“Transitioning away” from fossil fuels requires patience and fresh ideas

One of the most commendable achievements of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, more commonly known simply as COP28—is the joint agreement by nearly 200 countries to commit to transitioning away from fossil fuels from this point forward. This is the first time in history that the international community has reached a consensus on the future of fossil fuels, marking a significant milestone in global joint actions to address climate change. This agreement was hard-won. The two-week long COP28 even had to go into one day of “overtime” to finally seal the agreement  on December 13.

Despite the hard efforts, many are still not satisfied with the content of this consensus. Some critics argue that the language of this consensus is too weak to benefit the global efforts to the global process of reducing fossil fuels consumptions and carbon emissions. They believe that instead of “transitioning away,” the agreement should require countries to “phase out” the use of coal, oil and natural gas. However, the reason for the conference to choose the phrase “transition away” is because this approach is more in line with the actual situation of most of the countries, and a radical energy transition might actually be counterproductive. Only a just transition carried out after carefully considering the energy supply structures and economic development level aligns best with the interests of most countries. In other words, this agreement prioritizes progress and marks “transitioning away” as more fair and realistically achievable than “phasing out.”

Ever since the signing of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, there have been voices advocating for the necessity of a “just transition” in addressing climate change. That concept primarily focuses on protecting the rights and interests of workers during the transition to address climate change, aiming to prevent workers from being harmed by industrial restructuring. In fact, not just workers, but every person in any country should have the opportunity of experiencing a “just transition.” The world has acknowledged that the efforts to address climate change should not harm the legitimate rights and interests of ordinary people. 

The United Kingdom and the European Union, along with several of the latter’s 27 members, are often among the strongest supporters of phasing out fossil fuels. The US, UK, and EU have demanded “stronger language” in determining the future of fossil fuels. However, it must also be acknowledged that if the phasing out of fossil fuels becomes a mandatory regulation for all countries, those countries would also be among the least affected countries. By 2024, the UK will be able to completely stop using coal and oil for electricity generation, and its reliance on natural gas for power generation will also drop to about 10% of the total power generated. Similarly, the share of fossil fuels in the power mix of Germany is also less than 25%, and its installation capacity of renewables continues to increase. 

In comparison, countries like China and India, which faced heavy criticism at COP28 for opposing the use of strong language regarding fossil fuels, can be used in case studies for developing countries that cannot afford to phase out fossil fuels too rapidly. Renewable energy accounts for only 16% and 10% of the primary energy in China and India, respectively. Although China is accelerating its energy transition, it still cannot be finished overnight. In the summer of 2022, severe drought led to insufficient power supply from hydroelectric stations, and the subsequent energy shortage severely affected provinces along the Yangtze River in China. China even had to temporarily increase its coal power generation. For India, reducing the usage of fossil fuels also becomes a less pressing issue when many people still do not have access to reliable and affordable energy. Thus, a hasty phasing out of fossil fuels is neither reasonable nor realistic for such people at the moment.

While this milestone agreement does not mandate any country to completely stop using fossil fuels by a certain point in time, it does require a commitment to “rapidly phasing down unabated coal and limiting permissions of new and unabated coal power generation.” This type of planning scheme reflects a very important principle of the agreement: the ultimate goal is not to stop the use of fossil fuels entirely but instead to assist countries to achieve net zero by 2050 by transitioning away from fossil fuels. Furthermore, there are several existing measures that can already be used to assist in the process of transitioning away from fossil fuels without affecting economic development or the overall price of energy.

China—the country with the fastest development rate in renewable energy—can be taken as an example. Over the past decade, China’s renewable energy installation capacity has increased from 8% to 16% in total energy consumption, and its use of coal has decreased from 68% to 55% at the same time. It can be said that renewable energy has significantly helped to reduce fossil fuels usage. Nevertheless, although many advocate replacing fossil fuels by increasing the use of renewable energy, everyone must also recognize the limitations of renewable energy. Firstly, the present growth rate of renewable energy can only partially meet the need to replace coal and is not sufficient to satisfy China’s increased demand for energy consumption. China’s level of reliance on other fossil fuels has not changed with the development of renewable energy. To achieve that admirable yet minimal growth from 8% to 16%, China’s wind power generation increased from 282 TWh to 1988 TWh and its solar power generation from 9 TWh to 1115 TWh, and the use of other renewable energy sources also saw significant growth. 

Thus, countries should also adopt accessible and low-carbon fuels to replace high-pollution energy sources, such as using natural gas to replace coal. Although it is also a fossil fuel, natural gas emits 50% less carbon than coal and is much more accessible than renewable energy. Moreover, the price of natural gas is becoming increasingly competitive with improvements in extraction and transportation technologies. Therefore, increasing the use of low-emission energy sources such as natural gas is actually an effective means to reduce carbon emission, especially when the supply of renewable energy is still insufficient. More importantly, it is not particularly complicated to replace coal with natural gas. Currently, coal is primarily used in thermal power plants for electricity generation. One can turn a coal power plant into a natural gas power plant by converting the boiler of a coal-fired steam plant to a natural gas-fired boiler. With such a conversion, the output of electricity needed for development will not decrease, and the workers originally employed at the power plant also will not lose their jobs. This is just one method of expanding the use of natural gas and other similar low-carbon energies which can play a greater role in many more fields for a long time to come.

Additionally, it is necessary to improve the storage and transportation methods of renewable energy. Two issues that must be faced in the process of transitioning away from fossil fuels is that renewable energy can almost only be converted into electric energy and stored in batteries, and that there are always times when renewable energy cannot be naturally generated. This makes the application of renewable energy not as extensive or reliable as fossil fuels, especially oil, and also makes its storage and transportation comparatively more difficult. Accelerating the development of green hydrogen may partially solve this problem in the future, achieving the goal of transitioning away from fossil fuels in areas other than electricity. Green hydrogen is not a naturally obtained resource. Instead, it converts electricity generated from renewable energy into another form, and it can play a wider role in heavy industry, transportation, mining and other fields. For example, it could replace oil as the zero emission fuel for ships and airplanes in the future, which is something that electricity cannot achieve. Additionally, they also avoid the potential waste of renewable energy due to the insufficiency of lithium batteries. 

To sum up, COP28’s groundbreaking international agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels marks a significant and carefully framed step toward a global net zero objective. It logically balances the urgent need for climate change mitigation with the non-negligible economic and social realities of different countries, thus making it more likely to succeed. In order to achieve the goal of transitioning away from fossil fuels as soon as possible, the green development work needs to make more efforts in both replacing high-emission energy sources with low-emission ones and expanding the application of renewable energy in the long run, and if adhered to this agreement is a solid step towards that goal.