Climate change mitigation requires reducing future greenhouse gas emissions by improving energy efficiency, switching to non-carbon sources of electricity and avoiding deforestation/destruction of ecosystems that act as carbon sinks.
Stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases requires taking significant steps to decrease emissions in the future and store carbon dioxide – efforts which are often referred to as “cleaning up” the atmosphere.
1. Energy efficiency
Energy efficiency refers to providing services with less energy consumption. This may include illumination, thermal comfort, cooking and transport of people and goods. Within the global energy system, increasing end-use efficiency is one of the cheapest and most efficient strategies for decreasing consumption as well as its related climate impacts.
Energy efficiency helps lower demand, relieving pressure on resources and ecosystems while simultaneously decreasing emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which has an immediate effect on climate change.
Reducing emissions through energy efficiency and decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels are integral parts of the solution to climate change, including improving building design and appliance use, switching to electric vehicles and shifting agricultural practices that emit methane and nitrous oxide as greenhouse gases. Other steps include encouraging people to live and work in areas not vulnerable to flooding, drought or heatwave impacts while conserving open space along water bodies to absorb flood waters.
2. Renewable energy
Energy is a core part of global economies, yet is one of the primary drivers of climate change – fossil fuels account for most greenhouse gas emissions – yet renewables offer potential solutions to mitigate them.
Renewable energy uses sources that replenish more quickly than they’re consumed, like sunlight and wind power; unlike fossil fuels like coal which take millions of years to form. As such, using renewables can have significantly less of an effect on climate change than using them.
Renewables can play a vital role in helping reduce emissions. On track to become the global electricity supplier by 2023, renewables need to expand even faster in order to achieve Net Zero Emissions Scenarios and help mitigate air pollutants while improving health; which explains why businesses and governments around the world are rapidly adopting them as part of their environmental strategies and climate plans.
3. Carbon capture and storage
CO2 capture and storage technologies are crucial to meeting global climate targets, as they allow fossil fuel plants to operate with lower carbon emissions. Furthermore, BECCS technologies can also be used for bioenergy production using biomass that emits CO2.
At present, 41 commercial CCS projects exist globally – although many were not developed specifically with climate in mind; instead they store CO2 as by-product of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes.
An emerging alternative approach involves injecting captured CO2 deep underground, such as deep saline aquifers. One such project in Norway called Snohvit is an excellent example; initially storing CO2 captured at Tubaen formation before switching over to Sto formation if needed demonstrates flexibility required of future projects when selecting their storage site(s).
4. Energy storage
Energy storage systems create more flexible and sustainable electricity supply by storing excess renewable generation when it becomes available, then releasing it when demand or renewable generation decreases. Examples include rechargeable batteries storing chemical energy readily convertible to electricity and pumped hydro storage which stores water under gravity potential energy before turning it back into power using turbines.
Storage solutions can also enhance grid reliability, decreasing reliance on fossil fuel backup plants while strengthening resilience to climate impacts such as hurricanes or wildfires. They are especially valuable in communities located far from an electrical grid such as islands or rural homes.
UNC researchers have been studying the cost and environmental impacts of various energy storage solutions. Their work suggests that some states, including North Carolina, may need to invest more in renewables to offset any additional greenhouse gas emissions generated from battery addition, while also hastening our progress toward cleaner and more resilient future.