Mitigating Climate Change

A draft for the last part of the Fifth Assessment Report from IPCC states that a lot can be done to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but we're running out of time to act to prevent 2 degrees Celsius of warming.

Update (April 9):  Nafeez Ahmed reports that the British environmental organization Biofuelwatch is critical of IPCC recommendations in the draft mitigation report.

Dr Rachel Smolker, co-director of Biofuelwatch, said that the report's embrace of "largely untested" and "very risky" technologies like bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS), will "exacerbate" climate change, agricultural problems, water scarcity, soil erosion and energy challenges, "rather than improving them."

The same concern was expressed with the Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.

Update (April 11):  An interview with economist Benoit Lefevre about the IPCC report.

Update (April 13):  Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change is officially released. Articles in the Washington Post and by Reuters and BBC cover the story.  The Guardian emphasizes the idea that avoiding catastrophe is still affordable if governments act now.

Update (April 14):  Lindsay Abrams offers the top ten ways to prevent catastrophic climate change:

1. Switch to renewables

2. Put a price on carbon

3. Take the carbon out of the atmosphere

4. Build greener buildings

5. Plan better cities

6. Bring industry in line

7. Set standards for cars and trucks

8. Make better use of land

9. Live greener, be greener

10. Cooperate internationally

Update (April 16):  Some good news, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions dropped ten percent from 2005 to 2012.

Update (April 19):  Paul Krugman discusses the IPCC's assessment that climate mitigation would reduce economic growth by only 0.06 percent.

What’s behind this economic optimism? To a large extent, it reflects a technological revolution many people don’t know about, the incredible recent decline in the cost of renewable energy, solar power in particular.

The climate change panel, in its usual deadpan prose, notes that “many RE [renewable energy] technologies have demonstrated substantial performance improvements and cost reductions” since it released its last assessment, back in 2007. The Department of Energy is willing to display a bit more open enthusiasm; it titled a report on clean energy released last year “Revolution Now.” That sounds like hyperbole, but you realize that it isn’t when you learn that the price of solar panels has fallen more than 75 percent just since 2008.

So is the climate threat solved? Well, it should be. The science is solid; the technology is there; the economics look far more favorable than anyone expected. All that stands in the way of saving the planet is a combination of ignorance, prejudice and vested interests. What could go wrong? Oh, wait.

Update (April 23):  Naomi Klein on the obstacles to stopping climate change and Brad Plummer concludes that the 2 degree Celsius goal may be unobtainable.

Update (April 26):  An interview with Dale Jamieson about his book Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed and What it Means for Our Future.

Update (June 8):  A rebounding economy has lead to a 2.39 percent increase in US carbon dioxide emissions from 2012 to 2013.

Update (July 4, 2015):  Looks like carbon sequestration just can't compete with renewable energy technology.

Update (August 12, 2015):  Joe Romm discusses research indicating that "geoengineering" (better described as "climate intervention") can't prevent catastrophic damage to the oceans if we wait too long to stop carbon dioxide emissions.

Update (June 17, 2019):  I found this video before, but I've been reminded how important quantification is for understanding mitigation. Jennifer Wilcox suggests that $20 billion (0.1 percent GNP) could build 200 "artificial forests" (at $100 per ton of carbon dioxide--"hard to do") which would remove 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (about 5 percent of U.S. emissions) and if powered by wind (otherwise net capture is one-third as much) would require an area the size of New Jersey.

Update (June 22, 2019):  Carbon Engineering has plans to start building it's first commercial carbon capture plant in 2021. It should be operational in a few years. CNBC reports it would take 40,000 such plants to fully remove the world's current carbon dioxide emissions. Zero net emissions would leave the atmospheric concentration unchanged.

Update (July 5, 2019):  A report published in Science calls forest restoration "our most effective climate change solution".

[T]here is room for an extra 0.9 billion hectares of canopy cover, which could store 205 gigatonnes of carbon in areas that would naturally support woodlands and forests.

Planting 1 trillion trees at a cost of $300 billion has the potential to reduce the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide by 25 percent. But time to plant and mature, as well as ongoing deforestation are major obstacles.

Update (July 27, 2019):  Or, maybe hemp can save us.

Update (August 31, 2019):  Keith Spencer warns "that technology simply cannot solve the problems that it created".

Climate change is a political problem with a political solution. ... If the political will existed among the citizenry, the republic could certainly organize itself to solve the climate crisis. ... Yet our civilization has been collectively hypnotized by the tech industry into believing that everything can be solved by more gadgetry and more money thrown at the tech sector.

Unfortunately, Silicon Valley’s brand of magical thinking has so poisoned us that few are capable of seeing the notion of a technological fix for climate change as a farce. Capitalism treats the environment as an externality and insatiably creates waste and pollution. That’s a doctrine that is incompatible with the survival of life on Earth.

Update (November 10, 2019):  It's always interesting to learn about research into more efficient methods of carbon capture. But here's the kicker: through their new company the researchers "hope to develop a pilot-scale plant within the next few years".