Study: $45 trillion needed to combat warming

[hongi]

Study: $45 trillion needed to combat warming

The world needs to invest $45 trillion in energy in coming decades, build some 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to an energy study released Friday.

The report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency envisions a "energy revolution" that would greatly reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels while maintaining steady economic growth.

"Meeting this target of 50 percent cut in emissions represents a formidable challenge, and we would require immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale," IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said.

A U.N.-network of scientists concluded last year that emissions have to be cut by at least half by 2050 to avoid an increase in world temperatures of between 3.6 and 4.2 degrees above pre-18th century levels.

Scientists say temperature increases beyond that could trigger devastating effects, such as widespread loss of species, famines and droughts, and swamping of heavily populated coastal areas by rising oceans.

Environment ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and Russia backed the 50 percent target in a meeting in Japan last month and called for it to be officially endorsed at the G-8 summit in July.

The IEA report mapped out two main scenarios: one in which emissions are reduced to 2005 levels by 2050, and a second that would bring them to half of 2005 levels by mid-century.

The scenario for deeper cuts would require massive investment in energy technology development and deployment, a wide-ranging campaign to dramatically increase energy efficiency, and a wholesale shift to renewable sources of energy.

Assuming an average 3.3 percent global economic growth over the 2010-2050 period, governments and the private sector would have to make additional investments of $45 trillion in energy, or 1.1 percent of the world's gross domestic product, the report said.

That would be an investment more than three times the current size of the entire U.S. economy.

The second scenario also calls for an accelerated ramping up of development of so-called "carbon capture and storage" technology allowing coal-powered power plants to catch emissions and inject them underground.

The study said that an average of 35 coal-powered plants and 20 gas-powered power plants would have to be fitted with carbon capture and storage equipment each year between 2010 and 2050.

In addition, the world would have to construct 32 new nuclear power plants each year, and wind-power turbines would have to be increased by 17,000 units annually. Nations would have to achieve an eight-fold reduction in carbon intensity — the amount of carbon needed to produce a unit of energy — in the transport sector.

Such action would drastically reduce oil demand to 27 percent of 2005 demand. Failure to act would lead to a doubling of energy demand and a 130 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, IEA officials said.

"This development is clearly not sustainable," said Dolf Gielen, an IEA energy analyst and leader for the project.

Gielen said most of the $45 trillion forecast investment — about $27 trillion — would be borne by developing countries, which will be responsible for two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Most of the money would be in the commercialization of energy technologies developed by governments and the private sector.

"If industry is convinced there will be policy for serious, deep CO2 emission cuts, then these investments will be made by the private sector," Gielen said.

No one said it was gonna be easy, but the enormity of the task is well...enormous.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Who is going to pay for that? Answer that, and I may be less inclined to laugh off such projections.

[Andrew J.]

Even if it's by 2050 that still means over a trillion a year on average. Maybe if GW problems get serious enough obviously bad for western countries such a spending rate might happen, but that's quite a long shot.

[The Vortex Empire]

Emissions cut in half by 2050? Not good enough. And where's the money going to come from?

[Sarevok]

Even if it's by 2050 that still means over a trillion a year on average. Maybe if GW problems get serious enough obviously bad for western countries such a spending rate might happen, but that's quite a long shot.

Even if the problem gets severe you still have to convince the global warming "debunkers" that the problem is man made and active effort on man's part is needed to fix it.

[Surlethe]

$45 trillion to curb emissions by 50% by 2050? Not going to happen. Especially not while the world economy is adjusting to high oil prices. It's time to stop trying to prevent further global warming, folks, and start worrying about how we're going to build the dikes and weather the storms and droughts.

[Admiral Valdemar]

$45 trillion to curb emissions by 50% by 2050? Not going to happen. Especially not while the world economy is adjusting to high oil prices. It's time to stop trying to prevent further global warming, folks, and start worrying about how we're going to build the dikes and weather the storms and droughts.

I doubt you'll see that either in much abundance. NO's dikes are apparently leaking because of shoddy work and that's after billions in trying to save the city again. The fight against climate change is going to die a death before it ever got into the ring, I just don't see people going "Sure, bring on green taxes" while they suffer increasing food and fuel costs with a destabilised economy. Remember, a great many people in the world don't even believe this thing is a threat, and they sure as hell aren't going to throw money at a problem they either don't understand or don't care about.

It's depressing, because this is yet another preventable problem we're steaming into without hesitation. If we had the paranoia surrounding nuclear war pumped into this thing, we'd have solved it already.

[Darth Wong]

Well, at least there's the poetic justice that the regions of the United States most likely to support the Republican anti-environmental agenda are going to be the ones who take it in the crotch.

[Broomstick]

No one is going to "combat" global warming. No one is going to deliberately cut emissions. The climate change is not only going to happen, it IS happening right now.

The only question now is how we're going to adapt (or not).

[Admiral Valdemar]

Looking at the latest from Cryosphere...

It's becoming abundantly clear that not only was the IPCC horrendously wrong, we're also seeing far less people budge on this situation. So, we have pathetic 50% cuts by 2050 (which will bankrupt us) to go with accelerating climatological shift.

Great.

[wautd]

Study: $45 trillion needed to combat warming

The world needs to invest $45 trillion in energy in coming decades, build some 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to an energy study released Friday.

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Yeah, I'm totally see that happening... Not.
Since when has the scientific community became nothing more than an intrest group?

[Zablorg]

I'm really not sure why this is such a new idea to everyone. I don't think it would be too forward to assume that just about everyone here is acutely aware of just how deeply humanities mighty wang has penetrated the very core of our planets anus. To give a report on how much money it would be required to "combat" such a problem is about as relevant as reporting just how much money it would take to design and construct a human teleporter.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Study: $45 trillion needed to combat warming

The world needs to invest $45 trillion in energy in coming decades, build some 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to an energy study released Friday.

.

Yeah, I'm totally see that happening... Not.
Since when has the scientific community became nothing more than an intrest group?

SInce when does "we need to do this and invest this much in order to solve X problem" becoming an interest group?

Scientists have been warning the public about this for decades, hell Arrhenius started talking about it what, a century ago?

It wont happen, because we waited too long to respond, and people are fucking idiots. But that does not change the fact that to solve the problem, we need to actually invest money. What? You thought that saving our own skins would be cheap?

[Admiral Valdemar]

No, no, no. You've got it wrong. This is all a ploy over the last couple of years by the governments of the world to squeeze yet more tax from us poor citizens.

They're not dictating to me what car I drive. Only the oil god does that.

[Alyrium Denryle]

No, no, no. You've got it wrong. This is all a ploy over the last couple of years by the governments of the world to squeeze yet more tax from us poor citizens.

They're not dictating to me what car I drive. Only the oil god does that.

Heh... the invisible hand of god...

Frankly, I am a big fan of coercive social systems. It is fairly obvious that the free market approach is bullshit, people are not forward looking rational actors (behavioral ecologists have known this for some time) and it is time we stop operating as if we are. We WILL dictate to you what car you drive, we WILL dictate to you how much CO2 you can emit in said car. Oh, and we will cap and trade carbon credits.

[Surlethe]

Frankly, I am a big fan of coercive social systems. It is fairly obvious that the free market approach is bullshit, people are not forward looking rational actors (behavioral ecologists have known this for some time) and it is time we stop operating as if we are. We WILL dictate to you what car you drive, we WILL dictate to you how much CO2 you can emit in said car.

This doesn't seem practical if you want to maintain basic human rights. For example, how would you prevent abuse of your coercive social system?

Oh, and we will cap and trade carbon credits.

If you're a big fan of coercion, why let companies trade?

[Alyrium Denryle]

This doesn't seem practical if you want to maintain basic human rights. For example, how would you prevent abuse of your coercive social system?

I was speaking in hyperbole. The point being that unless we actually set hard and fast regulations, nothing will get done. I have a friend who refuses to go electric because he likes the Vroom sound of a gasoline engine...

It is fucking ridiculous.

If you're a big fan of coercion, why let companies trade?

Because it is a good way around the whole "what about third world countries!?" objection to such systems. The caveat being that the net number of carbon credits does not change.

[Illuminatus Primus]

No way on God's green Earth you can enforce cap-and-trade systems in a First World country with an effective state regulatory apparatus. You want to do so over the entire globe, and include and attempt to hold to equal standard some of the most dysfunctional, opaque, and corrupt states on Earth? Good luck.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The one uniting element in all of these events that retards progress is humanity.

No people, no problem. That Stalin was on to something, methinks. Oh, but I do so love the company of fellow humans.

We can enjoy the melodrama of end days in unison. I'm sure finger pointing will become a far more common thing than it is today.

[Guardsman Bass]

No way on God's green Earth you can enforce cap-and-trade systems in a First World country with an effective state regulatory apparatus. You want to do so over the entire globe, and include and attempt to hold to equal standard some of the most dysfunctional, opaque, and corrupt states on Earth? Good luck.

That's not entirely accurate. There's been a reasonably successful Sulfur Dioxide trading program in the United States for the past decade.

[Drooling Iguana]

Who is going to pay for that? Answer that, and I may be less inclined to laugh off such projections.

Get the whole world into it and it's only about $7000 each over a period of decades. I could certainly afford that.

Of course, the whole world won't be into it so the price goes up for those of us who are, but it doesn't seem too bad if things are spaced out a bit.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Get the whole world into it and it's only about $7000 each over a period of decades. I could certainly afford that.

Of course, the whole world won't be into it so the price goes up for those of us who are, but it doesn't seem too bad if things are spaced out a bit.

50% reductions by 2050 is pathetic. We need to be at zero right now to have any hope of staving off catastrophic levels of carbon forcing in the system.

That, I can assure you, has no price attached. It is priceless.

[Broomstick]

Which is exactly why it will never happen.

If you live in a coastal area move to higher ground, if you're in a warm climate move towards the poles, and regardless try to figure out your survival strategy.

[Justforfun000]

When are we generally estimated to see some major effects of global warming? Not that we haven't had some already....but I mean particularly obvious and catastrophic events affecting large swaths of the human population?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Hansen believes that by around 2013, we may see the positive feedbacks from the dwindling Arctic ice cover really kick in. Given the way that ice is disappearing now, we may get to test that hypothesis sooner rather than later. An albedo change that big and that suddenly would only play chaos with surrounding atmospheric and oceanic flows.