Climate Report 1 - New Energy “would have to increase to as much as 67 percent…”

Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040

Coral Davenport, October 7, 2018 (NY Times)

“A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has ‘no documented historic precedent’…[It] describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population…The authors found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty. Previous work had focused on estimating the damage if average temperatures were to rise by a larger number, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), because that was the threshold scientists previously considered for the most severe effects of climate change…The new report, however, shows that many of those effects will come much sooner, at the 2.7-degree mark…Avoiding the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years…[If not avoided, the] damage would come at a cost of $54 trillion…

click to enlarge

...[It remains] technically possible to achieve the rapid changes required to avoid 2.7 degrees of warming…[but heavy taxes or prices on carbon dioxide emissions] would be required…[That] would be almost politically impossible in the United States, the world’s largest economy and second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China. Lawmakers around the world, including in China, the European Union and California, have enacted carbon pricing programs…President Trump, who has mocked the science of human-caused climate change, has vowed to increase the burning of coal…Absent aggressive action, many effects once expected only several decades in the future will arrive by 2040…[To prevent 2.7 degrees of warming,] greenhouse pollution must be reduced by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050…[and] use of coal as an electricity source would have to drop from nearly 40 percent today to between 1 and 7 percent. Renewable energy such as wind and solar, which make up about 20 percent of the electricity mix today, would have to increase to as much as 67 percent…” click here for more

click to enlarge

Tweet