LEAKED IPCC REPORT MAY HELP SPUR ACTION ON CCS, SOME SAY

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
8/30/13

Some carbon capture and storage advocates are expressing hope that conclusions from a recently leaked draft assessment from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) could spur government action to incentivize CCS and other clean energy technologies. Supporters said the assessment, which reportedly expresses near certainty that human activity is contributing significantly to global warming, will prompt a more serious discussion about CCS. “The evidence over the years has just been mounting that climate change is serious and happening. And that evidence really points to the importance of doing CCS” on both the power and industrial sectors, said John Thompson, director of the Clean Air Task Force’s Coal Transition Project, in an interview.

During a speech at Columbia University earlier this week, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said the leaked report is the latest evidence that should prompt the world’s governments to work together to fight climate change. “The empirical evidence clearly continues to mount,” Moniz said, referring to the IPCC leak. He added that “the overwhelming conclusion is that prudence demands strong commonsense, near-term policy actions to minimize the risks of global warming.” Thompson said the report could ultimately make a difference in how governments and the public view climate change. “It takes time for people to absorb information, and I think on something as large as climate change, it takes time to turn the ship,” he said. “It’s one of those things that repeated information does make a difference, and when things turn, they will turn more dramatically. With this report, I think eventually the dripping faucet will get the plumber’s attention.”

95 Percent Certainty

Reuters reported last week that a leaked copy of the IPCC’s draft report concludes that it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities have been the main cause of global warming since the 1950s, an increase in certainty above the 90 percent level cited in the IPCC’s 2007 report. The report says global temperatures are projected to increase been 1 and 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, according to Reuters, and that evidence of rising sea levels is now “unequivocal.” The report, the IPCC’s fifth, is scheduled to be released in three batches over the next year starting next month.

John Gale, general manager of the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, said it is currently unclear what kind of action the new report could prompt. “These IPCC reports provide a timely kick up the arse every now and then to governments, but like any headline news, it’s only a headline for a while and then people go back to business as usual,” he said in a recent interview. “These reports are extremely beneficial to the scientific community and governments pay lip service to them, but the general public probably won’t pay much attention.”