SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
1. A TARGET-BASED, LEAST-COST APPROACH TO CLIMATE STABILIZATION
2. IS CLIMATE STABILIZATION STILL FEASABLE?
3. CONTROL REQUIREMENTS FOR NONFOSSIL GREENHOUSE GASES
CONCLUSION
LIST OF REFERENCES
GLOSSARY
SUMMARY
The globe is warming and while no one knows what will happen as a result, it is clear that slowing the process is a necessary goal. Other studies have considered 'warming fates’; this one brings sophisticated computer modeling to bear on ways of minimizing the risks. Fossil carbon emissions, other trace gases and releases from other sources are all taken into account, and the authors demonstrate the global need to produce a budget for cumulative releases between now and the year 2100. They also demonstrate the need to return to a rate of forest carbon storage equal to that of the mid-1980s. These budgets look at issues of international equity and the ways of moving to a binding agreement. Chapter 1 reviews the current scientific understanding of the greenhouse effect, the history of the earth’s climate, and the expected impacts from global warming.
Chapter 2 presents climate-modeling calculations for emission scenarios of the major greenhouse gases. These calculations indicate what range of emission reductions would be needed to limit the risks of climate change to specified levels.
Chapter 3 analyzes reduction potentials for trace gases other than fossil carbon dioxide. The article shows the range of emission reductions that could be achieved on the basis of various technological options and policy measures.
The price of failure to control GHG emissions may be uncertain, but it will be more than anyone can afford. Political will lies at the root of successful climate stabilization and major capital and technology transfers to Third World countries will be needed if there is to be any chance of success.
INTRODUCTION
Despite recent progress in putting the threat of global warming onto the international agenda, the debate over the greenhouse effect continues to be shaped by two viewpoints: more research should be pursued to reduce scientific uncertainties and society should pursue investments and policies to minimize risks.
The scientific community is in complete agreement that the atmospheric greenhouse effect governs global temperature. Heat entrapment due to radiative forcing of gases is one of the oldest and most well-established experimental findings of modern science, going back 150 years. The greenhouse effect is the only basis on which the enormous differences in atmospheric temperatures and climate between planets.
There is also no debate in the scientific community that continuing rises in the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will lead to global warming.
Research could improve the modeling tools of scientists by measuring the geographical and biogeochemical processes that are involved in climate responses to greenhouse warming.
Society may not have the resources to hedge against all future environmental risks.
The societal side benefits of precautionary climate-stabilizing measures could be economic benefits in areas where status quo arrangements are blocking economic efficiency, environmental benefits in areas or social benefits in areas where reforms aimed at meeting basic human needs would dampen the release of greenhouse gases.
1. A TARGET-BASED, LEAST-COST APPROACH TO CLIMATE STABILIZATION
The realization that the emission of trace gases might change the climate of the planet goes back more than 150 years. Fourier was the first to discuss the CO2/greenhouse effect in 1827 by comparing it with the warming of air isolated under a glass plate.
In 1969 and 1970, a group of scientists undertook the first major studies on the climatic effects of human activities.
An important outcome of the studies was an urgent appeal to the world's nations to:
- take full advantage of man's present knowledge of climate;
- take steps to improve significantly that knowledge;
- foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity.
There was formulated a low-climate-risk energy strategy, which would promote the more efficient end use of energy; secure the expeditious development of energy sources that add little or no CO2, to the atmosphere and keep global fossil fuel use, emissions, at the present level.
Many countries started their own climate programs. In the United States, the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee of the National Academy of Sciences issued a major report and a four-volume report on the effects of changes in ozone and climate by the United Nations Environment Program.
The greenhouse effect has been known as a scientific possibility for more than a century. But only in the last two decades has this threat begun to be taken seriously, and only during the last two years have preventative measures entered the international political arena. Most scientific analysts now agree that the only way to address the greenhouse threat is to reduce the emissions that are the driving forces of global warming.
2. IS CLIMATE STABILIZATION STILL FEASIBLE?
The climate of the past can be assessed both by empirical studies based on observed data and by climate models. Assessment of the future climate response to radiative heating induced by greenhouse gases can only be done with mathematical models. These models are based on fundamental physical principles governing the climate system. Comprehensive climate response studies are conducted with interlinked submodels. The submodels describe the greenhouse response of the atmosphere, the thermal response of the oceans, and the diffusion and cycling of the various greenhouse gases in terrestrial, atmospheric, and ocean reservoirs.
Climate models come in various versions and degrees of complexity. The most sophisticated models are three-dimensional general circulation models, which allow some regional differentiation of climate change.
A change in the concentration of radiatively active trace gases results in a corresponding change in radiative forcing of the climate system. If there was no significant inertia in the climate system, as is the case for the atmosphere, a new equilibrium would be reached quickly. In reality, the heat capacity of the oceans and to a lesser degree other factors such as continental ice shields, buffer against surface warming. Eventually, if the trace gas concentrations remain constant, an equilibrium is reached which is characterized by an equilibrium global mean surface temperature. This temperature reflects the total warming commitment associated with greenhouse gas emissions.
At any point in time before equilibrium is reached between the oceans and the atmosphere, only a portion of the eventual warming is realized and thus observable in the temperature record. This realized warming, reflected in a transient global mean surface temperature is a function of the speed of heat absorption processes in the ocean.
3. CONTROL REQUIREMENTS FOR NONFOSSIL GREENHOUSE GASES
In recent years, the average growth rate of chlorofluorocarbon emissions has been about 5 percent per year. Due to the complex chemistry and long residence time of several of the CFCs in the atmosphere, major reductions in current release rates are required to stabilize atmospheric concentrations. The key initiatives for realizing such reductions will have to come from the industrialized countries. These countries currently account for about 95 percent of global releases.
Reducing CFC emissions will both prevent climate warming and avoid the impacts that ozone depletion would have on health, on agricultural productivity, and on the phytomass supporting marine life in the oceans. The need to control ozone depletion may impose even more stringent control requirements on these substances than the need to limit climate warming.
The need for a fresh approach to technology transfer is illustrated by conventional refrigerator technology. The saturation of refrigerators in the People's Republic of China has been increasing dramatically over the last decade and is projected to reach 60 percent soon. To avoid both the ozone-depleting impact of CFCs used in compressors and loam insulation, and reduce dramatically the greenhouse effect from use of these refrigerators. It is necessary to increase the energy efficiency of refrigerators drastically and eliminate insulating foam and compressor CFC releases from these units.
CONCLUSION
The most tangible guideline would be to limit warming on the basis of the adaptive capacity of forests.
Climate stabilization as follows:
- The average rate of global warming is to be limited as closely as possible to 0.1ºC per decade.
- The currently rising trend of global average surface temperatures from human activity is to be reduced to very small rates by the end of the next century.
- As an outer limit, temperature rise is to be limited to 2ºC relative to the present.
The explorations lead to the following major conclusions:
1) if actual climate response falls within the range of current model climate sensitivities, the goal of climate stabilization as defined in Chapter 1 could still be realized.
2) the maximum allowable equivalent CO2 concentrations in the next century would be 430 — 450 ppm, provided that concentrations decline again thereafter.
3) the range of emission scenarios under which this goal could be achieved is very narrow. It is roughly captured by trace-gas emissions as assumed in the low scenarios, and requires major and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
4) even the low scenario brings with it significant climatic risks, which are, however, probably unavoidable and must be tolerated.
5) middle-of-the-road scenarios that project moderate and slow changes in emission trends, including a transition to constant CO2 emissions at present or higher levels, will not meet stabilization requirements.
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