Success of climate talks vital for 2°C target
From the Potsdam Institute – Achieving a global climate agreement soon could be crucial for the objective to keep global mean temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius. The challenges of meeting the long-term target will otherwise increase drastically both in terms of the required emissions reductions and economic impacts. This is shown by the first comprehensive multi-model-based assessment of so-called Durban Platform scenarios, conducted by a team of international scientists led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) in Italy. The Durban Platform is the current negotiation track at the Warsaw climate talks that aims to reach a global climate agreement by 2015 to come into effect in 2020.
“The negotiations in Warsaw represent an important step in the negotiation process towards a climate agreement by 2015,” lead author Elmar Kriegler from PIK says. “While there are legitimate doubts about whether the Durban Platform negotiations can deliver on their promise, our analysis shows the importance of meaningful reductions in global emissions by 2020 to keep the 2 degree target within reach.” The later emissions get cut, the greater the necessary reduction rates to avoid more than 2 degrees warming, and hence the greater the impact on energy prices and economic growth.
“Even a delay of just 10 years of a climate agreement coming into effect would raise the economic challenges substantially, if emissions reduction efforts remained at their currently moderate level,” Kriegler says. The results are part of the comprehensive LIMITS project (Low Climate lmpact Scenarios and the lmplications of Required Tight Emission Control Strategies) on the implementation of 2 degree strategies in the major economies and will be published in a special issue of the journal Climate Change Economics. The scientists investigated a set of different outcomes of the Durban Platform negotiations process and their implications for reaching the 2 degree target with seven integrated assessment and energy-economy models to ensure the robustness of results.
Carbon dioxide removal could be key technology
Nonetheless there might be some flexibility for policy makers in implementing a global climate agreement towards the 2 degree target, according to the study. Translating the 2 degree target into emissions reductions requires choosing a maximum likelihood of temporarily overshooting 2 degrees that would still be tolerated. The choice of this tolerance level was found to have a significant effect on longer term emissions reduction requirements and economic impacts. However, the near term requirement of strengthening global climate policy was unchanged, as global emissions declined after 2020 in any scenario of global climate action coming into effect by 2020. In addition, taking CO2 out of the atmosphere in the 2nd half of the century could be a key element of implementing the emission pathways in the Durban Platform scenarios, for instance through technologies using energy from biomass combined with Carbon Capture and Storage. Plants absorb CO2 to grow and could be processed in biogas plants, with emissions captured and being stored underground.
This could be an option to compensate higher short term emissions with deeper emissions cuts in the long run, but at the expense of a higher likelihood of temporarily overshooting 2 degrees. At the same time, it would raise a number of concerns, because the CCS technology is not yet available for large-scale use and scaling up bio-energy comes with considerable risks by increasing the competition for arable land. “It is very risky to rely too much on removing CO2 from the atmosphere in the second half of the century,“ says Kriegler. “While we may need carbon dioxide removal even if global climate action is implemented in 2020, we would need much more of it if action is delayed further. Despite all these complexities, the message is fairly simple,” adds Kriegler. “In the longer term, there are a number of options to get to 2 degrees. But those will only remain on the table, if global climate action is substantially strengthened over the coming decade, so that global emissions decline after 2020.”
“This shows that the Durban Platform negotiations can still deliver an outcome consistent with the 2 degree target, but only if they can successfully implement global climate action on a long term target by 2020,” adds co-author Massimo Tavoni of FEEM. “Further delays in reaching an agreement would require much higher emission decline rates and would lead to much larger economic costs”.
Article: E. Kriegler, M. Tavoni, T. Aboumahboub, G. Luderer, K. Calvin, G. De Maere, V. Krey, K. Riahi, H. Rosler, M. Schaeffer, D. van Vuuren: What does the 2°C target imply for a global climate agreement in 2020? The LIMITS study on Durban Platform scenarios. To be published in a special issue of Climate Change Economics in early 2014.
More information on the LIMITS project: http://www.feem-project.net/limits/index.html
More information to the special issue: http://www.feem-project.net/limits/03_outreach_01_02.html
“Plants absorb CO2 to grow …… .”
Well, who would have thought that ……. .
It’s models all the way down…
Since the 2 degree target was pulled out of a PR agent’s posterior orifice, it makes no difference. Like all the rest of the Warmist bushwah. Back to the Roman or Minoan Warm Period. What’s not to like?
A system of plants…
Absorbing C02 non-stop…
Spread across the USA…
Every American homeowner could participate…
And save the earth.
LAWNS.
The 2 degree target is unattainable however much CO2 may be emitted.
The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is known to diminish as concentrations increase. This diminution effect is probably the reason why there was no runaway greenhouse warming caused by CO2 in earlier eons when CO2 levels were known to be at levels of several thousands ppmv.
Both skeptics and Global Warming advocates agree on this.
An earlier IPCC report, (TAR3), acknowledged that the effective temperature increase caused by growing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere radically diminishes with increasing concentrations. This information has been in the IPCC reports. It is well disguised for any lay reader, (Chapter 6. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: section 6.3.4 Total Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Forcing Estimate) .
Up to ~200 ppmv, the equivalent to about 82% of the temperature increasing effectiveness of CO2, is absolutely essential to maintain plant life and thus all life on earth. The current level of ~400 ppmv is already committed and immutable. At that level it amounts to 93% of the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere .
Thus only ~7% of the effectiveness of CO2 as a warming greenhouse gas now remains.
So there can only ever be a minor temperature reduction impact of any de-carbonization policy, controlling CO2 emissions. Whatever political efforts are made to de-carbonize free world economies or to reduce man-made CO2 emissions, (and to be effective at temperature control those efforts would have to be universal and worldwide), those efforts can only now affect at most ~7% of the residual future warming effect of CO2.
The rapid diminution effect is an inconvenient fact for Global Warming advocates, apparently nonetheless, it is well understood within the climate science community but it is certainly not much discussed.
So more CO2 in the atmosphere cannot inevitably lead directly to much more warming. And increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere cannot give rise to any dangerous temperature increase.
Thus de-carbonization policies could never have useful impact to realistically control any rising world temperatures and the future world climate. As the future temperature effect of increasing CO2 emissions is now so minor, therefore there is no possibility of ever reaching the political target of less than +2.0°C.
If the effect is again acknowledged by the IPCC it certainly would destroy any implication of impending catastrophe for global warming.
“global climate action … temporarily overshooting 2 degrees … climate agreement by 2015”
The hubris, it burns.
This is up there with the craziness of the film that is on TV right now called “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs” where the main character, in order to save the town from sardines, wants to turn water in to food. I guess as the film is animated and directed at kids, maybe the kids haven’t learnt what photosynthesis is yet.
A low carbon war with China should do the trick. Poland, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, maybe even Germany will have to be dealt with forcefully, while avoiding harmful emissions. Russia has nukes, Gazprom and long experience in international enforcement. Perhaps she can help.
Of course, once those guys have been defeated someone else will have to do all the heavy manufacturing. Those whirlygigs and solar panels won’t make themselves! But one problem at a time.
Can we assume all the door security guards have been issued with pictures of Lord Christopher?
Why do so many supposedly smart people – apart from the obvious financial considerations – choose to believe the findings of dodgy computer models, which were pre-programmed to produce scary results?
The amount of money which has been wasted trying to combat the effects of natural climate cycles beggars belief.
The Durban Platform negotiations… the comprehensive LIMITS project…
Think of all the teams of time wasters, jetting around the world on these and myriad similarly useless projects. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if they retrained as plumbers or something?
edmh says:
November 16, 2013 at 1:33 am
“The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is known to diminish as concentrations increase.”
I think you mean; said to, not “known to” increase. There is no empirical evidence to prove that CO2 has any effect at all. Remember the “GHE” is still just an hypothesis.
The IPCC have pegged water vapour as a “strongly positive feedback mechanism”. Yet water vapour is a negative feedback mechanism. So the IPCC’s version of the “GHE” hypothesis with regards to the most powerful and most abundant of all so called “GHG’s” is entirely wrong.
This is not an hypothesis and is not something that can be questioned, water vapour is a negative feedback mechanism, period.
If they can be so wrong about water vapour and yet refuse to correct this error, why would they be correct about CO2?
There is no empirical evidence for the so called “GHE” and I don’t mean the fact that the atmosphere is warmer at the bottom than it is at the top. That is not a “greenhouse effect”.
“the first comprehensive multi-model-based assessment”
From the people who brought you ‘gigo’, now, more worse than expected comes ‘GIGO’.
Robin Hewitt says: November 16, 2013 at 2:01 am (Lord M)
He’s in disguise again, second from right of picture with expensive laptop and smartphone. I hope the CO2 is going to stay sequestered in the carbonated beverages on his right.
So they will start wasting more resources on CSS (Carbon Sequestration and Storage) after 2015 if no treaty is signed, thus proving that no treaty in 2015 will have higher economic impacts? It’s like accounting research on CSS as ‘subsidy on fossil fuel’, which they actually do in Europe. I’m not even talking about the waste of energy efficiency or the idiocy of pumping plant food away from plants. The disconnection from reality of these people is dizzying.
These people are really on a disconect from reality. The blinkers are on and no amount of facts can get through. The egos that are going to take a hit when the truth becomes so obvious will be great to witness. The wailing that will follow will be music to the ears.
From; Spiegel online international ; April 2010
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/climate-catastrophe-a-superstorm-for-global-warming-research-a-686697-8.html
“Climate Catastrophe: A Superstorm for Global Warming Research”
Part 8: The Invention of the Two-Degree Target
Quote
Climate models involve some of the most demanding computations of any simulations, and only a handful of institutes worldwide have the necessary supercomputers. The computers must run at full capacity for months to work their way through the jungle of data produced by coupled differential equations.
All of this is much too complicated for politicians, who aren’t terribly interested in the details. They have little use for radiation budgets and ocean-atmosphere circulation models. Instead, they prefer simple targets.
For this reason a group of German scientists, yielding to political pressure, invented an easily digestible message in the mid-1990s: the two-degree target. To avoid even greater damage to human beings and nature, the scientists warned, the temperature on Earth could not be more than two degrees Celsius higher than it was before the beginning of industrialization.
It was a pretty audacious estimate. Nevertheless, the powers-that-be finally had a tangible number to work with. An amazing success story was about to begin.
‘Clearly a Political Goal’
Rarely has a scientific idea had such a strong impact on world politics. Most countries have now recognized the two-degree target. If the two-degree limit were exceeded, German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen announced ahead of the failed Copenhagen summit, “life on our planet, as we know it today, would no longer be possible.”
But this is scientific nonsense. “Two degrees is not a magical limit — it’s clearly a political goal,” says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). “The world will not come to an end right away in the event of stronger warming, nor are we definitely saved if warming is not as significant. The reality, of course, is much more complicated.”
Schellnhuber ought to know. He is the father of the two-degree target.
Cont;
The front line.
M.Mann ” The aliens are coming to invade we must prepare for action”
Joseph Bloggs “When are they coming”
M.Mann ” In about 25 years time”
Joseph Bloggs ” How do you know?”
M.Mann ” I just do ”
Joseph Bloggs ” You have fairies at the bottom of your garden”
M. Mann “How do you know?”
Joseph Bloggs ” I just do”
What is ironic is that if they actually were able to meaningfully reduce world CO2 levels, that might be the impetus that accelerates the slide into a Little Ice Age or even a full-blown one. Imbeciles, all.
Basic sales psychology: create a sense of urgency.
I can let you have the “save the planet” insurance policy at a special knock down annual premium of $100 BILLION today, but if my boss finds out I’m doing this I won’t be able to give such a good price next week.
Burgularies have been rising exponentially in this district. I have it on good authority that premiums are going sky rocket next month.
If I was you I would not hestitate too long, it may cost you a lot more for the same cover.
I always wondered what the baseline for the “2 degrees” was. So it’s pre-industrial? Well, which year shall we choose, and which temperature series? There aren’t any global series that go back far enough, but England is about half way from the equator to the pole on the “polar amplification” scale so let’s choose that, where luckily we have the CET series. 1721-1750 is a 30-year period of a length beloved of climate scientists and clearly just before the invention of the steam engine. So I propose that we use that as the baseline.
I’ll get back to you with some figures on that later (just need to modify one of my ‘R’ scripts).
Rich.
The truth is they know the penny is starting to drop with the public and with Austraila and Japan jumping ship, the writing’s on the wall.
They’re desparte to get everyone to sign themselves up for legally binding , locked in agreements to give them $100bn PER YEAR , EVERY YEAR before the scam falls apart.
I am fascinated with the warmists fascination with setting a target in degrees and using that to justify calling for reduction in CO2 emissions. The world hasn’t warmed for 15 years ( isn’t this what they want), so why should we do anything different? To use what is going on now as a justification for more action is not logical . The pause in warming is clearly a result of our inaction therefore we should continue it.
By focussing on the results that is the temperature the logical conclusion is that policy should not be changed as it must be working.
The fact that CO2 levels are rising so proves the lack of correlation that to continue to assume it does is either gross stupidly,gross stubbornness, or gross dishonesty.
A 10 year old child(whose mind hasn’t been corrupted by the Global Warming indoctrination being taught in schools could work it out.
If the anectodetal evidence is that there is no correlation then the model’s assumption that there is proves that the model is wrong. The only real proof that will validate the theory is what actually happens in real life. In this regard it fails miserably.
I consider that climate change is the scaremongers equivalent to going back to the drawing board except this theory too fail in the laboratory of real life.
When will these warmists admit they are wrong!
Henry Galt says:
November 16, 2013 at 1:33 am
“global climate action … temporarily overshooting 2 degrees … climate agreement by 2015″
The hubris, it burns.
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hubris => audacity, brass, presumption, conceitedness, chutzpah, self-importance
I’m having trouble coming up with a better word for the stupidity and outright gall of these fine folks who believe they can control the climate. I bet if I went back and looked at the press releases and reports from previous serious climate negotiations I’d find the same or similar words of serious desperation of having to do something now or life as we know it, if not all life, on the earth would be destroyed. Except the “nows” would be in the past. Besides, as I understand it from our wise leaders, if we got to 400 ppmv CO2 all life would end.
“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity”