We knew the recipe for disaster. Now we have the receipt

 

Letter to Editor

FOR DECADES, the relationship between burning fossil fuels and cooking the planet has been treated like an inconvenient rumour—something we suspected but couldn’t quite prove in a court of science.

But a new study from researchers at Patuakhali Science and Technology University (Siddik et al., December 2021) has pulled back the curtain with surgical precision.

Their message is as stark as it is simple: The correlation is no longer just strong. It is ironclad.

In their paper published in the International Journal of Energy, Environment and Economics, the team did not just rehash old climate axioms.

They ran the numbers across time, geography, and sectors. And what they found should shake us out of our collective complacency. The diagnosis: A perfect positive storm.

First, the status quo. The study confirms what many have feared: Global fossil fuel consumption—coal, oil, and natural gas—has not plateaued.

Despite the rise of renewables, we are still digging, drilling, and burning more than ever before. And here is the kicker: The correlation coefficient between that consumption and total greenhouse gas emissions is approaching +0.95 in many of their models.

For the non-statisticians among us, that means the two variables move in almost perfect lockstep.No more doubt.

You want to reduce emissions? You cannot “manage” them away with carbon credits or vague net-zero pledges while simultaneously breaking records for oil extraction.

The math doesn’t lie. As Siddik and his colleagues show, every uptick in fossil fuel use is followed, with grim predictability, by an uptick in atmospheric CO2 equivalent.

We love to point fingers. The West blames China’s coal plants. China blames America’s historic emissions. Europe blames OPEC.

But the study’s cross-sectional analysis offers a more uncomfortable truth: All large emitters are behaving similarly.

The correlation holds in wealthy post-industrial nations and in rapidly developing economies alike. The only difference is the stage of the fire.

In fact, the authors highlight a dangerous paradox: In some developing nations, fossil fuel consumption is rising faster than GDP growth—meaning we are becoming less efficient with every new factory and car.

That is not development; that is self-sabotage. One of the study’s most striking findings is about natural gas.

For years, industry lobbyists have sold gas as a “bridge fuel”—cleaner than coal, they said. But Siddik et al. find that while gas emits less CO2 per unit of energy than coal, its rapid expansion has not displaced fossil fuels overall.

Instead, it has added a new layer of consumption on top of existing coal and oil use. The result? Total emissions keep climbing. A bridge to nowhere is still a bridge to nowhere.

Correlation, as the statisticians warn, is not causation. But when the correlation is this persistent—across decades, across continents, across every economic cycle—denial becomes a form of delusion.

The paper does not just diagnose; it implies the cure. If fossil fuel consumption and emissions are this tightly bound, then incrementalism is a lie.

We cannot tweak our way out. We cannot efficiency our way out. We must substitute our way out. Every therm of natural gas, every barrel of oil, every lump of coal that is not replaced by a zero-carbon alternative is a vote for the status quo.

The authors stop short of policy prescriptions, but the inference is inescapable: Carbon pricing, fossil fuel subsidy removal, and a wartime-level mobilization for renewables are not ideological choices. They are arithmetic necessities.

The Bottom Line: This December 2021 study arrived quietly, in an academic journal, read by a few hundred specialists. But its message deserves a megaphone.

We have spent thirty years debating whether climate change is real. Siddik and his team have handed us the definitive proof of its primary driver.

The correlation is clear. The causation is settled. The only question left is whether we have the courage to act like it.

Because right now, the data shows we are still fueling the fire—and wondering why the house is getting hot. 

Professor Dato Dr Ahmad Ibrahim is an Adjunct Professor at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya.

The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT.

- Focus Malaysia.