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
This video explains very succinctly the misinformation used regarding food, flooding, poverty and a plethora of other information that explains why those goals are such an unreliable fantasy. They rely on total misinformation regarding how the planet has been functioning very well over the last fifty years and longer. The video below answers a lot of flase claims made by AGW enthusiasts.
From The Institute of Public Affairs Aus.
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=4v86K5awl_s&feature=share&list=PLb3bOMP8MFhYUo1c2rn3uRZnDWRWKOz3M
The Iframe Link, as I do not know which one will work the best on this page.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v86K5awl_s&w=640&h=360]
The CO2 obsession is more and more just a cover for rent seekers to get their slice of the $ billion per day bounty of the climate industry.
Sounds a lot like 1984 ‘Double Speak’
See – owe to Rich says: where luckily we have the CET series.
Good point.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=630
Now we see the reason for the urgency to act NOW !!
I think, as the last 17 years have shown, that nature has pretty much all ready taken care of any 2 degree rise in temperature all by herself.
I’m tempted to say that maybe those self centered, money grubbing, ambition lusting, overly networked delegates might be more concerned about a 2 degree drop at this stage.
But, then we couldn’t do anything about that either.
“What does the 2°C target imply for a global climate agreement in 2020? The LIMITS study on Durban Platform scenarios.”
Finally, some reference to a limit, not a target. Except that it’s referring to “Low climate IMpact scenarios and the Implications of required Tight emission control Strategies”. I guess a target is reachable (2°C or die! 2°C then die?) whereas a limit is something never to be met.
I assume, Potsdam clinics can help lots of people…..
Good grief. Silly people getting all dressed up to discuss a silly subject in various tones of seriousness. How do they keep from laughing????? Monty Python would be so proud. It tops his Holy Grail script by miles and miles.
Notice the total lack of foresight as to the future of energy and its emissions? Does anyone relly believethat 25 years from now we will be manufacturing anything other than electric cars? Or that nuclear power will prevail as the best means of power production (currently cheaper than either coal or gas and will remain so)? I think it more realistic to worry about CO2 levels becoming too low.
Action by 2020 is not required. Bill Gates summed it up nicely, where he said if you need a larger reduction, then shouldn’t you focus on the long term goal rather than the short term goal. Saying that more emissions reductions now makes later reductions more manageable doesn’t mean that you have achieved success. With China, India, and other developing countries at 60% of global emissions and growing, the key is as Roger Pielke Jr said, make clean energy so cheap that other countries will flock to it. That will not happen if you are passing subsidies and mandates at higher prices. Any emissions by 2020 is minor compared to the longer term emissions.
Psst – Pamela… re: Monty Python… “their”, not “his”.
But I agree – watching this charade is highly entertaining for me. All this fuss and bother and money and stress for nothing. Literally, for nothing. No warming. No increased storms or droughts or floods or flying spaghetti monsters or anything. The same would be accomplished if everyone in the world simply started digging holes and filling them up again.
To quote the “Despicable Me” minions: WHAAAT ???
You would swear that it was 2003, not 2013
Aggressive actions now can result in changing their position as quickly as possible.
From the current “man made climate change is causing all these weather extremes”; to “cuts in CO2 emissions are starting to reduce global warming”.
Then, they can be honest and tell you that global temperatures have stopped rising………….of course, giving credit to these actions and justifying the need for continued actions.
Only thing is that with high latitude cooling, similar to what we saw in the 50’s-70’s(which may increase this decade), severe/extreme weather increases from the meridional temperature disparity increasing.
This will allow for an interpretation that we need more aggressive actions, as it will take more time and more money to get the climate under control and back to the way it was before man messed it up.
Even if we head towards another “Little Ice Age”(which would likely cause a spike in extreme weather) there will always be something to blame on man and always be some reason for aggressive actions by humans to offset bad things that humans caused in our atmosphere/oceans.
I think humans actually do waste massive amounts of natural resources and pollute greatly……….but the main effect from CO2 is from a booming biosphere, greening of the earth and explosive plant growth, crop yields and world food production.
The law of photosynthesis is no theory. Let CO2 continue to increase and play its key role as atmospheric fertilizer, benefiting plants and the animal world(which eats plants or something else that ate plants)……………….and use our resources to fight real pollution and lessen the waste of natural resources, especially the irreversible draining of our limited supply of ground/aquifer water that is spelling out the real catastrophe for the next generation.
OK, I’m “back” with those CET figures.
1721 to 1750 mean is 9.36 (degC)
1958 to 1987 mean is 9.43
1982 to 2011 mean is 10.02
The first one is my baseline figure. The second one is a local minimum, and the lowest since the First World War, and only minutely warmer than the baseline from the 18th century.
The third one shows an increase of 0.6degC over 24 years but is, in a slightly trivial sense, a local maximum. That is, 1983 to 2012 is cooler (by 0.005), and 1984 to 2013 is going to be cooler still (I’ll give you an odds on bet on that with 2 months to go).
So I’ll give you my policy, for when I become prime minister. I shall adopt a “wait and see” cautious approach. Given that we are now 0.66degC warmer than pre-industrial times, and we (apparently) wish to limit it to 2 degrees, I shall wait until we breach the 1 degree barrier, which would occur if a 30-year period had mean 10.36 or higher. And then I shall act.
Don’t ask me what action I will take, but act I shall.
It is not inconceivable for this to happen, since 12 of the last 30 years have been above that 10.36 value. But I don’t think it will. In fact I think, just a guess of course based on cycles and solar weakness, that it will not happen before 2035-2064. If it does happen then, so we know it in 2064, and I am prime minister and incidentally the oldest man who has lived in recent times, then I SHALL ACT.
I’d be happy to read any comments on my prognostications.
Rich.
not to worry…its been cooling slightly the last few years.
Chuck L: “… that might be the impetus that accelerates the slide into a Little Ice Age or even a full-blown one.”
And that’s the only thing to keep in mind. We accept that ice ages happen. And if we then accept that CO2 causes temperature, we also accept that we can control the weather. By which, our only known possible defense against an ice age is to figure out how much coal we need to burn to stave one off.
The alternate idea that maybe we will have runaway and destructive warming for which we have not one shred of historical evidence to have occurred is a nonsense. If these people were rational, and actually believed AGW as science, then we would be discussing fossil fuels as a defense against freezing. In a similar vein, the same discussions we have about possible defenses of killer asteroids. But let’s say that we can have runaway heating: Then at what level? What is the provable range of CO2 that keeps the planet from bursting into flames or turning into an ice cube.
That this is not being discussed, at all, simply demonstrates that the people involved are trying to make a dime of apocalyptic hysteria, or that they are so misanthropic that they don’t give a fig about destroying the bioload and biodiversity of the planet so long as they can punish men for the sin of existing.
See – owe to Rich: “So I’ll give you my policy, for when I become prime minister. I shall adopt a “wait and see” cautious approach.”
I’d vote for you just as I vote for any and every prudent politician. But then, being a prudent sort doesn’t win elections.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – HL Mencken
Peter Miller:
When people choose to believe the findings of dodgy computer models this seems to be a result of repeated applications of the equivocation fallacy on the part of climatologists. An “equivocation” is an argument in which a term changes meaning in the midst of this argument. By logical rule, one cannot draw a proper conclusion from an equivocation. To draw an IMPROPER conclusion is the equivocation fallacy. The equivocation fallacy deceives people because an equivocation looks like a syllogism but isn’t for while the conclusion of a syllogism is true, the conclusion of an equivocation is unproved. For details on the equivocation fallacy in global warming arguments, please see the peer reviewed article at ( http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 ).
2 degrees warmer, I wish.
The historical natural cycle is trending away from the school of calamitous intent, AKA GIGO.
The emperors new clothes are still being admired in the sycophantic high court, but outside the emperors butt is freezing in the breeze.
Rotten fruit and vegetables may soon cloth the entourage if they do not cover up very soon.
Dishonesty uses stupidity as cover, the UN has failed miserably, we must defang it and bury its corpse. A large, ominous headstone, of lest we forget the darkness bureaucracy brings.
Forget the madness of crowds and mass hysteria, this one-CAGW is down to the idiocy of the parasitic class.
Design by committee.
Committee’s of the unfit,unable and voluntarily nonproductive.
The UN has for years been a dumping ground for the dangerously stupid,political liability relatives of those in power.Sooner or later this many dangerous fools will cause massive damage to their host.
In hindsight,it is stunning that we could have believed that unelected,unaccountable appointees would behave in any other way, than the UN has done.
Rule 1 of bureaucracy….extend our reach..expand the bureau.
“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.”
—
In other words, agree to let us control your economy and we promise that if you like your climate you can keep your climate.
Is anyone else tired of politicians masquerading as experts and making promises they know they can’t keep?
Earth to PIK: Get lost!
(and this is exactly what the world IS saying these days in Poland — bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!)
They are not in climate reality , the temperature trend is likely going to be down not up and CO2 has next to nothing to do with it.
The question that has to be answered and it is basic is, if CO2 does change the climate why does it follow rather then lead the temperature ? Add to this the lack of any warming in response to CO2 increases over the past 17 years, no tropospheric hot spot, no increasingly zonal atmospheric circulation, it leaves one amazed as to how steadfast they are in pushing this. This article being yet another example.
I hope they continue to push AGW theory as hard as possible so when the reality comes probably during year 2014, as the maximum of solar cycle 24 finally passes by and the prolonged solar minimum once again becomes firmly entrenched a climate response to this solar condition will start to really take hold. .
The blip in solar activity is surprising, I did not expect solar flux readings to exceed 170. I was thinking the average solar flux reading from Aug. 2013-Dec. 31,2013 would be around 110. I am way off.
The saving grace however is the AP index is not following the solar flux, at least so far. The AP index for Nov. is still only around 6.0 very low, while the UV index for the shortest of wavelengths 0-105 nm is running around 140 units still quite low given this is likely the maximum of this solar cycle.
To my way of thinking the AP index and UV light index show how solar activity is being translated to the earth and thus the climate system, in contrast to solar flux which is showing the activity strength on the sun itself.
If the activity on the solar surface does not translate to the earth then the activity in itself is of no consequence to the earth and it’s climate.
Therefore although solar activity has been in a blip of activity ,it really has not translated to the earth, meaning prolonged solar minimum conditions are still being experienced on the earth, despite the recent pick up in solar activity.
What this tells me is if solar activity is the main factor in climate change then the sub-solar activity which commenced in year 2005 -today should really start to manifest itself in the climate system of the earth post within six months of solar cycle 24 maximum ending. This is enough time, in my opinion to tell us if a solar influence is out there.
Salvatore: “The question that has to be answered and it is basic is, if CO2 does change the climate why does it follow rather then lead the temperature ?”
“Sure, it’s impossible that CO2 was the sole, sufficient case for millions of years. But it’s completely different now.”
Based on just basic scientific induction, it’s impossible to state that CO2 is ‘the’ sole, sufficient cause. But whether it’s special pleading (fallacy) or a legit argument for it to be a sole, sufficient cause ‘now’ depends on the ancillary details. If such details exist, I’m certainly unaware of them. But if they do not exist at all, then it’s just pure irrationality that is a hopeful refutation of the historical data we have available.
“Even a delay of just 10 years…”
Yep, lock down the agreements quickly so that it’s legally binding – that’s what they are trying to do. By the time anybody comes up for air after that, they’re hoping there’ll be another warming period that they can hide behind, because this one has evaporated on them, or some other catastrophe they can “scare” us with.
They are losing influence with every passing year and are in panic mode now. With various countries wising up and pulling back, they are seriously running low on time – for themselves, for the money, for the power. Can’t wait for the crunch.
The possibility of future world food shortages if the climate cools is a far, far more likely disaster in waiting than any slight warming of the globe.
CO2 is an essential plant requirement and the FACE experiments around the world are gathering real actual data from high CO2 ;levels in the open field and under entirely natural conditions,
[ FACE / Free Air CO2 Enrichment ]
http://climatechangescience.ornl.gov/content/free-air-co2-enrichment-face-experiment
&
http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/agriculture/innovation-and-research/research-capability/research-branches/future-farming-systems-research/transcript-national-wheat-face-array
The increased levels of atmospheric CO2 over the last two and a half decades is thought to have accounted for about 20% of the increase in the small grain crop yields over achieved over that period by plant breeders and better farm technology
The optimum for most grain crops is 700 PPM of CO2
I have said this before and will say it again;
The World’s farmers can very likely and quite adequately feed the estimated global population of somewhere north of 9 billions by 2040/50 IF CO2 levels continue to increase and IF global temperatures continue to warm.
IF CO2 continues to increase but global temperatures decline even slightly then the world’s farmers might perhaps still be able to feed the Earth’s 9 billions plus by 2040 / 50. Just!
IF somehow through total stupidity a way is found to reduce global CO2 levels AND the climate cools then there is most likely a very good chance that there will be periods of global food shortages and possible starvation on a scale never seen before in human history by the middle of this century..
And that is only a half a lifetime away.
The so called delegates to the COP obviously have never experienced hunger or an empty belly, in fact far from it and just the opposite as they no doubt gorge themselves on the luxurious food selections of that COP.
They are totally ignorant and worse, near criminal in their disdain for and neglect of the consequences of a possible future global food shortage if the world cools and CO2 levels remain static or even falls and the then likely prospect of empty bellies amongst possibly hundreds of millions of poorest of Earth’s future citizens.
If they in their totally arrogant self serving ignorance somehow manage to reduce or negate the vital and critical role of increasing CO2 levels on the adequacy of humanity’s future food supplies then god help humanity.