World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will 'lose for ever' the chance to avoid dangerous climate change

Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent | Wednesday November 9 2011 10.01 GMT

The world is likely to build so many new fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.

Anything built from now on that produces carbon will continue to do so for decades to come, and this "lock-in" effect will be the single factor most likely to produce irreversible climate change, the world's foremost authority on energy economics has found. If this infrastructure is not rapidly changed within the next five years, the results are likely to be disastrous.

"The door is closing," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA), told the Guardian. "I am very worried – if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum (for safety). The door will be closed forever."

Every month now counts: if the world is to stay below 2C of warming, which scientists regard as the limit of safety, then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/">the level is currently around 390ppm. But the world's existing infrastructure is already producing 80% of that "carbon budget", according to a new analysis by the IEA, published on Wednesday. This gives an ever-narrowing gap in which to reform the global economy on to a low-carbon footing.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change

---

Fascinating/scary/frustrating article that's well worth reading in full.

ETA this related article from The Guardian...

The burning issue of energy cannot wait for economic good times

The house is ablaze and we are throwing bucket after bucket at it - buckets of petrol. Worse, if that is possible, the world's politicians are not stepping in to stop us stoking the flames: instead they are helping us pay for the petrol.

That simple, devastating analogy captures entirely the current global action on climate change. Despite warnings from scientists that have been clear for years, the globe is not curbing its carbon emissions: they are http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/greenhouse-gases-rise-record-levels">rising by record amounts. We are not even getting more efficient in our use of fossil fuels to power our economies, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/nov/07/carbon-emissions-intensity-climate-change-renewables">we are now getting worse. And the rising subsidies poured into fossil fuels swamp those for clean energy by six to one.

The previous charge made against the world's leaders - you are not moving forward fast enough - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-deal">failed to spark action. Will the new message - you are now reversing at speed towards a hellish future - change that? http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/durban-climate-change-conference-2011">The UN negotiations on a global climate change agreement, reconvening in Durban shortly, will be the first test of whether this new reality has sunk in.

But, with tackling global warming tumbling down the agenda with politicians transfixed by economic crisis, the omens are gloomy. The new warning this Wednesday from the International Energy Agency, a deeply conservative organisation, could not be more stark. Unless we shift the global energy supertanker off its current, dirty course by 2017, we will have locked in enough greenhouse gas pollution to condemn the world to a temperature rise above the 2C deemed "safe" by governments. Yet the best aspirations for Durban look utterly inadequate. UK's climate change minister Greg Barker recently said having a global climate deal ready to "click in" by 2020 was realistic.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/nov/09/iea-energy-outlook-carbon-climate-change

[lunatica]

1. That's really scary

Gotta kick and rec

[DaveJ]

2. There is nothing in our natural instinct to prevent this from happening

Conservatives will push past 450ppm just to see what happens. Most people don't care. We'll just have to live with it.

[Blue_Tires]

3. good luck explaining that to all the anti-science types running for president

[defendandprotect]

25. They're all people owned by Koch Bros -- otoh, the public is waking up -- late, but it's happening..

[Admiral Loinpresser]

48. I wish somebody had explained it to Obama

at Copenhagen in 2009. Remember when he promised to make it a high priority and Al Gore would play a key role? Big Lie.

[dipsydoodle]

4. This is an Editorial / Article

Posted there earlier today : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x637201

[Turborama]

6. I hadn't seen your post there, but it was your opinion that it's an editorial.

My opinion was/is that it's news.

(PS thanks for the link, though. I popped over and gave it a rec.)

[dipsydoodle]

18. I rec'd yours too.

:hi:

[Turborama]

20. Thanks!

:hi:

[tex-wyo-dem]

5. Considering the general trends of prediction vs. reality...

Five years is probably quite (too) generous.

[Turborama]

7. I agree

Based on what I have been and am witnessing in the tropics (wet seasons going haywire and the ever increasing intensity of storms/flooding).

As the second article states, "the International Energy Agency, (is) a deeply conservative organisation".

[truebrit71]

15. Yup...I think we are already seeing the manifestations of the coming ass-kicking...

...storms are more severe, last longer and start earlier, weather patterns are being severely disrupted...The big problem is that the deniers are waiting for a 'Day after tomorrow' type of secenario where it all collapses at once...that's not the way it will happen...it happens in stages, but as the CO2 ppm continues to spur the heating process we will eventually get to that point where the feedback loop takes over and then it WILL be too fucking late...

We have to make preparations for how we can survive AFTER the worst case scenario happens, never mind trying to stop it...it's already too late for that...

I am not yet 50 years old and thought previously that this would be a problem for my daughter or my grandchildren...now it turns out that it may be staring us square in the face before I hit 60...

That is sad, depressing and maddening all at the same time...

[defendandprotect]

26. +1 --- Everyone should also know that "climate change" is a Frank Luntz euphemism .... !!!

Luntz is a notorious RW propagandist who advised W in 2004 to make this

change --

Global Warming is the more descriptive term -- the original term -- which we've

been using since the late 1950's -- though scientists probably were aware much,

much earlier.


Global Warming makes clear that the problem is HEAT which is creating chaotic

weather and even changing weather systems, wind patterns, etal.


We also had a 50 year delay in humans be aware of Global Warming so we are now

only beginning to feel the effects up to about 1960 -- but imagine all we did after

that time!


Glacier melting is also shifting pressures on the tectonic plates which will create

more earthquakes and of greater severity.


Earthquakes generate new volcanic activity.



Scientists have know that we were damaging nature/tress for 125 years or more --

the glacier melting began in the 1940's though most of us weren't aware of that.

Industrial revolution played a large role in this catastrophe -- and the build up

for WWII -- needless to say atomic weapons probably did us no good.

[caseymoz]

8. This is good news.

I thought we were beyond the threshold already.

The bad news is, I don't think it matters. There's no way this system is adapted to dealing with this problem, and no way a new one can be put in place in time and without a lot of bloodshed. Get used to a very disruptive future with a very high mortality rate.

[TheKentuckian]

21. Lots of bloodshed now seems preferable to meekly rolling over and waiting for the wave.

[caseymoz]

23. It's not going to happen all at once

The effects that they're predicting will occur if something isn't done in five years, and the effects will happen over the next forty. These include permanent inundation or frequent flooding in some places, drought in others, high temperatures that might make areas uninhabitable for human life and the spread of tropical diseases and species into temperate zones, among many other effects. The human population will take a serious hit, but won't go extinct, not in the next century or two.

It will be very bad, but the world won't end.

Meanwhile, I've recently figured out that we have the very solution to this problem under our noses: wind and solar. Not only will they provide "clean" energy, but they extract the energy from the earth's atmosphere, either directly in the form of wind or indirectly in the form of solar. It's a double-edged sword. We just have to up the scale of it.

But no, nothing's going to happen to solve this problem in five years. The best we could hope for is that the conservatives and global warming deniers are discredited beyond recovery, and their names mud for all human history. Then we can move to a solution.

Meanwhile, bloodshed will exacerbate the problem, raising paranoia and destroying the ability to reason.

[defendandprotect]

28. Global Warming is breathing down our necks NOW ... and will only worsen....

At the moment we are only feeling the effects of human activity up to about 1960 --

and everything will accelerate now --

Nor can anyone say how all of this will compound --

Scientists have only been shocked at how rapidly this is has been moving -- way beyond

any of their expections. Events they expected not to happen for 100 years, happened

a few years later!


Additionally, glacier melting will bring more earthquakes and more severe earthquakes.

Earthquakes in turn trigger new volcanic activity.

[caseymoz]

43. I'm skeptical only about the earthquake part.

But that's probably because I've read or heard little of the geology and I don't see how any correlation could be drawn yet. However, everything else you say is correct and proved out.

But of one other thing I'm certain, there's no way anything substantial is going to be done about it, no way is there going to be consensus to take it seriously until the effects are crushing us and denial is discredited. Before then, we have no chance. You saw what previous efforts have come to.

It does help that the Koch brothers funded a study into the science of Global Warming, which confirmed the reality of it. This is huge, and you can expect denial to begin to collapse now.

[defendandprotect]

27. This is a crime against humanity and we should be holding those responsible for it

accountable -- at least by moving them out of the way, out of control of government --

corporations ---


Capitalism is based on exploitation which has delivered this destruction of nature and

our planet -- and we should be sure that is ended.


We can also NATIONALIZE the oil industry and other natural resources -- should have been

done long ago --


Even if we feel that there is no longer an opportunity to correct this damage we should

continue to try -- we can begin to convert all cars to electric --


and most certainly we should be working to shut down the 100 and more nuclear reactors

across the US -- may make the difference between "a whimper or a bang" -- !!


It takes 6 months to shut down the type of nuclear reactors we have and I'm not sure that

includes appropriate "disposal" of the waste.


It takes a soldid year to shut down the type of nuclear reactors Japan has -- and not sure

either that includes the WASTE!!

[caseymoz]

33. But nuclear reactors don't contribute to greenhouse gases.

So they're a totally different subject. I'm sorry to disagree with you, but we can't afford to go off fossil fuels and nuclear. When I say we can't afford it, I mean people will die if we do. Since fossils fuels are the priority, we need to concentrate on them.

Crime against humanity requires proof of criminal intent. Can we prove that anyone criminally intended to ruin the earth they live on, or is it just that they couldn't believe that something as great as capitalism could be destroying the earth? Rush Limbaugh, for instance, says that it's impossible human beings could have that big of an effect. So, they deny global warming because they removed it from the realm of the possible. Now, there's a point where that gets to be criminally negligent, and I think we've reached that point now.

Definitely they should be prosecuted if they have deliberately ruined the earth for profit, perhaps thinking that they can always buy up the part of it that's still habitable, surround it with their private army, and let the rest of us die off.

I have wondered if that's really been the plan of at least some of the wealthy. If we don't do something, it might be the outcome whether schemed out or not.

[defendandprotect]

34. Why don't you tell that to the Japanese ... !!

:nuke:

[caseymoz]

35. But that "Japanese miracle" hasn't been proved out yet.

In fact, all that's happened is they've done it on paper. And, arguably, they've done it out of desperation. If we get to the point where 15% of our country is irradiated, we'll also be prone to rash decisions that might turn out to be tragic.

Give it a couple years before declaring it a success.

[defendandprotect]

36. I'm talking about FUKUSHIMA ... what are you talking about?

[caseymoz]

40. I thought you said Japan was shutting down their reactors, or I thought you meant that.

I heard unsubstantiated mention that they were going to try. I thought you were talking about that effort to deliberately phase out their reactors. I didn't know how far they have gone, but they definitely haven't shut them down.

If you meant the shut down of Fukushima, that goes without saying. Now, we might try other reactor designs if we have to. All the civilian reactors we have are based on military design.

[defendandprotect]

42. Going any further with nuclear reactors to boil water is insane -- and suicidal --

[caseymoz]

44. Do you know how dependent our agriculture is on energy?

Who are you going to starve and freeze? To do without nuclear is homicide. Without it, we've have to either convert mostly to oil and coal, which entails either importing more oil and coal or diverting our current levels to generating power. The US domestically only has 60 percent of the oil it needs for agriculture. If we have to divert oil from agriculture to power, either food prices will go through the ceiling, we'll have to import more oil, or people are going to starve. And what do we have to trade for this oil without a manufacturing base and a market for it? So, the dollar value will fall, causing depression.

Solar and wind might help somewhat, but not right away. It's also hard to switch out that infrastructure in economic chaos.

However, I agree with you. It is inherently unsafe, especially as designed by the military. The plant has to have an "off" switch right away. And I'm not saying we shouldn't try to replace it, or at least do it better, only that our energy economy doesn't allow us replace it now without killing people. Do you want to go that far? Isn't people dying what you want to avoid by stopping nuclear energy?

In a way, it doesn't matter. We already have fully-built reactors. They are going to be there whether we use them or not. Decommissioning them would entail finding places for tons of fuel and nuclear waste, which are inherently dangerous. If they don't necessarily melt down, they can cause accidents of other sorts. Besides, then we'll have this stockpile of nuclear fuel we can't use either. We might as well use them until they're obsolescent.

We don't run reactors of any sort to boil water. We run them to light houses, power computers, run machinery. Any high-tech method of generating energy you choose, up to and including fusion, is going sound mundane at the end of the process, were they have to parcel and distribute the energy in a form we can use.

We could, of course, try to find other methods for turning great amounts of energy into smaller parcels and delivering it besides boiling water, but the end of the process is going to sound that mundane.

Besides, boiling even a pot of water is no small feat when you don't have the fuel.

[defendandprotect]

45. Do you know how dependent nuclear reactors are on our WATER sources ....

and places to dump their radioactive WASTE ... ??

Give it up -- it's ridiculous -- !!

[caseymoz]

46. Okay, then, with my point on agriculture, people die directly.

With your point we have finite radioactive waste to store, and the use of a renewable resource, meanwhile it will cause nobody to starve, go cold, or go without medical care due to lack of energy.

Apparently you agree with my other points because you didn't answer them. I suppose it doesn't help if I reiterate that nuclear power is very far from ideal and I wish there were a practical way to do without it in an overpopulated world. What we absolutely can't do is grow our population any more.

Maybe they'll work out fusion. Oh, but then we'd still have to boil water with it, and that's just stupid.

I'm sorry, D&P, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this.

[defendandprotect]

49. We need to be shutting down ALL nuclear reactors -- See: Fukushima

[caseymoz]

51. Again . . . nt

[Bosonic]

9. Well then, GeoEngineering it is.

There's no way even the Western world can reign itself in sufficiently in five years let alone China, India and the rest of the developing (read using more energy) world to avoid this.

Therefore as it is now a given that Humanity *can* affect the global climate, research should be accelerated in to how we can tinker with it in beneficial ways in order to maintain it in more or less its' current state.

In other words, Humanity can become an intelligent homeostatic climate agent.

[Celefin]

11. Grasping at straws, it is.

All currently debated GeoEngineering measures that have any chance of actually succeeding require vast amounts of resources and energy on a continuous basis. If we go down that road without reducing CO2 emissions, the most likely scenario, we cannot stop the climate meddling, ever. In addition to the massive resource requirements, GeoEngineering also requires ridiculous amounts of money. Last time I checked, we were officially broke.

I really don't want to live in a GeoEngineered future. It will be absolutely hideous: inhabitable does -not- equal pleasant.
The last, desperate act of stupidity.

[Bosonic]

13. That's your opinion, Yoda

I think it's more probable than not that clever ways to create large carbon sinks and alter the Earth's albedo can be discovered and implemented in good time.

You might not want to live in a GeoEngineered future, but I bet you will.

[Celefin]

17. Famous last words

What could possibly go wrong?

You might not want to live in a GeoEngineered future, but I bet you will.

Very likely, but I don't have to look forward to it, no?

Dead, acidified oceans used as carbon dumps, occasionally burping huge clouds of hydrogen sulfide, a permanently dull white sky dropping acid rain due to to sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere to reflect the sunlight, a destroyed ozone layer caused by a combination of the sulfate treatment and massively increased nitrous oxide emissions from suboxic decay of all the carbon capture biomass and the unbridled use of nitrogen fertilizer to make better use of the high CO2 levels stimulating plant growth, a crippling percentage of the world's economy poured into that planetary project, burning resources at ever faster rates just to keep the status quo...

And that's just the known short/medium term consequences of the 'workable' solutions.
Wish I didn't work in environmental science. Wouldn't be half as depressed all the time.

There is no 'clever' way of altering a planetary system, at least not without a whole host of nasty, unintended consequences. Actively trying to change a system so complex without understanding all the underlying dynamics is, at the very best and with the system in a fairly stable state, a huge gamble. Trying to achieve a get out of jail free card while the system is in a chaotic, transitional state due the ongoing meddling that gave raise to the engineering need in the first place is just insane. No one with any scientific credibility would dare to give predictions on the ultimate outcome in that case.

I salute you for your faith in humanity.
Keep it up, makes for a happier life.

[defendandprotect]

32. NATURE will "reign us in" -- no doubt about it -- !!

And one of the smartest things we could be doing is ending capitalism and

NATIONALIZING our natural resources --

and closing down our nuclear power plants across US -- !!

May make the difference between "a whimper or a bang" -- !!

[LanternWaste]

39. I'm afraid I don''t see the precise and relevant difference

I'm afraid I don''t see the precise and relevant difference in the collective social will of humanity to "reign itself in" vs. the collective social will of humanity to affect positive climate change via engineering....

Infrastructure changes, changes in habit and habitat, changes in consumerism, etc. will be a result of either direction... :shrug:

[Celefin]

10. 2011 was the last, final year we could actually have done something about it

Most models come to the conclusion that if we started cutting back GHGs by 10% every year from now on, we could have just managed to stay under the magic 2 degrees. If we start next year, the required annual amount is 15%, if we start 2013, it is 20% annually. After that... well. Invest heavily in adaptation science. Mitigation has left the station.

Had the transition to a sustainable economy been started a decade ago, when we had the science, the economic climate and the resources all lined up to actually achieve it, neither the climate crisis nor the biodiversity crisis, nor the fricking economic crisis would have had to happen.
Regrettably, 'we' were busy securing Iraq's oil resources back then.

The umpteenth 'told you so' moment.
God how I hate being right all the time on these matters.

[defendandprotect]

29. Actually, about the time they killed JFK was the time we would have had to be reacting to this ...

Scientists have only been shocked at how rapidly this has moved --

What they estimated would happen in 100 years, happened a few short years later!

If we brought everything to a standstill and began converting cars to electric

battery we may perhaps alleviate some of the chaotic weather conditions which

be coming our way --

Otoh, the glacier melting is too far along -- and the changing pressures on the

tectonic plates will bring more earthquakes and more severe earthquakes.


Earthquakes in turn generate new volcanic activity.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

47. 2009 was when we got sold out by Obama at Copenhagen. n/t

[defendandprotect]

50. +1 --

[hughee99]

12. Nonsense!

It was too late already in September 2007.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming-say-scientists-402800.html

It was too late already in January 2006.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0116-06.htm

Not to be a downer, but it's been too late for a while.

[defendandprotect]

30. Agree -- but there are things which should be done and must be done .....

Like shutting down our nuclear reactors -- we have more than 100 across the nation!

Takes something like 6 months to properly shut them down -- and don't know if that

includes the WASTE.


The type of reactors that Japan has will take one solid year to properly shut down

and also don't know if that includes the WASTE.


Nor can anyone say how all of this will compound -- but it would be nice to avoid

becomming FUKUSHIMA!!

[Javaman]

38. It became too late when reagan and is minions rolled back Carters programs

and cut the EPA.

we have been on a downward spiral since.

technically speaking, we have been on a downward spiral since coal was used as the main source of power back in the 1800's.

[truebrit71]

14. IMHO we have already past the tipping point...

...all we can do now is try as best as possible to lessen the impact...unfortunately with the chicken little's in charge of the purse-strings we are not going to see much action from the USA until Florida is already under water...which come to think of it, might not be such a loss...:evilgrin::sarcasm:

[SpiralHawk]

16. Freaking Republicons are doing everything they can to BRING THIS ON...

Make no mistake: Republicons are the ones who are anti-life.

[GeorgeGist]

19. It's actually ...

climate degradation. Just saying.

[certainot]

22. universities and blue communities support petro climate denial on hundreds of RW radio stations

rw radio has been instrumental obstructing action on global warming.

15 of 16 finalists in the NCAA basketball tournament last year broadcast on limbaugh stations, basically endorsing the global warming denial and making it acceptable in those communities and bringing ad money.

but there is still NO organized opposition to the right's best weapon.

[defendandprotect]

31. Nonetheless, people are waking up -- and we have to keep on getting the truth out there ..!!

[wickerwoman]

24. "Deeply conservative" indeed.

Mainstream science suggests we're going to have to bust our asses to hold climate change to the 2 or 3 degrees C that will not result in massive human die-offs.

[chervilant]

37. Two things

come readily to mind:

1) this planet will continue to exist and thrive long after we humans are naught but a tiny blip in the fossil record.

2) when Gaia has had enough of our species' parasitic hedonism, and rolls over in the grass to scrape us off her backside, we'll just have to go along for the ride.

[bongbong]

41. Oil Companies

The real criminals. They, along with other blood-thirsty conservatives, bought the MSM many decades ago. So the only information that you would see about solar/wind/other alternative power would be "it will be practical in 30 years". It's been the same story for many decades now.

Of course any of the (numerous) adverse effects of Climate Change will be blamed on 'evil libruls' by that same MSM. You can bet on it!