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Study: Worst CO2 emissions are yet to come
image credit: kleineolive (Wikimedia Commons)
Future fossil fuel infrastructure set to be built between now and 2060 will have the strongest effect on climate change, according to a report in the journal Science.
The global demand for energy is quickly rising, while political agreements and regulations to curb the resultant rise in greenhouse gas emissions have so far failed.
A new study from scientists in the US and Canada has calculated that most of the ‘key’ impacts of climate change could be avoided if no further CO2 power plants were built and that the real risks come from fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure which has yet to be built.
While previous policies have largely focused on regulating greenhouse gas emissions, a tactic that has so far not produced their desired results, the new study stresses the need for alternative sources of energy and technological innovation.
[T]he scientists applied a technique only available to those using computer simulations: They allowed today’s stock of carbon-dioxide emitters to operate for their full design lives, while at the same time slamming the door on any more CO2-emitting cars, trains, or power plants. To the team’s surprise, it found that if today’s patchwork assemblage of greenhouse-gas emitters were allowed to operate for their full design life, but then were shut down, global average temperatures would remain below the 2-degree threshold.
–The Christian Science Monitor
The researchers expected that current emissions would have already pushed CO2 concentrations over the 2-degree goal. Of course, the coal power booms in places like China and India mean that there will be no end to the global rise of fossil fuel emissions in the coming years. Yet the report’s focus on alternative energy sources – whether the development and implementation of green technologies or nuclear power – is an important perspective in the quest to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
For more on the story see the following article in the Christian Science Monitor:
Climate-change study: Today’s power plants aren’t the problem
And the original paper (pay) in the journal Science:
Future CO2 Emissions and Climate Change from Existing Energy Infrastructure
Tags: China, Climate change, co2, coal, emissions, energy, fossil fuel, future, greenhouse gas, infrastucture, science
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Hi John.
I’m not a scientist, but can you scientifically show that the model is “pure garbage” with something more recent than a 1896 study? No one has stated that CO2 is the only factor in temperature, so it’s perfectly compatible that CO2 influences the climate and that it gets colder at night when the sun goes down.
I’m willing to believe that any computer model is ‘unreliable’. After all the Earth cannot be replicated in a lab for normal scientific experiments. Of course there is also a lot more to climate change than CO2:
http://www.greenfudge.org/2010/09/14/melting-siberian-permafrost-and-climate-change/
and these factors operate on different timescales:
http://www.greenfudge.org/2010/09/10/modes-of-transport-new-study-gauges-short-and-long-term-climate-change-impact/
If it’s a big global conspiracy and a pack of lies, why are the all-powerful governments twiddling their thumbs?
http://www.greenfudge.org/2010/09/15/uk-climate-change-‘inevitable’-now-what/
This pprediction is pure garbage.
First the original 1896 Arrhenius study that says that more CO2 means more warming is flawed. It fails every night when the concentration of CO2 stays stable or increases , but the temperature falls. It fails whenever the concentration of water vapor increases but the temperature stays the same.
Second, reality says that there is an excess of GHGs (CO2 and Water vapor) in the air, for the limited number of absorbable photons. This means that ONLY an increase in the number of photons can cause more warming. Any increase in the number of GHGs just results in more excess GHGs in the air.
The study ias flawed. The predictions are unreliable.