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What will it take to Stop Global Warming – Bottom Line?
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The UN sponsored group has produced a report on what it will take to stop global warming. The scientists have concluded that we must cap the amount of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere at 445 parts per million (ppm). The scientists stood up to the US and China who wanted this cap raised for political expediency. We are currently at about 400 ppm and growing at 2 ppm per year. When will we reach 445 ppm? Let’s do a little modeling:
Currently world-wide CO2 emissions are growing at a rate of about 2% per year. If we don’t do anything, we are adding 2 ppm this year, then next year we will add 2.04 ppm, and the following year 2.08 ppm. This is the current unchecked, exponential growth. We reach a level of 447 ppm in 19 years, the year 2036. At that time we will be adding almost 3ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere each year.
What if we stop increasing the rate at which we add C02 to the atmosphere? What if we Cap the rate at 2 ppm per year? We would then reach 446 ppm in 23 years or the year 2040. We have delayed the effects of global warming by 4 years. We are still adding 2 ppm per year so just setting caps does not solve the problem.
What if we can cut or emissions by 20% over the next 20 years? That would mean that we would only add 1.97 ppm next year, followed by 1.94 ppm the next year and so on until we are only adding 1.60 ppm per year. If the rate of reduction is constant year to year and we can maintain the rate of reduction we would reach 445 ppm in 37 years, the year 2044. We have delayed the problem by an additional 4 years or 8 years beyond what we are currently doing. We would be increasing CO2 in the atmosphere at a rate of 1.5 ppm in 2044.
What will it take to actually meet the targeted reduction in the UN Report? We need to reduce our emissions by 44% over the next 20 years, or by 0.088 ppm per year. We also need to continue reducing our rate for 45 years until we no longer add any C02 to the atmosphere. That will stabilize our CO2 level in the atmosphere in the year 2052 at 445 ppm. A per year reduction of 0.088 ppm is about 4.4% per year not accounting for growth in energy demand. Add in growth of about 1% per year in new emissions and the bottom line reduction to meet the goal is about 5.4% per year.
I have not seen any proposals that will achieve this level of reduction.
Bush climate plan criticized for lacking urgency
We need to start thinking outside the box. We need to consider more radical proposals than conservation and emission caps to really solve the problem. We should start thinking about what a 21st Century energy infrastructure will look like and get busy building it. I will discuss this in future articles.
Topics: Global Warming , UN , Carbon Dioxide , US , China
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