The Blue Globe is a market-oriented, prosperous world powered by coal and nuclear power.

The global recession in 2008-2011 coupled with increasing environmental disasters give rise to a two-point political agenda: The need for economic growth and the need to curb emissions. World leaders formalise this in the post-Kyoto meeting of 2012, specifying a four-point action programme:

Clear caps on greenhouse gas emissions with flexibility on how to reach them
Active development of carbon trading markets
For coal-based power generation, only CCS-ready ultra-supercritical plants permitted to be built
Cross-border task force to speed up the commercialization of CCS

The need for cheap energy in the global recession leads to an increase in the use of coal. Thanks to carbon capture and storage, we keep using coal, along with other centralised solutions such as nuclear power and large-scale wind parks, to tackle both economic and environmental issues.

Transportation has been electrified and thus it has less impact on the environment. The consequent reduction in oil demand has led to a restructuring of geopolitical networks. In certain markets gas is still an important fuel, but its demand slightly declines towards 2023.

Due to the dominance of coal, CCS has great potential to curb CO² emissions. This, together with nuclear power, energy-efficiency, demand-side management and renewables, powers the world while keeping emissions within acceptable limits.