A report issued by the International Energy Agency today has warned that we have only a very short time left to curb our carbon emissions and keep the world’s predicted warming to 2 degrees Centigrade over pre-industrialised levels. By as soon as 2017, we may have reached the maximum level of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) permitted in order to keep temperature increases below that critical two degrees. That limit is estimated as being 450 parts per million CO2. We’re already up to 390 ppm.
In the midst of the global economic crisis, the dangers of climate change seem to be slipping down the political agenda, as Western governments try to prop up their economies with austerity measures. The world’s governments, including our own, who were supposed to be agreeing on a new climate deal for the planet before the lapsing of the provisions of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (it ends in 2012) are now talking about getting a new agreement together by 2018 or even 2020.
But if the IEA’s predictions are correct – and it doesn’t have a reputation for scaremongering – then that will be too late. The need for more investment in renewable energies is urgent and growing, yet funding for new technologies is declining at the moment, certainly here in the UK. Investment in nuclear energy has also declined in some countries since the Fukushima nuclear disaster earlier this year. Whilst I’m not 100% comfortable with nuclear energy, it at least has the advantage that it’s CO2 free.
According to the IEA, human activities across the planet produced 30.6 gigatonnes of CO2 in 2010, which is an increase of 1.6 gigatonnes on the CO2 emissions from the previous year. That CO2 will have a warming effect on our planet for about a century. It’s easy to see how that growth in CO2 emissions, if it continues is going to be catastrophic.
And it’s not just here in the West that we need to focus on our CO2 emissions. In China, where CO2 emissions per head have historically been much lower than ours, things are changing. Its growing economy, with all the energy requirements that brings, means that in about four years time, its CO2 emissions per person will outstrip those of European nations, according to the IEA.
So the world’s governments need to act together to sort out the mess and they need to do it very soon. Today would be good (but not likely). New gas and coal fired power stations are not the answer. They will emit CO2 for decades to come. We need low carbon, or preferably carbon-free energy generation and we need it very soon – not in 2020 or beyond.
We have to give renewables – solar, wind, tidal, wave, biomass et al. – the chance to work and to do that will take investment at government level. If we don’t address the problem now, the chaos we’ll have to deal with later – rising sea levels, large areas of the planet uninhabitable, mass migrations and probably wars – will make us realise that we should have acted when we had the chance.
Urgent need to reduce our CO2 emissions
A report issued by the International Energy Agency today has warned that we have only a very short time left to curb our carbon emissions and keep the world’s predicted warming to 2 degrees Centigrade over pre-industrialised levels. By as soon as 2017, we may have reached the maximum level of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) permitted in order to keep temperature increases below that critical two degrees. That limit is estimated as being 450 parts per million CO2. We’re already up to 390 ppm.
In the midst of the global economic crisis, the dangers of climate change seem to be slipping down the political agenda, as Western governments try to prop up their economies with austerity measures. The world’s governments, including our own, who were supposed to be agreeing on a new climate deal for the planet before the lapsing of the provisions of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (it ends in 2012) are now talking about getting a new agreement together by 2018 or even 2020.
But if the IEA’s predictions are correct – and it doesn’t have a reputation for scaremongering – then that will be too late. The need for more investment in renewable energies is urgent and growing, yet funding for new technologies is declining at the moment, certainly here in the UK. Investment in nuclear energy has also declined in some countries since the Fukushima nuclear disaster earlier this year. Whilst I’m not 100% comfortable with nuclear energy, it at least has the advantage that it’s CO2 free.
According to the IEA, human activities across the planet produced 30.6 gigatonnes of CO2 in 2010, which is an increase of 1.6 gigatonnes on the CO2 emissions from the previous year. That CO2 will have a warming effect on our planet for about a century. It’s easy to see how that growth in CO2 emissions, if it continues is going to be catastrophic.
And it’s not just here in the West that we need to focus on our CO2 emissions. In China, where CO2 emissions per head have historically been much lower than ours, things are changing. Its growing economy, with all the energy requirements that brings, means that in about four years time, its CO2 emissions per person will outstrip those of European nations, according to the IEA.
So the world’s governments need to act together to sort out the mess and they need to do it very soon. Today would be good (but not likely). New gas and coal fired power stations are not the answer. They will emit CO2 for decades to come. We need low carbon, or preferably carbon-free energy generation and we need it very soon – not in 2020 or beyond.
We have to give renewables – solar, wind, tidal, wave, biomass et al. – the chance to work and to do that will take investment at government level. If we don’t address the problem now, the chaos we’ll have to deal with later – rising sea levels, large areas of the planet uninhabitable, mass migrations and probably wars – will make us realise that we should have acted when we had the chance.