Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
11/9/12
Staying at or beneath the global warming limit set by nations in 2009 appears “highly unrealistic” given the current pace of global carbon intensity reductions, according to a study released earlier this week. In the most recent edition of its annual Low Carbon Economy Index, the London-based consultancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says the goal of limiting average global temperature increases to 2°C above preindustrial levels by 2100 is becoming increasingly unrealistic and that the world should temper its expectations about what is reasonably achievable. “Even doubling our current rate of decarbonization would still lead to emissions consistent with 6 degrees [Celsius] of warming by the end of the century,” Leo Johnson, partner for Sustainability and Climate Change at PwC said. “To give ourselves a more than 50 percent chance of avoiding 2 degrees will require a six-fold improvement in our rate of decarbonization.”
Nations agreed to the 2°C upper limit for global warming at the 2009 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) summit in Copenhagen. The 2°C ceiling is seen as the highest increase allowed while still being able to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations at 450 parts per million. But in order to achieve that goal, PwC estimates that the world economy would need to reduce its carbon intensity 5.1 percent annually through 2050, a rate that is nearly impossible given the current levels of reductions being undertaken today. The study estimates that between 2000 and 2011, there was a decrease in global carbon intensity of only about 0.8 percent per year. “This required rate of decarbonization has not been seen even in a single year since the mid-20th century when these records began,” the report says. “Keeping to the 2°C carbon budget will require unprecedented and sustained reductions over four decades.”
The report says that in order to meet the 2°C goal, nations would have to “radically transform” the way the global economy functions. In addition to drastically increasing the amount of renewable energy deployed worldwide, governments would also have to sharply curtail the burning of fossil fuels or deploy carbon capture and storage technology on a massive scale, according to PwC. Also required, the study says, is the removal of most industrial emissions through technologies such as CCS while also halting deforestation. “This suggests a need for much more ambition and urgency on climate policy, at both the national and international level. Either way, business-as-usual is not an option,” the report says. PwC’s analysis is on par with the International Energy Agency’s 2011 edition of its World Energy Outlook, which warned that “the door to 2°C is closing” and that all of the world’s energy sources through 2035 are expected to be “locked in” by 2017.
Delegates to Meet in Doha This Month
Representatives from nearly 200 nations will meet later this month in Doha, Qatar for the next UNFCCC summit, where they will attempt to further build on the commitments made in Durban late last year. Eleventh-hour negotiations at that meeting produced an agreement where nations said they would negotiate and finalize a binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction scheme for all nations—both developed and developing—by 2015 that will go into effect in 2020. Delegates are also expected to finalize the structure of a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to begin early next year.
