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University of Michigan Study: Economic downturn needed to slow global warming
Global warming: New research emphasizes the role of global economic growth
The study, conducted by José Tapia Granados and Edward Ionides of U-M and Óscar Carpintero of the University of Valladolid in Spain, was published online in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Policy. It is the first analysis to use measurable levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide to assess fluctuations in the gas, rather than estimates of CO₂ emissions, which are less accurate.
"If 'business as usual' conditions continue, economic contractions the size of the Great Recession or even bigger will be needed to reduce atmospheric levels of CO₂," said Tapia Granados, who is a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research.
Annual growth of the world economic output (green line, trillions of 2000 US dollars) and annual change of estimated CO2 emissions (millions of Kt, black dots). Data on CO2 emisions for 2009 and 2010 were computed from preliminary estimates of carbon emissions obtained from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) of the US Department of Energy on March 2012. All other data from the World Bank (that takes estimates of CO2 emissions from the CDIC).
Tapia Granados and colleagues found no observable relation between short-term growth of world population and CO₂ concentrations, and they show that recent incidents of volcanic activity coincided with global recessions, which brings into question the reductions in atmospheric CO₂ previously ascribed to these volcanic eruptions.
In years of above-trend world GDP, from 1958 to 2010, the researchers found greater increases in CO₂ concentrations. For each trillion in U.S. dollars that the world GDP deviates from trend, CO₂ levels deviate from trend about half a part per million, they found.
The study, conducted by José Tapia Granados and Edward Ionides of U-M and Óscar Carpintero of the University of Valladolid in Spain, was published online in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Policy. It is the first analysis to use measurable levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide to assess fluctuations in the gas, rather than estimates of CO₂ emissions, which are less accurate.
"If 'business as usual' conditions continue, economic contractions the size of the Great Recession or even bigger will be needed to reduce atmospheric levels of CO₂," said Tapia Granados, who is a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research.
Annual growth of the world economic output (green line, trillions of 2000 US dollars) and annual change of estimated CO2 emissions (millions of Kt, black dots). Data on CO2 emisions for 2009 and 2010 were computed from preliminary estimates of carbon emissions obtained from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) of the US Department of Energy on March 2012. All other data from the World Bank (that takes estimates of CO2 emissions from the CDIC).
Tapia Granados and colleagues found no observable relation between short-term growth of world population and CO₂ concentrations, and they show that recent incidents of volcanic activity coincided with global recessions, which brings into question the reductions in atmospheric CO₂ previously ascribed to these volcanic eruptions.
In years of above-trend world GDP, from 1958 to 2010, the researchers found greater increases in CO₂ concentrations. For each trillion in U.S. dollars that the world GDP deviates from trend, CO₂ levels deviate from trend about half a part per million, they found.
As I was saying...
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