Kevin Anderson: Duality in climate science

[GliderGuider]

Duality in climate science

Brief Abstract:
The commentary demonstrates the endemic bias prevalent amongst many of those developing emission scenarios to severely underplay the scale of the 2°C mitigation challenge. In several important respects the modelling community is self-censoring its research to conform to the dominant political and economic paradigm. Moreover, there is a widespread reluctance of many within the climate change community to speak out against unsupported assertions that an evolution of ‘business as usual’ is compatible with the IPCC’s 2°C carbon budgets. With specific reference to energy, this analysis concludes that even a slim chance of “keeping below” a 2°C rise, now demands a revolution in how we both consume and produce energy. Such a rapid and deep transition will have profound implications for the framing of contemporary society and is far removed from the rhetoric of green growth that increasingly dominates the climate change agenda.

(GG: Supporting material and arguments elided)

Unpalatable repercussions
Applying simple arithmetic to the headline data within the IPCC’s Synthesis Report raises fundamental questions as to the realism of both the content and the tone of much of the reporting that followed its publication. Moreover, the failure of the scientific community to vociferously counter the portrayal of the findings as challenging but incremental suggests vested interests and the economic hegemony may be preventing scientific openness and freedom of expression.

The carbon budgets aligned with international commitments to stay below the 2°C characterization of dangerous climate change demand profound and immediate changes to how energy is both used and produced. The IPCC’s headline budget of 1,000 GtCO2, even with highly optimistic assumptions on curtailing deforestation and cement emissions, requires global reductions in energy-CO2 of at least 10% p.a. from 2025, transitioning rapidly to zero emissions by 2050. The severity of such cuts would likely exclude carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a dominant post-2050 technology. Only if the life cycle carbon emissions of CCS could be reduced by an order of magnitude from those postulated for an efficiently operating gas-CCS plant (typically around 80g CO2 per kWh24), could fossil fuels play any significant role post-2050.

Delivering on such a 2°C emission pathway cannot be reconciled with the repeated and high-level claims that in transitioning to a low-carbon energy system “global economic growth would not be strongly affected”7. Certainly it would be inappropriate to sacrifice improvements in the welfare of the global poor, including those within wealthier nations, for the sake of reducing carbon emissions. But this only puts greater pressure still on the relatively small proportion of the globe’s population with higher emissions. The strains that such 2°C mitigation puts on the framing of our lifestyles cannot be massaged away through incremental escapism. With a growing economy of 3% p.a. the reduction in carbon intensity of global GDP would need to be nearer 13% p.a.; higher still for wealthier industrialised nations, and higher yet again for those individuals with well above average carbon footprints (whether in industrial or industrialising nations).

Conclusions
The IPCC’s synthesis report and the scientific framing of the mitigation challenge in terms of carbon budgets was an important step forward. Despite this, there remains an almost global-scale cognitive dissonance with regards to acknowledging the quantitative implications of the analysis, including by many of those contributing to its development. We simply are not prepared to accept the revolutionary implications of our own findings, and even when we do we are reluctant to voice such thoughts openly. Instead, my long-standing engagement with many scientific colleagues, leaves me in no doubt that whilst they work diligently, often against a backdrop of organised scepticism, many are ultimately choosing to censor their own research.

[Binkie The Clown]

1. Translation: The future is so grim that nobody wants to admit it to themselves.

Even those that know we are totally screwed, can't bring themselves to admit, to themselves or anyone else, the simple fact that we are totally screwed.

[GliderGuider]

2. Nail on the head, Binkie!

Anderson's careful assessment makes it clear that we cannot constrain the global surface temperature increase to even the dangerous level of +2C while maintaining an intact world economy.

9) The political and physical inertia of the existing system will likely see emissions continue to rise until ~2020. Assuming there is an unparalleled agreement at Paris and energy-only emissions of CO2 reach a 2020 peak of ~37 GtCO2, a little under 180 GtCO2 will have been emitted between the start of 2015 and 2020, leaving a post 2020 budget of ~470 GtCO2.

10) This would demand a dramatic reversal of current trends in energy consumption and emissions growth. Global mitigation rates would need to rapidly ratchet up to around 10% p.a. by 2025 and continue at such a rate to the virtual elimination of CO2 from the energy system by 2050.

Delivering on such a 2°C emission pathway cannot be reconciled with the repeated and high-level claims that in transitioning to a low-carbon energy system “global economic growth would not be strongly affected.”

While I commend those who are looking under every rock for some kind of answer, each day brings new confirmation that we simply can't climb back down Mount Carbon in one piece.

What we had all hoped was just a headache is turning out to be a planet-sized Grade 4 glioblastoma. It's time to get our affairs in order.

[cprise]

3. He's right about the bias; its been obvious to me since at least 2007.

Most people are still flat-earthers in the sense that we can't acknowledge our own immensity.

[GliderGuider]

4. Kevin Anderson, meet Bill Gates

A quick look at the implications of Kevin Anderson's carbon reduction requirement shows the size of the miracle that Bill Gates intuits that we need. If we assume the world were to follow Anderson's path and also include some "realistically generous" assumptions about the growth of existing low-carbon electricity sources and a world GDP growth not exceeding 1.5% pa, by 2040 we would experience a 40-50% shortfall in our end-use (not primary) energy.

To me this implies one of three end-states:

1. the world population becomes 50% poorer than today, on average;
   
2. we decline to impoverish ourselves and blow right through +2C; or
   
3. Bill Gates' miracle occurs.

The requisite miracle would need to consist of three sub-miracles:

1. a technical miracle to double our expected low-carbon electricity production in 26 years;
   
2. a second technical miracle to shift of all human activities except perhaps for some transportation from thermal to electrical energy; and
   
3. a political miracle in the form of an enforceable global agreement to cut emissions to meet Anderson's draconian schedule.

I expect the outcome will be end-state #2, followed by rapid involuntary impoverishment.

[Bigmack]

5. Alas, but I reckon you're right! Damn. nt