Thread by @FuelOnTheFire

Our new paper in @NatureClimate finds 1.5C pathways underestimate how much Global North must cut CO2 emissions and how fast oil & gas must be phased out globally
This is because pathways rely too much on phasing out coal, with less emphasis on oil & gas.
nature.com/articles/s4155…

Ending coal use is urgent, for both climate & health

But it takes time to enable a just transition in countries that are highly coal-dependent: e.g coal provides 73% of power in India + 89% in South Africa. These can’t be switched off overnight without severe social costs.

The median 1.5°C pathway from @ipcc_ch #AR6 sees global coal power down 87% by 2030, and 96% by 2035.

Highly coal-dependent developing countries would have to replace almost their whole power fleet within a decade.

In comparison, global gas power falls just 14% by 2030 , and global overall oil use just 10% in the median pathway.

Is this the right balance?

What would a realistic phase out of coal look like in the South + what are the implications for the energy transition?

We compared with the last 50 years' fastest power transitions, in all countries. This includes major policy efforts (Japan post-Fukushima, responses to 1970s oil price) and external events (collapse of USSR, wars, sanctions), so gives an indicator of “achievable at a stretch”

Here are all countries' fastest transitions:

Current 1.5°C pathways would require 🇨🇳, 🇮🇳, & 🇿🇦 to phase out coal 2x faster than the fastest power sector transition of the last 50 yrs, by any country, relative to system size.

The original @PastCoal phaseout timelines of 2030 for North & 2050 for South, with linear decrease, would see some of largest coal consumers at the "world record" pace of power transitions but not beyond it. Southern countries would still have to reduce coal power by 1/3 by 2030

Some countries - e.g. 🇮🇩,🇷🇺 - would be must slower than historical records, so could potentially move faster than @pastcoal timeline, with provision of climate finance for Southern countries

We then modelled a 1.5C pathway with coal phaseout no faster than 2030/50 North/South timeline.

We found Global North must reduce CO2 emissions 50% faster than if these speed limits are ignored

More emissions from coal means less room for oil and gas, which both decline faster.

e.g. US cumulative oil production to 2050 is 20% lower than 1.5C pathways without speed limits

The key lessons are:
1) Limiting warming to 1.5C requires cuts in all 3 fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas
2) 1.5C pathways are underestimating the needed cuts in oil & gas by proposing unrealistically rapid coal phaseout in coal-dependent Southern countries

3) Integrated assessment models are not good at representing socio-political realism: this area needs more development

Here's our paper again: nature.com/articles/s4155…

If you don't have access, you can see our unpaywalled, submitted version here: researchsquare.com/article/rs-141…

It was a pleasure to work on this research with @JamesJEPrice, @st_pye and Dan Welsby of @UCL_Energy