China and Australia top list of 'carbon bomb' projects

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/22/china-australia-carbon-bomb

China and Australia top a global list of planned oil, gas and coal projects that will act as "carbon bombs" and push the planet towards catastrophic climate change, a Greenpeace report warned on Tuesday.

The Point of No Return study, by consultancy firm Ecofys for Greenpeace, calculated that the 14 giant fossil fuel projects would produce 6.3 gigatonnes of CO2 a year in 2020 – as much as the entire United States emits annually.

The largest contributors will be China's five north-western provinces, which aim to increase coal production by 620m tonnes by 2015, generating an additional 1.4bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year.

Australia's burgeoning coal export industry, already the largest in the world, is in second place due to its potential growth to 408m tonnes of shipped resource a year by 2025, resulting in an annual 760m tonnes of CO2.

[GliderGuider]

1. This is why I think it's too late to slow climate change, let alone stop it.

The entire global economy is geared towards using all the available, high-quality energy it can get its hands on. That means fossil fuels. As we teeter on the brink of a global economic contraction, countries around the world will use as much FF as they need to try and keep the balloon inflated.

[CRH]

2. The global wealth invested in Hydrocarbons, ...

almost guarantees your prognosis for civilization.

Think of the value of stocks and bonds, the collateralized debt derived from the ownership of said instruments; and then find which bank, stock exchange, or national treasury can devalue by 90% the fossil fuels counted as reserves, and still be solvent. And that is just the naked economics.

To use the hydrocarbons is suicidal, to not use them is the collapse of credit, commerce and civilization. Like you, I can not imagine a solution to this enigma. I'm am only left with a curiosity, of how it will unfold, and how soon.