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The greenhouse gas reduction targets set for both 2030 and 2050 are very ambitious and will require structural changes so profound, that huge financial investments will be needed to achieve them. These goals, despite political slogans, are not likely to be easy for governments to achieve. The European Union, for example, doesn't seem to have the financial or political strength necessary neither to meet its targets by 2030, nor to reach zero emissions by 2050.
Since the recent past, environmental policy has become central not only for political but also for economic actors. For example, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in September 2021, European Central Bank (ECB) Governor Christine Lagarde stated that combating climate change is one of the factors to be considered when determining what kind of monetary policy should be pursued.
While the theory of global cooling prevailed until the 1980s, today we are talking about nothing less than global warming
The climate change debate started at the political level in the 1970s, when environmental crises began to attract public attention, and the scientific world began to express its concerns about environmental degradation. Over time, various hypotheses have been put forward regarding the environmental changes that have taken place, and while the theory of global cooling prevailed until the 1980s, today we are talking about nothing less than global warming caused by greenhouse gases released into the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activity. Although too limited set of available data does not actually demonstrate a direct link between human activity and rising temperatures, and despite the fact that media outlets around the world do not shed any real light on the subject, global warming has been identified as a major challenge to the survival of living things. According to politicians, the problem is so great that the current “green agenda” of world governments has been redirected to changing the current energy balance, to abandon the use of hydrocarbons in favor of electricity generated from renewable sources. The greenhouse gas reduction targets set for both 2030 and 2050 are very ambitious and will require structural changes so profound, that huge financial investments will be needed to achieve them.
These goals, despite political slogans, are not likely to be easy for governments to achieve. The European Union, for example, doesn’t seem to have the financial or political strength necessary neither to meet its targets by 2030, nor to reach zero emissions by 2050, which the ECB itself confirmed in May 2024. These findings have already been made public in the study “EU27: Energy Transition Outlook” by consulting firm Wood Mackenzie in February 2024, which emphasized that the 2050 targets will not be met by 2060 either, due to the slow adoption and implementation of necessary environmental policies in the European Union.
However, we must ask ourselves:
Is simply changing the mix of energy sources used really enough to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions?
Can the introduction of electricity and renewable energy really have the impact needed to achieve the zero emissions goal?
Wouldn’t the energy-intensive exploitation of mineral resources that is necessary to electrify the world do more damage to the environment than it should solve, and not just in terms of climate change?
These questions arise spontaneously when examining the food waste data published in the Food Waste Index Report 2024 by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which showed how in 2022, households threw away 1 billion servings of food per day, creating about 1.05 billion tons of waste, or 132 kilograms of garbage per capita, which is about one-fifth of the food available to each consumer. Again, according to UNEP, approximately one-third of all food produced in the world is thrown away before it reaches store shelves, during production and logistics, or is thrown into the garbage due to spoilage. With the agri-food sector producing 26% of global emissions, UNEP estimates that the emissions associated with the amount of food lost or ending up in garbage alone account for 8% to 10% of total global emissions. In the European Union, the figure is as high as 16% while producing 59 million tons of food waste, according to a study by the European Commission conducted in 2022.
High consumption rates generate high amounts of waste
However, the problem of waste is not limited to the agro-industrial and food sectors. The system of production and consumption that emerged after the end of the Second World War revolutionized all the purchasing habits of people, who, departing from the logic of strict necessity for goods, turned into very real consumers. Affordable financial instruments have further incentivized the “shift” to more consumption than our true needs. Just think about how electronic payment systems have effectively decoupled the purchase of a product from the actual physical availability of money from the consumers themselves, by allowing them to use all of their liquidity, as in the case of debit cards, or by borrowing additional amounts of money not immediately available, as in the case of credit cards.
Thus, the high rate of consumption has resulted in the generation of a large amount of waste. Latest data from the World Bank (WB) show that household waste today is over 2 billion tons per year, with an estimated increase over the next thirty years to 3.4 billion tons, or about 70%. The most economically developed countries are also the largest consumers and therefore the largest producers of waste, producing approximately 34% of the global total. Almost half of the waste generated, about 44%, is related to food and agriculture, while paper, cardboard, and plastic waste account for 17% and 14% respectively. Obviously, everything that is not recycled is dumped in landfills, and in this context, it should be mentioned that greenhouse gas emissions from open landfills in 2020, according to a study by the Global Methane Initiative, accounted for 11% of total global methane emissions.
Thus, the benefits of recycling seem to be high, but at the same time, they remain far from being truly attainable
If it is not possible to curb air emissions due to rising waste, then recycling of materials, despite its global level being around 20%, could be another potential tool not only to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases generated by human production activities, but also emissions from the use and recycling of raw materials. According to the 2022 Metal Recycling Factsheet report by EuRic, a European association promoting the recycling of various materials, the use of steel waste can reduce emissions from the production process by 58%, and its recycling can reduce energy consumption by 72% compared to the main production process. Other benefits include a 40% reduction in water consumption, and water and air pollution are reduced by 76% and 86% respectively. The use of aluminum waste can already reduce emissions by 92%, and recycling it reduces energy consumption by 95%, again compared to the primary production process. As for copper, the use of this non-ferrous metal waste can reduce emissions by 65%, and energy consumption is reduced by 85% when using recycled copper.
Thus, the benefits of recycling seem high, but at the same time they remain far from actually achievable, especially for waste of electrical and electronic equipment (e-waste). The volume of this waste has grown exponentially in the recent past, reaching 65 million tons in 2022, an 82% increase from 2010, with a further increase to 82 million tons by 2030. As of today, its recycling rate is only about 1%, primarily due to the dizzying growth of manufacturing facilities, so much so that they now have five times the capacity to recycle the electrical and electronic components of equipment that go to waste. This results in an estimated $62 billion dollars in lost production of rare minerals and other materials.
The increase in consumption, and thus sales, has been necessary to maintain a steady rise in the rate of industrial production, which is now up by almost 25% compared to 2015, as shown by data from the United Nations Industrial Production Organization compiled in the World Industrial Production Handbook for the first quarter of 2024.
It is the medium and high-tech industries that have contributed most to this continued growth in global output.
Numerous researches seem to show that hydrocarbons are the main contributors to air pollution
Over the years, there have been many studies that have examined the relationship between industrial production and the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. These studies have more than clearly demonstrated that hydrocarbons used in both low-intensity and high-energy-intensive manufacturing processes are a major cause of atmospheric pollution.
However, given the amount of waste produced, could the cause of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions be linked to the scale effect model, whereby lower production costs can be achieved by increasing the scale of production itself? Isn’t it “restrictive” to set targets for industrial sector emissions reductions to be achieved solely by the introduction of green technologies?
On the one hand, trying to reduce the potential for pollution from industrial processes without reducing the production capacity itself, but, on the other hand, wishing to promote the productivity and competitiveness of industrial actors in order to support and promote economic growth seems to be a “zero-sum game,” and it is not certain that it can really be the key to achieving the goal of zero emissions by 2050.
