The following is a re-post of “Why We Must Phase Out Coal Emissions,” originally posted to Solve Climate by Dr. James Hansen, 24 Nov 2009, which he had adapted from “Global Warming Time Bomb: Actions Needed to Avert Disaster,” a presentation that he made in Amsterdam on Oct. 26, 2009.
After 25 years, about half of it has been taken up by the land and ocean, mostly by the ocean. However, the ocean will not take up the full carbon dioxide emissions, because the carbon dioxide entering the ocean exerts a “back pressure” on the atmosphere — it can come back out. Until the excess carbon is deposited on the ocean floor as carbonate sediments, the ocean will not take up all of the fossil fuel emissions, and formation of those sediments takes thousands of years.
The climate and geophysical facts yield a remarkably well-defined and important conclusion. The story is summarized in the two parts of this figure.
What is economically recoverable depends strongly upon policies, e.g., whether fossil fuels are subsidized or, in contrast, a growing carbon price is adopted.
“The bar graph shows the carbon contained in all fossil fuels, with purple indicating portions that have already been burned. The blue portions are estimated economically recoverable reserves, which each have substantial uncertainty.”Coal: The IPCC reserve estimate for coal is almost surely too large, and even the World Energy Council (WEC) estimate may be too high. But there is more than enough coal to take the world far into the realm of dangerous climate change.
Oil & Gas: Oil and and gas reserves that are actually exploited might be kept closer to the IPCC estimates via a rising price on carbon emissions. The larger reserve estimates of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) may be realistic if a policy is pursued to extract every last drop of oil in the ground from public lands, off-shore areas, the deep ocean and polar regions.
Unconventional Fuels: Unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands, oil shale and methane hydrates, potentially contain an even greater amount of carbon, but most of these could be left in the ground — if a sufficiently high price on carbon emissions is established.
The important point is that atmospheric carbon dioxide will peak at a value somewhere in the range 400 ppm to 425 ppm — if coal emissions are phased out by 2030 and if unconventional fossil fuels are not used significantly.
Improved forestry and agricultural practices could bring carbon dioxide below 350 ppm by the end of this century via actions that draw down atmospheric CO2 — if IPCC estimates for oil and gas reserves are valid, meaning a sufficient price is placed on carbon emissions to discourage extraction of every last drop of oil and gas.
These graphs tell us unambiguously that we must phase out coal emissions rapidly, not develop the unconventional fossil fuels, and not even go after every last drop of oil on the planet if we want our children and grandchildren to have a chance of inheriting a planet that is not spiraling out of their control.
In reality, our governments are continuing to build new coal-fired power plants, develop unconventional fossil fuels, and encourage the search for more oil.
Instead of taking a strategic approach, governments pretend that they will solve the problem by setting “goals” for large emission reductions for some future date, say 80 percent by 2050 or some other target. They say that they will set “caps” on emissions to achieve the emission reductions.
Our governments are lying to us, or, if you want to be generous, they are kidding us. That is easy to prove.
“The second chart compares actual atmospheric carbon dioxide history with carbon cycle simulations based on a dynamic-sink pulse-response function representation of the Bern carbon cycle model (Joos et al., 1996; Kharecha and Hansen, 2008) …These graphs show how emissions will decline if coal use is phased out linearly over the next 20 years and if unconventional fossil fuels are prohibited. The two results (blue and red lines) are for the modest oil and gas reserves estimated by IPCC and for the larger reserves estimated by the United States Energy Information Agency.”With the small oil and gas reserves, depletion of those reserves will cause carbon emissions to fall to 20 percent of current emissions by 2050 and to 40 percent with the government estimates of oil and gas reserves. But that is assuming 100 percent coal phaseout and no use of unconventional fossil fuels. In reality, governments are not phasing out existing coal emissions, instead coal emissions are increasing. And governments are allowing unconventional fossil fuels to be developed.
Thus it is inconceivable that government “goals” or “targets” for carbon dioxide emission reduction will be met. Governments stating such goals are lying to the public with a straight face.
Preservation of a healthy planet, with a stable climate and containing most of today’s species, is technically feasible. But it requires prompt phase-out of coal emissions. And it requires a rising price on carbon — that is the only way that we can transition to the cleaner, healthier world beyond fossil fuels.
But what is actually happening? It is quite the opposite, despite the presence of many greenwashing politicians. Here is a representative nation — the United States.
Despite the rhetoric about a planet in peril, the reality is that fossil fuel companies are still calling the tune. We, the taxpayers, are still subsidizing fossil fuels. And fossil fuel companies are not made to pay for the damage that they do to human health or the planet’s health.
The present situation is analogous to that faced by Lincoln with slavery and Churchill with Nazism — the time for compromises and appeasement is over.
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“So a low-carbon economy,” opines Toronto Star Economic Columnist David Crane, “confronts Canada with the hard choice of allocating billions of dollars to subsidize the world’s dirtiest oil or investing in a different kind of economy based on innovation and knowledge in clean technologies.”
JEFF MCINTOSH/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO
“Huge trucks carry bitumen from Shell Oil‘s mining and extraction operations, known as Shell Albian Sands, near Fort McMurray, Alta.”
“The only practical way to avoid climate catastrophe,” states NASA’s leading climate scientist, “is to terminate emissions from the largest fossil fuel source: coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. If coal emissions are phased out between 2010 and 2030, global fossil fuel emissions would begin to fall rapidly.”
Hansen’s post is quite hopeful. Joe Romm observes that “on our current emissions path, we’re going to blow past 550 ppm, a doubling of CO2.”
Of course, where a doubling occurs depends upon your starting point. The pre-industrial range is commonly stated as 180-250 ppm, so if you take the bottom of the range, then we already have doubled the amount of C02 in the atmosphere.
The scientists debate upon the extent of climate sensitivity from such a doubling. The impact in terms of global heating could be anywhere an increase between 3-6 degrees Centigrade. Some of the inexactness to a forecast in global heating and when some of the feedback would occur is because tipping points are non-linear.
OTOH, there is general consensus that global heating is due to human cause. And, there is general consensus that we must divert from business-as-usual to mitigate the worst consequences of global heating. As Jerry Cope notes, Hansen’s work since 1981 “inspired the film An Inconvenient Truth and established the target of 350ppm as the ‘safe’ level of CO2 concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
James Hansen believes in hope. West Coast Climate Equity reposted his reply to the question: “Is there any real hope to the cutting of global carbon emissions?“
The WCCE focused upon the necessity to phase out coal and avoid use of unconventional fossil fuels. The will to do so depends upon the erosion of denial and governments facing up to the truth: “As long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, their use will continue and even increase on a global basis. Fossil fuels are cheapest because they are not made to pay for their effects on human health, the environment, and future climate.”
Nevertheless, I do believe that James Hansen also has something to teach us about hope…
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