Plans to phase out fossil fuels, it is safe to say, are not going so well. None of the G20 have so far met the Paris Agreement targets, and emissions are at record highs. Ireland ratified that agreement in 2016, and in the latest EPA review, almost all sectors are on a trajectory to exceed their national sectoral emissions ceilings.
Many a government document has been produced on meeting the Paris Agreement targets and they all have one thing in common – growing GDP as a priority. Since energy and GDP correlate almost perfectly, there’s a tug of war going on, and GDP is winning. Our own government claims we will be Net Zero by 2050, while growing our GDP every single year.
So one needs to look outside of official policy to have any chance of finding a realistic plan to meet the obligations under the Paris Agreement.
I recently came across one such plan – Le Plan de transformation de l’économie Française (The French Economy Transformation Plan) authored by The Shift Project, an influential energy and climate think tank in France led by the engineer and system-thinker Jean-Marc Jancovici.
The cornerstone of the plan is what the French call “sobriété.” Sobriété is the voluntary reduction in consumption, particularly consumption that involves high amounts of energy. Consumers are encouraged to question whether modern conveniences, such as always-on heating or overseas vacations, are really necessary. It is a systematic approach to addressing consumption and production that moves beyond technological fixes and strikes at the heart of the issue: human overconsumption. You won’t find that in official government plans!
The plan does not consider money or GDP, since the limiting factors are the availability of materials and energy not money itself. It therefore makes sense to prioritise maximising material and energy flows, and to build the financial system around that, rather than the other way round.
At the outset of the report, the authors ask: what needs to be done if the goal is to reduce emissions in France by 5% every year until 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement, while ensuring everyone has access to employment?
They set a destination to be reached by 2050: a country independent of fossil fuels and resilient in the face of climate crises and supply problems of various resources.
The size of the task is starkly illustrated when the authors point out that—unbeknownst to almost the entire general public—we are shortly headed toward a future of less, not more. “Thinking about the transition to a decarbonized world means returning to an exercise almost forgotten by our societies: we must reason with constrained natural resources (materials and energy) and with short, imposed deadlines. This transition must be largely accomplished within a generation. The next few years are obviously decisive.”
Incidentally, this future of less is acknowledged in French politics (but seemingly nowhere else), with Emmanuel Macron well aware of this reality: “What we are currently living through is a kind of major tipping point or a great upheaval … we are living through the end of what could have seemed an era of abundance … the end of the abundance of products, of technologies that seemed always available … the end of the abundance of land and materials, including water.”
The authors provide three measures by which the destination outlined above is to be achieved:
- Drastically reduce the consumption of fossil energy
- Limit the consumption of materials
- Limit the consumption of biomass
It follows that a reduction in fossil fuels will mean a reduction in the flow of raw materials. This is because all of the objects around us are made from raw materials extracted from the environment using machines powered by fossil energy, and transported by machines also running on fossil energy. By 2050, liquid and gaseous fuels will mostly be a thing of the past, leading to a major drop in the availability of materials.
What this means is a major slowdown in the flow of materials through the French economy. The amount of steel used will be reduced. The number of meals with meat will decrease. The number of airplane flights will be greatly reduced. People will travel less. People will spend less. Products will be simplified and built for longevity and recyclability.
Limiting biomass consumption is necessary because it competes with arable land, and on a planet with an ever increasing biodiversity crisis, widespread clear-felling of trees for energy production isn’t the best of ideas.
On renewables, the authors warn that the energy system must not become “gargantuesque” in its consumption of materials and land. Consider this: a 1,000 m³ space with 80 km/h wind produces just 3 millilitres of oil. That’s a lot of wind turbines needed. Or, to match the energy in a gallon of petrol, you would need to lift 13 tonnes of water 1 kilometre into the air. That’s a lot of reservoir space. It’s unclear if anyone has assessed the materials required for the 37 GW of offshore wind Ireland says we will build. That’s a lot of copper, steel, concrete, and rare earth minerals needed, especially in an era of declining material and oil availability, with oil availability to Europe projected to decline by 50% by 2050. It’s safe to say our plan crosses into the realm of the “gargantuesque.”
Above all, the plan prioritises human well-being while achieving the drastic change in society needed to phase out fossil fuels. Throughout the execution of the plan, people must have access to healthy food, transport, and have genuinely useful tools and equipment. The authors state that while the changes needed across society are exceptional, these changes could well lead to more equitable, cohesive societies, living in harmony with the environment.
Some of the findings outlined in the plan include:
- A 50% reduction in energy use by 2050
- A major shift from imported food to local food production
- A 50% reduction in meat consumption, particularly beef
- A halt to new construction, with a focus on renovating and insulating existing buildings
- A decrease in travel, with shorter journeys and longer stays favoured
- Flying increasingly replaced by train travel
- Private car ownership will drop significantly, with greater emphasis on car-pooling and train journeys
- The average car size will decrease, with microcars and electric bikes incentivized by taxing based on energy use per kilometre
- 500,000 new jobs will be created in the agriculture and food sector as there is a shift toward more labour-intensive agriculture like agroecology, local food production, and on-farm food processing (e.g., yoghurts)
- In transportation, jobs will shift from airlines to the railway industry
- 100,000 jobs will be created in small-scale logistics, such as bike couriers
- The bicycle industry (including electric bikes) will expand by 12x, creating 230,000 jobs
- Overall, there will be a net gain of 300,000 jobs
The plan ends with a beautiful short essay by Jean-Marc Jancovici, where he describes the heart of the issue: we evolved to prioritise short-term dopamine kicks over long-term planning.
“What does ‘respect the environment’ mean? Essentially, coming to terms with limits. Preserving ecosystems means limiting what we take from them; limiting our emissions means limiting our consumption; being sustainable is, above all, being sober. But we are not wired to desire limits. We are wired to want more, not less. And we are wired to put today’s satisfaction ahead of tomorrow’s.”
What this means, Jancovici says, is that the actions we take must provide immediate gratification. These actions must be desirable even if there were no runaway climate change. In addressing global issues, we need to address our primitive brains. We seek belonging and meaning, and so working together on something so necessary will provide the instant dopamine hit we crave.
In a later series on this blog, I will go through the various sections of the plan – Energy, Industry, Agriculture, Long-Distance Mobility, Freight, The Car, Housing, Employment, Culture, Health, and Public Administration – examine the methodology, and apply it to Ireland. Perhaps, when everyone comes to their senses, this could provide the foundation for a realistic plan for Ireland to meet the obligations of the Paris Agreement that we have signed up to.
