One small step for mankind

So the G8 nations are proposing an 80% cut in their CO2 emissions by 2050.

When I heard the news, I felt a weight I had been carrying for years lift partially, just for a moment. Perhaps our species will survive. Maybe even our civilisation will survive. The odds for both have just got a bit better. We have been driving the car towards the edge of the cliff, and have at last agreed to turn the wheel a bit.

But it's not enough. Here's why.

The idea is to avoid a rise of more than 2 degrees centigrade in average world temperatures compared to 1900 levels. That is reckoned to be the level above which there is serious risk of a tipping point being reached: of something catastrophic and irreversible, a positive feedback mechanism that sets off runaway warming.

Problem 1: even 2 degrees may well be unsafe. Specifically, the Greenland ice sheet will probably melt if temperatures in Greenland rise by more than 2.7 degrees. That would certainly qualify as a tipping point. And sadly, indications so far are that the temperature rises in polar regions are going to be more than the global average. So 2 degrees worldwide will probably mean 3 degrees in Greenland. Too much.

Problem 2: a cut of 80% by industrial countries would not anywhere near be matched by the rest of the world (they have just rejected a 50% target as I write). And recent research (figure 1.8 here) suggests that even a 70% cut overall would still leave us with a 16 to 43% chance of exceeding 2 degrees. Russian roulette with several chambers loaded.

Problem 3: talk is cheap, especially when it comes to making a promise your descendants will have to keep. Nobody seems to want to agree to any binding targets any time soonish, like 2020. The UK government is among those blowing the loudest about the need to do something, yet their record is a combination of pathetic (minimal funding for renewable energy, few incentives for people to get out of their cars) and downright counterproductive (major expansions to two of London's three airports). The result has been a minuscule reduction in the country's CO2 emissions. They try to make it look good by talking about "net" reductions, but it turns out that "net" means after discounting emissions they've traded away at a price that they and the rest of the EU set at a laughably low level by issuing too many permits. The planet's atmosphere really isn't interested in creative accounting.

But on the plus side, the current proposals are a whole lot better than what was agreed at Kyoto and then torpedoed by the US and Australia. Both those countries now have much more sensible leaders. And as more research is done and more of the present-day effects of climate change begin to bite, minds can only be concentrated further. We can hope for agreements in the future that really do reflect what the scientists tell us is needed.

There's a long way to go, but it's odd to feel the human species might have a future after all. Not a bad way to celebrate what Blogspot tells me is my hundredth post here.