Struggle for Climate Rescue: The Euphoria of Plans versus Cold Reality

Possible outcomes from the decisions adopted at the COP26, the latest Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), for the world energy and upcoming climate changes are studied. The article suggests a group of scenarios for man-induced impacts on the global climatic system, which includes implementation of the COP26 decisions in the field of world economy decarbonization, reduction of methane emissions, and reforestation as well as alternative world energy development scenarios based on a low globe population growth level from the viewpoint of preventing dangerous global climate changes. By using the global carbon cycle and climate models developed at the National Research University Moscow Power Engineering Institute (NRU MPEI), changes in the chemical composition and thermal radiation balance of Earth’s atmosphere, as well as the global average air temperature, are evaluated for each scenario. It is shown that global warming by 1.5°С can only be kept if the entire range of measures suggested at COP26 on reducing the man-induced impact on Earth’s climatic system is implemented in the full scope while keeping the energy consumption and world population growth rates at the contemporary levels; however, there are serious doubts as to whether the proposed world economy decarbonization program can really be implemented. At the same time, the natural demographic processes are able to curb the growth of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and decrease it even before the end of this century. In that case, the increase in the global average temperature by 1.8°С in comparison with that in the preindustrial period (1850–1900) may be quite safe and will not require large-scale reformation of the world energy sector.