QUICK NEWS, October 8: Climate Report 1 - New Energy “would have to increase to as much as 67 percent…” ...Climate Report 2 - “The transformation described in the document is breathtaking…”

Climate Report 1 - New Energy “would have to increase to as much as 67 percent…” Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040

Coral Davenport, October 7, 2018 (NY Times)

“A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has ‘no documented historic precedent’…[It] describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population…The authors found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty. Previous work had focused on estimating the damage if average temperatures were to rise by a larger number, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), because that was the threshold scientists previously considered for the most severe effects of climate change…The new report, however, shows that many of those effects will come much sooner, at the 2.7-degree mark…Avoiding the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years…[If not avoided, the] damage would come at a cost of $54 trillion…

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...[It remains] technically possible to achieve the rapid changes required to avoid 2.7 degrees of warming…[but heavy taxes or prices on carbon dioxide emissions] would be required…[That] would be almost politically impossible in the United States, the world’s largest economy and second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China. Lawmakers around the world, including in China, the European Union and California, have enacted carbon pricing programs…President Trump, who has mocked the science of human-caused climate change, has vowed to increase the burning of coal…Absent aggressive action, many effects once expected only several decades in the future will arrive by 2040…[To prevent 2.7 degrees of warming,] greenhouse pollution must be reduced by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050…[and] use of coal as an electricity source would have to drop from nearly 40 percent today to between 1 and 7 percent. Renewable energy such as wind and solar, which make up about 20 percent of the electricity mix today, would have to increase to as much as 67 percent…” click here for more

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Climate Report 2 - “The transformation described in the document is breathtaking…” The world has just over a decade to get climate change under control, U.N. scientists say; “There is no documented historic precedent" for the scale of changes required, the body found.

Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis, October 7, 2018 (Washington Post)

“The world stands on the brink of failure when it comes to holding global warming to moderate levels, and nations will need to take ‘unprecedented’ actions to cut their carbon emissions over the next decade, according to a landmark report by the top scientific body studying climate change…With global emissions showing few signs of slowing and the United States — the world’s second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide — rolling back a suite of Obama-era climate measures, the prospects for meeting the most ambitious goals of the 2015 Paris agreement look increasingly slim. To avoid racing past warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over preindustrial levels would require a ‘rapid and far-reaching’ transformation of human civilization at a magnitude that has never happened before, the group found.

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‘There is no documented historic precedent’ for the sweeping change to energy, transportation and other systems required to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius…[but] the report is being received with hope in some quarters because it affirms that 1.5 degrees Celsius is still possible — if emissions stopped today, for instance, the planet would not reach that temperature. It is also likely to galvanize even stronger climate action by focusing on 1.5 degrees Celsius, rather than 2 degrees, as a target that the world cannot afford to miss…The transformation described in the document is breathtaking, and the speed of change required raises inevitable questions about its feasibility…The upshot is that humans are allowed either 10 or 14 years of current emissions, and no more, for a two-thirds or better chance of avoiding 1.5 degrees Celsius…[T]he world’s percentage of electricity from renewables such as solar and wind power would have to jump from the current 24 percent to something more like 50 or 60 percent…” click here for more

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