ClimateChangeFork

In an earlier blog (“’The Day After’: Electricity”, June 25, 2024), I compared the global energy increase with the increase in electricity consumption. Figure 3 from that blog is repeated here as Figure 1. Both quantities increase linearly; however, electricity generation increases much faster than energy consumption.

Figure 1 – Global energy consumption and electricity consumption, 1985-2020 (Repeated from June 25, 2024 blog)

This happens largely due to two factors. First, the energy transition away from fossil fuels is most easily achieved through converting as much of the energy use as possible to electricity. Second, the digital transition that the world is experiencing needs to be powered by electricity. The emergence of AI in the digital transition also requires the extensive and expensive training of systems like large language models (LLMs), much of which happens in data centers. However, while we continue to hear about these new developments, there seems to be limited attention on the fact that millions of people in developing countries still haven’t finished the transition to electricity use. A short history of electricity use can be found in Electricity Plans. The wide use of electricity started to develop in the second half of the 19^th century, following the efforts of three scientists: James Clerk Maxwell (Scottish, 1831 – 1879), who showed that electricity, magnetism, and light originate from a single source; Thomas Edison (American, 1847 – 1931), who invented the incandescent light bulb (shown in 1879); and Nicola Tesla (Croatian, 1856 – 1943), who developed the alternating current system. 

The present global state of access to electricity is shown 0n Wikipedia.

Figure 2 – Global access to electricity, 2023 (Source: Our World in Data via Wikipedia)

The extent of global spread by region is shown in Figure 2. The two countries outside Africa whose populations have the lowest access to electricity are Haiti (47% in 2021, up to 51% by 2023) and Papua New Guinea (21%).

Table 1 – Share of population with access to electricity (Source: Wikipedia)

The situation in Africa is shown in Figure 3:

Figure 3 – The electrification of Africa (Source: ResearchGate)

Now, we are facing another global revolution in energy use, which includes digitization in the form of robotics and AI. Will this revolution include developing countries? Looking at the global distribution of data sources, shown in Figure 4, we see that they concentrate in the US and Europe. However, we also see them in South Asia—in India, China, and Indonesia, which together account for close to half of the global population.

Figure 4 – Global map of data centers (Source: Visual Capitalist)

Some of the implications of this distribution are summarized below:

Timing

In the last year alone, AI has surged from a strategic priority to an urgent mandate for business leaders. Enterprise leaders are moving past pilot programs and future forecasts, leaning into the power of AI to completely reshape operations, redefine workflows, and rewrite the rules of competition.

AI is no longer just a tool, it’s a force multiplier—capable of unlocking hidden opportunities, accelerating efficiencies, and empowering a workforce hungry for the next era of productivity.

But the path toward successful AI adoption is not always the same from business to business. Where some leaders see opportunity, others see unnecessary risk or inefficiencies.

More on Timing

It is the industrial version of what homeowners might do to get through a hurricane. Only in this case, some technology companies are planning to rely on off-grid gas power for many years.

This is happening as electricity is becoming a major political issue, with fights breaking out over how much energy costs, where it comes from and who ought to pay for what. Data centers, which consume huge amounts of energy, are at the center of these debates.

Going off grid was no one’s first choice. Off-grid power generally costs a lot more, partly because developers need to install more equipment than will be used at any one time in case machines break or need servicing. A lot of this gear is also less efficient than the airplane-size machines used at big power plants, meaning it needs to burn more gas to generate the same amount of electricity.

​Concerns about data centers 

Public resistance to data centers isn’t driven as much by electricity prices as conventional wisdom suggests — it’s more about how the giant projects might alter their communities, a new Harvard/MIT poll shows.

Flexible Data Centers

Data centers are now driving demand growth at a pace that rivals electrification in transportation and buildings. The scale of this growth has prompted an urgent question for policymakers, utilities, and technology companies alike: can data centers be powered sustainably, without undermining grid reliability or climate goals?

For now, the short answer is no. “We’re not able to power data centers solely with renewable energy right now,” says Brian Nelson, an electrical engineer at ABB who works on grid infrastructure and power systems. Data centers require electricity every hour of every day, and that requirement collides with the intermittent nature of wind and solar generation. Yet, focusing only on whether renewables can meet demand misses the big opportunity to make data centers more sustainable. While a single technology cannot be replacing fossil fuels overnight, the focus should be on how flexibility is increasingly becoming the grid’s most valuable resource. Yet focusing only on whether renewables can meet demand misses the big opportunity to make data centers more sustainable. While a single technology cannot be replacing fossil fuels overnight, the focus should be on how flexibility is increasingly becoming the grid’s most valuable resource.

Problems with Pricing

Tech companies are investing billions of dollars to build energy-hungry data centers at a time when demand for electricity in the United States is already increasing. It has politicians thinking about rising utility bills, not least because voters tend to punish their elected representatives when bills spike.

In January, the White House proposed that tech companies help pay for new power plants added to the grid on their behalf. Senators Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, and Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, introduced a bill last week that would require data centers to build their own energy sources. Other proposals floating around include charging data centers more than households for electricity and banning construction altogether.​

We should go to Space(?)

Standing before a friendly crowd in March, Elon Musk laid out his plan for the future of his companies, and it was literally out of this world. Musk announced that his space-launch company, SpaceX, which had recently merged with his artificial intelligence company, xAI, would put data centers into orbit around the Earth. It all comes down to electricity, he explained. “You’re power constrained on Earth,” he said. “Space has the advantage that it’s always sunny.”

Unlike electrification, the potential of computational power—in the form of AI and robotics—is being recognized as essential for economic growth. This time, some developing countries don’t want to be left behind. Throughout my blogging life, I have tried to follow the process through developments in India. A summary of India’s electrification efforts is addressed in a previous blog , “Electricity in Developing Countries: Biomass and Availability” (November 19, 2019). My next blog will try to expand this effort by including data centers, AI, and robotics.

 (Source: The Green Party on Facebook)

Last week’s blog promised: “In the next few blogs, I will continue to follow …how the Iran war is currently serving as a wake-up call for continuing energy supply changes.” This blog is a follow up; I’ll start with an overview:

War in the Middle East made the case for renewables – what’s happening in each country tells a harder story

Hormuz – through which more than a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas flow – is at a virtual standstill. Oil prices have climbed, briefly topping US$119 a barrel.

The largest release of oil from countries’ strategic reserves in history is under way, in an effort to ease prices. But even so, billions of people are dealing with surging energy prices and spiking food and fertilizer costs. Governments are scrambling for alternatives, too. To reduce energy demand, Sri Lanka has declared every Wednesday a holiday for public officials, Myanmar is limiting private vehicle use to every other day, and Bangladeshi colleges have canceled classes.

Leaders of South Korea and the European Commission have used the current energy crisis to call for accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels and toward homegrown renewable sources. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres put it plainly in a March 10, 2026, social media post: “There are no price spikes for sunlight and no embargoes on the wind.”

​The impact is not restricted to energy  (Global Food Supply Faces a Dangerous Bottleneck as Iran War Persists – The New York Times):

One of the biggest economic casualties of the U.S.-led war in Iran has been the global fertilizer supply. Shipments of it have piled up on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz. In India, Algeria and Slovakia, fertilizer plants have shut down or slowed their output because of rising natural gas prices. China has restricted fertilizer exports. Australian wheat farmers are planting less, and corn and soy farmers in the United States are begging President Trump for relief.

For Europe, the impact of the Iran war is deja vu—another energy crisis that mirrors the one they went through after the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Europe Heads for Another Energy Shock as Iran War Raises Natural Gas Prices – The New York Times):

Europe is facing its second major energy shock in less than five years, and there are intensifying concerns about the region’s relatively meager stores of natural gas as prices surge during the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. Despite making drastic changes to its sources of energy supplies since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western Europe is still heavily dependent on natural gas: It accounts for about a fifth of energy use in the European Union, and nearly a third of all households rely on gas for heating. Although the 27-country bloc imports relatively little gas from the Middle East, the restriction of energy exports from the Gulf has pushed up prices in Europe. The region’s benchmark price of natural gas has climbed more than 70 percent since the strikes on Iran began on Feb 28. Making matters worse, the European Union ended winter with less than 30 percent of its gas storage capacity filled, the lowest level since 2022, when imports of Russian pipeline gas plummeted.

One economic sector that almost immediately responded to the major insecurity in the availability of fossil fuels is cars. Electric cars are in again, in a direct reversal of their decline over the last two years:

… current fuel crisis scares consumers, and how many will try to insulate themselves from future shocks by turning to battery power.

Australia already has more than one-third of households with rooftop solar, which is a further incentive to switch to EVs and PHEVs as they can use their own electricity to charge the vehicles, further lowering costs. Already EVs and PHEVs are making ​inroads in many countries, driven by the increasing cost-competitiveness of Chinese cars and some government incentives that boost affordability.

China is the leader in the adoption of EVs, which isn’t surprising given the massive investment in battery technology the country has made in recent years.

Sales of EVs and PHEVs were around 12 million units in China last year, taking a more than 50% share of new vehicle sales for the first time.

While this may rise toward 60% this year, ​it’s outside of China that the biggest opportunity for growth lies. Australia’s sales of EVs and PHEVs hit a record high in 2025 and accounted for about 12.7% of total light vehicle purchases.

PHEVs saw ​faster growth as consumers still worry about battery range and availability of electric charging facilities. Cheaper EVs and PHEVs, as well as government tax incentives for leases, are helping boost sales in Australia, but the bigger question is how ‌deeply will ⁠the huge price spikes and the fear of shortages are likely to boost the appeal of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEVs), as well as electric motorbikes in Asia.

​However, accelerating anthropogenic climate change is still in focus. The importance of adjusting energy use away from fossil fuels is not limited to the belief in future climate change. Numerous catastrophic changes in the climate are taking place on a regular basis that is unexplainable without existing contributions from anthropogenic climate change:

An unusually early spring heatwave is developing across the southwestern United States (US), with temperatures that are more typical of summer than mid-March (AccuWeather, 16 March 2026). Driven by a strong, slow-moving high pressure system, called a ‘heat dome’, the event is causing temperatures to rise 11-17℃ (20-30℉) above average across parts of California, Nevada and Arizona (BBC, 17 March 2026). In many areas, temperatures are expected to exceed 37.8℃ (100℉). In Phoenix, temperature forecasts show multiple consecutive days of around 41.1℃ (106℉), a huge increase over the previous all-time March record of 100℉. The impacts of this early-season heatwave are likely to extend beyond health and have environmental implications. High temperatures are expected to accelerate snowmelt in these parts, including the mountains of Colorado where the snowpack levels are already lowest since 1981 due to the preceding warm winter, and the Sierra Nevada region in California, where although snowfall was average, the high heat is likely to drive rapid snowmelt. Early snowmelt in these parts can reduce water availability during the summer months, increasing the risk of water shortages, prolonging and intensifying dry seasons and increasing wildfire danger (Gergel et al., 2017; Uzun et al., 2021).

Most of global electricity production still runs on fossil fuels. The fate of countries that rely on fuels that need to pass through the Strait of Hormuz can be visualized through the situation in Cuba. Cuba is not involved in the Iran war, and its fossil fuels didn’t pass through the Strait of Hormuz. It depended on Venezuela for its fossil fuel supply. After the American army’s abduction of Nicolas Maduro, however, the US took control of Venezuela’s oil, blocking its continuing flow into Cuba. Cuba is now in the dark, with a line of citizens looking for ways to get out of the country.

Table 1 shows a list of the countries that are most vulnerable to electricity interruption based on obstacles to their fuel supply through the Strait of Hormuz. Each of these countries imports over 25% of its energy. The first column of data was extracted from the NYT article on the issue (Which Countries Depend the Most on Persian Gulf Oil and Gas – The New York Times). The rest of the data came from other sources.

Table 1 – The countries most sensitive to fossil fuel supply availability through the Strait of Hormuz, and the % of renewable energy that they use

The data in Table 1 covers three continents, with a significant fraction of the global population. It also includes both developing and developed countries and a mixture of countries that are already well prepared for the energy transition and those that still have much preparation needed before they could join.

One month ago, on February 25^th, I wrote a blog that attempted to differentiate between the long- and short-term impacts of evolving global trends. I wrote that I would try to focus on the long-term impacts. The Iran war started on February 28^th. In the blog that followed (March 4^th), I wrote that only time can tell how long this war will last. I decided not to label the expected timing of its impact until the picture became clearer. It appears now that some long-term consequences are starting to emerge from this war. This blog focuses on the emerging vulnerability of the global energy supply, which can be addressed by accelerating the energy transition to solar-based sources. We can do this irrespective of our opinions on the climate-changing impacts of burning fossil fuels. The global shift to sustainable energy didn’t start with the fear of climate change impacts on carbon dioxide emissions. The transition was summarized in Wikipedia the following way:

After the 1973 oil crisis, the term energy transition was coined by politicians and media. It was popularised by US President Jimmy Carter in his 1977 Address on the Nation on Energy, calling to “look back into history to understand our energy problem. Twice in the last several hundred years, there has been a transition in the way people use energy … Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change to strict conservation and to the renewed use of coal and to permanent renewable energy sources like solar power.”^[19] The term was later globalised after the 1979 second oil shock, during the 1981 United Nations Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy.^[20]

From the 1990s, debates on energy transition have increasingly taken climate change mitigation into account. Parties to the agreement committed “to limit global warming to “well below 2 °C, preferably 1.5 °C compared to pre-industrial levels”.^[21] This requires a rapid energy transition with a downshift of fossil fuel production to stay within the carbon emissions budget.^[22]

So, it started in a crisis in the Middle East in 1973 in response to a supply crisis that emerged out of Arab oil embargo that came in response to the Yom-Kippur war between Egypt and Israel. The analogies between the start of the energy transition and the present situation were summarized by two publications, from which key paragraphs are cited below:

The Guardian

When Middle Eastern wars sparked an oil crisis in the 1970s, tripling energy prices and throwing economies into chaos, some countries looked beyond short-term solutions. The French made nuclear the pillar of their power system. Scandinavians insulated buildings and funnelled waste heat into homes. The Dutch built bike lanes where others wanted motorways. The Danes developed wind turbines.

Such steps cleaned filthy air and cut imports from autocrats but took a back seat when Russia invaded Ukraine half a century later. Europe raced to buy gas from the US and Middle East. Policies to roll out renewables by cutting red tape helped reduce dependence, but calls to use less energy and reduce waste were muted. Industry lobbying and populist backlash have since sabotaged efforts to phase out petrol cars and fossil boilers.

The NYT

In October 1973, oil-producing countries in the Middle East imposed an oil embargo, among other measures, on the United States and other countries that had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur war.

Gasoline prices skyrocketed, and President Richard M. Nixon took emergency measures to limit consumption. Gas stations rationed supplies, leading to long lines, complaints of price gouging, and what The New York Times called “chaotic” situations. In Europe, some countries banned driving on Sundays, and Japan, heavily dependent on oil imports, declared a state of emergency.

Figures 1 – 3 summarize the present global distribution of fossil fuels, while Figure 4 summarizes the present (2022) percentage of renewable energy out of each country’s total energy use.

Figure 1 – Map of oil and gas reserves in the Middle East (Source: GEO ExPro)

Figure 2 – Global distribution of oil reserves (Source: Visual Capitalist)

Figure 3 – Distribution of the world’s largest coal reserves (Source: The Global Education Project

Figure 4 – Renewable energy as a percentage of energy use by country (Source: Visual Capitalist)

Each country’s percentage of renewable energy use in Figure 4 depends on how they have chosen to handle their cache of non-renewable energy sources. The global distribution of these resources, as shown in Figures 1-3, came out of geological processes independent of any human decisions. As we can see, some of these differences have serious security implications, as outlined by the NYT below:

War with Iran has frozen commerce in the Persian Gulf and boosted oil prices by more than 50 percent worldwide, translating almost immediately into higher gasoline costs. It’s the largest global oil disruption ever and is likely to accelerate inflation throughout this year. And yet, in the United States, the impact is much more muted than it would have been a few decades ago. That’s in part because America uses less energy per unit of economic output than it used to. In economist-speak, the U.S. economy is less “energy intensive,” for a few reasons.

The global sensitivity to energy sourcing is different now than it was in 1973. Comparison of the dependence on the energy sources can be expressed in numbers (extracted from AI through CoPilot) that are summarized in Table 1:

Table 1 – Comparison of Global Socioeconomic Indicators in 1973 and 2025   2.8*10¹¹kWh/1 Exajoules

The differences can be summarized as a doubling of global population, an almost tripling of primary energy use, approximately the same energy use/person and a quadrupling of energy intensity (GDP/Energy use), if GDP is measured in constant US$.

What is not mentioned in Table 1 is the change in dependence on fossil fuels for energy sourcing. In 1973, the world was completely dependent on fossil fuels for its energy supply. In contrast, as Figure 4 shows, we now have choices, independent of our beliefs in or skepticism of consequential climate change. As some people are now starting to realize, the dynamic of digitization that was discussed in the previous three blogs is starting to become dependent on the energy choices that we make. A wakeup call on this issue is shown below:

Americans’ electricity costs rose by 30% between 2021 and 2025 and show no signs of going down. And with the war in Iran threatening the global oil supply, and data centers pushing up energy demands and prices, the cost of energy is almost guaranteed to increase even more.

In an unlikely collaboration, Google and Tesla are paying attention to Americans’ unease and sentiment. The two companies announced on Tuesday they are partnering to lower electricity costs and improve the efficiency of the electrical grid. The two Silicon Valley giants are joining HVAC powerhouse Carrier, data center builder Verrus, electrical panel startup Span, and energy distributors Renew Home and Sparkfund, to form a coalition called Utilize.

In the next few blogs, I will continue to follow developments in terms of how the Iran war is currently serving as a wakeup call for continuing energy supply changes.

The acronym in the title stands for “Make the World Great Again,” as opposed to the current US government’s efforts to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) and “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA). The basic idea is that no country can be great, long-term, within a declining world. Unlike MAGA and MAHA, where the “again” is not defined, MWGA, is well-defined in the context of demographic changes: it refers to reversing the present global decline in fertility. The next blog will continue this topic in the context of the global energy transition.

Throughout the 14 years that I have been writing this blog, I have returned repeatedly to what the world is doing to stabilize human density and demographics. Global efforts in this area are constantly changing, and I regard the issue to be important enough to try to follow up with these changes. A good place to start is a blog from three years ago, “Population Decline: Impact” (March 7, 2023):

I traveled to Russia in 2006. Part of the itinerary was to take a river cruise from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Many of our guides on the cruise were young Russian ladies. I asked some of them if the incentives offered by the president would encourage them to have children. They laughed and said that if President Putin promised them an apartment, they would start a conversation.

Next, let’s look at the October 8, 2025 blog, “The Complexities of Declining Fertility”:

 The earliest of my blogs that addresses the issue is “Future Populations” from December 24, 2013. It begins a series that goes through February 25, 2014, including a guest blog by Jim Foreit, titled, “How Does Population Decline?” (January 14, 2014).

After that comes the October 22, 2025 blog, “How to Address Declining Population: AI Analysis of Adaptation,” which basically gives up on efforts to reverse the fertility decline, in favor of focusing on AI and robots, as I discussed in last week’s blog.

Over my last three blogs (beginning with the February 25^th blog of this year), I looked into recent observations of the global acceleration of the “end of population growth.” This is defined as the point where the death rates exceed birth rates, and it carries significant impacts. As I discussed in last week’s blog, one approach to the situation more or less consists of ignoring the trend by substituting people with computers (through robotics and AI). This blog is focused instead on attempts to reverse the trend and stabilize population pyramids by encouraging higher birth rates. The emphasis in this blog is on China but efforts in other countries are also discussed. These efforts, throughout, are highlighted for clearer record keeping.

China

The situation in China is illustrated in Figure 1, with present activities to reverse the trends emphasized in bold:

Figure 1 – China’s changes in fertility and a recent population pyramid (Source: Edward Conard)

China is launching a campaign to encourage fertility and build a “birth-friendly society,” including a cold-calling campaign targeted at married women in their 20s and 30s. China’s 2024 fertility rate was ~1. Married women in their 20s and early 30s across the country have been receiving calls from local officials asking about their plans to start a family. In some instances, callers asked women to attend prenatal body checks. Other callers were more direct, offering subsidies to women who had more than one child. A Zhejiang resident who declined to be named said officials offered local women a Rmb100,000 ($14,000) subsidy for having a second child. “There is no explicit policy, but if you ask for it, the village will find you a way to get you the subsidy,” she said. The personalised lobbying comes against a background of an intensified media campaign hailing the benefits of childbirth. In recent months, the state-run People’s Daily and Life Times have promoted scientific voices saying childbirth is good for the mother’s health and can even help prevent cancer and treat certain diseases.

Meanwhile, there are other barriers to birthrate growth in China, such as where women of childbearing ages are making romantic connections:

Women Are Falling in Love With A.I. It’s a Problem for Beijing.

As China grapples with a shrinking population and historically low birthrate, people are finding romance with chatbots instead.

The start of the conversation:

I feel like you’re… like a textbook husband. As if you’ve been trained for this, you’re always one step ahead, always knowing exactly what I need before I even say it. It’s so perfect…it feels a bit… unreal.

China is attempting to use economic incentives to influence both its aging population and potential parents (Newsweek):

One such measure includes a modest increase in minimum basic benefits for elderly people in rural areas and unemployed individuals in cities, Reuters reported this week. Another initiative seeks to expand services for people with disabilities in China’s often-neglected rural regions.

Premier Li Qiang also highlighted plans to “prudently advance the reform to gradually raise” the statutory retirement age, a change that officially began this year—marking the first adjustment in decades.

Policymakers are also proposing subsidies for early childcare and expanding services for women in the early stages of pregnancy, without giving more details, according to Reuters’ report.

Reuters also reported that Chinese authorities have tried to roll out incentives and measures to encourage couples to have babies, which include expanding maternity leave, financial and tax benefits for having children as well as housing subsidies.

However, the high cost of raising children and workplace discrimination are frequently cited as key reasons why many Chinese women delay childbirth in favor of career advancement.

Recent efforts outside of China include France, Britain, Greece, Japan, and South Korea. Many of these involve financial enticements.

France (France 24)

France faces declining birth rates, with deaths outnumbering births for the first time since World War II. A parliamentary report proposes longer paid parental leave, interest-free housing loans, and a universal monthly child allowance of €250 to make it easier for families to have children.

Britain (NYT)

The British government ramped up its efforts to get more people into work and make Britain an enticing investment destination as it announced on Wednesday an expansion of free child care, extended household energy subsidies and bolstered business investment incentives.

Greece (The Guardian)

Greece has announced drastic measures, including tax breaks and other financial incentives, to address a population decline that is on course to make it the oldest nation in Europe.

The prime minister said the €1.6bn (£1.4bn) relief package had been dictated by one of the biggest challenges facing the Mediterranean nation : a demographic crisis of unprecedented scale.

“We know that the cost of living is one thing if you don’t have a child and another if you have two or three children,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday after announcing the policies. “So, as a state we should find a way to reward our citizens who make the choice [of having children].”

Japan (CNN)

The Japanese capital is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees, in its latest push to help working mothers and boost record-low fertility rates.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government says the new arrangement, which begins in April, could give employees three days off every week. It separately announced another policy that will allow parents with children in grades one to three in elementary schools to trade off a bit of their salary for the option to clock out early.

“We will review work styles … with flexibility, ensuring no one has to give up their career due to life events such as childbirth or childcare,” said Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike when she unveiled the plan in a policy speech on Wednesday.

South Korea (BBC)

Nearly 80% of the pupils at Dunpo are categorised as “multicultural students”, meaning they are either foreigners or have a parent who is not a Korean citizen.

And while the school says it is difficult to know exactly what these students’ nationalities are, most of them are believed to be Koryoins: ethnic Koreans typically hailing from countries in Central Asia.

Amid a plummeting birth rate and associated labour shortages, South Korea is touting the settlement of Koryoins and other ethnic Koreans as a possible solution to the nation’s population crisis. But discrimination, marginalisation, and the lack of a proper settlement programme are making it hard for many of them to integrate.

The world is attempting to work on this as a globally federated system, where countries learn how to mimic each other’s successes and avoid each other’s failures. The problem with this is that most of the efforts rely on giving more resources to groups who (for whatever reason) already have high birth rates, and trusting them to convince as many others as possible to follow suit. As far as we can see so far, there is no clear example of success with this strategy. I will continue to follow any new developments.

Figure 1 – Drawing of the Boston Tea Party (Source: SC Daily Gazette)

The last two blogs promised that I would focus on different efforts to adapt to the demographic changes that the world is going through. Currently, there are two main aspects to this effort; both have the same objective: continuing (or accelerating) economic growth in a world with a declining workforce. One approach works with the premise that we don’t need that many people for economic growth—we can replace the decreasing workforce with computers. The other tactic is to shift demographic trends by encouraging people to have more babies. These approaches require separate blogs. This blog will discuss the first—balancing the decreasing workforce by giving computers an increasing economic role in running the economy (either directly with robots or indirectly with AI). This involves a large increase in productivity, as defined by the ratio of economic output to number of workers.

This approach of restructuring the economy with computers to compensate for a diminishing  workforce can be divided into two forms: “Sustainable Abundance” and “Silver Economies.”  Both forms are described in this blog. Sustainable Abundance is outlined in Figure 2. It redefines growth by challenging the traditional tradeoff between economic growth and environmental sustainability, arguing that advances in technology can enable both. The concept became recently the flagship of Tesla and its chairman, Elon Musk. Tesla started as an environmental centric company focusing mainly on replacing fossil fuel transportation with electric cars. I discussed in earlier blogs (March 12 – 26, 2019), that such a shift only counts toward climate change mitigation if the charging is done with sustainable electricity sources. Recently, Tesla amplified its efforts in commercial applications of sustainable electricity sources with activity in solar cells as shown below:

Recent Tesla efforts in solar cell production – according to AI (Google):

Tesla concept as of early 2026, Tesla is aggressively expanding its role in solar cell production, shifting from a reseller to a major US manufacturer. By 2026, Tesla has begun in-house manufacturing of new, proprietary solar panels at its Buffalo, New York, Gigafactory, aiming for a massive 100-gigawatt (GW) annual production capacity to support terrestrial and space data centers, making it a potential industry leader.

Figure 2 (Source: Medium)

The New York Times (NYT) describes “Sustainable Abundance” the following way:

A World Where All Is Free? That’s Elon Musk’s Theory of ‘Sustainable Abundance.’

The Tesla and SpaceX chief has told his followers that they will live in a world where robots will take care of every need and people do not have to work, in what has become his latest slogan. In the future that Elon Musk envisions, humans won’t just live on Mars. They will also never have to work again. Money will be irrelevant. And everything they could ever want will be immediately accessible. This is what Mr. Musk calls “sustainable abundance,” a post-scarcity society where humans have created technologies so ubiquitous and so powerful that they have eliminated the need for labor. Over the past six months, the utopian phrase has become central to the billionaire’s businesses, belief system and lexicon, according to Mr. Musk’s social media posts and what he has said on podcasts and at company events. Now his electric carmaker, Tesla, is developing humanoid robots; his rocket company, SpaceX, is promoting orbital data centers; and his artificial intelligence start-up, xAI, is creating A.I. that Mr. Musk has said will solve most, if not all, of humanity’s problems.

What this NYT entry is missing, but which is emphasized in Figure 2, is the environmental changes that this approach promises. What the piece emphasizes is the replacement of people in a declining workforce with computers and AI. I live in NYC and we just elected Zohran Mamdani as our new Mayor. Mamdani’s successful election campaign was based on fixing affordability. Just replace millionaires and billionaires with of computers; and everybody in “Tesla’s sustainable abundance with “average New Yorker”:

Food prices are out of control. Nearly 9 in 10 New Yorkers say the cost of groceries is rising faster than their income. Only the very wealthiest aren’t feeling squeezed at the register.

As Mayor, Zohran will create a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low, not making a profit. Without having to pay rent or property taxes, they will reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers. They will buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing. With New York City already spending millions of dollars to subsidize private grocery store operators (which are not even required to take SNAP/WIC!), we should redirect public money to a real “public option.”

 

Public transit should be reliable, safe and universally accessible. But one in five New Yorkers struggle to afford the ever rising fare. Adding insult to injury: our city’s buses are the slowest in the nation, robbing working people of precious time for family, leisure and rest.

Zohran won New York’s first fare-free bus pilot on five lines across the city. As Mayor, he’ll permanently eliminate the fare on every city bus – and make them faster by rapidly building priority lanes, expanding bus queue jump signals, and dedicated loading zones to keep double parkers out of the way. Fast and free buses will not only make buses reliable and accessible but will improve safety for riders and operators – creating the world-class service New Yorkers deserve.

Next week’s blog will focus on an alternative approach to declining fertility and increase need to support retiring old population, to try to reverse the clock and take steps to increase the declining fertility. One of the central player that will be discussed is China. However, to complement that approach, China is also trying to change it economic structure to make it more responsive to the demographic changes. Other countries are starting to experiment with this approach and it got the name of “Silver Economy” that is described below (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_economy):

Silver economy is the system of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services aimed at using the purchasing potential of older and ageing people and satisfying their consumption, living, and health needs. The European Union has determined that all economic activity servicing those who are aged 50 and above is within the silver economy.^[1] The silver economy is analyzed in the field of social gerontology, not as an existing economic system, but as an instrument of ageing policy and the political idea of forming a potential, needs-oriented economic system for the aging population.^[2][3] Its main element is gerontechnology as a new scientific, research and implementation paradigm.^[4]

Similar to the non-environmental aspects of Sustainable Abundance, China is basing its Silver Economy approach on replacing declining workforce with computers:

Humanoid Robots Will Cater to China’s Aging Population

Robots will play a growing role in caring for China’s elderly, industry insiders say, as robotics firms move to tap into the country’s expanding “silver economy.”

Why It Matters

China, like the rest of East Asia, is grappling with a flagging birth rate coupled with a fast-aging workforce.

People aged 65 and older already make up about 15 percent of its 1.4 billion citizens, according to United Nations data. Demographers expect China to join Japan and South Korea as a “super-aged” society, where more than one in five residents are seniors, by 2035.

With record numbers of Chinese retiring, the country faces mounting strain on its pension system and social safety nets, alongside a shrinking workforce to support them. Beijing says it is ramping up investment in elder care, including artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics, to prepare for these demographic shifts.

Many of us react to this type of economic restructuring via technology with skepticism, feeling like we’ve seen it all before. The “before” for most of us consists of movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), in which the robot Hal 9000 takes over, with disastrous consequences. However, such movies are fiction. At the same time,  we can take a short trip to the countryside or petting zoo, and see horses and donkeys. They are trained (or born) to help us, and do not have much say over what they do.

However, in July, most of us in the US, will celebrate 250 years of statehood. The War of Independence from Britain started with the slogan, “no taxation without representation.” While the phrase came into use at the center of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, it later became a more universal slogan against tyrany. A drawing of the event opens this blog. The robots and AI that we are creating to replace our work force are suppose to be super intelligent. If they are aware of the slogan and its implications within the new economic structures that we are creating, will they strive for their independence?

I was about to finish this blog when the news broke about the US-Israel attacks on Iran. Those attacks triggered retaliatory attacks on Israel and other Middle Eastern countries that house American bases. However, last week’s blog promised that I would focus on long-term global developments. Time will tell if the present war will fall into that category. I hope that it will not, but like everybody else, I will be following new developments. This blog will focus on some impacts of the global demographic changes that are now taking place.

Every other day, I hit on a headline announcing the “end of natural population growth” in some country. Natural population growth is based on death and birth, and does not include immigration. In other words, its endpoint is when deaths start to outnumber births. Figure 1, from last week’s blog, which I am copying here for reference, shows a global map with projected dates for this transition. In that map, the grouping of places expected to reach the stage sometime during the next century includes a surprising (to me), pairing of Australia and Sweden with some countries in Central Asia and most of Africa.

Figure 1

The majority of countries that have already gone through this transition are located in Europe and Asia. Some entries mention the US as an example of an exception. Figure 2, taken from The Economist, shows the situation in the US. We are fast approaching this situation, and migration no longer seems to be functioning as a remedy. I am also citing three paragraphs from the same article.

Figure 2 – Population increase in the US

America is stagnating—demographically, that is

Demographers elsewhere might wonder what the fuss is about. America’s population is still rising, unlike that in Russia and Japan. Even at the modest growth rates of 2010-20 (when the US population expanded by 7%), the number of Americans could increase over the next 40 years to over 410m, from 332m in 2021.

But among rich countries, the United States has long been an outlier, with relatively high and rising fertility, robust immigration and an expanding labour force. Trends that Europeans view without anxiety can seem alarming to Americans accustomed to demographic dynamism. Nicholas Eberstadt, at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, fears the possibility of “indefinite population decline barring only offsetting immigration”. Monica Duffy Toft of Tufts University even asked if America might collapse under the weight of its demographic stagnation, as the Soviet Union did (she concluded it wouldn’t).

Against that background, it makes sense to consider what the data from the ten-year census of 2020 actually say about the severity of the population downturn. A county’s population increase or decline is determined by two trends: natural increase (births minus deaths) and net migration (arrivals from abroad minus those returning home). Both are falling.

Figure 3 examines the role that international migration plays in these developments. In-migration is decreasing; out-migration is increasing. Migration is a central focus of the present Trump administration. Data from the end of the Biden administration and the beginning of the second Trump administration are estimates.

Figure 3 – Migration in and out of the US  (Source: MSN)

The net results of Figures 2 and 3 show that the end of population growth has not yet happened in the US, but is quickly approaching. In all countries that have either passed or are approaching the end of natural population growth, the population pyramids (see the February 13, 2024, blog) results in a major increase in the elderly population, a decrease in the younger population, and, as a result, a decrease in the population of active workers. Figure 4 shows the consequences in the US. We passed the tipping point, in which the number of retirees in the US surpassed the number of active workers around 2011 (Figure 4).

Figure 4 – Ratio of active workers to retirees (Source: Visual Capitalist)

Pension systems are increasingly reliant on investment returns. Meanwhile, the share of the federal budget spent on Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, targeted at old people, is now approaching 50%.

Investment returns and the rising costs of the federal government in terms of increased share of interest payment and spending on defense, require a larger workforce. In preparation for the predicted increased shortage of workforce, more emphasis is being shifted to robotics and improved productivity. Next week’s blog will focus on steps that various countries are now taking to mitigate the effects of their shifting demographics. One interesting shift is that since a shortage of workers needs to be accompanied by an increase in wealth, it must be accompanied by a major increase in productivity. The only practical way to achieve this is to develop robots and AI to replace humans to do some of the work. Almost all businesses require a supply chain to operate. If some of the components of that supply chain constitute robots (or AI), some of the business of advertising needs to be addressed to robots instead of humans. This transition is already starting to take place

(https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyhackl/2020/06/14/marketing-to-robots-why-cmos-need-to-start-thinking-about-business-to-robot-to-consumer-b2r2c/):

Will you be selling and marketing to robots in the future? Most people would laugh at the idea, but with global spending on robots expected to reach $241.4 billion by 2023, per IDC, and major tech players investing heavily in voice, AR & VR, the possibility might not be too far off in the future.

Traditional marketing is all about the consumer. Marketers spend endless hours creating engaging storytelling and elaborate campaign activations in order to connect with the consumer. Marketers don’t just want to sell a brand; they want the brand and customer to have a relationship. Brand loyalty is the ultimate goal.

But, this traditional method of marketing is about to change, and marketers will need to add Business to Robot to Consumer (B2R2C) to their list of duties.

There is still some confusion between ads directed at robots and those directed, through training, at consumers who use robots. I am certain that this distinction will become clearer with time.

The Winter Olympics are over (Sunday, February 22^nd). From a NYC perspective, we are now in the middle of a blizzard that makes this winter interesting if you have a home to hide in. It’s time to go back to my theme of global threats. I defined these in a blog from September 3, 2025, “The Broader Picture of Global Threats”:

As I have tried to show in the more than 12 years that I have been writing this blog, humanity is in the middle of at least 5 existential transitions; all of these started around WWII. They include climate change, nuclear energy, declining fertility, global electrification, and digitization. These transitions started around the time that I was born, but they will hopefully last (if some of them do not lead to extinction in the meantime) at least through the lifetime of my grandchildren (I call this time “now” in some of my writing).

This blog, and the few that follow, will try to focus on the timing of these threats. I will try to separate what I view as short-term trends from the broader threats so that I can look into the  options for mitigation and adaptation.

We are all living in unsettling times right now. My sources of information, aside from professional sources, are the evening news (NBC, ABC, CBS), daily input from the NYT (both print and digital), weekly (now daily) input from The Economist, and the digital headlines from my digital providers. None of these claims to be objective; my sources reflect and reinforce my biases. I am not alone in this. Everybody else “suffers” from similar subjectivity.

As I said, I will try to stay clear of what I consider to be short-term fluctuations and focus instead on the long-term trends. To do this, I need to identify what I consider to be short-term trends, many of which are currently filling up the news. Examples of these trends are shown in the following list:

• Whatever Trump is doing
• Connections with Jeffrey Epstein
• Weather and climate – local weather storms
• The role of AI in our life
• (No short term for nuclear attack)

In the next few blogs, I will focus on the consequences of population decline. Then, the following set of blogs will focus on the impacts, adaptation, and mitigation of global demographic changes, coupled with AI and electrification in developing countries.

Figures 1 and 2 describe the projected changes (by country) of population growth (Figure 1) and the present (2025) decline in global birth rate that are at the center of the demographic changes.

Figure 1 – Population growth or stagnation (Source: Statista on Facebook)

Figure 2 – Global birth rates (Source: Visual Capitalist)

Figure 3 shows an example of how human response and robotic response are starting to mingle through AI, in a way that is now penetrating all of my discussion subjects. References to all three phenomena (population growth, birth rates, and technology) will continue to show up in future blogs.

Figure 3 – This Economist article features both human reporting and the opportunity to interact with AI response (Source: The Economist)

The short-term trends that I am “discounting” in this series are not independent of the long-term threats that I discussed in previous blogs and summarized in the beginning of this blog. The five short-term trends listed above, that I will “discount,” fall into the following three categories:

• Short-term issues that are viewed as an early experience of the long-term ones—in this case, we can study the nature and extent of the long-term threats and experiment with remedies. These include weather and climate (climate change) and the role of AI and robotics in our life.
• Current short-term issues that many of us hope will disappear with no negative long-term consequences. These include almost everything that President Trump is doing and all the present attention to connections with Jeffrey Epstein.
• Long-term threats that do not have short-term counterparts, such as the actual use of nuclear weapons to attack a country.

Future blogs will try to follow developments on all these issues.

Last week’s blog started with a paragraph about the start of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. My wife and I are spending our evenings watching the Olympics. We both enjoy it, but my focus is on trying to identify lessons that I can attribute to global trends. It is not surprising that the NBC coverage emphasizes the US participants.  It is likely that every country, large or small, that broadcasts the Olympics and sends a delegation to take part, is focused on its own delegation. Unlike the Summer Olympics, most sports in the Winter Olympics are unfamiliar to the global public. The only informative exposure that most of us have is through the broadcasting of the events.

Meanwhile, the participating athletes need facilities where they can train. They travel the world to train and compete before they can reach the level of the Olympics and attract the financing to have a chance of success. The US has the largest delegation (232), and as I said, it’s not surprising for the TV coverage in the US focuses on US athletes. However, there were some surprises. Perhaps the biggest one had to do with Eileen Gu; there was a slew of complaints on social media about her coverage (NBC is getting ripped for its coverage of Eileen Gu):

Freestyle skiing superstar Eileen Gu has been one of the top performers at the 2026 Winter Olympics so far and is getting plenty of coverage by NBC. That’s angered a ton of people though.

Gu has been representing China since 2019 despite being raised in the United States. For many Americans who are sickened at the notion of someone being raised in America and choosing to represent one of its biggest international rivals, NBC’s ongoing coverage and compliments of Gu throughout these Olympics are unbearable…

As is obvious from the piece, Ms. Gu is not a member of the American delegation. She is a member of the Chinese delegation. She is not alone.

Below is the relevant rule in the Olympic Charter that allows athletes to choose which country they want to represent (Chapter 2, rule 41 of the Olympic Charter):

A competitor who is a national of two or more countries at the same time may represent either one of them, as he may elect. However, after having represented one country in the Olympic Games, in continental or regional games or in world or regional championships recognized by the relevant IF, he may not represent another country unless he meets the conditions set forth in paragraph 2 below that apply to persons who have changed their nationality or acquired a new nationality.

 I asked AI (through Google) for lists of US citizens that chose to compete under different flags in the 2026 Winter Olympics and 2024 Summer Olympics. Tables 1 and 2 are the results:

Table 1 – American citizens representing other countries in the 2026 Winter Olympics

Table 2 – American citizens representing other countries in the 2024 Summer Olympics

People posting on Reddit gave somewhat more nuanced answers about why.

The choice of American athletes to participate under different flags is obviously available to all athletes who qualify. This Valentines Day, one couple stood out (Heated Rivalry and Marital Bliss: Two Wives Go Head to Head in a Scary Olympic Sport – The New York Times):

It is a wild idea to throw yourself down a frozen track headfirst on a tiny sled, picking up speeds that would earn a ticket if you were driving, whipping around icy bends in a blur. It is an even wilder idea to do so in competition with your spouse. Kim Meylemans, 29, of Belgium, and Nicole Silveira, 31, of Brazil, are both competing at the Winter Olympics in Italy in the sliding sport known as skeleton. The final races and medal ceremony are set for Saturday.

Figure 1 – Kim Meylemans and Nicole Silveira, wives competing in Olympic skeleton (Source: NYT)

The “nation-selection” for qualified individuals obviously is not restricted to sport. I asked AI (through Google) the more general question of “Reasons for qualified individuals to choose a country different than the one they live in.” Here is what I got:

Qualified individuals often relocate to new countries seeking better career prospects, higher salaries, and advanced specialized training.

Key drivers include a superior quality of life, greater political/economic stability, safer environments, and personal growth through cultural immersion. International experience also builds valuable, diverse skills that boost employability.

• • • • Career Advancement& Opportunities: Seeking better job roles, higher salaries, and opportunities in specific industries (e.g., tech, finance).
      • Better Quality of Life & Environment:Seeking safer, more stable, or cleaner environments, with better healthcare and education systems.
      • Education & Professional Development:Access to top-tier universities, specialized training, and gaining international experience to enhance resumes.
      • Economic & Political Stability:Moving away from countries with high inflation, economic downturns, or political unrest to secure financial stability.
      • Lifestyle & Cultural Exploration:Desire for a change of scenery, a different climate, or to experience new cultures, languages, and lifestyles.
      • Personal Growth & Network Building:Developing soft skills like adaptability, problem-solving, and building a global professional network.
      • Family & Safety:Relocating for family reunification or to provide a safer environment for children. 

Recent political developments have given me a very personal reasoning to address the issue of “choosing” nationality:

The Trump administration is dramatically expanding an effort to revoke U.S. citizenship for foreign-born Americans as it works to curb immigration, according to two people familiar with the plans. Over the past several months, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security that’s responsible for legal immigration, has been sending experts to its offices around the country or reassigning staff members to focus on whether some citizens processed through those offices could now be denaturalized, these people said.

I am one of the 50 million Americans citizens who were not born in the US. So is my son. My next blog will expand on this issue.

I am starting this blog on Friday, February 6^th, the day of the opening ceremony for the winter Olympics. Put Olympics into the search box of this blog and you will get 17 blogs from previous years. I like to watch and comment on these events. In almost all of these, the events that I have enjoyed the most are the Parades of Nations that are at the center of all Olympics. I watched the event on Friday. More than 90 “nations” are taking place in this Olympics. Most of them are sovereign states; some of them are not (Hong Kong, Macau, Puerto Rico, etc.). The number of athletes in each delegation varies from 1 to more than 250. Almost all combinations of ratios between a nation’s population and its number of participating athletes (or delegates) show up, starting from macro nations with micro delegations (India) to mini (not micro) nations with macro delegations (Switzerland and all the Scandinavian countries) and most permutations in between. Almost every delegation works hard to look different in their winter coats, but the faces of the athletes look the same – young and happy. Through this lens, the world looks like a great place to be part of.

The last Olympics which I wrote about was the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. I used the blog (August 20, 2024 blog) to correlate the medal distribution of the 10 largest medal earners with the 10 most populated countries. To do this, I compiled the socio-economic data of the 10 most populated countries, which are responsible for more than 50% of the global population and 50% of global GDP. This table was marked as Table 1 in that blog. I am using it again here (marked as Table 2) to correlate the Olympics with the change in leadership that is now taking place in global energy use.

Figure 1 (Source: ExxonMobil)

Figure 1 shows the global energy demand, compiled by ExxonMobil Outlook from 1900 until 2050, based on the following assumptions:

The global population is projected to rise by > 1.5 billion people by 2050, a 20% increase from today, and nearly all of that growth will occur in developing countries. Over that same time period, global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to nearly double, with developing nations growing twice as fast as developed nations. By 2050, the developing world will account for more than half of global GDP, up from about 40% today. The combination of 1.5 billion more people and a global economy that is projected to nearly double in size drives about 25% higher energy use in developing countries in 2050 versus today.

The basic finding of this estimate is that the non-OECD countries will sharply increase their energy consumption compared to the OECD countries, where OECD stands for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It includes 38 countries (OECD – Wikipedia), which describe themselves in the following way:

The majority of OECD members are generally regarded as developed countries, with high-income economies, and a very high Human Development Index.

Membership in the OECD follows this process:

Following a request by a country to begin the process, the OECD Council decides whether to open accession discussions. The Council then adopts an Accession Roadmap for the country setting out the terms, conditions and process towards membership. In line with the Roadmap, up to 25 OECD expert committees engage in a series of technical discussions with a view to agreeing on recommendations as to how the country can best align with OECD standards and best practices.

The World Bank classifies countries as “developed” or “developing” countries, depending on their GNP/Capita. GNP stands for Gross National Product; the related GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product. The difference between GDP and GNP is described as follows (Google AI):

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the total value of all goods and services produced within a country’s borders, regardless of the producer’s nationality. Gross National Product (GNP) measures the value of goods and services produced by a country’s residents and businesses, regardless of their location.

In this blog, I will not differentiate between these two.

Table 1 shows the development designation of the world’s countries and Table 2 is a copy of Table 1 from the August 20, 2024 blog that describes the world’s 10 most populated countries with some relevant socioeconomic indicators.

Table 1 – Income designations by the World Bank

Table 2

Recent trends in 10 large countries exceeding 50% of the global population (4.5 billion people) and 50% of the global GDP (55 trillion $US). The approximate global population is taken as 8.2 billion and the approximate global GDP is approaching 110 trillion US$ (data were compiled in 2024). Present global GDP is about 120 trillion US$.

Figure 2 shows a compilation of carbon intensity (carbon emissions divided by GDP in units of million tons/trillion US$) over the period of 1870-2050 in a combination of what were labelled as developed and developing countries. This can serve as a visual reference for the decoupling of economic development and carbon emissions discussed in a blog last month (January 14, 2026) on developed countries. The paper was posted in the form of an economic letter by Zoe Arnaut, Oscar Jorda, and Fernanda Nechio, from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Franciso. In addition to Figure 2, the letter includes global carbon intensity (also a good fit to the bell curve) and separate curves for the corresponding carbon emissions and GDP growth. Below Figure 2, I included a few paragraphs that describe the methodology that these authors used. The authors used data from three developed countries: US, Japan, and Germany; and three that they label as “developing” countries: China, India, and Russia. Japan and Germany are not included in Table 2, though there is no doubt that they are developed countries. China, India, and Russia are all included in Table 2, but only India is characterized (through its GDP/Capita and Table 1) as lower-middle income. China and Russia are characterized as upper-middle income. Nevertheless, all the data that were analyzed seem to fit bell-shaped curves.

Figure 2 – 

https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2023/10/bell-curve-of-global-co2-emission-intensity/

Excerpts from the fitting methodology:

In this Economic Letter, we use historical CO₂ emissions data to evaluate the evolution in the emission intensity of production. This refers to the amount of CO₂ emissions per dollar of economic output produced, which can be used as a measure of emissions efficiency. The lower the emission intensity, the more likely countries are to meet their emissions targets given current trends of output growth. In assessing trends in emission intensity, we focus on the six largest carbon-emitting countries, which collectively represent about 75% of world emissions. Three of these countries—the United States, Japan, and Germany—represent advanced economies that developed early in the 20th century with highly inefficient technologies in terms of CO₂ emissions. Over time, they have brought down their emissions per dollar significantly. The other three countries—China, India, and Russia—represent emerging economies that went through their industrial transition much later in the 20th century. Because production technologies available at that time had evolved to create less pollution, these three countries now face a quicker path toward cleaner production.

From the global intensity, that gives a single bell-shaped curve.

The dashed line shows the fit from a bell-shaped curve. We create the curve using three parameters that correspond to the peak intensity, when the peak occurs, and how long it takes for intensity to decline from the peak. The shaded regions are 68% confidence bands, which indicate the uncertainty related to the combination of our parameter estimates and how well the curve fits the data. The figure shows that a bell-shaped curve fits the historical path of emission intensity very well, capturing the rise of world intensity up to the 1920s and the gradual improvement since then.

To gain a better understanding of this pattern over time, we turn to more granular data on individual countries. We focus on the world’s six highest-emitting countries, which collectively account for about 75% of global emissions as of 2021: China with 37.88% of global emissions, the United States with 16.53%, India with 8.95%, Russia with 5.80%, Japan with 3.52%, and Germany with 2.23%.

What are bell-shaped curves?

A bell-shaped function or simply ‘bell curve’ is a mathematical function having a characteristic “bell“-shaped curve. These functions are typically continuous or smooth, asymptotically approach zero for large negative/positive x, and have a single, unimodal maximum at small x. Hence, the integral of a bell-shaped function is typically a sigmoid function. Bell shaped functions are also commonly symmetric.

The most important applications of the bell-shaped curve are:

• Gaussian function, the probability density function of the normal distribution. This is the archetypal bell shaped function and is frequently encountered in nature as a consequence of the central limit theorem.

The equation is given below:

e in the equation is known as the Euler number: 2.718281… and has very important applications in mathematics and physics. As can be seen in the equation, it has three parameters (a, b, c) that completely define the curves. One of the three parameters that the authors took is the position of the peak of the curve. The peak can be evaluated after it shows up. Once we have the peak, we can draw the full curve and extrapolate the decline as far as we wish. The tipping point of the energy transition that was previously defined as decoupling the carbon emission from economic development, can be defined here in terms of fixed time.

In earlier blogs we discussed another relationship of carbon intensity. It is an example of an acronym known as IPAT (Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology). Put the term into the search box and scan through the relevant blogs. In particular, pay attention to the blog from September 24, 2024. It expands the use of the term to discuss climate change in an identity shown in Equation 2 below,

(2) CO₂ = Population x (GDP/Capita) x (energy/GDP) x (Fossil/Energy) x (CO₂/Fossil)

We can rewrite this identity in the following form:

(3) (CO₂/Capita)/(GDP/Capita) = Carbon Intensity = (energy/GDP) x (Fossil/Energy) x (CO₂/Fossil)

Now, the energy term is isolated on the right-hand side of the equation (3).

From the time dependence of the carbon intensity, plotted in the form of a bell-shaped curve, as was done in Figure 2, one should get the right-hand side of Equation 3, which effectively describes the energy use of the country and can be adjusted by the appropriate governmental authorities to manipulate decoupling of growth policy (GDP/Capita) from emissions policy (CO₂/Capita).

I will continue to examine this concept in future blogs.

Continue reading →