The most important report you’ve never heard of...

Last week, the International Energy Agency released its World Energy Outlook. The media coverage that followed primarily the news about energy demand and growing emissions from China and India. Somewhat missed was the news about the rising concentrations of greenhouse gases and the threat of irreversible, worsening, catastrophic climate change. A bit of background first. Globally scientists are warning of “tipping points” -- climatic events that could, in and of themselves, threaten human civilization. Occasionally when I point out that climate change could end civilization as we know it, I am accused of exaggeration. But just try to imagine human societies bombarded with extreme weather event after extreme weather event -- floods, droughts, hurricanes, fires – one after the other. The wealthiest nation on earth could not cope with Hurricane Katrina. The impact of multiple, persistent climate disruption will push the socio-economic structure and human institutions to the breaking point. In early 2004, a surprising source began to publicize the risk of one such event, the U.S. Department of Defence, the Pentagon, released to Fortune magazine its analysis of the security implications of “a plausible scenario for abrupt climate change.” It suggested that it was plausible that the Gulf Stream could stall by 2010. This would be caused by rapidly melting polar ice changing the salinity of the ocean. The ice is fresh water and its release would push down on the more saline currents, slowing and potentially stopping the vast ocean conveyor belt of currents. If the Gulf Stream were to stall, the Pentagon study anticipated widespread social and institutional collapse as droughts led to collapses in food production, displaced environmental refugees pressed on other borders for resources, soil erosion increased and wind speeds across Texas picked up… the Pentagon study concluded that the risks of climate change were more significant than the risk of terrorism. The other two major sudden shocks that are currently getting a lot of attention are the potential for the Greenland Ice Sheet to melt as it is warming far more rapidly than scientists anticipated, and the potential collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet. The World Meteorological Organization reports that “melting glaciers in Greenland have revealed patches of land exposed for the first time in millions of years.” The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is enormous. It contains a mind-boggling 3.2 million cubic kilometers of ice, about ten percent of the world’s total ice. It appears to be weakening as warmer water is eroding its base. No one knows why the warmer water is there, or where it is coming from. It is not expected, but it is possible that the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet could collapse. If it does, the IPCC estimate of sea level rise (so far based on the increased volume of warmer water in a 2 X C02 world) would increase from 0.88 metres, by 2100, to 4-5 metres. Increasingly, scientists have tried to determine what level of greenhouse gas concentrations represent the upper limit before such events become likely. It is critical, most scientists say, to avoid allowing global average temperatures to increase to 2 degrees C above the pre-Industrial Revolution level. Two degrees doesn’t sound like much, but when one considers the temperature difference between 2007 and the last ice age was only five degrees Celsius, it is clear that 2 degrees is a lot. George Monbiot in Heat makes the point that is the climate goes to 2 degrees C, 3 degrees is a certainty… and at 3 degrees, 4 degrees is inevitable and so on. This is due to the acceleration of “positive feedback loops” -- warming water melting Arctic ice resulting in more open ocean being exposed, less albedo effect (white ice bouncing solar radiation back to space), allowing faster warming of Arctic Ocean water, melting ice faster… melting permafrost releasing methane, itself a powerful greenhouse gas, drier conditions leading to more forest fires, releasing carbon... in other words, we risk passing a “point of no return” beyond which our own reductions in emissions will be ineffective in halting the warming triggered by our emissions. It is in this context that the IEA report is sounding a very large and loud alarm (although no one seems to be hearing it). The IEA’s “Alternative Policy Scenario shows that measures currently being considered by governments around the world could lead to a stabilization of global emissions in the mid-2020s and cut their level in 2030 by 19% relative to the Reference Scenario. OECD emissions peak and begin to decline after 2015. Yet global emissions would still be 27% higher than in 2005. Assuming continued emissions reductions after 2030, the Alternative Policy Scenario projections are consistent with stabilization of long-term CO2-equivalent concentration in the atmosphere at about 550 ppm. According to the best estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this concentration would correspond to an increase in average temperature of around 3°C above pre-industrial levels. In order to limit the average increase in global temperatures to a maximum of 2.4°C, the smallest increase in any of the IPCC scenarios, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would need to be stabilized at around 450 ppm. To achieve this, CO2 emissions would need to peak by 2015 at the latest and to fall between 50% and 85% below 2000 levels by 2050. ….Exceptionally quick and vigorous policy action by all countries, and unprecedented technological advances, entailing substantial costs, would be needed to make this case a reality.” They go on to say “Urgent action is needed if greenhouse gas concentrations are to be stabilized at a level that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system.” Most importantly they state: “The primary scarcity facing the planet is not of natural resources nor money, but time.” So, it is official, confirming what the Green Party has been saying for years: we are running out of time. Canada’s targets under Stephen Harper will take us past the point of no return to escalating and dangerous levels of climate disaster. We do not have time for another Stephen Harper government. We do not have time for governments that think the climate crisis is a public relations issue or a political game. This is a life and death struggle. We are running out of time.