IPCC: Cost of Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change Super-Affordable if We Act Now

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2663

By: Dr. Jeff Masters, 7:10 PM GMT on April 13, 2014

Climate change is a huge threat to civilization if we do nothing more to reduce it, but the costs are very affordable if we start now, said the Nobel-prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today, in the third installment of their once-every-seven-years report on the climate. Today's report on mitigation--how we can slow down climate change--was the most hopeful of the reports, since it found that the cost of keeping global warming under the "dangerous" level of 2°C will only reduce "consumption growth" of the global economy by 0.06% per year if we start immediately and act strongly. Since consumption growth is expected to increase between 1.6% and 3% per year in the coming decades, we’re talking about annual growth that is, for example, 2% rather than 2.06%. This is a small price to pay to greatly decrease the risks of increased hunger, thirst, disease, refugees, and war outlined in the IPCC's frightening Working Group 2 report on risks and adaptation released two weeks ago. Today's report was authored by 235 scientists from 58 countries, and was approved by the governments of every nation of the world who cared to send a representative to the week-long approval meeting in Berlin, Germany.

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Emissions of greenhouse gases are rising at a near-record pace. Greenhouse gas emissions grew 2.2% per year between 2000 - 2010, compared to a rate of 1.3% per year between 1979 - 2000. The increase was 3% per year between 2010 - 2011, and 1 - 2% from 2011 - 2012. About 76% of the greenhouse gases emitted were in the form of CO2, with 16% from methane. In 2010, ten countries accounted for about 70% of the world's CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes. About half of the cumulative human-caused CO2 emissions between 1750 and 2010 have occurred in the last 40 years.

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Keeping Earth's temperature rise below 2°C will have additional co-benefits. For example:
1) Reducing air pollution. The World Health Organization reported that in 2012 about 7 million people died--one in eight of total global deaths--as a result of air pollution exposure.
2) Improving energy security, leading to less price volatility and fewer supply disruptions.
3) Environmental protection.

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Economic and population growth are the main drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. We've grown far more efficient at producing goods using less energy, meaning that the "energy intensity" of the global economy steadily declined from 2000 - 2010. However, increasing economic growth and population growth have outpaced the decline in energy intensity, resulting in higher greenhouse gas emissions. "Without additional efforts to reduce GHG emissions beyond those in place today, emissions growth is expected to persist driven by growth in global population and economic activities." If we take no additional measures to slow down human-caused climate change, the planet is expected to warm by about 4°C by 2100 compared to per-industrial levels. That's the same difference in temperature as between today's climate and the Ice Age.

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If your school, chamber of commerce, church, library, or community club needs a local expert on climate science to come speak, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and the United Nations Foundation can help out, thanks to a new effort called climatevoices.org. The organization has more than 160 volunteer experts from al 50 states in a database that is searchable by geographic location, expertise, and languages spoken. If you are have expertise in climate science and are interested in volunteering for this network, please go to climatevoices.org and create a profile. I have my own set of slides I use for such talks that anyone is welcome to borrow from, available at http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/2013/climatetalk.ppt.