GLOBAL EMISSIONS: The world has taken few steps to restrain emissions of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.
Image: Flickr/DonkeyHotey
The estimated gap between proposed global emission cuts and scientifically advisable emissions levels has widened, thanks to stronger-than-expected growth from key developing countries and more accurate carbon accounting.
In its "Emissions Gap Report 2012," the U.N. Environment Programme estimates that, should countries follow through on their most stringent international pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the world will still emit 8 gigatons above the 2020 limit scientists say is needed to prevent runaway global warming. \ Last year's report, by contrast, estimated a low-end gap of 6 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the 44-gigaton limit. The gap could be as much as 50 percent wider if states follow through on less ambitious pledges, the report notes, while a business-as-usual approach would likely put the world 14 gigatons over the advisable limit by 2020.
"We are actively moving in the wrong direction," said U.N. Undersecretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, speaking at the report's release in London. "In terms of emissions, the world has already broken the speed limit -- now it appears to be putting its foot on the gas pedal, even though we know there is a T-junction ahead."
The report comes as nations are gearing up for the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held this month in Doha, Qatar. Vulnerable nations are expected to push developed countries toward more ambitions emissions targets during the conference.
As it has done in the lead-up to other UNFCCC conferences, UNEP is calling for nations to go above and beyond their existing commitments, or risk more costly mitigation in later decades (ClimateWire, March 8).
Along with its sober assessment of global emissions trends, however, the report also points to a wide range of existing policy actions from around the world that, if scaled up, its authors say, could close the emissions gap by as much as 17 gigatons.
"Given our current trajectory, an underlying narrative may well emerge that we cannot achieve our 2-degree [Celsius] pathway goal by 2020, but I believe this report challenges that idea," Steiner said.
"For those who do not believe that radical changes are possible, we have seen in the last five to 10 years exceptional examples in achieving the transformative changes we are looking for," he added. Successful implementation of feed-in tariffs, efficiency standards, carbon accounting and other policy decisions -- many of them motivated as much by domestic as international concerns -- have created an accelerating curve of emissions reductions, he said.
How to bridge the gap?
Scientists have warned since the late 1980s that global warming above 2 degrees Celsius could have dramatic impacts on global health and economic productivity. At their current level of 49 gigatons, annual emissions are about 5 gigatons above the 2020 target laid out in the UNEP report.
Because most greenhouse gas emissions remain in the atmosphere for many decades, cumulative emissions are more important than annual emissions, said UNEP chief scientist Joseph Alcamo. There are therefore different pathways to each climate outcome, he said.
"Our scientists identified 39 different pathways" that would keep emissions below the 2-degree limit, he said. "They found that, to stay on target, global emissions have to peak before 2020. In 2030, emissions need to drop to a quarter below current levels, back to 1990 levels."
Closing the 8-gigaton gap between emissions levels pledged by world governments and the levels the UNEP recommends will be challenging, he said, considering the quantity of energy at stake -- by way of comparison, the world's entire industrial sector emits about 8 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually.
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10 Comments
Add CommentWe're on the highway to hell with the pedal to the metal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no turning back now from our ride back to the Cretaceous.
"Our scientists identified 39 different pathways" that would keep emissions below the 2-degree limit"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese “scientific geniuses” make it sound like the 0.8 degrees we have already had is just fine. Do I really need to list the numerous adverse, extreme weather events we have suffered already? And it’s not just heat waves and droughts and wildfires. We already have unprecedented melting of the Arctic. We have seen the evidence of the Greenland ice sheet melting. We have the evidence of the Iceland ice cap melting. We have the evidence of warming along the Antarctic Peninsula and the resultant collapse of the Larsen ice shelves and rapid melting of the glaciers they once buttressed. All with 0.8 degrees! (see “Extreme Winter Weather Explained / Loss of Arctic sea ice is stacking the deck in favor of harsh winter weather in the U.S. and Europe” in the December issue of SA) Who ever said more warming is safe for civilization?
"Even if greenhouse gas emissions stopped tomorrow, “climatically important” amounts of carbon dioxide and other compounds emitted today would continue to influence the atmosphere for thousands of years, Caldeira said." (in 2011)
"The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are completely stopped. The findings appear during the week of January 26 [2009] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
So we can afford to allow emissions to peak in 2020 can we? We will have 400+ ppmv CO2 by then. Good to know this genius plan will put the brake on warming and sea level rise. Good to know all of our concern over the current state of the climate is really nothing to worry about.
Easy peasy problem is solved by dirt cheap nuke power Jerry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven the Saudi's are getting into the game with 100 new nuke plants on the planning agenda for 2030.
Nuke synfuels are already 30% the cost or petrol based on Shell's new Qatar plant.
We're going to have to wait though until the Chinese leadership reveals Big Oil's corruption of western politicians and media when it begins exporting its new generation dirt cheap nuclear product.
Perhaps Canada under Justin Trudeau will have a chance with David LeBlanc's nuke plant invention. - the stupid Fascist Leader Derharpenfuhrer must go first as he is actively antinuclear on orders of his Big Oil owners and his religious leaders.
Google "David LeBlanc - Molten Salt Reactor Designs, Options & Outlook"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo Seth you are talking to people who haven't even been mentioned!!
Sadly you have a 1 track mind it seems. While nuke, at keast 'Generation 4 nuke wiki' google that is part of the solution, it can't be all of it or even 50%.
Please show the Nuke syn fuel plant?
I'll bet it's a NG GTL plant that might use a little nuke to power it. But it's a NG synfuel, not nuke. Actually these plants make excess heat as part of the process so can make their own electricity.
Back to clean energy nuke vcan't be more than 40% of peak power needs as if more too much will be wasted off peak. That is a basic fact.
Next one has to consider both how to supply peak power and how much powr cost customers. Even if nuke power was free to the utilities the cost of the plants, transmission lines, utility overhead, profit, loan interest, etc makes it where it'll be cheaper for homes, buildings to make their own.
You can stomp your feet and hold your breath until you are blue in your face won't change these basic economics facts. You can say RE is variable and all kinds of strawman arguments but the facts are nukes need RE and NG to fill in peak power that nuke can't.
Plus who is going to pay more for something that one can make themselves without any work, just by buying the equipment needed which run themselves automatically ?
Most RE really are simple machines, more simple than a moped or Central A/C unit plus far more eff. And once all the different ones are in mass production like solar PV already is, will be cheaper than nuke delivered by a utility.
So Seth when are you going to be more than a 1 trick pony and admit nuke can only be part of the solution and needs other sources to be used eff?
As most RE is either on demand or happens when most needed it's far more valuable than nuke which one can't turn down effectively. So much for the variability strawman argument.
And NG and biomass will fill in the rest.
I believe that there are TWO additional important aspects to the greenhouse gas equation that we humans need to consider in order to keep our planet habitable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Reduce our population. It would be a lot easier to achieve our greenhouse emission goals if there were only 3 billion people on the earth.
2. Reduce the amount of grain intensive livestock we are consuming. The raising livestock for meat is very inefficient and uses up a lot of grain, fresh water, and, and farmland, and is not sustainable in the long term at our current rate of consumption. In addition it produces a lot of greenhouse gas.
We need to expand our focus from the energy aspect of the equation and start paying more attention to our out of control population and meat consumption, which are just as big of greenhouse gas contributors as burning fossil fuels.
I always get a kick out of Jerry's ravings. He makes himself out here to be a world class maker Mr DIY but with each moronic statement shows he couldn't tell a toaster from a lawnmower.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHis most hilarious claim was his invention of a rooftop windmills that were far more efficient than Samsung's best.
One thing we can all agree with though is Jerry is a biofuels expert, him and his daddy brewing the best tasting Biofuels outside their shack on stilts way out the boonies of Everglade county, Florida. Unfortunately product samplings are affecting his posts.
The first stage of the Fisher-Trof process at the Qatar GTL plant separates carbon from hydrogen. With nuke hydrogen input to the plant that stage - highly energy intensive - is skipped.
Modern nuke plants can cycle to half power and back over the day. It increases the cost somewhat but still leaves it far cheaper than any alternative. The need to do this is eliminated when offpeak nuke power is used for hydrogen production, desalination, and storage HVAC application.
Since nuke plants are ideally sized to supply all the energy needs of a population of 100K or so, there is very little need for transmission just distribution networks already existing.
Without some sort of cheap community based storage a distributed energy network based on solar simply can't exist. There is no such technology yet invented.
All practical not so renewable tech ie solar and wind are already way into mass production and no further gains are possible. The current low cost now starting at 10 times the cost of nukes are 100% due to Chinese dumping.
Excellent point. Unfortunately, people like to have lots of kids. No, I don't know why. It's a better strategy to focus lots of resources on one or two kids, rather than spreading those resources over four or more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA strategy that might work is a modified one-child policy. A certain number of second-child slots would be given out by lottery (not by auction or raffle), and adoptions would be allowed to circumvent the regulations (although a person or persons trying to have children after putting one or more up for adoption would be treated as already having a child. Some regulation would be necessary, but overall it would probably prove effective at reducing the population.
So let me get this right the Government will decide how many children we can have because of a problem that is total B.S. Of the billions spent on Climate research the government spends how much of it is spent exploring other possibilities? $0.00 that how much. That should show any one that maybe your government likes the kind of unlimited power that this global Warming stuff will lead to. Kiss your liberties goodbye the green dictatorship will be here soon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis has become a pointless discussion and a waste of time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll of the reliable evidence points to the probability that if we have not already past the "tipping point" where the global warming feedback loop will be unstoppable, we soon will.
In the meantime we humans have quite amply demonstrated that we are not capable of taking even the simplest first steps in order to ameliorate the problem. Even at this late date out man made emissions continue to increase rapidly.
We are now well into the next mass extension and by the time most of us realize and accept that fact it will be far too late to slow or stop it.
The only question remaining is this: will any species survive or will Earth become a new Mars?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs Seth has no leg to stand on he resorts to insults and falsehoods. Typical o0f one trick pony types.
So Seth why did they shut down the running nuke in Wisconson? The reason they gave is it cost more than NG and it's already paid for? Waiting for your answer.
While Seth misinforms I actually make cost effective energy and soon will have wind and tidal generators on the market that both beat retail cost of nuke power.
PV already does if shopped right with payback in 4-5 yrs and almost free for another 15-20 yrs after that. But Seth ignores that because it would interfer with his nuke is the greatest dream world he lives in.
So I'll keep making real, cost effective power and Seth will be in his dream world of nukes as all things to all people.
So Seth why did they shut the working nuke down? Enquiring minds want to know.