Filed under : Scitizen >> Earth & Environment >> Climate Change >> New MIT Study: Smaller Cuts, If Taken Now, Can Minimize Climate Risk
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New MIT Study: Smaller Cuts, If Taken Now, Can Minimize Climate Risk
9 Oct, 2009 09:24 am
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Reduce text sizeEven "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.
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"Our results show we still have a around a 50-50 chance of stabilizing climate" to within a few tenths above the 2 degree threshold, said Ron Prinn, a co-author of the study and co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
Using a computer model combining both climate change and economic growth models, researchers examined four different scenarios fixing global emissions at varying levels through the end of the 21st century. Scientists ran the models hundreds of times, with each run feeding varying environmental and economic data to come up with a comprehensive risk assessment. Such risk analysis helps to focus policy away from the two political extremes of doomsday tomorrow vs. pure, evil hoax.
The political debate is often framed by two extremes," said Co-author Mort Webster, an MIT professor who studies risk and decision analysis. "One extreme says, 'The situation's so bad, you have to do everything.' There's no sense of trade-offs. The other side says, 'It's all a myth, we shouldn't do anything.' Neither of those is particularly helpful.""The nature of the problem is one of minimizing risk," says Webster. He hopes that by focusing on risk management, considering a range of probabilities of various outcomes instead of focusing on the average outcome of a particular climate model, policymakers can make more informed decisions. Webster says that scientists and political leaders often rely too much on the widely held notion that staying under 2 degrees C means stabilizing atmospheric carbon concentrations at 450 parts per million (ppm). Webster says the new research shows that it faulty thinking.
What we're saying is, if you think you want to stay below 2 degrees, don't think 450 [ppm] will get you there for sure," he said. "The bottom line of this report is this notion of trade-offs, of managing risks as a way to think about these long-term global climate targets."The strictest emissions scenario in the model limited carbon concentrations at 480 ppm by 2100, resulting in a 1.7 degree C rise in average temperatures. In that scenario, the risk of a greater rise to 3.2 degrees C is only about 5 percent.
It's a tradeoff between risks. There's the risk of extreme climate change but there's also a risk of higher costs. As scientists, we don't choose what's the right level of risk for society, but we show what the risks are either way."
This new research builds on work published in the Journal of Climate, published earlier this year, that projects a 5.2 degree C rise in average temperatures by 2100 if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Originally published on Global Warming is Real
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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.
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.
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The 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."
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.
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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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