Tag: CO2

A ton too far (more bad news)

At the Climate Futures Forum in Wellington a couple of weeks ago, David Karoly discussed the idea of considering carbon emissions as a “stock” problem, not a “flow” problem. If we want to give ourselves a 75 percent chance of coming in below a 2ºC rise in the global average temperature, then we (as in all humanity) can emit around one trillion tonnes of CO2 (for more see Meinshausen et al here, discussed in the context of emissions targets at HT in this post). It doesn’t much matter when we do the emitting, because CO2 hangs around in the atmosphere for a long time, but stick to that limit we must if we’re serious about avoiding damaging warming. I like that way of thinking about the issue, as I noted in my report on the Forum, but it seems that I may have been rather optimistic about the height of the ceiling we’re living under, and our chances of hitting a 2ºC target. A new study by a team of Canadian climate modellers, Arora et al, Carbon emission limits required to satisfy future representative concentration pathways of greenhouse gases in Geophysical Research Letters, 38 (5) DOI: 10.1029/2010GL046270 (pdf here), suggests that:

…we have already surpassed the cumulative emission limit and so emissions must ramp down to zero immediately. The unprecedented reduction in fossil‐fuel emissions implied by either of these scenarios suggests that it is unlikely that warming can be limited to the 2°C target agreed to in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord.

Bugger.

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Earth: The Operators’ Manual

Earth: The Operators' ManualRichard Alley’s splendid abilities as a communicator are well displayed in his new book Earth: The Operators’ Manual. Written as a companion book for a forthcoming PBS documentary he hosts, it provides a lively review of the science of climate change and of the renewable energy sources now able to be employed. The general reader who wants to understand why human activities are causing climate change and why it matters, and is prepared to put a little effort into the quest, will find the book an engaging explanation.

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Ken Ring: he’s wrong about everything

This weekend a few of the struggling residents of earthquake-hit Christchurch have moved out of the city hoping to escape another dangerous quake, a shock foretold by Ken Ring, a New Zealand astrologer who makes a living producing “long range weather forecasts” for NZ, Australia and Ireland based on the movements of the moon. Ring claims that his moon methods predicted last September’s magnitude 7.1 Canterbury earthquake, and the M6.3 aftershock on Feb 22 that killed at least 182 people and devastated much of the central city and eastern suburbs.

But Ring’s methods don’t work. He can’t predict the weather, he can’t predict earthquakes, he is demonstrably ignorant of basic atmospheric and earth science – and yet apparently sane and rational people take him seriously. Are people simply gullible, especially those traumatised by two major quakes, the loss of lives and the incessant aftershocks? Or have the NZ and Australian media, all too happy to give Ring’s weather predictions, fishing forecasts and views on climate change air time and column inches, created an uber crank, a monster beyond their control who is now responsible for scaring thousands while callously building his book sales and brand?

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How to believe in impossible things

Despite the huge number of mutually contradictory claims denialists make, there is something they all have in common: no matter how much green ink a they use in their writing, denialists never formally criticise each other.

The term cognitive dissonance was coined by Leon Festinger, a psychologist who (in 1954) infiltrated a UFO cult that had been promised a ride into space to avoid a great flood. The UFOs didn’t show. But instead of the cult imploding they turned instead to self justification and denial as they learned, via automatic writing from God, that their goodness had persuaded Him to call it all off.

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(2) Degrees of existence

According to a UN Environment Programme report released yesterday, The Emissions Gap Report – Are the Copenhagen Accord Pledges Sufficient to Limit Global Warming to 2° C or 1.5° C? (summary PDF), if the planet is to have a reasonable (defined as 66%) chance of limiting warming to 2ºC, global emissions will have to peak before 2020, with emissions in 2020 of around 44 GtCO2e and reducing sharply thereafter. The report assesses the Copenhagen Accord pledges as likely to deliver best case 2020 emissions of about 49 GtCO2e. — leaving a “gap” of at least 5 GtCO2e between commitments and ambition. A “lenient” interpretation of the Accord could result in emissions little different to business as usual.

In order to close that gap, the report suggests that countries could adopt higher conditional targets, avoid the use of surplus emissions units (so-called “hot air”), and ensure strict rules for land use change and forestry carbon accounting. The good news is that the report suggests this might be possible. The bad news is that to have a reasonable chance of hitting a 1.5ºC target emissions will have to reduce by 4 – 5% per year after 2020, and move into negative (removing carbon from the atmosphere) territory after 2050. The report suggests this could be done by huge afforestation projects and using biomass energy generation with carbon capture and storage.

The UNEP report is part of the stage setting for the COP16 conference in Cancun beginning next week. More coverage at the BBC, Independent, and Guardian. Richard Black at the Beeb puts the worst case in the lead:

The promises countries have made to control carbon emissions will see temperatures rise by up to 4ºC during this century, a UN report concludes.

Ban Ki-moon was a bit more up-beat (that’s his job):

“I encourage all Parties to make good on their national mitigation pledges, and to further progress within the negotiations as well as through strengthened efforts on the ground to curb emissions. There is no time to waste. By closing the gap between the science and current ambition levels, we can seize the opportunity to usher in a new era of low-carbon prosperity and sustainable development for all.”

Sounds good. Sounds implausible. The gap between commitment and ambition is big and getting bigger by the day. Even a global recession could only trim last year’s emissions by 1.3% compared with the year before, as emissions growth in China and India more than made up for falls in the US, EU and Japan. The UNEP report suggests that there’s still a way to avoid the most damaging warming, but a look at ambitions for Cancun indicates the political will is lacking.

[Update: Barry Brook has a guest post from Tom Wigley looking at the likely climate system response to achieving zero emissions by 2050.]

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