Solutions such as geoengineering will not make enough of a difference.
By Steinar Brandslet
The countries of the world still need to cut their carbon dioxide emissions to reach the Paris Agreement’s climate targets. Relying on tree planting and alternative technological
“We can’t rely on geoengineering to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement,” says Helene Muri, a researcher from NTNU’s Industrial Ecology Programme. She was also one of the lead authors of a recent article in Nature Communications that looked at different climate geoengineering projects in the context of limiting global warming.
The average temperature on Earth is rising. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recommended limiting this warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, and better yet to less than 1.5 degrees. These targets were set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which was ratified by nearly all nations.
Various geoengineering options are among the solutions being considered. They involve intervening directly in the Earth’s climate system to prevent temperatures from rising as much as would otherwise happen due to the increasing amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Geoengineering comprises reducing atmospheric CO2 levels, or reducing the effect of the Sun.
Untested, uncertain, and risky
Can we remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere with the help of technology or capture more CO2 by planting millions of trees? Can we reflect more of the Sun’s radiation by injecting particles into the atmosphere?
“Several techniques could help to limit climate change. But they’re still untested, uncertain and risky technologies that present a lot of ethical and practical feasibility problems,” say Muri and her colleagues.
In short, we just don’t know enough about these technologies and the consequences of putting them to use, the researchers say.
Stumbling blocks
Tree planting sparks major political problems, for example. A lot of forest land has been cut to grow food, which limits how much of acreage can be reforested. Recent research also raises the question as to whether or not additional forest land can predictably lower temperatures. Data simulations from NTNU and Giessen University show that temperatures may increase, at least locally.
Another mitigation proposal is the use of biochar, which is charcoal that can be ploughed into the ground to store carbon that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere as CO2. Here the question is whether it is really conceivable to carry this out on a large enough scale to make a difference. The researchers’ consensus? Hardly.
How about adding nutrients to the sea to spur phytoplankton blooms that could sequester carbon? This proposal involves fertilizing iron-poor regions of the ocean. However, the potential side effects could be huge, disrupting local nutrient cycles and perhaps even increasing the production of N2O, another greenhouse gas.
We simply don’t know enough yet. Some potential solutions might even do more harm than good. The authors of the article encourage more discussion and learning.
NETs and airy plans
So what about “negative emissions technologies”, often abbreviated as NETs? NETs involve removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, specifically CO2. Some of these proposed techniques could work well on a global scale. But some of them are expensive and are still in their infancy in terms of technology.
Prototypes for direct carbon capture from the air already exist. This technology shows great potential, but would require a lot of energy and significant infrastructure if done at scale. Cost estimates range from $20 to more than $1000 per tonne of captured CO2. If you consider that the countries of the world emitted more than 40 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2017, it quickly becomes clear that financing this approach would be prohibitively expensive.
Adding particles to the air would require regular refills and probably planes or drones dedicated to the task. The concept might be feasible, but the side-effects are unclear.
And so it goes on for one potentially grand proposal after another. In sum, these ideas are simply too little, too late – or too expensive.
“None of the proposed techniques can realistically be implemented on a global scale in the next few decades. In other words, we can’t rely on these technologies to make any significant contribution to holding the average temperature increase under the 2 degree C limit, much less the 1.5 degree limit, says lead author Mark Lawrence, Director of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam.
No substitutes for cutting emissions
Emissions reductions could still salvage the Paris Agreement’s 2 degree C goal. But the challenge in meeting this goal is that the Earth’s increasing population, which has also seen a steady increase in the standard of living, will have to decrease the amount of greenhouse gases that are being emitted into the atmosphere compared to today.
Most of the IPCC scenarios include some form of geoengineering, typically afforestation and bioenergy, coupled with carbon capture and storage, especially if the goal is to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees by the end of this century.
The researchers behind the study warn against relying on solutions other than clear-cut emissions reductions. Otherwise, there is a danger that technological solutions may be seen as substitutes for cutting emissions, which they are not.
The paper:
Evaluating climate geoengineering proposals in the context of the Paris Agreement temperature goals. Mark G. Lawrence, Stefan Schäfer, Helene Muri, Vivian Scott, Andreas Oschlies, Naomi E. Vaughan, Olivier Boucher, Hauke Schmidt, Jim Haywood & Jürgen Scheffran. Nature Communications volume 9, Article number: 3734 (2018) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05938-3
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Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years
Regional war could spark “unprecedented climate change,” experts predict.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/02/110223-nuclear-war-winter-global-warming-environment-science-climate-change/
“Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years”
Yay! Now there is a solution we can all support! Kowabunga!
That’s even more cool than geo-engineering!
Do I really need to say “sarc/off”?
“Geoengineering comprises reducing atmospheric CO2 levels, or reducing the effect of the Sun.”
Alarmists tell us the sun has no or little effect on climate. So which is it? But interesting one of the “solutions” is to pump liquid CO2 in to the oceans. Wouldn’t that make them more acidic?
The mind boggles!
“The average temperature on Earth is rising. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recommended limiting this warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, and better yet to less than 1.5 degrees. These targets were set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which was ratified by nearly all nations.”
One solution is geoengineering to meet, or try to meet, an arbitrary temperature target set by a bunch of politicians.
What could possibly go wrong with that?
Step 1. Collect CO2
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profi..err Save the world
“Is climate engineering real? What does a former US Air Force 2 star major general have to say about this most critical issue?”
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/geoengineering-an-interview-with-a-us-air-force-general/
Do you have any idea how many tera watts worth of energy even a small hurricane pumps out every second?
About the same effect as 0.013% man made co2 has on climate ?
So… This guy is a FORMER US Air Force 2 star Major General.
Pity. If he was actually a modern Major General I might be interested in what he has to say, or failing that, at least listen to him sing.
.
.
.
I’ll get my coat.
There are no “climate woes”, it is just the climate. Does what it does, as it always has.
What about this proposal funded by Bill Gates for by a BC based company called Carbon Engineering?
http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/carbon-dioxide-fuel-squamish-june-2018
http://carbonengineering.com/
Sequestering CO2 out of the atmosphere, and using electricity to break the chemical bonds of CO2 back into long chain carbon compounds that can be made into anything, including low carbon liquid high density fuels. Probably really expensive as a prototype… if we scaled it up and had a source of reliable and perpetual reasonably priced electricity, and fossil fuels become prohibitively expensive in the longer term future, would this technology satisfy our requirement for carbon based products for the next 10,000 years, long after we run out of affordable fossil fuels? We are going to need long chain carbon molecules for thousands of products for as long as humanity is alive.
Nature already provides us with all the carbon that we could ever need. It’s called photosynthesis.
but..but…we are also supposed to be against biofuels. Talking about when we run out of affordable fossil fuels in the next hundreds of years and we still need long chain carbon molecules forever as long as humans are alive. Perhaps bio-carbon is better than CO2 for the feedstock, but will still take energy to process either. Which is better? Good question, but we have lots of either in any case. Just need a reliable source of electricity forever and we can have high density liquid carbon fuels forever too.
The height of stupidity.
They arbitrarily decide that something is broke and then propose to fix it.
Except they have no idea what will be the consequences of their intended fix to the problem that they do not understand,
This would be like someone who owns a Bugatti Veyron getting a bee in their bonnet that there is something wrong with the engine and then going in and making adjustment without understanding a thing about how the engine was designed.
They need to understand that there is a difference between the forecasts from a broken computer model()or 60 broken models) and reality.
It seems that Climate “Science” solutions (to problems that may or not exist) have not progressed beyond the medieval practice of bleeding, except that now they are trying to bleed the economy.
Beaver could “fix” it better n cheaper. What the world really needs is a beaver hybrid capable of toppling windmills. We could then add a new verse to the “high hopes” song 😉 🙂
Taking measures to prevent/reverse global warming/climate change is one thing. I only have one query. When do we know that it worked? Take extreme events for example. What is the acceptable frequency and strength of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, heat wave, etc? Think about that for a moment or at least ask that when someone suggests a particular extreme event is caused by climate change. I would like to think that they are not suggesting that reducing CO2 levels will stop extreme events. At least I have not heard someone suggest that. Yet…
Poor Helene. I guess nobody has told yet that it’s a complete farce. No one is going to meet any of the Paris goals, whatever they do. She should relax, kick back, and maybe crack open a cold one.
THE GLOBAL WARMING MADNESS ROLLS ON
https://www.thegwpf.com/green-madness-eu-climate-targets-threaten-100-000-volkswagen-jobs/
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A Warning from Volkswagen boss Herber Diess
Within the next ten years, according to him, about 100,000 jobs would have to be eliminated at VW alone, should EU environment ministers not abandon their plan to lower CO2 emission limits for cars by 35 percent. VW currently employs about 400,000 people in the EU. According to Diess a quarter of these jobs could be affected.
VW have already announced they are stopping production of volume vehicles that use IC engines in favour of EV’s. I can’t recall when that announcement was made however, it was relatively recent. I am sure VW are well in to their plan to have a low over all emissions figure, or they will just fake it like they do!
GEO engineering other than cloud seeding is MADNESS. To think that we can control nature is tantamount to staring into a hurricane and yelling STOP. The world has gone stark raving mad.
@Alan. What could possibly go wrong? /Sarc
The major issues people around the globe that are being faced relates natural variability in precipitation of climate change but not global warming component of climate change. UN and nations are giving importance to global warming component which is insgnificant compared to seasonal and annual variations in temperature. Unfortunately, these groups are attributing the components of natural variations in precipitation to global warming. All this manipulation is to get a share in green fund running in to $500 billion for five years.
As a local environmental activist, I observed/noticed the fact that government agencies attend a complaint by the public or environmental groups if there is a financil benefit to them. Same is happening with all activities of UN/IPCC. “You scratch my back and I scratch your back” theory.
Recently a bank gave nobel prize — not by Nobel Committee –in economic for such fraudulent acts.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Step 1: Develop Magic Wand
Step 2: Use Magic Wand
I would strongly recommend sticking to the ‘plant a lot of trees’ idea and if there is a concern regarding displacing food production then plant trees that produce food. Fruit, nuts, even sap in some cases!
“Adding particles to the air would require regular refills”… and create a major medical problem worldwide from pollution-related diseases.
I like the way the graphic lists ‘Greening of deserts’ as a possible solution.
Do they know what causes the ‘Greening of deserts’ in the real world?
It seems that according to Geoengineering Logic, the way to reduce the CO2 levels is to increase the CO2 levels.
The problem with this sort of analysis, for the green tendency, is that every time you prove that a given measure is not enough, or not going to work, and so something still more draconian in the way of emission reductions is absolutely necessary, and faster…..?
Well, it gets to seem to the uncommitted observer more and more likely that none of it is going to happen, and so the only realistic alternative is adaptation to whatever comes down.
Here we have the claim that there is no solution via geo engineering or carbon capture. Fine, that is in no way surprising. But given the alarmist forecasts, what that implies is that if we don’t do totally implausible levels of reduction in totally implausible time scales, they think we will have a catastrophe.
Yes, if they are right, we will. So they will increasingly be forced to argue we need to divert our energies into preparing to deal with it, and stop the futile effort to prevent it.
Obviously many of these proposals rely on the myth that CO2 is causing warming. However, I think that bio-char is worth pursuing as a soil improvement and harvesting forests to produce it will have the benefit of reducing fires. If we can con people into thinking it helps the temperature then good.
“None of the proposed techniques can realistically be implemented on a global scale in the next few decades.”
— He’s not talking about windmills and solar power is he? The range estimate of $10 to $1,000 to remover carbon sounds a lot less than $27,000 per ton.
I have another idea. Let’s just ride it out and see what happens, since we’re obviously going to be doing that anyway.
Here are quotes from the past on fertilizing the Gulf of Alask with iron dust to increase CO2 absorption and salmon production:
If there is a concern about stifling algal blooms, then just disperse the iron dust less densely–perhaps by “dusting” it over a wide area from an airplane.
OK, so try it out first in a location where there aren’t any blooms or much of a food chain, AFAIK, like the Gulf of Alaska. Then monitor the site intensely for untoward consequences.
But it should be borne in mind that this fertilization is something that could easily be stopped or reduced if problems emerged–and that nature would soon rebound from them. Especially in areas that are now dead zones for aquatic life, like the portion of the Gulf of Alaska that was seeded in the experiment described above.
RK: 25% is better than 0%. And more of “other sea life” = less stress on fisheries.
RK: That’s not what happened in the Gulf of Alaska, which is already a “desert”, marine-life-wise. Instead, the salmon population exploded.
More seafood. Yum.
And of course none of the authors have made the switch to a subsistence lifestyle, even though they claim it’s possible.
I do not see any mention of the fact that we have removed about 60 million tons of sulphur dioxide annualy from the skies since 1980 which equals the warming effect of removing 4 large volcanoes emissions.
This of course opens the skies to more solar energy to be stored in the oceans and released during warm cycles.
China has reduced sulphur emissions by 75% in recent years equivalent to one large volcano. (23 million tonnes). Pinatubo was 15 million tonnes.
Co2 has been a minor influence and measured at 1 watt per sq meter every 50 yrs.
We need more science on how many watts sulphur removal has contributed to warming because going forward there are plans to remove a lot more sulphur from shipping fuels.
So far this warming appears to be beneficial for the planets food production.
A recent study found that agriculture declined during the Pinatubo eruption years, so cooling the world now might have negative consequenses with so many more mouths to feed since 1980.
If the warming ever got dangerous it could be reversed by not removing sulphur from fuels, at the price of acid rain returning.
The PDO and AMO ocean cycles will rule in the end as the most powerful influence.
The recent LaNina has been weak, possibly from more sunshine owing to reduced pollution? Only time will tell.
The truth is the exact opposite – geoengineering is being used to cause weather disasters blamed on ‘global warming’. But everyone pretends the Emperor ain’t naked.