- The exploitation of oil, gas and coal is now destabilizing all nine planetary boundaries and driving a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. The solution, experts say, is to move from a hydrocarbon-based linear economy to a diversified circular economy. This is Part 3 of a three-part miniseries.
- To step back from dangerous environmental thresholds, humanity needs to cut its use of fossil fuels, petroleum-based synthetic fertilizers and petrochemicals (especially plastics), with many analysts unequivocal about the unlikelihood of utilizing oil, gas and coal resources to implement a global circular economy.
- To achieve a circular economy, fossil fuels need to be phased out and alternative energy sources put in place. Bio-fertilizers need to be adopted and scaled up, and nitrogen fertilizers must be managed better to prevent overuse. Plastic production needs to be curbed, with a ban of single-use plastics as a start.
- Unfortunately, the world isn’t on target to achieve any of these goals soon, with surging oil and natural gas production by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia expected to push the planet past the maximum 2° C (3.6° F) temperature increase agreed to in the 2015 Paris Accord — putting Earth at risk of climate catastrophe.
This story is the third in a three-part miniseries surveying the range of impacts by the fossil fuel industry on the global environment. Part one and part two review harm done to the nine planetary boundaries, while part three looks at circular economy solutions.
Extracting fossil fuels — burning them, turning them into plastics, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers or other petrochemicals — is old technology based on an outdated “take-make-waste” linear economic model and now poses an existential threat to life on Earth as we know it, say numerous experts interviewed for this exclusive Mongabay series.
While fossil fuels bring many societal benefits, they are also “powering our economies at a huge cost, creating a lot of liabilities … depleting rather than restoring,” says Steven Stone, deputy director of the industry and economic division at the United Nations Environment Programme.
Oil, gas and coal production are “emblematic” of a linear industrial paradigm, Stone adds, which urgently needs to be replaced by circular economy solutions.
A circular economy model revolves around the 3R’s: “reducing, reusing and recycling,” curbing waste via closed loops that regenerate nature, minimize resource use, power production with renewable energy and shift people away from relentless consumerism.
Fossil fuels (due to their toxicity and persistent environmental harm) are inherently incompatible with developing a circular economy, says Anne Velenturf, a senior research fellow at the University of Leeds. Circularity “has to be about improving the environment, strengthening society and maintaining economic prosperity. Continued exploitation of fossil fuels does none of these things,” she says.
But achieving circularity means reinventing our society, fast. It requires a complete transformation of the energy and materials production sectors before climate change, deforestation, pollution and the sixth great extinction make Earth unlivable.
A raft of promising circular solutions are in development that could boost prosperity while returning Earth to within safe planetary boundary limits — tackling climate change and reducing humanity’s environmental footprint.
However, accomplishing those goals in the face of a global economy hooked on fossil fuels, agrochemicals and petrochemicals that is becoming more linear and wasteful, not less, presents an enormous challenge.
Circular solution one: Phase out fossil fuels, boost renewables
Given the extreme existential threat posed by climate change, and with the energy sector responsible for roughly half of greenhouse gas emissions, experts say that it’s clear that slashing fossil fuel production, while making a massive shift to alternative energy, would take humanity a bold step toward emission cuts and circularity.
First off, a halt needs to be called to further oil, gas and coal exploitation, while rapidly ramping up renewable energy. That goal is being loudly advocated by activists in the runup to the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, which begins Nov. 30.
But that meeting seems unlikely to achieve much based on past U.N. summit performances, with the world’s nations still providing trillions in fossil fuel subsidies, and U.S., Saudi and Russian oil…
Read More: Circular economy poised to go beyond outdated oil, gas and coal, experts say