The scientists who plan out how to limit global warming to 1.5C have asked coal-reliant countries to phase out the fuel faster than is realistic, a new study by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) has said.
The study published in the journal Nature found that a typical 1.5C energy transition model expects nations like China, India and South Africa to get off coal faster than any country has ever got off any energy source before.
But these models ask for much slower reductions in oil and gas – fuels that tend to be produced and used more in wealthy countries.
The study’s lead author Greg Muttitt said that these models are amplified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) scientific reports and guide decision-makers’ policies across the world.
“The models currently are asking so much more of India and South Africa than they are of Canada and France and that’s a problem”, he said.
Last year, the IPCC published a report based on the models, concluding that to limit global warming to 1.5C coal use should fall by nearly three-quarters between 2020 and 2030 while oil and gas use goes down by around a tenth.
The modelled transition away from coal is even faster in the power system. The IPCC says coal use for electricity should fall 88% between 2020 and 2030.
Muttitt’s study compared this scenario with previous rapid energy transitions like South Korea’s move away from oil after the 1973 Opec crisis and the USA’s transition away from coal during its 2010s boom in home-grown fracked gas, but results were not realistic.
He found that, to reach an 88% fall, coal-reliant nations like China, India and South Africa would have to move off the fossil fuel twice as fast as the previous world records, relative to the size of their energy systems.
“This raises questions about socio-political feasibility,” the study says. It adds that coal phase-out dates of 2030 for wealthy countries and 2050 for developing ones are better targets as they are “difficult but possible