The Paris Agreement came into force on 4 November 2016, after being ratified by fifty-five states representing fifty-five per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, to address the urgency of climate warming. Scientists continue to warn about the catastrophic consequences of climate disruptions, such as rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and the loss of biodiversity.
The Paris Agreement aims to unite international efforts to limit the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and thus keep the average temperature rise to one-and-a-half degrees, relative to pre-industrial levels. Although each country has its own strategy, the Agreement aims to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions so that, by the second half of the twenty-first century, remaining emissions can be naturally or artificially reabsorbed. This is the “net-zero emissions” scenario.
It must be acknowledged that not all countries are meeting their commitments – in terms both of emission trajectories, and financing emerging economies, which are the most vulnerable – to prepare for the consequences of climate disruptions. These commitments rely not only on existing industrial solutions but also on emerging technologies such as carbon capture, nuclear fusion, e-fuels, and solar energy in interstellar space.
Even while the situation can be discouraging, it is nonetheless important to stay the course and rise to this planetary challenge in every possible way. This is what some designers are already doing: through planning cities populated with algae and cyanobacteria, the orientation of homes, the quality of solar reflections, or even subtraction, designers are exploring the material, experiential and emotional possibilities of an expanded transition.
Transition in Trompe l’œil
A transition to net-zero emissions, the only viable path, allows us to envision a growing and sustainable economy. At the beginning of 2025, this reality needs to be consolidated. It is true that some countries have partially reduced their carbon emissions, that per capita energy consumption has decreased in a few countries, such as Switzerland, and that the share of renewable energies has continued to increase in recent years. But, looking closely at the figures, we have never consumed as much coal, oil and gas as we do today. So how can we be convinced that an energy transition is well underway?
It seems that projections in the form of graphs – essentially fictions – are accepted as credible to the point of being taken as reality. Let’s keep in mind what happened with wood, coal and oil: every fifty or hundred years, one of them would supposedly replace another as the dominant energy source. However, this was not a replacement but rather an accumulation, resulting in an ever-larger and more diverse energy mix.[1] Apart from biomass (mainly wood), we realise that today there is no energy source in relation to which we can speak of a “peak”, and none has seen its consumption decrease; quite the contrary. To date, there has never been a global “energy transition” from one source to another. It is high time to remedy this.
For fifty years, histograms have shown the relative share of each energy source in total energy production and consumption – not their absolute values. Herein lies the deception: by showing relative shares without cumulating them, we get the impression that fossil fuels are decreasing. The idea of an ongoing energy transition thus rests on a graphical representation built from scratch. A critical look at the representation of this data is more essential than ever to meet the challenge that awaits each of us at all levels.
[1] See https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution, accessed 9 January 2025.
