{"id":56131,"date":"2020-12-22T15:22:54","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T20:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56131"},"modified":"2020-12-22T15:22:54","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T20:22:54","slug":"yes-the-u-s-can-go-carbon-neutral-by-2050-says-new-princeton-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=56131","title":{"rendered":"Yes, the U.S. can go carbon neutral by 2050, says new Princeton study"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"PrincetonDavid McNew \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n
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Yes, the U.S. can go carbon neutral by 2050, says new Princeton study<\/a><\/h3>\n
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The month of December opened with good news and bad news for people concerned about the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

A climate analysis released by the independent watchdog group\u00a0Climate Action Tracker<\/a>\u00a0said that based on promises made by Paris Climate Agreement participants,\u00a0the world could limit warming<\/a>\u00a0to 2.1 degrees C (3.8 degrees F) by the year 2100. Countries including Japan, South Korea, and China have promised to reach zero emissions by 2060. And while the U.S. isn\u2019t currently a part of the agreement, President-elect Joe Biden plans to rejoin next month and has set a rigorous\u00a0net-zero promise for 2050<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the next day<\/a>, another report threw cold water on that hopeful note, pointing out that many of these countries were not on track to keep their emissions promises. In fact, the study, which explores the gaps between Paris agreement goals and reality, found that countries are planning to\u00a0increase<\/em> fossil fuel production by 2 percent annually on average, which would push global temperature rise well past 2.1 degrees C by 2100.<\/p>\n

Into that conversation comes a\u00a0Princeton University report,<\/a>\u00a0published Tuesday, that presents several plausible paths for the U.S. to arrive at net-zero emissions by 2050 (complete with economic growth) \u2014 as long as government officials make swift moves to invest in sustainable infrastructure.<\/p>\n

One such path requires an investment in solar and wind manufacturing, which offers long-term domestic employment opportunities without incurring too many additional technology costs. The caveat? Manufacturing capacity for turbines and photovoltaics would have to increase drastically by 2050 \u2014 up to 45 times for wind and 120 times for solar. These strides aren\u2019t\u00a0achievable without short-term public and political support \u2014 progress that has been difficult due to the\u00a0Trump administration\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0habit of burying dozens of studies outlining the promise of renewable energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David McNew \/ Getty Images Yes, the U.S. can go carbon neutral by 2050, says new Princeton study The month of December opened with good news and bad news for people concerned about the climate crisis. A climate analysis released by the independent watchdog group\u00a0Climate Action Tracker\u00a0said that based on promises made by Paris Climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[3253,30754,30753,1053,328,15759,674,827],"class_list":["post-56131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-alternate-energy","tag-cameron-oglesby","tag-carbon-neutral","tag-climate-crisis","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-grist","tag-renewable-energy","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56132,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56131\/revisions\/56132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}