Zero Carbon World: Is It Possible to Achieve Global Climate Neutrality?

Abstract

The prospects for achieving carbon neutrality in economically developed countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other countries are examined. An analysis of the energy and land use structure in these countries was carried out. Scenario assessments of the dynamics of changes in carbon indicators of the study economies have been developed, and a comparison has been made with forecasts from leading global energy agencies. It has been shown that, at the current rate of decarbonization and development of the carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry, it is impossible for countries in both groups to fulfill their commitments to achieve climate neutrality in 2050–2070; this goal cannot be achieved before the end of this century. The central challenge in achieving climate neutrality is the rapid and large-scale implementation of CCS technologies in all their possible manifestations. Using a set of global climate system models, calculations of the global average temperature (GAT) were performed for the proposed scenarios, and their results were compared with other works. Despite the fact that climate change occupies almost a leading place on the global agenda, the actual results of efforts in this area are far from those declared, and it is now impossible to cap warming to within 1.5°C. The key task is to minimize the time the global climate system remains in the dangerous extreme zone (above 1.5°C), which will require the emergence of a global economy with negative greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.