Ben's Blog

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Here in 2026, 16% of our global energy comes from renewables.

So 84% comes from oil, gas and coal. To reach our target of Zero Net Emissions by 2050 we must replace those fossil fuels with renewables.

We have been trying to do this ever since we first learnt about climate change nearly 40 years ago. In that time we have managed to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels by just 4%. Renewables have increased 1000 fold, but that barely covered the increase in energy use….until today!

For the first time in history total global emissions have plateaued, so we can finally begin our quest. Because we have left our run far too late we have set ourselves up for failure.

At present a meager 16% of our energy comes from renewables. To reduce fossil fuel use to zero we must increase renewables from 16% to 100%, an increase of 525% We have 24 years left to do this, so we must increase renewables by 22% every year.

To that we must add the predicted 2.2% yearly increase in energy use. As renewables only provide 16% of our energy needs, that means a 13.75 % increase in renewables as well as the 22% yearly increase required, bringing it up to a staggering 35.75%.

Then we have data centres, predicted to need somewhere between 2% and 4% more electricity per year, let’s assume a modest 2.5% yearly increase, bringing our target up to 38.25%

But don’t despair, that number will go down by 1/24^th every year, so it will get ever so slightly less impossible.

To put this in perspective, last year we increased our renewables by a record 15%, so this year we must more than double that record. That’s like Usain Bolt running 100m in 5 seconds. If we fail to do that we must add the difference to next year’s target.

So if we can only manage say, a 28% increase, next year our target becomes 38% + 10% = 48%….and so on. Every year becomes more and more impossible. (is it possible to become more impossible?)

….and that is the easy part.

Even if we manage to achieve this herculean task against all the odds, we are still less than halfway to our target. We still have the 60% of our emissions that lie outside the energy sector,

…..that is the hard part!

We have as yet, no viable way of reducing most of these emissions, including things like methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture, and co2 from cement production and aviation. We do have some vague untested ideas about how to tackle these problems, let’s hope they all turn out to be a goer, or we are fucked!

Ben Boyang September ‘26

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All the data for this article can be found at Our World in Data

Here is a good place to start…

https://ourworldindata.org/low-carbon-electricity