This ecosystem battle is between those that are highly vested in the fossil-based energy supply system of today and those that are forcing change into a more renewable reliant energy system as quickly as possible.

We are pushing so much of the principles and theories of ecosystems to the maximum test in the outcomes we wish to achieve, in the energy transition we require.

We are determining our future planet and what defines a healthy ecosystem in a very ad-hoc, self-determining way. The ambitions of so many vested interests need fresh evaluations in any new socio-economic structure. We must bring these two competing energy views into a balance. A balance that allows the planet to return to one where we, as humans, can be more in harmony with all that is around us, in the air we breathe, in sharing this earth in its diversity of resources, living creatures, and what it offers in natural wonder.

To drive change, as we must, in our energy system, we must challenge and reevaluate so many industrial and national policies, to be integrated into a new world order. We must determine who is capable of bringing this new order as I presently can’t see our existing global institutions are equipped or even mandated to enact this. We are failing to manage energy in this ecosystem way.

This energy transition is genuinely an ecosystem of epic proportions.

The energy (eco) system is not impacting many; it is affecting us all; we are all impacted. We do need to recognize that the energy transition, as its end product, electricity, is what we all have become highly dependent upon. Electricity is powering and linking into each of our economies, into our societies. Yet we are facing a stark choice for our earth.

Should we allow energy to continue on its current system, reliant on fossil fuels, old, inadequate energy systems, and infrastructure solutions? Or do we finally recognize, power solutions need to change radically into sources of energy, based more on renewables, that provide cleaner, more naturally sustaining environments based on wind, the sun, and natural conversion of water or the increased use of biomass?

The move towards renewables means a redesign of our energy source and supply systems to combine these different sources of energy; we have the chance to reverse the current crisis our world is facing; of rapid climate warming and significant degradation of the environment.

Of course, there is today a very popular “soundbite” of “we want to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.”  Yet to achieve this does mean we face one of the biggest challenges we will face up to in this century, or perhaps when you to look back, within any century.  This energy transition is as big as it can get. The prize is a return to a planet we can live upon in healthy ways, not one of “affordable energy.”

Ecosystems can evolve naturally, given time, but we presently do not have the luxury of allowing one to develop we much (attempt) to manage this energy transition ecosystem.

The entrenched fossil reliant energy system must migrate towards the clean energy future we urgently require, to allow for our planet to return to a balanced one. If we as humans want to lead healthy lives, we do need this balance this with what this earth offers, to live alongside other creatures, plants, and in what nature provides, and value this completely different. It is not simply trying to extract or be the ultimate judge over parts of the ultimate ecosystem, we need to stop imposing just our needs.

Managing the energy transition is vital to that as it may be essential to our world, but its present byproduct is polluting or poisoning our planet’s environment with significant carbon emissions. We need to provide a more sustainable future for all living things on this one planet of ours in the use of clean energy that does not burden or have an impact on our “living” system.

The Global Energy Transition

Now the energy transition is highly complex, and it is multiple ecosystems interacting and building up. It is embedded as deeply as you can get into the socio-economic system we rely upon. We are facing the most significant challenge where our planet is getting progressively warmer; we see disasters, crises, flooding, droughts, and living conditions that will become highly challenging in the next ten to twenty years for most of us. Our planet is growing increasingly unhealthy, and our reliance on fossil-related energy is causing this.

The enormous impact of fossil fuel-based reliance requires a profound restricting within any future energy system. The new energy system does need to be based on clean energies, or renewables, as we know them. Most of the existing solutions currently being offered to replace existing energy sources are wind and solar solutions; these are expected to replace the fossil-related ones.

Understanding a complete energy transformation requires us to urgently find other solutions, based on the conversion of minerals that might still be carbon-based into new energy solutions as they extract the carbonization. One such solution is hydrogen conversions or carbon capture techniques.

If we are going to complete the energy transition, the future energy systems must be all about “deep decarbonization” solutions must come from new solutions and technological innovation breakthroughs but at a pace of unprecedented speed and scale. To achieve carbon capture at a global level is presently regarded as today’s hunt for a holy grail. Planting trees will only take us so far; we need a technological breakthrough that captures, contains, and reduces carbonization.

Ecosystems have not been as crucial as they are today in our understanding

When you hear or read about people talk of ecosystems, you do need to think about the one that is critical to us all — having a healthy ecosystem that needs to come from this energy transition.

In our original recognitions of ecosystems, the recognition is the reliance on all the dependencies. The natural ecosystem is where our water, air, soil, plants, living creatures are all interlinked, all needed. It is where our sources of energy, minerals, nutrients, water, oxygen, and living organisms are so reliant on the sun, healthy air, and need a balance for a healthy environment. It is one we, as humans, need to put back into a balance if we want to survive.

Today we are witnessing the degradation of this one vital ecosystem we are all utterly dependant upon, our planet.

We are moving towards a crisis due to the over influence we as a human has imposed. We are facing such far-reaching change and well-being, in industrial and rural regions, in the way we live. If we do not tackle our energy system by replacing the current carbon-driven economy we will pay the price of this in providing an environment we will find it increasingly hard to exist in ways we currently know. If we continue to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, it will not only become unhealthy but for much of our living as we know it.

Does that sound dramatic?

Well, we are really messing with the ultimate ecosystem we have, the world we live in, and it is continuing to move in a very unhealthy direction. Managing the energy transition is critical, believe me, it is one ecosystem that needs global coordination and handling. Achieving this is way beyond selected parties determining their own needs, determined to hold onto their positioning or vested interests, yet that is, actually, the fundamental nature of ecosystems.

It is an ecosystem battle that we, as humans, need to provide the different conditions to bring our planet back into order, as we were the ones who put the world into this crisis in the first place.

The post The battle of the energy ecosystems first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.

The notification starts a one-year process of exiting the global climate change accord, culminating the day after the 2020 US election.

The Paris agreement brought together 188 nations to combat climate change. The Paris accord agreed in 2015, committed the US and 187 other countries to keep rising global temperatures below 2C above pre-industrial levels and attempting to limit them even more, to a 1.5C rise. Climate change, or global warming, refers to the damaging effect on the atmosphere of gases, or emissions, released from industry and agriculture.

In a publication “The Paris Climate Agreement versus the Trump Effect: Countervailing Forces for Decarbonisation,”  IIEA Senior Fellow Joseph Curtin argues that the “Trump Effect” has created a powerful countervailing force acting against the momentum which the Paris Agreement on climate change hoped to generate. The real concern is that this decision will give instability and uncertainty until broader and deeper structural factors within the US political economy can be addressed as their (the USA) issues around energy resourcing, infrastructure, and urbanization are as much in crisis as anyone else. Can this national determination by the present administration go against the tide of so many?

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he hoped the US could take more responsibility in what was a multilateral process instead of adding “negative energy.”

Today, the US is one of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, with the US contributes about 15% of global emissions of carbon dioxide.  Mr. Trump early in his term promised to turn the US into an energy superpower and has attempted to sweep away a raft of pollution legislation to reduce the cost of producing gas, oil, and coal, the three primary fossil fuels, the significant sources of carbon.

What a lost opportunity? Or can we possibly believe in a new optimism?

I am not holding my breath here, I have to do that enough as I walk around our polluted cities, but I want to believe the US is one of the best at innovating.

The US has been one of the outstanding contributors to advancing innovation. Instead of trying to “roll the clock” back on reducing the cost of coal, gas, and oil, would it not be a more significant contribution to themselves and to the world by finding commercial, scalable solutions to carbon capture or hydrogen? Then these carbon generating fuels can play a role by solving this carbon capture problem specifically.

Cracking that difficult nut of carbon capture is like “flying to the moon,” something I alluded too in a recent post, “the Energy Transition we are undertaking.” Let me repeat it here:

“We lack leadership here in the Energy Transition battle. We need inspirational leadership. John F. Kennedy made one of the most famous “call to actions:

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

We do need a call to “collective” action on solving our rapidly warming climate. Still, it is through our “connection” to energy, and especially electricity, we need this moment of inspiration to contribute to making a change. What would be your inspirational statement of “We choose to make our energy clean and sustainable”?

Perhaps it is not too late? Can a new energy model emerge from the creative forces of innovation?

What a pity the US has not taken up the energy transition challenge in imaginative, innovate ways. One where carbon capture, the creative blending of all the fuels, known today and in the future from synthetic substitute fuels, coupled with reductions of emissions, accelerating e-mobility and transforming cities into connected ones, has not become the centerpiece of their energy commitments. They need this alternative plan, otherwise, they will quickly become non-competitive as the world adopts green, fossil-free energy as policy and regulation.

The final decision to the US completing withdrawal is after the next presidential election, and the official release on the withdrawal of the US from the Paris agreement stated this:

“The U.S. approach incorporates the reality of the global energy mix and uses all energy sources and technologies cleanly and efficiently, including fossils fuels, nuclear energy, and renewable energy. In international climate discussions, we will continue to offer a realistic and pragmatic model – backed by a record of real-world results – showing innovation and open markets lead to greater prosperity, fewer emissions, and more secure sources of energy.

We will continue to work with our global partners to enhance resilience to the impacts of climate change and prepare for and respond to natural disasters. Just as we have in the past, the United States will continue to research, innovate, and grow our economy while reducing emissions and extending a helping hand to our friends and partners around the globe.”

It also in the statement pointed out, “The United States has reduced all types of emissions, even as we grow our economy and ensure our citizens’ access to affordable energy. Our results speak for themselves: U.S. emissions of criteria air pollutants that impact human health and the environment declined by 74% between 1970 and 2018. U.S. net greenhouse gas emissions dropped 13% from 2005-2017, even as our economy grew over 19 percent.

Are we doing enough or has it just got a whole lot harder?

Can we believe these statements released to justify this decision? Or are there other transformation ways to make sure we are doing enough in reducing worrying climate concerns? The US needs a viable alternative plan for managing climate issues. How can we reduce greenhouse gases and re-vitalizing the energy industry to provide environmentally-friendly electricity, a robust infrastructure and a sustainable source of power to “fuel” our cities, cars, and economic and societal aspirations?

Can we believe the US, by walking away from an agreement made by all other countries on the planet? Will the US live up to be a leading responsible global citizen or progressively lagging one. Do we fear the US is going more inward and is selfishly promoting its best interests of big oil, gas, and coal?

Let us hope not, and the movements occurring across the US of hundreds of local governments, businesses, and organizations in the US that have joined the “We Are Still In” become even more of a powerful movement. We need a doubling down on pledging to cut emissions, and continued move to renewable energy as the source of clean energy has the innovative access, political and social will. The ability to solving fossil fuel problems, the ability to blend or phase in new technology at scale, such as hydrogen, and can find ways and means that accelerate the carbon capture solutions that we still need to resolve.

I want to believe there are many ways for other transformation solutions to energy solutions that will emerge in the years ahead. These new solutions will be needed to make sure “we are doing enough.” This is in reducing worrying climate concerns, eradicating as much greenhouse gases as possible, alongside re-vitalizing the energy industry to provide electricity that is as clean as it can be from sources that reduce carbon. In making our infrastructure robust and resilient, and a sustainable source of power to “fuel” our cities, cars, and economic and societal aspirations.

Mr. President, you can tear down walls in past policies, protocols, precedences; we have seen this constantly but can you replace them with solutions that will make America great again? Ideas flow across boundaries, please don’t bury those in one-sided policies, you need to tear down but also build up and find the ways and means to ignite the imagination we all need to resolve global warming. The US has some of the best innovative capabilities, we need leadership to “enable” them, to solve complex problems and lead the world in new concepts, solutions, and approaches. The US is very capable of finding breakthrough solutions for our energy and climate needs.

Are we doing enough? No, as we do need to reverse this negative energy and make it positive.

The post A dark day for the climate and the fight over global warming? first appeared on Your Ecosystem Design Hub.