Realizing a Sustainable Future: How Rapid Advancements in Technology are Enabling Global Implementation of Sustainable Practices to Make Economic Sense

• Main Authors: Wenzel Arifiandi (10225682), Stella Tjong (10233425)
• Format: Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Climate Science; climate agreements; climate change; economic sense; electric cars; renewable energy; batteries; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14156858.v4

The many effects of climate change, including the rising earth's temperature, the increased frequency of natural disasters, the melting sea ice, the reduction of ice mass have caused adverse impacts to the way we live our lives. Many climate agreements, an essential part of putting the issue of climate change at the forefront of policy makers’ thinking, have been organized, from the Kyoto Protocol, the Copenhagen Summit, and the Paris Agreement. Unfortunately, not all of these conferences ended up with a great success. For instance, the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen Summit failed because of fundamental disagreements on whether developed and developing countries should share the same responsibility, as unaffordable prices on renewable energy had prevented developing countries to fuel their neck-breaking development pace without building cheap, but highly polluting power plants, mostly fuelled by readily available coal. A key part of the Paris Agreement’s success is its emphasis on individual targets by each country to lower their greenhouse gas emissions, uniquely tailored to each country needs and limitations. Advancements in technology have brought the era of exorbitant price on renewable energy to a close. Rapidly falling solar panels and wind turbines cost has allowed every country to integrate sustainable electricity into their energy plan at comparable costs to coal and gas-powered power plants. The rapidly falling price of ever-increasingly powerful battery invalidates the argument that environmentally friendly energy equals to high cost. Advancement in battery densities and costs are making expensive electric cars a thing of the past. Therefore, environmentally conscious actions and saving cost can be done simultaneously. Lastly, this paper will also detail various steps needed to be made by policy makers to significantly lower their carbon emissions.