Table Of ContentWorld-Systems Evolution and Global Futures
Tessaleno Campos Devezas
João Carlos Correia Leitão
Yuri Yegorov
Dmitry Chistilin Editors
Global
Challenges
of Climate
Change, Vol.1
Green Energy, Decarbonization,
Forecasting the Green Transition
World-Systems Evolution and Global
Futures
SeriesEditors
ChristopherChase-Dunn,UniversityofCalifornia,Riverside,CA,USA
BarryK.Gills,PoliticalandEconomicStudies,UniversityofHelsinki,Helsinki,
Finland
LeonidE.Grinin ,NationalResearchUniversityHigherSchoolofEconomics,
Moscow,Russia
AndreyV.Korotayev ,NationalResearchUniversityHigherSchoolof
Economics,Moscow,Russia
Thisseriesseekstopromoteunderstandingoflarge-scaleandlong-termprocessesof
social change, in particular the many facets and implications of globalization. It
criticallyexplores thefactorsthataffect thehistoricalformationand currentevolu-
tion of social systems, on both theregional and global level. Processes and factors
that are examined include economies, technologies, geopolitics, institutions,
conflicts, demographic trends, climate change, global culture, social movements,
global inequalities, etc. Building on world-systems analysis, the series addresses
topicssuchasglobalizationfromhistoricalandcomparativeperspectives,trendsin
globalinequalities,core-peripheryrelationsandtheriseandfallofhegemoniccore
states,transnationalinstitutions,andthelong-termenergytransition.Thisambitious
interdisciplinary and international series presents cutting-edge research by social
scientistswhostudywholehumansystemsandisrelevantforallreadersinterestedin
systems approaches to the emerging world society, especially historians, political
scientists,economists,sociologists,geographersandanthropologists.
ThisbookseriesisindexedinScopus.
Alltitlesinthisseriesarepeer-reviewed.
(cid:129)
Tessaleno Campos Devezas
(cid:129) (cid:129)
João Carlos Correia Leitão Yuri Yegorov
Dmitry Chistilin
Editors
Global Challenges
of Climate Change, Vol.1
Green Energy, Decarbonization,
Forecasting the Green Transition
Editors
TessalenoCamposDevezas JoãoCarlosCorreiaLeitão
InstitutoUniversitário UniversityofBeiraInterior
UniversidadeAtlântica Covilhã,Portugal
Barcarena,Portugal
YuriYegorov DmitryChistilin
UniversityofVienna SimonKuznetsInstituteforSelfOrganization
Vienna,Austria andDevelopment
Kyiv,Ukraine
ISSN2522-0985 ISSN2522-0993 (electronic)
World-SystemsEvolutionandGlobalFutures
ISBN978-3-031-16469-9 ISBN978-3-031-16470-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16470-5
#TheEditor(s)(ifapplicable)andTheAuthor(s),underexclusivelicensetoSpringerNatureSwitzerland
AG2022
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Acknowledgement
Co-editor João Leitão appreciates the support of the Project PRIMA 2020, 3599-
PPCDT, “Environment and Global Change: Improving MEDiterranean irrigation
system and water supply for smallholder farmers by providing efficient, low-cost
andnature-basedtechnologiesandpractices”.PRIMA/0008/2020.
v
Contents
GlobalChallengesonClimateChange:AnOngoingPortentous
Transformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
TessalenoDevezas,JoãoLeitão,YuriYegorov,andDmitryChistilin
HowGreenIstheGreenEnergyTransition?OntheRoadto
Decarbonization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
TessalenoDevezas,HugoRuão,JoanaGonçalves,BrunoBento,
andHugoLiana
BifurcationofEnergyDevelopmentinFSUCountriesandtheRole
ofHydrogen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
YuriYegorovandFranzWirl
DecarbonizationStrategiesofOil&GasMajors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
AlexeyGromovandAlexanderTitov
MaintainingaBalancedSetofEnergyOptionsDuringThisSingular
andUncertainTransition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
DavidLePoire
GlobalChallengesofClimateChangeandEarth’sAutopoiesis. . . . . . . 77
EmilDinga
Heliosynthesis:AStairwaytoEnergyHeaven. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
AthanasiosG.Konstandopoulos
ChallengesontheUseofPolymersonGreenTransition. . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
AnaPaulaDuarteandManuelFreitas
ForecastingtheMixofWorldEnergyNeedsbyMid-Twenty-First
Century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
TheodoreModis
EnergyandClimateChangesAlongtheLastTwoHundredYears:
LogisticModeling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
LuizC.M.Miranda
vviiii
viii Contents
ConsideringUncertaintyinEconomicandEnvironmentalEvaluation
andAssessmentofIntegratedTechnologicalApproaches. . . . . . . . . . . . 167
DavidLePoire
ForecastingtheIndicatorsofKondratiev’sGreenEconomicWave
(2018–2050),the“GreatEnergyTransition”anditsImpact
ontheSocio-EconomicDevelopmentoftheWorld. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
AskarA.AkaevandOlgaI.Davydova
Russia’sContributiontoAchievingGlobalDecarbonizationGoals. . . . . 207
AlexanderShirovandAndreyKolpakov
Global Challenges on Climate Change:
An Ongoing Portentous Transformation
Tessaleno Devezas, João Leitão, Yuri Yegorov, and Dmitry Chistilin
1 Setting the Stage
October 1973 marked an important turning point that paved the way toward our
modernglobalsocioeconomicsystem,whenthemembersoftheOPECproclaimed
thewell-knownoilembargo,duringwhichoilpricesrocketedfromUS$3perbarrel
to about US$ 12 per barrel globally by the end of embargo in March 1974, an
increaseofabout400%.Thisembargowascoinedasthe“oilshock”becauseofits
long-term effects on the global economy and geopolitics. A few years later, in the
wakeoftheIranianRevolution(1979)andtheIran-Iraq(1980)war,duetodecreased
oil output, prices rocketed again, installing a new global panic, provoking the
“secondoilshock.”Theseshockssummedupwiththeworldwideawakeningcaused
by the 1972 published report of the Club of Rome titled “The Limits to Growth”
(Meadows et al., 1972), presenting the results of MIT’s computer simulation of
exponentialeconomicandpopulationgrowthwithafinitesupplyofresources.The
message was clear: the planet cannot support present rates of economic and
T.Devezas(*)
AtlânticaUniversity,Lisbon,Portugal
e-mail:[email protected]
J.Leitão
UniversityofBeiraInterior,NECE,ResearchUnitinBusinessSciences,Covilhã,Portugal
CEG-IST&ICS,InstitutodeCiênciasSociais,UniversityofLisbon,Lisbon,Portugal
e-mail:[email protected]
Y.Yegorov
UniversityofVienna,Vienna,Austria
e-mail:[email protected]
D.Chistilin
SimonKuznetsInternationalInstituteforSelf-organizationandDevelopment,Kyiv,Ukraine
e-mail:[email protected]
#TheAuthor(s),underexclusivelicensetoSpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG2022 1
T.C.Devezasetal.(eds.),GlobalChallengesofClimateChange,Vol.1,
World-SystemsEvolutionandGlobalFutures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16470-5_1
2 T.Devezasetal.
population growth much beyond the end of the twenty-first century because
resourcesarefinite.Theresultwasthenthewakingupofanintenseglobalawareness
regarding the depletion of natural resources and the aggression to the environment
(Devezas,2008).
Thiswasjustthepreludetoamuchmoreportentoustransformationthatwason
its way, defining a new epoch in society, economy, geopolitics, diplomacy, etc., a
radical transformation of our culture and of our humanity. Coevals of the baby
boomer generation (1945–1964), in their early adulthood, never had any kind of
concernregardingtheconsumptionofrawmaterialsorenergysources.Whoofthem
knew about materials depletion, CO emissions, let alone global warming? Their
2
biggestconcernwastheColdWarandtheimminenceofanuclearhecatomb.Butthe
generation that followed, usually known as generation X (1965–1980), and more
intensely thegenerationthatfollowed,theso-calledMillennials(1981–1996),sud-
denlyfoundthemselvesimmersedinanewworld,notjusttheBraveNewWorldof
theDigitalAge,butaworldthreatenedwithextinction,nolongerbythedangerof
nuclear war, but above all by the imminence of reaching a point of no return or
tippingpointwithregardtoclimatechangebroughtaboutbyhumanactionsincethe
industrial revolution. Almost as suddenly, especially during the last decade of the
twentiethcentury,itwasdiscoveredthatthefourhorsemenoftheapocalypsewere
fossilfuels,microplastics,globalwarming,andspeciesextinction,whichhadbeen
practicallyunheardofinpreviousdecades.
Thesequenceoffactsiswellknown,startingseriouslybytheendofthe1980s.In
April1989,twoNorthAmericanecologistsfromtheWoodsHoleResearchCenter
(Woods Hole, Massachusetts), Richard A. Houghton and George M. Woodwell
publishedinScientificAmericanashatteringarticletitled“GlobalClimaticChange”
(Houghton & Woodwell, 1989), ringing alarm bells about global warming due to
humanactionsandcallingforimmediateactionthatcouldreversethetrends.They
start the article stating dramatically: “The world is warming. Climatic zones are
shifting.Glaciersaremelting.Sealevelisrising.Thesearenothypotheticalevents
fromascience-fictionmovie;thesechangesandothersarealreadytakingplace,and
weexpectthemtoaccelerateoverthenextyearsastheamountsofcarbondioxide,
methane, and other trace gases accumulating in the atmosphere through human
activitiesincrease.”Theauthorspresentevidencethattheproductionof“greenhouse
gases”fromhumanactivitieshadalreadybeguntochangetheearthclimateandcry
out to political leaders for radical steps to halt further changes. They were perhaps
thefirsttocallattentionofthescientificcommunityaboutthemenaceof“feedback
effects,”warmingacceleratingasresultofthewarmingitself.
At the same time, the United Nations started creating working groups and
organizing meetings to discuss the seriousness of climate change, for instance, the
TorontoConferenceontheChangingAtmosphere(October1988),soonfollowedby
theFirstIPCC(IntergovernmentalPanelonClimateChange)AssessmentReportin
Sundsvall, Sweden (August 1990). This movement culminated then in June 1992
with the realization of the Earth Summit, a major United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, informally known as
ECO92. This meeting resulted in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Devel-
opment, by which 27 principles were established to guide countries in future
