The government can further lower the cost of alternative sources of energy using subsidies. They can offer funding to new alternative and renewable projects and provide financial incentives that make it cheaper for people to switch to renewables.
- Curb fossil fuels: At the same time, policymakers can remove financial support for fossil fuels. As of 2022, the world’s governments were providing $7 trillion worth of fossil fuel subsidies. Instead, they could work to make fossil fuel use more expensive by either taxing carbon emissions or capping the amount the energy sector is allowed to produce.
- Research and development: Governments can invest in research to further develop energy technology. That could involve improving the effectiveness of existing alternative energy sources, as well as figuring out new ways to produce low- and zero-emissions energy.
- Infrastructure: Governments can build out the electrical grid infrastructure necessary to incorporate more renewables into their energy systems. They can also eliminate zoning restrictions and other barriers to the construction of new alternative energy systems.
What Are Humans Doing to Mitigate Energy-Sector Emissions?
Many policymakers are taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector.
In the United States, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allocated billions of dollars in subsidies and investment for developing renewable energy. Also, that bill, as well as legislation in Australia, Canada, and the European Union, is providing additional support for critical mineral production and battery manufacturing. Meanwhile, Hungary adopted a carbon tax last year, joining dozens of other countries, including Argentina, Japan, Mexico, and South Africa. And the United Kingdom recently lifted its ban on building new wind farms on land.
Although promoting renewable energy is critical to mitigating climate change, we can also reduce the energy sector’s emissions in the meantime by reducing energy demands from other sectors.
Most of the electricity and heat that the energy sector produces is used to power industry and buildings. So, finding ways to make industrial processes and energy use in buildings more efficient could help lower emissions significantly.
Also, about one-third of the energy sector’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the production and refining process. Those gases either inadvertently escape the fossil fuel equipment as “fugitive emissions” or are deliberately vented and burned off. Stricter regulations and more advanced processes could help limit that large source of emissions.
How Can the World Work Together on Greener Energy?
Although many countries are making strides on renewable energy sources, progress is uneven.
Between 2013 and 2023, India doubled its electricity generation from renewables, and China increased the amount of electricity it produced from renewables by over 150 percent. But renewable energy is growing at slower rates in other countries. The world averaged a 5.5 percent annual growth rate during that same decade.
Increasing renewables’ share of electricity production requires much more climate financing. The World Bank estimates that energy sector investments in lower- and middle-income countries (excluding China) will need to quadruple to $1 trillion per year on average by 2030 to hit global climate targets.
Fortunately, the world is relatively unified in its general support for renewable energy. Over 160 countries, including the United States, China, and Russia, as well as those in the European Union, have signed on as members to the International Renewable Energy Agency. The intergovernmental organization is meant to serve as a platform for countries to share policy, technology, and financial knowledge to help facilitate the adoption of renewable energy around the world. It’s an important goal, as reducing emissions from the energy sector is a critical part of mitigating climate change.