Designing the mid-transition: A review of medium-term challenges for coordinated decarbonization in the United States
Payne Institute Fellow Sarah Hastings-Simon, writes about how decarbonizing the energy system is critical for addressing climate change. Given the dominance of fossil fuels in the energy system, decarbonization requires rapid and significant industrial transition of the energy supply at scale. This includes explicit and coordinated plans not only for zero carbon phase-in, but for fossil carbon phase-out. Even very rapid decarbonization will likely take decades, leading to a medium-term future where the conventional, fossil-based energy system coexists with a new, zero-carbon energy system. February 8, 2022.