Its Getting Hot in Here

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the largest, most complex collaboration of people working together on a common problem from all over the world. The scientists involved with this work received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for their work. The IPCC process is not perfect; finalizing all of the findings takes a lot of time and then the final report needs to be reviewed by the respective scientists' home countries. They issued their 4th major report in 2007, which reflected work that was completed a few years prior. In the meantime, many hundreds of papers have been published about human-induced climate change. The next full report is not due out until 2013.

A group of scientists from IPCC just released an updated report that synthesizes the most current policy-relevant climate science. The report has been purposefully written with a target readership of policy-makers, stakeholders, the media and the broader public and is being released just in advance of the major negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

The key findings from the report are easy to summarize, but the implications are troubling:

Here's more sobering news from the report:

• The Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets and Arctic sea-ice are are melting at a rate much greater than the average projection from the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

• Global sea-level rise may exceed 3 feet by 2100, with a rise of up to 6 feet considered an upper limit by this time. This is also higher than previously projected.

• Beyond 2100, sea level rise of 5-10 feet must be expected over the next few centuries.

• In 2008 carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were ~40% higher than those in 1990. Even if emissions do not grow beyond today’s levels, within just 20 years the world will have used up the allowable emissions to have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius.

These leading scientists tell us the turning point must come much sooner than any leading politician is willing to state. We need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. The world has to transition to a post-carbon economy (meaning near zero emissions) by 2050.

Why is this so important? Several vulnerable elements in the climate system such as ice sheets and rain forests could be pushed towards critical thresholds (“tipping points”)if temperatures continue to rise. The Copenhagen Diagnosis reminds us that "Waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized." No credible description of the post-tipping point scenario exists because scientists don't like to speculate - they only want to deal in verifiable, observable phenonoma. All we know is that if run-away climate change happens it will be much worse than the already-terrifiying scenarios described above.

To give you another dose of reality, let's look at recent US pronouncements about emissions reductions targets. The Obama administration offered to curb US emissions by 17 percent by 2020. The EU countries have already had this pledge for years and now we are finally catching up, right? Well, not exactly. Obama's pledge is against a 2005 baseline, whereas the EU goals is against a baseline of 1990. What Obama has offered is only cut emissions between 4-7 percent as compared to 1990, a level that is wholly inadequate to avoid the tipping points. It is a start, but is not nearly enough.

In future posts I will be discussing the (lack of) progress of climate change legislation in the US and the pivotal role that a handful of conservative Senators have played in preventing any meaningful progress towards achieving a sustainable future for our successors.