The main objective to have emerged from the recent COP26 United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow is to ensure that global temperature rise is limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2050. The temperature is already 1.1°C above and we see disastrous floods, droughts, fires, ice-melts in polar regions, disappearing permafrosts and immensely powerful storms. So at 1.5°C all these effects will be increased – a frightening prospect.
Although some countries have made promises to reduce coal extraction, burning methane and deforesting by 2030, they have generally been quiet about oil extraction. It is so urgent that fossil fuels are left in the ground. Hot and sunny countries like Saudi Arabia and India should surely be producing solar electricity and thereby supplying this and hydrogen (produced by electrolysis) to the rest of the world for transport etc, and for domestic steel production...