Every Saturday we decipher climate issues with François Gemenne, professor at HEC, president of the Scientific Council of the Foundation for Nature and Man and member of the IPCC. Saturday January 27: the energy transition.
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franceinfo: This week, we are talking about the energy transition. Between the optimism of the will and the pessimism of reason, Which tendency are you?
François Gemenne: More of the first, I would define myself as voluntarist, but I fear that the general atmosphere leans towards the other side.
Why do you say that ?
France is the country in the world where people are the most pessimistic about our chances of making a successful transition: one in six French people think that it is too late, that we will not succeed, that it is useless. This is said by IPSOS, based on a survey commissioned by EDF in 29 countries, published last November. And these French people will find reasons to reinforce their pessimism by watching a number of videos on social networks which warn us against the exhaustion of the metals necessary for the transition, but also by reading the latest book by the historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz , Without transitionwhose publisher crossed out the cover with a red banner with a sentence as definitive as those pronounced by Denis Brogniart in Koh Lanta : “The energy transition will not take place”.
Why this insurance? Are we sure of that?
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz is – fortunately – not as definitive in his book, but his historical demonstration is powerful: he shows that never, in History, has one energy replaced another.
“Each time a new energy was discovered, it was added to the previous one, but it did not replace it. Worse still, it increased the consumption of the previous energy.”
François Gemennefranceinfo
But how is it possible, the new energy should be more efficient than the previous one?
Obviously, but the new energy also made it possible to increase overall energy consumption and its production mobilized enormous resources. Fressoz clearly shows, for example, how the extraction of coal in the mines required enormous quantities of wood, even though coal was supposed to replace wood! In the same way, we could point out today that the production of solar panels or electric batteries requires the extraction of enormous quantities of ores and metals.
Carbon-free energies are not starting to replace fossil fuels?
Not really, actually. It is certain that low-carbon energies, renewable or nuclear, are on the rise.
“In 2023, the level of investment in these energies has increased further and reached a record level, with 1,700 billion dollars – this is much higher than the level of investment in fossils, which is around 1,000 billion of dollars.”
François Gemennefranceinfo
But the problem is that these investments are also increasing. And this is reflected in our energy consumption, we consume more and more carbon-free energies, but also more and more fossil fuels. One adds to the other.
This is not very reassuring, this means that what we observed in the past continues to be verified in the present. HASas we are now aware of climate change and the need to move away from fossil fuels. It’s still a big difference from the past, isn’t it?
There are still encouraging signs. In certain countries, carbon-free energies have managed to replace fossil fuels. In Denmark, for example, the share of carbon-free energies in the energy mix has quintupled in 20 years, going from 8% at the start of the 2000s to 43% today. In the United Kingdom, it has more than doubled, from 10% at the start of the century to 25% today. Even in China, this share has tripled in 20 years, from 6 to 18%. The problem is that carbon-free energies are far from progressing at the same pace globally. Carbon-free energies today represent 18% of global energy consumption: 14% for renewables and 4% for nuclear.
“Fossil fuels represent 82% of global energy consumption. 20 years ago, it was 86%. It’s falling too slowly.”
François Gemennefranceinfo
But is there really any point in accelerating the deployment of carbon-free energies, if they do not replace fossils?
Yes, absolutely. But that’s not enough. This is why it is imperative that we also talk about energy sobriety: we must not only increase our production of carbon-free energies, we must also reduce our consumption, to be able to move away from fossil fuels. The COP28 agreement does not say anything else. And carbon-free energies are today more and more efficient and competitive, which will help us a lot. Some countries are already showing us that it is possible to achieve this. This, I believe, is the limit of what the history of energy can teach us: in the past, when we introduced new energy, we had no real reason to get rid of the energy. previous, because the climate emergency was not there. There was no need to make a transition, we could add the energies to each other.
And today ?
Today we know that we must make this transition, we have no other choice. We know that we must abandon fossil fuels. And just because it hasn’t happened in the past doesn’t mean it can’t happen in the future. Because now we know we have to make this transition. If we passively wait for the transition to happen on its own, then yes, probably, it will never happen. For it to happen, we must want it, we must decide it. And this is the big difference with the past: we must not wait for the transition, we must make it happen. It’s not a transition that we’re talking about, in fact: it’s a transformation. A transformation that we must decide.