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This ongoing column content addresses concepts of decarbonization, environment and sustainability along with concrete considerations here in Boulder and beyond. With that in mind, perhaps some background and context can be helpful to interested readers here. Decarbonization is a process of decreasing the carbon content of energy-generating fuels.
The ultimate objective is to eliminate carbon emissions that contribute to climate change and other environmental problems. Decarbonization is pursued through a combination of political and economic measures as well as cultural and societal demands. An influential 2018 United Nations (UN) report called for decarbonization by 2050 in order to avoid warming past 1.
5 o C (2.7 o F). These processes impact our everyday lives, lifestyles, relationships and livelihoods.
They are intersecting challenges that force us to re-examine the carbon-based ways in which we work, travel, play and relax in today’s world. Tools to ratchet up decarbonization efforts involve efficiency gains (e.g.
switching from coal to fossil (or “natural”) gas) and mode-switching (from carbon-based sources to renewable energy sources). There have been prolific market signals as well as increasing regulatory interventions that have effectively contributed to accelerating these processes. To illustrate, here in Colorado the planned closure of the last coal-fired power plant near Pueblo by 2031 has invigorated deliberations about where replacement energy can and should be generated.
Meanwhile, two months ago the last coal-fired power plant closed in the UK, marking the end of an era near the birthplace of the carbon-intensive industrial revolution. While coal (a fuel that has contributed significantly to climate change) is no longer seen as a financially wise source of energy generation, its detrimental environmental impacts — along with oil and fossil gas — have also driven these shifts. Animating these dynamics, at the international climate negotiations that just wrapped up in Azerbaijan (COP29) UN Secretary-General António Guterres pointed out that doubling down on the use of fossil fuels was “absurd.
” Also at COP29, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told negotiators, “The race is on for the clean energy jobs of the future, the economy of tomorrow, and I don’t want to be in the middle of the pack. I want to get ahead of the game.” Sustainability and sustainable development thread through decarbonization.
These call on us to reconsider how we meet our needs and desires in line with stewardship requirements of the environment, nature and ecosystem services. Interwoven challenges also call on our creativity, boldness, ambition and imagination. The most prominent definition of sustainable development emanated from a 1987 UN report called “Our Common Future.
” This defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Sustainable development has commonly been seen as the convergence of three components: economic growth, social justice and healthy environments. Building from this framework over the subsequent decades the UN has more recently devised a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In 2015, the UN General Assembly meeting convened in New York City announced this set of seventeen global goals (with 169 targets within them) to focus on a “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” These SDGs also built upon the 1992 UN “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as well as its successors RIO+10 and RIO+20 (ten and twenty years following that initial meeting). These convenings produced a non-binding resolution entitled “The Future We Want” that focused on poverty eradication, energy, water and sanitation, and public health.
Environment and decarbonization challenges have been woven through each of these SDGs. These very general articulations have been setting the table for ongoing decarbonization and sustainability pursuits. These pursuits, however, clearly are not new.
Moreover, they have been subject to praise (e.g. prioritizing environmental stewardship) as well as critiques (e.
g. providing room for greenwashing) that I may take up in future columns. For now, it is clear that meeting SDG goals by 2030 and deep decarbonization by 2050 necessitates significant action in the next months and years at all levels.
And, these are not merely future problems to confront later when politics and policy may be seen as more supportive for action. We must work with what we’ve got now for current and future generations, both human and non-human. Max Boykoff is a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder, though the views expressed here are based upon his scholarly expertise and research/creative experience as well as personal views and should not be considered the university’s official position on any specific issue.
This is a biweekly sustainability and environment column. Email: [email protected].
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