Worldwatch just released its State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World, which finds:
The world will have to reduce emissions more drastically than has been widely predicted, essentially ending the emission of carbon dioxide by 2050 to avoid catastrophic disruption to the world’s climate.
At a kick-off event, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said
President-elect Obama’s goal of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 falls short of the response needed by world leaders to meet the challenge of reducing emissions to levels that will actually spare us the worst effects of climate change.
Told ya! (see “The U.S. needs a tougher 2020 GHG emissions target.”)
Pachauri was the guy handpicked by Bush to replace the “alarmist” Bob Watson. But facts make scientists alarmists, not their politics, as I’ve said many times (see “Desperate times, desperate scientists”). At the end of 2007, Pachauri famously said:
If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.
The Worldwatch report certainly supports that assertion:
A chapter by climate scientist W. L. Hare concludes that in order to avoid a catastrophic climate tipping point, global greenhouse gas emissions will need to peak before 2020 and drop 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, with further reductions beyond that date. Emissions of carbon dioxide would actually need to ‘go negative’-with more being absorbed than emitted-during the second half of this century. Hare’s research finds that even a warming of 2 degrees Celsius poses unacceptable risks to key natural and human systems, including significant loss of species, major reductions in food-production capacity in developing countries, severe water stress for hundreds of millions of people, and significant sea-level rise and coastal flooding.
That is the emissions reduction needed if one wants to have a shot at stabilizing at 400 ppm CO2-eq (or lower), which is a very justifiable, albeit immensely challenging, goal (see “What’s the magic number?”).
In the introduction, Pachauri writes:
The strongest message from State of the World 2009 is this: if the world does not take action early and in adequate measure, the impacts of climate change could prove extremely harmful and overwhelm our capacity to adapt. At the same time, the costs and feasibility of mitigation of GHG emissions are well within our reach and carry a wealth of substantial benefits for many sections of society. Hence, it is essential for the world to look beyond business as usual and stave off the crisis that faces us if we fail to act.
Hear! Hear!
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Obama administration officials grateful for early spring
Comments
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retroproxy Posted 2:56 am
17 Jan 2009
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Angelsnecropolis Posted 8:25 am
17 Jan 2009
Politics will want to try and find a middle ground between what the science tells us and what the corporations want; however, you can't negotiate with nature. Nature will set it's limits and if you cross them it will destroy you.
You can't reason with the hurricanes, the floods, the droughts, or the monsoons.
Construction companies don't want to build with eco-materials? Well tough shit. You're going to have to. You don't want to drive a zero impact car and you want to keep driving your CO2 emitting beast? Well tough shit. You don't have a choice. SUV's are now illegal. "Not using coal will hurt my bottom line," says Mr. Coal. Well tough shit. Your coal is killing us all. You better transition to renewable and zero emissions power sources or you won't be in the business of power making anymore. Coal is now illegal. This is what will happen after nature takes back what humanity has stolen.
Of course I still feel we should do what we can to lessen the blow but it's time to think about adapting to the inevitable. Humanity has already picked out its burial plot and stands now to dig its own grave. As it stands now we're on the fast track to digging that grave already.
We won't learn until the hard lesson has already been had. Though that lesson won't affect a few thousand people in a building or a city but will affect the entire world and for hundreds, even thousands of years. But in a way I suppose we got what we deserved.
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human power Posted 3:07 pm
17 Jan 2009
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peacefuljeff Posted 10:59 am
24 Jan 2009
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