9 December 2015, Washington Post, How the Earth itself could undermine a Paris climate agreement. PARIS — With only three days left, tensions here are rising as countries race to resolve outstanding differences and forge an agreement that — hopefully — will set the planet on a path to avoiding the worst consequences of climate change. The goal is an agreement that would set the world on a path to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, or perhaps even 1.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels. But at a news conference here at the Le Bourget conference center Wednesday morning, scientists pointed out a factor that could make hitting these targets quite a lot harder. It’s called permafrost. As the planet warms, this frozen northern soil is going to continue to thaw — and as it thaws, it’s going to release carbon dioxide and methane into the air. A lot of it, it turns out. Potentially enough to really throw off the carbon budgets that have been calculated in order to determine the maximum emissions that we can release and still have a good chance of keeping warming to 2 C or below it. In particular, Susan Natali of the Woods Hole Research Center explained Wednesday that with a very high level of warming, permafrost emissions this century could be quite large indeed. Natali used numbers from the 2013 report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which found that humans can only emit about 275 more gigatons, or billion tons, of carbon (about 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide, which has a greater molecular weight) to have a greater than 66 percent chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees C. But out of that limited budget, she said, permafrost emissions could take up some 150 of those gigatons (or about 550 gigatons of carbon dioxide). Read More here
Tag Archives: UNFCCC
8 December 2015, The Conversation, Removing CO2 from the atmosphere won’t save us: we have to cut emissions now. Over 190 countries are negotiating in Paris a global agreement to stabilise climate change at less than 2℃ above pre-industrial global average temperatures. For a reasonable chance of keeping warming under 2℃ we can emit a further 865 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2). The climate commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 2030 are a first step, but recent analyses show they are not enough. So what are the options if we cannot limit emissions to remain within our carbon budget? Emitting more than the allowance would mean we have to remove carbon from the atmosphere. The more carbon we emit over the coming years, the more we will need to remove in future. In fact, out of 116 scenarios consistent with 2℃ published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 101 scenarios require the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere during the second half of this century. That’s on top of the large emission reductions required. So how do we remove carbon from the atmosphere? Several technologies have been proposed to this effect. These are often referred to as “negative emissions technologies” because the carbon is being removed from the atmosphere (in the opposite direction to emissions). In a study published today in Nature Climate Change, which is part of a broader release by the Global Carbon Project, we investigate how big a role these technologies could play in halting global warming. We find that these technologies might play a role in climate mitigation. However, the large scales of deployment currently used in most pathways that limit warming to 2℃ will be severely constrained by environmental and socio-economic factors. This increases the pressure to raise the level of ambition in reducing fossil fuel emissions now. Read More here
8 December 2015, Renew Economy, Paris, COP21: Ministers move in, as do the climate deniers. Nearly 200 ministers have arrived in Paris to bargain and negotiate over the final 20 pages of text, and the 290 or so brackets that remain – the outcome of which will decide whether this agreement will fulfil its ambitions, or be full of empty rhetoric. Australia foreign minister Julie Bishop arrived, delivered her speech to the plenary, and promised …. $625,000 on promoting the interests of women in climate-related decision-making processes. If that seemed a little underwhelming, so did the rest of the speech. Typically of the Australian government at these talks, it was fine on rhetoric – particularly about prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s innovation plan (this government has edited its slogans down from three words to a single word, innovation) but short on action, particularly on climate and clean energy, using the technologies already available. Bishop told the plenary that Australia is “transforming the way we produce electricity”, but the data shows coal-fired generation is rising, thanks to the repeal of the carbon price and the halt in renewable energy investment thanks to the Coalition fiddling with previously agreed policies. RenewEconomy asked the minister later if the government was worried that the government’s policies were having the opposite effect of their stated intention. There was more talk of the renewable energy target, and the doubling of the rate of emissions reductions under its 2030 target. Read More here
8 December 2015, Renew Economy, How Australia can lead on climate in the final week at Paris. Australia has a final chance to shake its reputation as a global climate laggard and position our economy for a boom in growth with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop taking the reins for the final week of climate negotiations in Paris. The agreements set this week will give smart nations an opportunity to test cutting edge ideas, and could potentially enable Australia to start attracting more of the world’s leading companies and brightest thinkers to our shores. Unfortunately, the first week of negotiations suggests that Australia is on track to miss this unique opportunity to seize the lead and position Australian business to capture a share of the trillions now being invested in the shift to a low carbon economy. Given there is virtually no chance of Australia meaningfully changing it’s 26-28% reduction target at this late stage, the Future Business Council has compiled three simple yet significant actions Australia could announce instead. These actions would boost our credibility, play to our economy’s natural advantages and prepare our business community for future growth. Read More here