That’s the subject of the IPCC’s latest report (pdf). Plumer summarizes key points:
Global greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels and other sources are rising rapidly — putting the world on pace for significant temperature increases by century’s end. To meet its climate goals, the world would have to act quickly, cutting emissions until they were 41 to 72 percent below today’s levels by mid-century. That won’t be easy. And the task gets much harder if we rule out any technologies, like nuclear power or carbon capture for coal plants.
Why an all-of-the-above strategy is vital:
Right now, about 17 percent of the world’s energy is “low-carbon” — a little bit of wind and solar power, some nuclear power plants, a bunch of hydroelectric dams. Countries would have to ramp those sorts of technologies up dramatically — tripling or quadrupling their share.
That means two things. First, it’s tough to rule out any particular technologies. For instance, some environmentalists are opposed to nuclear power. But the IPCC estimates that the task of cutting emissions becomes 7 percent more expensive if we shuttered all our nuclear plants. Likewise, the technology to capture carbon emissions from coal plants and bury it underground is still in its infancy. But if that technology proves unworkable, then the task of cutting emissions becomes twice as expensive.
Jim Skea highlights other parts of the report:
Cost is a critical question that needs to be addressed in any proposals for action, or inaction. In the report, the IPCC has suggested that action to cut greenhouse gas emissions could reduce global growth by 0.06% per year over the 21st century, leading to a 1.7% reduction in global consumption by 2030 and 3.4% by 2050 relative to a business as usual strategy. Is this affordable? It does not sound much when set against the impact of climate change. And other benefits from improved air quality and reduced dependence on imported fossil fuels are not costed in. However, expenditure would fall heavily on energy bills rather than being spread imperceptibly across the economy. The political leadership challenge is clear.
Victoria Turk worries that such leadership will never materialize:
The AP reported that diagrams in leaked drafts of the report that showed that a main force behind rising emissions were the increasing energy needs of fast-growing countries like China were deleted from the final version.
And that’s where a more pessimistic response to the report rears its head. After all, it’s not like it’s news that we need to reduce emissions from fossil fuels to stem global warming, but until governments can agree on a course of action, we’ll never see the kind of united progress that would be the most effective solution.
For the moment, the outlook continues to look pretty bleak, and the IPCC also wrotethat emissions continue to rise despite our efforts to reduce them. They wrote that “emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades,” and put this down to the disproportionate growth in economies and populations.
The Dish 