The Second Number: 565 Gigatons
Scientists estimate that humans can pour roughly 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by midcentury and still have some reasonable hope of staying below two degrees. (“Reasonable,” in this case, means four chances in five, or somewhat worse odds than playing Russian roulette with a six-shooter.)
This idea of a global “carbon budget” emerged about a decade ago, as scientists began to calculate how much oil, coal and gas could still safely be burned. Since we’ve increased the Earth’s temperature by 0.8 degrees so far, we’re currently less than halfway to the target. But, in fact, computer models calculate that even if we stopped increasing CO2 now, the temperature would likely still rise another 0.8 degrees, as previously released carbon continues to overheat the atmosphere. That means we’re already three-quarters of the way to the two-degree target.
How good are these numbers? No one is insisting that they’re exact, but few dispute that they’re generally right. The 565-gigaton figure was derived from one of the most sophisticated computer-simulation models that have been built by climate scientists around the world over the past few decades. And the number is being further confirmed by the latest climate-simulation models currently being finalized in advance of the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Looking at them as they come in, they hardly differ at all,” says Tom Wigley, an Australian climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “There’s maybe 40 models in the data set now, compared with 20 before. But so far the numbers are pretty much the same. We’re just fine-tuning things. I don’t think much has changed over the last decade.” William Collins, a senior climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, agrees. “I think the results of this round of simulations will be quite similar,” he says. “We’re not getting any free lunch from additional understanding of the climate system.”
We’re not getting any free lunch from the world’s economies, either. With only a single year’s lull in 2009 at the height of the financial crisis, we’ve continued to pour record amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, year after year. In late May, the International Energy Agency published its latest figures – CO2 emissions last year rose to 31.6 gigatons, up 3.2 percent from the year before. America had a warm winter and converted more coal-fired power plants to natural gas, so its emissions fell slightly; China kept booming, so its carbon output (which recently surpassed the U.S.) rose 9.3 percent; the Japanese shut down their fleet of nukes post-Fukushima, so their emissions edged up 2.4 percent. “There have been efforts to use more renewable energy and improve energy efficiency,” said Corinne Le Quéré, who runs England’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. “But what this shows is that so far the effects have been marginal.” In fact, study after study predicts that carbon emissions will keep growing by roughly three percent a year – and at that rate, we’ll blow through our 565-gigaton allowance in 16 years, around the time today’s preschoolers will be graduating from high school. “The new data provide further evidence that the door to a two-degree trajectory is about to close,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist. In fact, he continued, “When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees.” That’s almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit, which would create a planet straight out of science fiction.
So, new data in hand, everyone at the Rio conference renewed their ritual calls for serious international action to move us back to a two-degree trajectory. The charade will continue in November, when the next Conference of the Parties (COP) of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change convenes in Qatar. This will be COP 18 – COP 1 was held in Berlin in 1995, and since then the process has accomplished essentially nothing. Even scientists, who are notoriously reluctant to speak out, are slowly overcoming their natural preference to simply provide data. “The message has been consistent for close to 30 years now,” Collins says with a wry laugh, “and we have the instrumentation and the computer power required to present the evidence in detail. If we choose to continue on our present course of action, it should be done with a full evaluation of the evidence the scientific community has presented.” He pauses, suddenly conscious of being on the record. “I should say, a fuller evaluation of the evidence.”
So far, though, such calls have had little effect. We’re in the same position we’ve been in for a quarter-century: scientific warning followed by political inaction. Among scientists speaking off the record, disgusted candor is the rule. One senior scientist told me, “You know those new cigarette packs, where governments make them put a picture of someone with a hole in their throats? Gas pumps should have something like that.”
The Third Number: 2,795 Gigatons
This number is the scariest of all – one that, for the first time, meshes the political and scientific dimensions of our dilemma. It was highlighted last summer by the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a team of London financial analysts and environmentalists who published a report in an effort to educate investors about the possible risks that climate change poses to their stock portfolios. The number describes the amount of carbon already contained in the proven coal and oil and gas reserves of the fossil-fuel companies, and the countries (think Venezuela or Kuwait) that act like fossil-fuel companies. In short, it’s the fossil fuel we’re currently planning to burn. And the key point is that this new number – 2,795 – is higher than 565. Five times higher.
The Carbon Tracker Initiative – led by James Leaton, an environmentalist who served as an adviser at the accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers – combed through proprietary databases to figure out how much oil, gas and coal the world’s major energy companies hold in reserve. The numbers aren’t perfect – they don’t fully reflect the recent surge in unconventional energy sources like shale gas, and they don’t accurately reflect coal reserves, which are subject to less stringent reporting requirements than oil and gas. But for the biggest companies, the figures are quite exact: If you burned everything in the inventories of Russia’s Lukoil and America’s ExxonMobil, for instance, which lead the list of oil and gas companies, each would release more than 40 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Which is exactly why this new number, 2,795 gigatons, is such a big deal. Think of two degrees Celsius as the legal drinking limit – equivalent to the 0.08 blood-alcohol level below which you might get away with driving home. The 565 gigatons is how many drinks you could have and still stay below that limit – the six beers, say, you might consume in an evening. And the 2,795 gigatons? That’s the three 12-packs the fossil-fuel industry has on the table, already opened and ready to pour.
Richard Betts of the MetOffice has recently spoken out against the scientificity of the 2C limit. Ralph Cicerone (who he…) has recently spoken out against the scientificity of talking about climate catastrophes.
I’m afraid somebody is denying the science here. And it is not me.
I certainly agree there’s nothing magical about 2°C, and the target has more to do with what’s possible in terms of policy than with science. That being said, you do need some sort of target that we can feasibly achieve, and 2°C is realistically the best we can do. It will be quasi miraculous if we limit global warming to 2°C at this point.
From a scientific perspective 2°C is probably way too risky, and the target should be lower. But since there’s almost no chance we can achieve a lower target, there’s not much point in setting ourselves up to fail.
Thank you Dana. I believe we’re stuck with 2C because that is what the UNFCCC says…
It’s when it is used for ‘terrifying’ purposes that I find it indigestible.
It’s a target or measure of how effective any measures are. What is terrifying is the fact that we are still discussing this subject as if it were the tactics at a football game!
Most scientists believe 2C is too high. What temperature would the so-called sceptics beileve is serious?
Whether or not 2°C is ‘terrifying’ is subjective. We don’t know what consequences will be triggered around 2°C average global warming. I would certainly call 3-4°C terrifying, and if we surpass 2°C, that’s where we’re headed.
He’s the president of the US National Academy of Sciences. It might have been exciting for you to discover a new person you’d never heard of on the Radio, but most of the Climate Crock readership is stateside and will know perfectly well who he is. It’s a little presumptuous of you to presume other people don’t know things just because you don’t.
But hey. I’m going to speak out against the usefulness of thinking of climate sensitivity to CO2 as an average over time.
But back in the real world, they’re all useful. We can have a long discussion about the details – but policy making requires targets, risk analysis requires the full spectrum of potential impacts, and until a better fudge comes along both require the best available mathematic fudge for arriving at ballpark figures.
I’m afraid it really is you who is lost in denial.
Jason! I’ve even put the three dots instead of a question mark! “Who he…” was a rhetorical expression! Anybody who doesn’t know who Ralph C is should be accompanied to the nearest door.
As for policymaking the last thing it needs is to be built around “terrifying” stuff. Last time that happened we’ve got the Iraq invasion of 2003 and the cretin administration that followed.
Nobody needs to be shown the door for not knowing someone or something.
It’s far more worrying when people pretend to know everything.
“As for policymaking the last thing it needs is to be built around “terrifying” stuff. Last time that happened we’ve got the Iraq invasion of 2003 and the cretin administration that followed.”
The cretin administration as you call it came in before the Iraq war though didn’t it? Bush II was voted in (sort of) in 2001 and then invaded Iraq in 2003 and was re-elected more convincingly in 2004 if memory serves.
Also very different situation taking action to invade nations based on dodgy intelligence vs taking action to slow and reduce the severity of Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating / Anthropogenic Global Warming based on many decades of solid scientific work and evidence gathered by climatologists from around the globe.
hmmm, oh yeah, the Iraq thing.
another thing that Al Gore got right –
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/gore/gore092302sp.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4383.htm
and for which climate deniers and the right wing in general
will never forgive him.
Steven – you haven’t refuted my point. No less than the NYRB years ago noticed the similarities between Dick Cheyne and the environmentalists in pivoting over the Precautionary Principle, whatever their specific differences.
I shall await for anybody around here to clearly state that policymaking should be built upon being “terrified”.
Cheney of course
Of course you are absolutley correct to suggest it is unscientific to talk of catastrophe because science being science, its meant to be about emotionless facts and we are meant to be dispassionate when we report our official findings.
However, as scientists, we are also human. Being human, the very big brain some of us evolved to be able to undertake scientific investigations also gave us the ability to foresee future consequences based on our scientific knowledge. We know what the thermal tolerance limits are of the foods we eat. We know the difference between productive soil and non-productive soil. We are able to measure the topography of the land and map where future coastlines will be. We can measure environmental flows and predict where seasonal water shortages will be. We can map the spatial expansion of infectious mosquito borne diseases. In essence we are able to see the future human catastrophe through scientific knowledge and discovery.
So, while the future won’t be a scientific catastrophe, it will be a human one. Scientific convention dictates dispassionate reporting in scientific writing but nowhere does scientific convention forbid us from being human and explaining to our fellow man the consequences of our human actions. Whether you like it or not, science and humanism go hand in hand in hand.
Unfortunately it is also human nature to want to be wilfully ignorant of future human catastrophe and find any flimsy excuse or weak argument that allows one to bury one’s head in the sand.
No, really, Cicerone did speak against the idea of a human catastrophe too.
Even if you believe in the direst projections, in the face of potential disaster it makes sense to get down to work like NASA with Apollo 13 instead of giving up like NASA with the last space shuttle Columbia mission.
“Even if you believe in the direst projections, in the face of potential disaster it makes sense to get down to work like NASA with Apollo 13 instead of giving up like NASA with the last space shuttle Columbia mission.”
Yes – but I don’t think theygave up on the Columbia during its last flight. It was lost before they ‘d really had time to realise they had a (real) problem.
(Some very few NASA staff had an inkling there *could* be a problem & were worried but the crew and mission control didn’t know that when it re-entered if I recall right.)
We’re in serious trouble HIRGO (human InducedRapid Global Overheating) ~wise and we shouldn’t give up. The more we do and the quicker we do it the better. But we’re already getting in serious trouble whatever steps we take.
Two degrees Celsius is a goal that came about following a lot of argument. Sure there are differences of opinion. Sure you can find a few people here or there that will disagree. That isn’t a scientific or rational way to approach a risk management problem, though.
To claim that you are not flat denying the science is patently ridiculous. Your past claim that mitigation is near impossible is ridiculous, likely driven by an economic worldview that does not permit anything pro-active to be done, consequences be damned. There are far more scientific recommendations outside of the UNFCC calling for prompt action, such as the National Academy of Sciences in nearly every developed country.
Do not ever try to act like you have the scientific or moral high ground on this issue, since you do not.
Basically what I gather from this article is that all we who understand and believe the science are going to get, is to say “I told you so” when the fecal matter hits the air circulation device. Not much of a consolation.
Thank you for sharing this.
I have also received the impression that we (the world community) are stuck in a holding pattern. And I think the reasons for this are incredibly complex.
I certainly don’t want to posit any one “cause” for this inertia but one thing I do think is very interesting and worth fuller investigation is the role of neo-conservatism and its firm rejection of the politics of post-1968 “new social movements.” I know this is not a novel suggestion, but I think that to be effective politically it is necessary to understand and undermine many of the epistemological positions (and prejudices) of neo-conservative parties in the West.
I recently read an article by Jurgen Habermas that dealt with neo-conservative epistemology and how neo-conservative intellectuals were very successful in the 1970s and 1980s in creating a climate of political resentment against those individuals and movements who, they felt, were undermining the structure of authority in western societies. My point in mentioning this is that in the mid-1980s Habermas was talking about the kind of opposition to social and ecological change we are still talking about now, but one gets the sense it has metastisized since then.
I think many of us are very familiar with the reaction on the political right to climate change: it is portrayed as a conspiracy; a communist/green plot; any attempt to radically alter or overthrow our established way of life and so on. All of this is akin to the cultural criticism neo-conservatives began developing in the 1970s and beyond.
Forgive my long-winded post. I just think that there is a great need for more social scientists, public intellectuals and even polemicists to join with climatologists in fighting the misinformation that comes from a whole series of faulty (and I think nefarious) assumptions on the political right.
well stated.
Thank you.
I wonder if anyone has done the math on how much Co2 would have to be created (owing to our current energy infrastructure) to completely shift to non Co2 energy sources if we started today. Initially the amounts would be very high,and decreasing more and more as fossil fuels are replaced.
I don’t think we have any rational choice but to try,but I suspect that it might just be that the 565 (and more) gigatons is unavoidable at this point.
Do the models account for methane, too, or just CO2? Forgive my ignorance – it’s just not mentioned. There are studies that fracking releases significant amounts of methane into the atmosphere – and all signs point to us increasing that practice. Plus, methane concentration is rising year-by-year like CO2.
Also, it’s silly to nitpick, but McKibben really thinks drinking six beers would put one at the legal limit? He’s either a serious heavyweight, or he doesn’t drink.
Hi Jim,
Re: “Also, it’s silly to nitpick, but McKibben really thinks drinking six beers would put one at the legal limit? He’s either a serious heavyweight, or he doesn’t drink.”
It’s a pity that McKibben was shooting from the hip on this. It has a negative impact on his credibility that he’s unaware of the well-established clinical science of the legal drinking limit.
See: http://www.drunkdrivingdefense.com/general/bac.htm
I’m going to guess that a slim man like McKibben weights 160 pounds. According to the chart linked to above, six beers would yield a total BAC of 0.141 or 0.06 above the legal limit. Even if he were to nurse his beers over the course of an evening, he’d still be considered legally drunk by the authorities.
Too bad all those pot-head editors at Rolling Stone didn’t catch this egregious fact error. The New Yorker wouldn’t have let this slip! [wink]
McKibben continues to look for imperial solutions to imperial predicaments. The only way to prevent runaway greenhouse is complete collapse of the industrial economy, as climate scientists have known for years. So, let’s get it done, on behalf all non-human species and future human generations.
Guy – if you market the idea also as a solution to all immigration problems (and it is), you might even get bipartisan support!
Economic alarmism isn’t needed, but level headed goals to reduce risks are certainly what we ought to go after.
I think you’re confusing thermodynamic facts with economic alarmism. It’s a common mistake among the scientifically illiterate.
I’m not sure what you are getting at with that statement. To claim that a complete collapse of the industrial economy is required to meet emissions reduction targets is not a thermodynamic fact, is it?
Guy,
Today, “The Queen Of Versailles” opens nationwide. Probably not quite as spectacularly as the Batman movie, but to my mind, this tale of wretched excess should be an object lesson in how the pursuit of the so-called American Dream is one of the most completely idiotic, mal-adaptive and utterly asinine aspects of life in America today.
http://hollywoodandfine.com/reviews/the-queen-of-versailles-downward-spiral/
The complete intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the U.S. is on display here. I’m not in favor of collapsing the industrial base. But I wouldn’t mind seeing the nonsensically wasteful lifestyles of the rich, mindless and idle like the Siegals considered fair game for extinction.
Yes, it is. Please read the excellent work by Tim Garrett at the University of Utah. His later work has confirmed his 2009 paper (link to press release in my comment above).
I read Garrett’s work – he’s saying that only collapse can prevent the high levels of greenhouse gas emissions except if 1) we implement alternatives at a heroic pace immediately, 2) an exceptionally high dense form of energy alternative can be found and implemented quickly, 3) everyone accepts a greatly reduced lifestyle voluntarily (I kind of do a wry chuckle with that one).
The problem with alternatives is that just doing a 1-to-1 replacement (which is incredibly hard as is) isn’t good enough if we want to reduce emissions and maintain our current quality of life – we’d have to do the 1-to-1 replacement plus the energy needs for that increase in growth. In an exponentially growing economy – this is very, very difficult to do.
Efficiency produces temporary gains at best – the gap tends to be filled in with a jump in economic growth requiring more energy growth.
From a broader perspective, the energy problem is our main issue, but we’re doing so many other things poorly that even fixing the energy issue will eventually lead to many other horrific scenarios (food production, water, resource conflict, etc.)
But it’s pretty morally daunting to root for collapse. In any realistic perspective, a lot of people will suffer greatly. I’m not convinced it would automatically lead to clean skies and and water, too. I think when people get very desperate, they’ll turn to anything. Europe deforested over centuries – we could do it in two decades if we needed the energy to cook food and keep warm in winter.
I’m personally not a fan of carbon taxing, cap-and-trade, and minor subsidies by themselves. We have to approach the energy issue with a war mentality – beyond climate change, there are the peak oil/coal/gas events – and both are pretty merciless ticking clocks. And the longer we wait, the steeper the climb.
Also => The Climate Change Tipping Point (NYT)
“Have we reached a tipping point that signals a climate disaster? Scientists are bringing mathematical rigor to find out.”
All these models have the same assumptions. Humans act in isolation guided by self driven desires, goaded by a system rigged to promote unhindered growth in consumption. Based on these assumptions, only economic collapse would reduce GHG emissions. However, this is a psychological, social, political, economic network. Ecological collapse can and should lead to the demise of a system that failed. And it will, simply because it’s tenets lack harmony and consistency with the natural world around us. Notice that even those who recognize our plight, are unconscious of the behavioral factors leading to it. To paraphrase Tom Friedman, everyone is acting like this revolution is a party, and their will be no suffering, no turmoil. Behind it all everyone is hoping they can continue to behave the same way. That means growth. Growth is impossible, at least growth of consumption of conventional commodities. So it is correct to say that sustainable energy and commodities are not the solution if they are driven by our present psychology. Behavior is part of the solution and the experiment of ego driven economics and marketing a la Bernazy has failed.