Filed under : Scitizen >> Earth & Environment >> Climate Change >> Is the International Target of 2 Degrees Warming a "Pipe Dream?"
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Is the International Target of 2 Degrees Warming a "Pipe Dream?"
12 Aug, 2009 08:59 pm
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Reduce text sizeThe Sydney Morning Herald reported late last week that research by Australian National University scientist Andrew Macintosh indicates that, based on most industrialized nations' stated mid-term commitments, limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius simply "won't work."
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Most major emitters have pledged an emissions reduction target of between 10 and 20% by 2020, leading to an 80% cut by 2050. And the near term target is "simply not enough," says Macintosh, "if you want to prevent warming of more than 2 degrees."
"It's simply not enough if you want to prevent warming of more than 2 degrees," Macintosh told the Australian Associated Press. "They know this. But what they're trying to tell everybody is no, it's fine, we can go for moderate cuts by 2020 and still stay within the limit. Even if a 20 per cent cut was achieved by 2020, emissions would have to fall by an additional 5 per cent a year in order to reach the next target. That's just extremely unrealistic [unless] we find some magic technology."Characterizing a scenario of moderate mid-term emissions targets making the 2 degree limit achievable as a "pipe dream." Macintosh says governments are playing "both sides of the fence" in an attempt to "placate everyone."
Over a period of several months, Macintosh ran computer models for 45 different climate change scenarios. His research suggests that the international community needs to either accept that the 2 degree Celsius limit will not be achievable or more drastic near and mid-term emissions cuts, on the order of at least 30% by 2020, will be required.
This report lends itself to our recent posts on the need for the international community to focus more on sustainable agriculture and forestry, especially this December at the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen where world leaders will hammer out a post-Kyoto climate agreement. Focusing soley on emissions reductions is not enough.
Originally published on Global Warming is Real
Tom is the editor and publisher of GlobalWarmingisReal. He has studied environmental issues, and particularly climate change, for over two decades. He is also an associate editor and lead writer for the popular blog TriplePundit and a contributing writer for the Green Options Network and publishes the HistoryBlogProject.
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Although apparently brief, the suspension of the Copenhagen climate conference after a walkout by the Group of 77 developing countries confirms that the talks are as much about money as about healing the world's climate. It's not just that the G77 wants the Kyoto limits on the emissions of developed countries enforced, while leaving their own emissions uncapped; it also wants the developed world to kick in sizable sums--much bigger than the 2.4 billion Euros per year offered by the EU--to cover the improvements in energy efficiency and renewable energy that would enable them to tackle the growth of their own emissions. There's a solid argument there, though it is not the guilt-based logic of "carbon debt" that I explored a few weeks ago.
In spite of the recent weeks of roller coaster-like expectations for a positive outcome from the COP15 climate conference that got underway Monday, the sense of urgency is keenly felt here at the Bella Center, home of the climate negotiations and exhibitions for dozens of NGO's and observer organizations.
Forget 80% by 2050 and 17% by 2020. Time to stop fixating on 450 ppm vs 350 ppm. As UN climate talks kick off today in Copenhagen, Denmark, there's only one number really worth the world's attention: $10.5 trillion. That's the additional investment required between now and 2030 to put the world's energy system on a lower-carbon path, according to the world energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency.
I'll discuss the willingness of developing countries to undertake significant emissions reductions on their own that tangibly reduce the growth of their emissions in the near-term (e.g., to 2020) and lay the foundation for even deeper cuts in the medium-term.
Have you heard that we're getting new neighbors? Demographers expect that the number of people living on earth - now about 6.8 billion - will grow to between 8 and 11 billion by 2050. Whether population tops out at the high or the low end of those projections will have a huge impact on climate change. So population control is again claiming a place on the environmental agenda.
Last Thursday, an editorial in the Wall St. Journal referred to a paper in the latest issue of Science entitled, "Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error", which concludes that the manner in which the greenhouse gas impacts of biofuels are currently assessed fails to account for significant emissions that occur outside the envelope normally drawn around an ethanol or biodiesel plant and the farms that supply it with feedstock. And if that omission weren't glaring enough, I ran across another instance in which regulators appear to be turning a blind eye to the full impact of another popular option for addressing climate change, electric vehicles.
The two-week global warming negotiations in Bangkok, Thailand are just wrapping up. There are five key elements to the Copenhagen Agreement.
Even "moderate" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions may be sufficient to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change, says new MIT study. But only if those moderate cuts start now, not in 2020, where many emissions targets take initial aim. Without swift action, even more aggressive cuts may not be enough to stop extreme climate disruption.
I feel like an idiot for not seeing this one coming from either China or India. It's so painfully obvious, in hindsight, that I have to wonder how anyone who follows energy and environmental issues closely could have failed to predict it. What am I babbling about? China is now saying that the endlessly discussed target of keeping global warming below 2°C is not such a big deal.
Yvo de Boer closes Bonn talks with stark warning that the current pace of the Copenhagen negotiations remains far too slow.
A recent survey found that there was a significant interest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but that investment decisions were made without close attention in the emissions trading scheme market. Rather, investment decisions were guided by expectations about the long term development of overall energy costs.
Researchers working on a joint World Agroforestry Centre-United Nations Environment Programme project suggest that integrating agroforestry in farming systems on a massive scale would create a vital reservoir for carbon storage. No less than a billion hectares of developing country farmland is suitable for conversion to carbon agroforestry projects, according to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates.
An important recent paper looked at the links between economic prosperity and carbon footprint.[1] It compared the average emissions per head in 73 different countries at all different stages in development. Unsurprisingly, it showed that richer countries have much higher greenhouse gas outputs. The interesting and somewhat depressing finding is that a country with 10% higher GDP per head than another will generally have emissions about 8% higher. The correlation is strong - very few countries diverge much from the norm for their level of income.
Proposals to reduce global warming through giant engineering projects or so-called geoengineering abound. Almost all are in the idea stage. But even if they were ready to deploy today, they would be dangerous for the planet, counterproductive for our energy future and unfair to the public.
Yesterday the International Energy Agency (IEA) released their much anticipated (and previously leaked) World Energy Outlook 2008.
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| [1] | Comment by Global Changes
- 13 Aug, 2009 11:08 am Many scientists are now predicting that these cuts just wont be enough. The New Scientist recently reported that we have already reached the emissions levels likely of a 1.4°C warming. “Global average temperatures so far have risen by only about 0.8 °C but there are two reasons why warming three times as great seems inevitable. First, there is a time lag of several decades between when greenhouse gas levels rise and when temperatures follow. The lag means there is another 0.6 °C of inevitable warming in the pipeline.” http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327174.500-world-starts-to-act-on-climate-change.html |
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