Posted on 04/23/2007 11:20:30 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
BANGKOK, Thailand — After two reports predicting a warmer Earth where life is fundamentally changed, a U.N.-sponsored scientific panel next month will issue a third study describing how a united world can avert the worst, by embracing technologies ranging from nuclear power to manure controls.
Under a best-case scenario for heading off severe damage, the global economy might lose as little as 3 percentage points of growth by 2030 in deploying technologies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, says the panel's draft report, obtained by The Associated Press.
But it won't be easy.
"Governments, businesses and individuals all need to be pulling in the same direction," said British researcher Rachel Warren, one of the report's authors.
For one thing, the governments of such major emitters as the United States, China and India will have to join the Kyoto Protocol countries of Europe and Japan in imposing cutbacks in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases emitted by industry, power plants and other sources.
The Bush administration rejected the protocol's mandatory cuts, contending they would slow U.S. economic growth too much. China and other poorer developing countries were exempted from the 1997 pact, but most expected growth in greenhouse emissions will come from the developing world.
The draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose final version is to be issued in Bangkok on May 4, says emissions can be cut below current levels if the world shifts away from carbon-heavy fuels like coal, embraces energy efficiency and significantly reduces deforestation.
"The opportunities, the technology are there and now it's a case of encouraging the increased use of these technologies," said International Energy Agency analyst Ralph Sims, another of the 33 scientists who drafted the report.
Two previous IPCC reports this year painted a dire picture of a future in which unabated greenhouse emissions could drive global temperatures up as much as 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. Even a 2-degree-Celsius (3.6-degree-Fahrenheit) rise could subject up to 2 billion people to water shortages by 2050 and threaten extinction for 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's species, the IPCC said.
The third report makes clear the world must quickly embrace a basket of technological options — both already available and developing — just to keep the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
The draft notes that significant cuts could come from making buildings more energy-efficient, especially in the developing world, through better insulation, lighting and other steps, and by converting from coal to natural gas, nuclear power and renewable energy such as wind, solar and biofuels.
Less significant but also important would be steps to make motor vehicles more fuel-efficient, reduce deforestation, and plant more trees as a carbon "sink," absorbing carbon dioxide. Even capturing methane emitted by livestock and its manure would help, the report says.
Over the next century, it says, such technology as hydrogen-powered fuel cells, advanced hybrid and electric vehicles with better batteries, and carbon sequestration — whereby carbon emissions are stored underground — will become more commercially feasible.
It says taking "optimal" mitigation measures might by 2030 stabilize greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere at 445 to 534 parts per million, up from an estimated 430 ppm today.
It indicates that stabilizing concentrations relatively quickly at 450 ppm — an unlikely scenario — might keep the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over preindustrial temperatures, a level scientists think might avert severe damage.
Achieving the 445-534 ppm range might cost under 3 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) over two decades, the draft says.
That compares favorably to global economic growth that every year has averaged almost 3 percent since 2000. The damage from unabated climate change, meanwhile, might eventually cost the global economy between 5 and 20 percent of GDP every year, according to a British government report last year.
The IPCC draft notes, however, that its cost estimate is based on a "relatively small" number of studies and would require all nations to join in those best-case mitigation efforts, and that "barriers to implementation of mitigation options are manifold."
The report says governments could lower economic costs if low-carbon technologies are promoted via carbon taxes or "cap-and-trade" systems like Europe's, whereby industry is allocated emissions quotas, which can then be traded among more efficient and less efficient companies.
Turning the report into reality, authors acknowledge, will require a significant shift in political will among some large economies. The last IPCC assessment, in 2001, also called for introduction of many of the same technologies, but they so far haven't been widely embraced.
"I've been involved in this game for 35 years. We're not progressing as quickly as we could or should," Sims said.
The draft notes, in fact, that current government funding for most energy research programs is about half what it was in 1980.
(U.S will have to join Kyoto)
Over my dead body.
Over my one-ply square of toilet paper....
Canada just dumped Kyoto.
Reminds me of the stargate,sg1 episode where the majority of society was kept toiling in subsistance factories and propagandized for communal suffering and sacrifice while the rest of the world lived in elitist entitlement.
IOW only the little people will be forced to pay the price for the elites.
From the same organization that gave us ‘Oil for Food’?
No thanks. My dogs are brighter than most at the UN.
And they don’t embezzle from me.....
They could have had the US join Kyoto, but they chose not to. All they had to do is make it a balanced treaty instead of placing all of the burden of greenhouse gas reduction on the US.
Why would our Nation want to join the CULT?????
Stand by to pay the “Carbon Tax”!!!
Under a best-case scenario for heading off severe damage, the global economy might lose as little as 3 percentage points of growth by 2030
No one ever achieves the best case scenario. What’s the worst case? 50%? That would be the more likely outcome.
Lets get all our facts correct...especially the UN folks. First...the US signed the Kyoto treaty once already (under Clinton...although Bill couldn’t bring himself to sign the amusing treaty)...but it is signed. The senate then stepped in and voted 98-0 not to comply with the treaty because it would cost jobs. So...the US can’t really comply....even if Bush wanted to comply...because the senate hasn’t approved the treaty.. For those in the UN who are not familiar with the US gov’t...you can have thousands of treaties signed by various fools in the White House or state department...but unless the senate votes to approve...it is not an approved treaty.
As for any UN scientist who suggest nuclear power as an answer to global warming...while they may be true-to-their science...it is not the supported position of any global warming group that I have ever heard of. Nuke power is wrong because it provides unlimited power...to the masses...at a cheap price...which is forbidden in a green world.
Finally....forget about the US as the bad guy in three years. China will be the absolute bad guy in pollution and global warming. There is a short timespan for the global dimwits to capitalize on this episode.
The primary goal.
I read the IPCC is revising their forecasted sea level rise to something like 0.5M or less, not 6M.
How I help with the climate change is a 6.0 litre V8.
“How I help with the climate change is a 6.0 litre V8.”
On
My last engine rebuild/swap in my 65 PU I changed out the 283 for a 350.
Not only for performance but someone needs to counter the Prius drivers.
Repeat it often enough, people will believe it. The Senate said it wouldn't ratify Kyoto back in 1998, and Clinton never submitted it. Bush also simply refused to submit it. The reason for everyone not going along is that it gives a free pass to "developing" nations like China (which will, as a Kyoto country, surpass us in CO2 in 2010).
IOW, to put this on Bush's head is a flat-out lie meant to make it look like he doesn't care about the environment.
Yes. They need to be flexible.
Had to laugh. I saw monster of a Pickup a few weeks ago with a bumper sticker saying, “Yes it’s my Pickup, and No I won’t help you move” You need to have one that says “Yes it’s my truck, but there my carbon credits and I’ll use them any way I want to.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.