Denial of reality: Infinite Growth at all costs

Apparently we can have our cake and eat it too. Protect infinite growth at all costs. The future of the planet and its inhabitants is negotiable; economic growth is not..... no further comment

IPCC climate change report: averting catastrophe is eminently affordable

Landmark UN analysis concludes global roll-out of clean energy would shave only a tiny fraction off economic growth

the Guardian,

13 April, 2014

Catastrophic climate change can be averted without sacrificing living standards according to a UN report, which concludes that the transformation required to a world of clean energy is eminently affordable.

“It doesn’t cost the world to save the planet,” said economist Professor Ottmar Edenhofer, who led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) team.

The cheapest and least risky route to dealing with global warming is to abandon all dirty fossil fuels in coming decades, the report found. Gas – including that from the global fracking boom – could be important during the transition, Edenhofer said, but only if it replaced coal burning.

The authoritative report, produced by 1,250 international experts and approved by 194 governments, dismisses fears that slashing carbon emissions would wreck the world economy. It is the final part of a trilogy that has already shown that climate change is “unequivocally” caused by humans and that, unchecked, it poses a grave threat to people and could lead to wars and mass migration.

Diverting hundred of billions of dollars from fossil fuels into renewable energy and cutting energy waste would shave just 0.06% off expected annual economic growth rates of 1.3%-3%, the IPCC report concluded.

“The report is clear: the more you wait, the more it will cost [and] the more difficult it will become,” said EU commissioner Connie Hedegaard. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said: “This report is a wake-up call about global economic opportunity we can seize today as we lead on climate change.”

The UK’s energy and climate secretary, Ed Davey, said: “The [report shows] the tools we need to tackle climate change are available, but international efforts need to significantly increase.”

The IPCC economic analysis did not include the benefits of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which could outweigh the costs. The benefits include reducing air pollution, which plagues China and recently hit the UK, and improved energy security, which is currently at risk in eastern Europe due to the actions of Russia – a large producer of gas – in Ukraine.

The new IPCC report warns that carbon emissions have soared in the last decade and are now growing at almost double the previous rate. But its comprehensive ­analysis found rapid action can still limit global warming to 2C, the internationally agreed safe limit, if low-carbon energy triples or quadruples by 2050.

“It is actually affordable to do it and people are not going to have to sacrifice their aspirations about improved standards of living,” said Professor Jim Skea, an energy expert at Imperial College London and co-chair of the IPCC report team. “It is not a hair shirt change of lifestyle at all that is being envisaged and there is space for poorer countries to develop too,” Skea told the Guardian.

Nonetheless, to avoid the worst impacts of climate change at the lowest cost, the report envisages an energy revolution ending centuries of dominance by fossil fuels – which will require significant political and commercial change. On Thursday, Archbishop Desmond Tutu called for an anti-apartheid style campaign against ­fossil fuel companies, which he blames for the “injustice” of climate change.

Friends of the Earth’s executive director, Andy Atkins, said: “Rich nations must take the lead by rapidly weaning themselves off coal, gas and oil and funding low-carbon growth in poorer countries.”

Along with measures that cut energy waste, renewable energy – such as wind, hydropower and solar – is viewed most favourably by the report as a result of its falling costs and large-scale deployment in recent years.

The report includes nuclear power as a mature low-carbon option, but cautions that it has declined globally since 1993 and faces safety, financial and waste-management concerns. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) – trapping the CO2 from coal or gas burning and then burying it – is also included, but the report notes it is an untested technology on a large scale and may be expensive.

Biofuels, used in cars or power stations, could play a “critical role” in cutting emissions, the IPCC found, but it said the negative effects of some biofuels on food prices and wildlife remained unresolved.

The report found that current emission-cutting pledges by the world’s nations make it more likely than not that the 2C limit will be broken and it warns that delaying action any further will increase the costs.

Delay could also force extreme measures to be taken including sucking CO2 out of the air.

This might be done by generating energy by burning plants and trees, which had absorbed carbon from the atmosphere, and then using CCS to bury the emissions. But the IPCC warned such warned such carbon removal technologies may never be developed and could bring new risks.

“This is a very responsible report,” said Professor Andrew Watson, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Exeter who was not part of the IPCC team. He said there were economic and social risks in transforming the energy system to cut carbon. “However, there are even bigger risks if we do nothing and rely exclusively on being able to ride out climate change and adapt to it.”

Environmental campaign groups, which have previously criticised the IPCC for being too conservative, welcomed the new report. WWF’s Samantha Smith said: “The IPCC report makes clear that acting on emissions now is affordable, but delaying further increases the costs. It is a super strong signal to [fossil fuel] investors: they can no longer say they did not know the risks.”

Kaisa Kosonen, at Greenpeace International, said: “Renewable energy is unstoppable. It’s becoming bigger, better and cheaper every day. Dirty energy industries are sure to put up a fight but it’s only a question of time before public pressure and economics dictate that they either change or go out of business.”

Leaked climate change report: Scientific body warns of 'devastating rise of 4-5C if we carry on as we are'

The Independent on Sunday has seen a draft of the latest IPCC report, which says the world is not doing enough to combat problem. But, with sufficient political will, all is not lost

the Independent,

13 April, 2014

Global greenhouse gas emissions over the past decade were the "highest in human history", according to the world's leading scientific body for the assessment of climate change. Without further action, temperatures will increase by about 4 to 5C, compared with pre-industrial levels, it warns, a level that could reap devastating effects on the planet.

The stark findings are to be revealed in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today, the last in a trilogy written by hundreds of scientists on what is considered the definitive take on climate change.

The experts were working on the report until the early hours of yesterday morning. Although the thrust of the report is dramatic, it does say that it is not too late to limit global warming to less than 2C, which experts regard as the minimum needed to avoid radical global shifts. But its suggested scenarios would mean slashing global emissions by 40 to 70 per cent by 2050 from 2010 levels.

This would include "fundamental changes in energy systems and potentially the land", the draft found, such as a move towards renewable energy, nuclear power and fossil energy whose carbon emissions are captured or stored.

"These reports make it crystal clear what is at stake, and no government can justifiably say the case hasn't been made for strong and urgent action," said Bob Ward, the policy director for the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "It's affordable and, frankly, the benefits are not even just in terms of climate risks. Shutting down coal-fired power stations in China, for example, will improve local air quality. The only thing standing in our way now is political will. The evidence is conclusive: the current pledges made by governments will be insufficient to get us to our targets."

It was in 2010 that hundreds of governments agreed to reduce emissions so as not to breach the 2C warming mark – the point at which it is thought the risk to food and water supplies would be high, as well as a risk of irreversible changes, such as a meltdown of Greenland's ice sheet.

At this level, we could lose 20 to 30 per cent of our wildlife, as well as face more extreme weather, according to Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth. At 4C of warming, there could be a "devastating" impact on agriculture, wildlife and human civilisation, he added.

But despite global attempts to mitigate climate change picking up in recent years, greenhouse gas emissions grew more rapidly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the previous three decades, according to the final draft of the IPCC report seen by The Independent on Sunday. The main contributors were a "growing energy demand and an increase of the share of coal in the global fuel mix", the draft found.

It estimated that if mitigation efforts are delayed until 2030, it would "substantially increase the difficulty of the transition to low longer-term emission levels".

Almost 80 per cent of the emissions growth between 1970 and 2010 was caused by fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes, according to the report. To reach the 2C target, the experts warned that the global energy supply must dramatically change, with at least a tripling of the use of "zero and low-carbon" energy, such as renewables, nuclear and fossil energy. It added that a growing number of renewable technologies had achieved a level of "technical and economic maturity to enable deployment at significant scale".

The report found that emissions could be "reduced significantly" by replacing coal-fired power plants with more efficient alternatives. It added that the decarbonisation of the electricity system would be a "key component" of cost-effective strategies – but the Government voted down a plan to do this by 2030.

Caroline Flint, the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, said that the report "provides overwhelming and compelling scientific evidence that climate change will have a devastating impact if urgent action is not taken to reduce our carbon emissions and invest in mitigation". She added: "It highlights the need for a global, legally binding treaty to cut carbon emissions at the Paris conference in 2015. But to have influence abroad we must show leadership at home. That's why the next Labour government will set a decarbonisation target for the power sector for 2030, unshackle the Green Investment Bank and reverse the decline in investment in clean energy we have seen under David Cameron."

Kaisa Kosonen, senior political adviser at Greenpeace International, said the report should encourage a move from "a decade of coal to the century of renewables". She added: "The solutions are clear. Our energy system needs to undergo a fundamental transformation from fossil fuels to renewable and smart energy. In recent years, the transition has already started, but it must scale up and speed up. Dirty energy industries are sure to put up a fight, but it's only a question of time before public pressure and economics dictate that they either change or go out of business."

The report also concludes that the next decade could be a "window of opportunity" for mitigating global warming in cities, through locating residential areas in spaces of high employment, achieving diversity of land uses, increasing accessibility and investing in public transport.

Where there's a will...

The world can reach its global warming targets if it reduces its emissions by 40 to 70 per cent. It is about transforming our energy supply and the way we use our land. After The Independent on Sunday viewed a final draft of the findings, we asked some climate change experts what we can do now to mitigate against global warming, before it is too late.

Mark Lynas, author and environmentalist, said: "It is important to remember that every measure of climate-change reduction is still worth it. This report is a like a climate-change version of a suspended sentence. The 5C rise would be catastrophic, but we still have time to avoid the permanent rise in sea levels, for example, and we could avoid losing large agricultural zones. The important thing for people to understand is that it doesn't mean going back to living in caves; we can make many of these changes without making enormous changes to our lifestyles."

Darren Johnson, the chair of the London Assembly, who has been working in the field for a quarter of a century, is less hopeful. "I'm desperately worried about the timescale we have to turn things around," he said. "I'm appalled by the lack of will of previous governments and the coalition." But he still believes there is a chance to reduce emissions and prevent the "worst-case scenario". He added: "We need politicians to grasp this. We need a massive switch to renewables, a big investment in wind and solar power, and to reduce energy and reduce vehicles. This has to be made an absolute priority."

As for Sian Berry, Green Party member and part of the Campaign for Better Transport, she thought it was more about behavioural change. "People can stand up against the construction of large supermarkets, and out-of-town developments that would require people to drive more. They can vote for people who are going to improve public transport. They should be planning their lives around driving less."

Joe Kavanagh and Sarah Kavacs