This is partly because the capitalist world will be unwilling to give up the ecologically harmful agricultural practices which are making soil less farmable, and because the remaining oil and metal supplies won't be able to sustain capitalism's ever-increasing demand for these resources. Peak oil happened in 2006, peak gas happened in 2010, and peak coal has arguably happened at the same time as peak oil.
This year's oil price crisis is a sign of where this decline will lead to. Oil demand may have declined with the Covid-19 economic crash, but unless this is followed by a drastic transition towards renewable energy, the dangers from peak oil will return. The current situation shows how vulnerable the global economy will be to these shortages. As Yves Smith wrote last year:
Many of the problems the world economy is facing today seem to be the result of reaching the limits of energy extraction. Very few researchers understand how a self-organized networked economy really operates. As a result, the symptoms of economic health and economic illness have been confused. It looks quite possible that we have reached both Peak Oil and Peak Coal, approximately simultaneously. This is a frightening situation, because it could be an indication of collapse in the next few years. This would likely be much worse than the Depression of the 1930s.
The same pattern of diminishing returns is happening for the world's metal supply. A study from last year concluded that in regards to copper, "increased demand and decreased resource quality will cause significant price increases. The copper price is suggested to increase significantly in the coming decades. A similar situation applies for zinc and lead with soft scarcity and increased prices for zinc. The total supply of copper reaches a maximum 2030""2045, zinc 2030""2050 and lead 2025-2030."
This will be so destructive because a "circular economy," where society's current usage of resources is sustained through reusing what's already been mined, isn't feasible. Most metal simply isn't recyclable; for one example, less than 1% of rare earth metals in our phones are reused, hinting at just how much trouble the coming shortages will cause for our highly digital world. And no matter how much we try to recycle plastic, it can only be salvaged as many as seven times before becoming permanently unusable.
This reality of a vastly declining return on metals in the coming decades will make it infeasible to replace oil and coal with alternative energy sources like wind and solar, because these require the production of fossil fuels and metals. No matter how fossil fuel-light the process of creating wind turbines and solar panels becomes, both fossil fuels and metals will still be required for their production. And this will make them unable to fully or sustainably replace fossil fuels as the globe's primary energy source.
Combined with civilization's current methane emissions, which are being maintained by the cattle industry, this systemic obstacle to reducing greenhouse gas emissions makes the Paris climate accord's plan for avoiding catastrophic global warming essentially impossible to reach. It's inevitable that the planet will warm 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average between 2030 and 2050, after which the planet is on track to warm by as much as 3.9 degrees Celsius before 2100.
Add all of these projections to the fact that the world's wildlife populations have declined on an average of 60% since 1970, and the possibility of mass agricultural collapses in just the next couple of decades becomes very plausible. So does the prospect of wild jumps in global prices for gas, electronics, and other commodities.
Which is where the factor of inequality comes in; comfortable living arrangements, modern technologies, and reliable food supplies won't become unattainable for everyone throughout this century, just for those who don't make it into the capitalist aristocracy.
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