Today’s global energy transition investment—$1.1 trillion in 2022—is largely aimed at reducing emissions generated by future equipment and facilities. This includes shifting auto production to electric vehicles (EVs) and building new renewable power sources. Yet this monumental effort has a risky blind spot: locked-in emissions. These are generated by existing infrastructure and equipment such as power plants, industrial furnaces, residential heating, airplanes, and the millions of internal combustion engine cars on the road today.

This substantial source of CO2 receives relatively limited investment and attention as the world appears poised to surpass the 1.5 degree warming limit. A quick look at the numbers reveals the magnitude of the locked-in emissions problem.

Existing infrastructure and equipment, if used for their typical lifetimes, will generate roughly 658 GT CO2.^[1]“Committed emissions from existing energy infrastructure jeopardize 1.5 °C climate target,” Nature, 2019 Aug; 572(7769): 373–377. Ranges provided in the research are wide; we use the … Continue reading That’s nearly double the remaining carbon budget of 380 GT CO2— the total emissions society can generate in the future and limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C. And it represents more than half of the 1,230 GT CO2 carbon budget to limit warming to 2°C. Furthermore, the 658 GT figure does not include the additional 188 GT CO2 if all currently proposed power plants come to fruition.

The bottom line: there is no path to preventing the worst impacts of climate change without tackling locked-in emissions.