The TED Talk below highlights how we live in a world where our energy system is overwhelmingly dependent on burning fossil fuels and asks: What are the viable pathways to a clean and safe future, and how do we collectively navigate this transition?
While the need to get off fossil fuels is straightforward and urgent, the pathway to doing it equitably is anything but.
Today, more than 80 percent of modern energy comes from burning fossil fuels. That means more than 40 billion metric tons, that’s 40 gigatons, of CO2 gets dumped in the air each year. And that number is growing.
We have got to find a way of leaving the vast majority of coal, oil and gas in the ground, even if it is in someone’s interest to dig it or drill it up. So what should we do?
In one area, the answer is clear. Renewable is now a cheaper way to produce electricity than coal in almost all countries of the world, so we should build no more coal electricity plants, no more coal mines. And we should not invest anything in the extension of existing coal mines.