SEVEN YEARS TO SAVE THE PLANET

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SEVEN YEARS TO SAVE THE PLANET?

• Bill McGuire

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How others see us!
Sometimes you see beautiful people with no
brains. Sometimes you have ugly people who
are intelligent..like scientists
José Mourinho. Chelsea FC Manager BBC Online.
February 20th 2005
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Climate change its no joke
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Earth a natural greenhouse

• Visible radiation from the sun is easily
  transmitted through atmosphere
• Heats up the Earths surface resulting in
  re-radiation of long wave infra-red
• This is almost entirely absorbed by water vapour,
  carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in
  atmosphere

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Strengthening the Greenhouse Effect

• Three factors influence Greenhouse Effect
• Solar influx
• Albedo
• Atmospheric composition
• Only one has changed significantly over last 300
  years
• Carbon dioxide up 37
• Methane up 258
• Nitrous oxide up 17
• Tropospheric ozone up 35

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Greenhouse gases then and now

• Carbon dioxide levels
• 1663 279ppm
• 1970 325ppm
• 2007 387ppm
• 2005 rise of 2.6ppm one of highest
• Rising 4 x faster than in 1990s
• Highest for 800,000 y could soon be higher than
  for 20 million years
• Keeps Venus at snug 483º C

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Can we be certain that heating is caused by human
activities?
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Why Seven Years?

• 2007 IPCC report
• 50 80 percent cut by 2050 to avoid dangerous
  climate change
• Stabilisation by 2015
• Latest science 90 percent cut by 2050 not
  sufficient
• Zero-carbon world

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Where are we now?
2º C
2º C
Dangerous Climate Change (DCC) threshold?
Where next?
Where next?
Where next?
Where next?
Where next?
Where next?
1.34º C
ppm CO2
ppm CO2
ppm CO2
450
450
450
450
450
450
450
450
450
450
0.74º C
387
387
387
387
387
387
387
387
387
DCC threshold may be well below 450 ppm
UK Met Office study only 20 chance that
holding levels at 450 ppm would prevent a 2º C
rise
280
280
280
280
280
280
280
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Temperatures what next?
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Towards 2100AD
Late 21st Century
Early 21st Century
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Peak land temperature forecast

• Peak Temperatures expected to rise twice as fast
  as average temperatures
• Europe by 2040 normal by 2060 cool
• UK By 2050 2003 heat-wave every other year
• Australia by 2020 up to 32 more days with T
  above 35ºC
• By 2050, 84 more days
• By 2100
• 40º C peaks in southern Europe 50º C peaks in NE
  India and Australia
• Huge implications for water, food and energy

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UK 2050-80 worst-case
2080 Mean T rise 6 - 9º C
2080 Mean T rise 6 - 9º C
2050 Mean T rise 4 - 6º C
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Whats happening at the poles?

• Poles warming much faster than average
• Greenland temps 3ºC higher in past 20y
• Antarctic Peninsula warming 5x global average
  (2.5ºC in last 50y)
• In context worldwide T has varied just 2-3º C in
  last 10,000 years
• Threat of wholesale melting of Greenland Ice
  Sheet and fringing ice shelves in Antarctica

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The Larsen-B collapse

• Feb 2002 Area the size of Luxembourg
• Released 720 km3 of ice
• Biggest collapse since Ice Age
• Will not add to SL rise
• Ice on land now moving seawards up to 4x faster
• Antarctica losing 150 km3 ice a year
• WAIS has lost area equal to Lebanon in last 50
  years

Larsen-B collapse and break-up 2002
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Greenland on borrowed time?

• Arctic CO2 highest level for 50 million years
• Greenland ice melt area rapidly expanding
• Glaciers moving up to 15 km y some surging up to
  5 km in 90 minutes
• Break-up in 300 years
• Total rise
• Greenland 7 m
• WAIS ? 12 m
• Summer sea ice gone by 2013?

Expansion of summer melt zone Across Greenland
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A drowning world?
Rate for 1999 2004 3.7 0.2 mm y
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What now for sea-level?

• IPCC4A 50 probability major ice sheet loss
  cannot be avoided
• 1 in 2m rise this century and several more next?
• Major implications for all coastal towns and
  cities
• Nuclear installations
• 1 m rise threatens 1 billion people 1/3
  worlds agricultural land
• 1mm rise ? 1.5 m coastline retreat

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..and worse!

• Penultimate interglacial (130,000 y BP)
• T1ºC higher than now
• Sea level 4 2m higher
• Pliocene ( 3 million y before present)
• T 3ºC higher than now
• Sea level 25 10 m higher
• Long-term (centuries?) maintenance of atmospheric
  CO2 above 350 ppm could result in 70 m rise

70 m
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Wild weather

• Weather hazards
• 90 of natural disasters
• 60 of deaths
• More extreme weather events of all types ?
• Dry places drier wet places wetter
• More extreme Monsoon
• Prolonged severe drought in Africa, Australia,
  central US, southern Europe/UK
• Desert expansion in North Africa, southern Europe

New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
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Water, water, everywhere

• Annual number of major floods up from 100 in
  early 90s to 250 in recent years
• 2ºC rise
• increased flood risk for between 1 5 billion
  people
• UK intense winter rainfall becoming increasingly
  common since 1900
• 350,000 UK properties built in flood plain in
  last 20 years

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A stormier world

• Atlantic hurricane losses last year USD60
  billion
• Rise in Atlantic hurricane activity linked to
  warming oceans
• Season longer and area affected greater
• Worldwide may already be twice as many intense
  TCs as 30 y ago
• UK twice as stormy as 50 years ago
• More intense European storms predicted

Super-typhoon Tip 1979 305 km h winds 2,200 km
across
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March of the mosquito

• Malaria kills 1.5 million a year
• Up to 340 million more at risk due to climate
  change
• Suitable breeding conditions in Europe (incl
  parts of UK) by 2050
• Northward spread of malaria, Dengue Fever, Yellow
  Fever, West Nile virus etc
• airport disease
• 1999, mosquito(s) carrying West Nile Virus
  arrived at NY
• Since 21,000 infected and 800 dead

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Deserts on the move

• 427 million people around Med will ? by 100
  million by 2030
• 300,000 km2 southern Europe threatened by deserts
  (area gt UK home to 16 million people)
• Similar problems in US, Australia, China and
  elsewhere
• India gt 50 already desert significant
  expansion by 2030
• China gt27 desert. Gobi expanding by 3,600 sq km
  y

China Gobi Desert advance
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Water the new oil

• One third of worlds population already suffering
  water shortages
• By 2020 water consumption up 40
• By 2025, 2 in 3 people living under
  water-stressed conditions
• Major implications for food security, energy,
  civil strife and international conflict
• Cross-boundary disputes on 260 river systems
• UN identifies 158 water war flashpoints
• South SE Asia Middle East East and North
  Africa

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The Asian water catastrophe

• Tibetan Plateau glaciers
• Feed main Asian river systems on which depend 40
  of global population
• Ice fields shrunk by 200 square km in 40 years
• Business as usual scenario
• By 2035, 80 percent of Himalayan glaciers that
  supply half Chinas population could be gone
• Glaciers gone by 2050?

Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau
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The crop crunch

• Climate change is driving a growing global food
  crisis
• Reduced water availability
• Desert expansion
• Sea-level rise
• Compounded by
• Population growth
• Environmental degradation
• Biofuel expansion
• Supplies are at a 50 year low
• Situation is progressively worsening

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Famine in a warmer world

• Tropics and sub-tropics especially susceptible to
  climate change
• Host to 3 billion people
• Climate change 20 40 reduction in yield of
  staple crops (rice and maize)
• 2050 global food production could be 25 down
• Half the world predicted to face serious food
  shortages by 2100
• Africa Asia South America
• no-one immune

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The Perfect Storm

• By 2030 the world will need
• 50 percent more food
• 50 percent more energy
• 30 percent more water

2030 a perfect storm of food shortages, scarce
water and insufficient energy resources Professor
John Beddington Government Chief Scientist
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How bad can things get?

• If all conventional hydrocarbons burnt ? average
  7º C temperature rise
• If unconventional sources (tar sands clathrates)
  included ? 13º C
• Hotter than for 50 M y
• Augmented by positive feedback effects
• Oceans, soils and plants become carbon sources
  rather than sinks
• 350 ppm for few centuries could melt all polar ice

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What are we doing?

• NOTHING!
• Soaring aviation and shipping emissions
• US emissions nearly doubled in last 15 y
• UK consumption of CO2 up 19 on 1990 levels
• China now the greatest carbon polluter
• Increasing demand for power could ? global
  emissions by
• 52 by 2030
• 30 (with renewables)
• At least 90 cut needed

1990s emissions rise averaged 1.1 2000-2004
emissions rise averaged 3.3 Observed trend is
worse than worst-case IPCC scenario
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A war on climate change

• Climate change makes war on terror the credit
  crunch pale into insignificance
• Carbon trading on open market cannot solve the
  problem
• Preventing DCC only possible if global community
  is placed on war footing
• Need to re-tool now for a low/zero carbon economy
• Cutting emissions has to take precedence over
  economic growth
• although not necessarily mutually exclusive
• Global renewables market USD2 trillion by 2020

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What should we be doing?

• Massive expansion of sustainable renewable energy
• Concentrating Solar Power
• Carrots or sticks to ensure tar sands and coal
  stay in ground
• Sun, wind and wave power can provide 2.3 million
  x current usage
• Smart HVDC grids
• Micro-generation
• Energy efficiency
• Technology transfer
• Reforestation drive
• Carbon capture?
• Nuclear? Geo-engineering?

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DESERTEC a sea-change in energy generation
http//www.desertec.org/concept.html
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What next..?

• Copenhagen Dec 2009
• All embracing commitment to emissions reduction
  framework
• Timetable of reductions and targets based on the
  science
• Failure likely to make DCC a foregone conclusion
• 90 percent of human population dead in 90 years?
• 5 months to save the planet as we know it?