The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of experts hired by the United Nations to advance scientific knowledge of climate change, announced on March 20 that Earth will most likely cross a critical threshold regarding global warming by the year 2030. The Panel attributes this to the global average temperature rising by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius).
According to the panel, the change is caused by rising greenhouse gas emissions trapped in Earth’s atmosphere due to high amounts of coal, oil, and natural gas use. This pollution acts like a blanket around the earth, warming it and thus affecting wildlife and natural habitats across the globe.
“This will have tremendous economic, environmental, and human impacts, some of which will be irreversible,” Tara Righetti, UW professor of Law and in Energy and Environmental Policies Occidental Chair, said.
“However, with innovation and massive investments, it may be possible to reverse the warming trend over a longer timeline and bring global temperatures back within 1.5 degrees. Doing so will require tremendous efforts on a global scale, including decarbonizing industrial and electricity sectors, developing alternative low-carbon fuels, and massive projects for carbon removal on a global scale.”
While developing alternative low-carbon fuels might be helpful, others are more skeptical about how this can be accomplished.
“The question is, how do you mitigate the carbon emission from important fossil fuel resources such as oil, gas, and coal?” Professor and lawyer of Land Management at UW, Kristopher Koski said.
“When you look at an energy demand and realistic economic and infrastructure standpoint, there’s no scenario where that goal can be accomplished without a mix of energy resources, including oil, gas, and coal.”
The state of Wyoming and UW itself is working to achieve NetZero, also known as Carbon Neutrality, which is a state of zero carbon dioxide emissions. Achieving this will be more difficult than it sounds, and the results might not be as sudden as people would like.
“While all of us should strive to live more sustainably, we will not be able to address the climate crisis through demand reduction alone. A just response to climate requires clean growth,” Righetti said. “Developing clean energy and decarbonization projects will require a tremendous workforce with smart people in engineering, business, land management, public health, law, agriculture, and many other fields.”
Righetti feels the University as a whole as well as its students have a role to play in mitigating the impact of global warming.
“The University can help by continuing to invest in these research programs and adding new faculty focused in these areas. This will advance high-impact research and help develop the workforce necessary for a zero-carbon or net-negative economy in Wyoming and the world,” she said.
“Students can make the biggest impact by getting involved in climate-related research, learning about climate mitigation pathways, and applying their educations in these areas.”
