The Big Challenge: Reducing Global Emissions and Increasing Global GDP

This analysis aims to establish a relationship between the population’s growth, the GDP growth, the energy consumption growth, and GHG emissions growth from 1950 to 2024 and, with data from this period, predict the global situation in 2050. In present days, the great trend is based on two premises: a) Anthropogenic activity causes excessive emissions of greenhouse gases, increasing the concentration of CO2 from 250 ppm at the beginning of the first industrial revolution to 425 ppm today. The exaggerated levels of carbon dioxide, methane, and others could not be sustained by the planet. Thus, social pressures led by environmentalists pose obstacles to using fossil fuels for electricity generation, heating, industrial production, transport (people and goods), use of forests for agricultural and livestock. b) However, human pressure for better living conditions opposes the barriers that try to prevent the increase in the use of energy from fossil fuels as a driver of wealth generation. The proposed and consensual path is the rapid replacement of fossil energies by renewable energies. This responsibility falls mainly on wind and solar energy. Biofuels are limited by the need to use the land for food, hydroelec-tricity is already almost fully used, and nuclear power generates very radio-active wastes. Wind and solar energy have a generation of 30% and 20%-25% of its installed power, while nuclear has 90%, coal 75%-80%, gas and oil 65%-70%, and hydro 45%-6o%. The difficulty of storing them (Solar and Eolic) in their primary state, the instability of generation, and the quality of the energy generated are strong obstacles for the use of these energies. These difficult renewable energies are needed to quickly meet aspirations for comfort and well-being, increasing the pressure on fossil energies in short-term actions in poor countries. This article explores the need to satisfy the desires of high percentages of populations who have the right to improve their living conditions and who, therefore, will exert pressure to continue using fossil energy sources, but the zero-carbon target must continue. How to succeed in this objective is the great challenge.