Editor's Note: Humanity only has 13 years left to take the actions needed to prevent a climate change hard landing. According to the recent United Nations climate report, annual carbon dioxide emissions must have begun to drop sharply by 2020 at the very latest -- and that just to ensure that global temperatures do not increase by more than an anticipated 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. If left uncurbed, however, emissions could lead to an increase of up to 6 degrees. Right now, the trend in emissions is pointing to the latter: The amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the world's population increases each year. This happens in part because of the economic ambitions of newly industrializing countries like China and India, but also because of highly wasteful Western lifestyles. With this essay, SPIEGEL ONLINE launches a new series: "New Energies -- The Path away from Climate Catastrophe." The series presents a host of ideas aimed at helping to solve the problem of climate change.

Have you taken a shower today? Have you sipped a cup of hot coffee, stepped out of your warm apartment and driven to work? Booked your next vacation flight?

People have never enjoyed as much material comfort as they do today. More than one-tenth of the world's population own cars, and 4 billion people have electricity in their homes. Growing prosperity has been the goal of civilization since people began to populate the earth. That prosperity is measurable -- by a currency called energy.

Mankind burns up to 10 million tons of crude oil a day, 12.5 million tons of hard coal and 7.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas. All this consumption is accompanied by the creeping certainty that supplies will run out in only a few decades. Besides, the evidence that things are on the decline has never been more clear than since early February of this year, when the report issued by United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came with the alarming news that mankind's thirst for energy is changing Spaceship Earth in a way unprecedented in history.

Temperatures on the planet could increase by up to 6.4 degrees Celsius (11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 and sea levels could rise by up to 59 centimeters (almost two feet), climate experts predict. But the most shocking aspect of the report is not the forecasts themselves, which barely differ from those inssued in the IPCC's last report in 2001. The real bombshell is the certainty with which scientists are willing to assign blame for the calamity.

"Feb. 2 will go down in history as the date when uncertainty over whether people are involved with climate change on this planet was set aside once and for all," says Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP). Scholars' collective diagnosis is that the globe is overheating because carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, is gushing out of 800 million automobile exhaust pipes, because power plants worldwide pump additional billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere and because thousands of hectares of rain forest are being torched by the hour to make room for soybean and palm oil plantations. The CO2 released through these various forms of combustion is blanketing the earth like the roof of a greenhouse.

The consequences are melting glaciers and ice caps, devastating droughts, epidemics and storms. Natural disasters like those in Jakarta, where 340,000 people lost their homes to muddy flood waters after heavy monsoon rains, are seen as warning signs of the impending global disaster.

Chirac's understatement

"This is the time for a revolution, not for half-hearted actions," outgoing French President Jacques Chirac was quick to announce after the IPCC study was released. Chirac urged a "great international mobilization against the ecological crisis and for environmentally friendly growth." He wasn't exaggerating. The actions needed to respond to the increasing temperature curve of the planet must be far more radical than political declarations of intent and the call for new UN groups.

The economic branch that is the basis of every industrial society must radically change. Only a comprehensive turnaround in energy policy and consumption can put the brakes on climate change. "The world's political leaders have recognized that present energy policy cannot secure our energy future in a sustainable way," Claude Mandil, head of the International Energy Agency in Paris, noted in a recent book on the issue.

Humans began their great experiment with energy 1.5 million years ago by taming fire. Then, in antiquity, muscular humans forged swords and plowshares over coal fires. In the 19th century, oil rapidly began to fuel the human civilization process.

The whole cosmos is now involved. If humans want to continue their triumphant advance on the earth, then turning away from fossil energy must be at the top of the agenda. Reconditioning the energy supply to a sustainable energy economy is overdue, and not only because of global warming. Two factors, climate change and the scarcity of world petroleum and natural gas reserves, have long been intertwined as a truly epochal challenge.

An energy economy at a crossroads

The reorganization has already begun. Wind turbines with an output of nearly 170 megawatts rotate off the coast of the Danish island of Lolland. In southern Spain, a consortium with German participation is building the largest solar thermal power plant in the world. With the help of thousands of shining parabolic reflectors, Andasol 1 will provide enough electricity for 200,000 people by as soon as 2008. The demand for biofuel has become so great that it is already making some farmers in the US Midwest very rich.

"The worldwide energy economy has reached a crossroads," declared Peter Hennicke, president of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. If the world continues to consume fossil fuels as in the past, European Union Research Commissioner Janez Potoènik predicts, carbon dioxide emissions will increase by two-thirds by 2050. EU experts expect close to a doubling of the price of oil to $110 per barrel. The reason is population growth. The earth's current population, 6.5 billion people, will likely grow to 8.2 billion by 2030. Humanity will need 53 percent more energy than today, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates. The demand for electricity is expected to double.

On the other hand, the time is ripe for reorganization, with a renewal of capacities overdue in many industrial countries. Modernizing power plants and building new ones will cost $5.2 trillion worldwide by 2030.

What forms of energy could reconcile global tough talk with climate protection goals? How can the huge thirst for energy in threshold countries like China and India be satisfied without further damage to the eco-sphere? Finally, will it be possible in the end for everyone to have everything, or is a new discussion about the limits of growth overdue?

For decades, the inhabitants of the Western world have dealt carelessly and wastefully with resources. A change in their conduct is nowhere in sight. And why should there be? Despite higher prices, energy still has the aura of inexhaustibility. Electricity comes from the wall socket and gas from the fuel pump. In the end, the 20th century could go down in history books as a golden age, that age when an abundance of energy was available and people enjoyed historically unparalleled prosperity, at least in industrial nations. In contrast, the beginning of the 21st century will be remembered as an epoch of new directions. If the energy shift fails, the decline of prosperity will be almost inevitable.

Hardliners, moderates and a "soft path"

Three camps face off against each other in the conflict over the future: hardliners who want to produce energy as before from oil, gas and uranium, moderates who seek to keep all options open and those who advocate the "soft path" of turning away from fossil-nuclear concepts and envisioning a future in renewable energies and greater energy efficiency.

So far only a few states characterized by high development and low population density have claimed to be uncompromisingly green. Thanks to the skillful utilization of wood, Sweden, a country rich in forests, has set a goal of managing completely without petroleum by 2020.

In contrast, the most distinguished representative of fossil fuel hardliners is Russia, not least of which because of its enormous resource wealth. Russia's oil production is comparable to that of Saudi Arabia and its natural gas reserves are by far the earth's largest. Having such large reserves of the cleanest and most climate-friendly of all fossil fuels gives the Kremlin a position of power the authoritarian Putin regime is exploiting ever more self-confidently. Billions flow into the pipeline infrastructure, but no one has any interest in regenerative eco-technology.

Most European countries take the middle road of coexistence between fossil and renewable energy sources. But hardly anything will have more far-reaching importance for the future of the planet than the question of whether the growing giant China will also soon join this camp.

Sheer necessity alone could force China to choose a sustainable energy mix. Explosive industrialization has triggered a thirst for energy that, if quenched solely with conventional means, can only lead to acute environmental catastrophes. Right now, China primarily uses coal to fuel its growth. The capacity of new coal power plants that went online in 2006 exceeds the entire capacity of Great Britain. Further development at the same rate would deal a devastating blow against the climate and the air we breathe. Soot from large Chinese power plants is already measurable over California and Europe.

Although a signatory of the Kyoto protocol, China does not feel committed to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions set forth in that agreement. Still, even without concern about the world climate, the pressure of suffering caused by domestic environmental debacles -- 16 of the world's 20 dirtiest cities are in China -- could soon accelerate a change in the Beijing government's strategy. The Chinese expect 10 percent of their electricity to come from renewable sources of energy in a few years. Deutsche Bank estimates that more than $150 billion could flow into this development.

By taking this approach, China would be following a global development that has already gained vast popularity. Renewable energy currently makes up 18 percent of worldwide electricity production, which is more than nuclear power. In 2003, worldwide investments in the renewable energy sector exceeded the $20 billion mark. In several years time, the market could reach an annual sales volume of $85 billion.

Germany: not really a role model

What about Germany? Germany is a world leader in investing in renewable energy. No country generates as much electricity from wind as Germany. Nearly every fifth wind turbine worldwide comes from a German factory. Repower, a Hamburg wind power company, has become a hot potential takeover target for foreign investors, including the Indian firm Suzlon and the French nuclear conglomerate Areva.

Experts like American economist Adam Posen believe Germany could play an important role "through innovations and the power of example" in leading the world community into a new climate-sparing energy age.

The problem is that Germans' actions have been far from exemplary. EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas complains that Germany is in no way a trailblazer when it comes to climate policy, and wants the Germans to "back up their words with action."

Dimas is right. Despite the renewal energy law and triple glazing in practically every room of every house, the German energy transformation has long neglected something essential: optimization of efficiency. The individual German still consumes far too much energy.

Every German's rush to prosperity ruins the biosphere to an extent that makes the country's reputation as the world's environmental frontrunner seem absurd. Every person holding a driver's license in Germany uses up almost 1,000 liters of gasoline per year. Energy-saving compact flourescent light bulbs and three-liter cars are among the most berated excesses of the modern age in Germany. And Chancellor Angela Merkel only seems to be interested in talking about change. Speed limits on the German autobahn? Not with Merkel. A uniform CO2 limit for new cars as now demanded by Brussels? Defused because of pressure from a chancellor who bowed under the pressure of Germany's powerful carmaker lobby.

Wasteful Western lifestyles

This points to a fundamental dilemma of the energy debate. No form of energy will correct the temperature curve of the planet downward without consumers rethinking their way of life in industrial nations. The world groans under the consequences of a wasteful Western lifestyle that has long threatened to become the global model.

"Billions of people who do not have access to electricity today all want to live in the same civilized way that we do," says Fritz Wahrenholt, an expert on the environment and energy and the head of Repower. Driving a Porsche, having a heated swimming pool in the backyard and regularly flying to the Maldives are the insignia of the Western brand of capitalism. Whether the world's citizens are ready to limit themselves only because scientists conjure a climate apocalypse in the near future is one of the greatest uncertainties in the global energy calculation.

So how does one go about introducing the long-overdue change of behavior in energy consumption? "Is a crisis necessary to bring people to a new path or can they react to a gradual growth in knowledge?" Ralph Cicerone, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, asked after the unveiling of new IPCC report.

The time to act is now

We do not have much time -- especially since every decision to build a new large-scale power plant ties up new billions in capital for 30 to 60 years, the plants' average life expectancy. The issue, on the one hand, will revolve around how to convert the present energy structure with its giant power plants and long-distance power lines to a sustainable, efficient and decentralized supply.

On the other hand, the experts agree that the world needs a new consciousness about how much energy is wasted and evaporates unused on a daily basis. "Energy saving through efficient use is the fastest and most economical solution for nearly all energy-related problems," says Wuppertal researcher Hennicke. With existing technologies, the primary energy requirement in Germany could be reduced up to 40 percent "even with increased economic output," he says.

"Climate change also presents an opportunity," says Hennicke, who sees Germany as an "engine of innovation." New technologies for higher efficiency and for environmentally friendly electricity production could greatly reduce the share of oil, coal and gas in the energy mix by the middle of the century.

A third savings, a third renewable and a third fossil energy is Hennicke's general rule for the "soft path" into the future. The brave new energy world may be the last chance for us not to be forced to walk backwards down the path to apehood.

"We can manage everything with energy," says the British environmental expert Euan Nisbet. "Without energy, we are just big chimpanzees."