Don't Put All your Eggs in One Basket, Urges IPCC
Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said October 8 in a new assessment. It warns that the global economy is putting too much faith in carbon capture and storage's ability to remove CO2 from the air, without yet having road-tested it at sufficient scale.
Its Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C was approved by the IPCC October 6 at Incheon, South Korea. It will be a key scientific input into the Katowice UN climate change conference in December, when governments review the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change.
"One of the key messages that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice," said Panmao Zhai, co-chair of IPCC Working Group I and a professor of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences.
Thus by 2100, the report forecasts global sea level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C. The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once per century with global warming of 1.5°C, compared with at least once per decade with 2°C. Coral reefs would decline by 70-90% with global warming of 1.5°C, whereas virtually all die with 2°C.
"Rapid and far-reaching" transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities would be required to cap global warming at 1.5°C, with global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) having to fall by some 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching 'net zero' around 2050 - meaning any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air.
"Limiting warming to 1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes," said Jim Skea, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III and a professor of sustainable energy at London’s Imperial College.
CCS and investment in New Energies
Allowing the global temperature to temporarily exceed or 'overshoot' 1.5°C would mean a greater reliance on techniques that remove CO2 from the air to return global temperature to below 1.5°C by 2100, the report adds: “The effectiveness of such techniques is unproven at large scale and some may carry significant risks for sustainable development.” Skea told a London climate change forum in April that capture and storage (CCS) needs to be deployed and running at full scale as soon as possible for even a chance at limiting global warming to 1.5ᵒC.
Ninety-one authors of 44 citizenships and 40 countries of residence co-wrote the report, with contributions from a further 133.
Facing criticism about oil majors’ profits at a time when energy needs to be decarbonised, a Shell representative told BBC Radio 4 that Shell built and operates one of the only 18 CCS units working today and -like other majors – was stepping up investment in New Energies, which either decarbonise and/or modernise energy use, and to enable cleaner gas production to substitute coal in power generation. In February 2018 Shell CEO Ben van Beurden committed to invest $1bn-$2bn/yr in such New Energies out to to the end of this decade. But for all their multi-annual targets, neither Shell nor BP succeeded in reducing gas flaring year on year in 2017.
A 14-company alliance, the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) which also includes US majors too, has yet to follow through on a 2016 pledge to invest an extra $1bn by 2026 on schemes like CCS.
EU welcomes report
EU research commissioner Carlos Moedas and his energy/climate change colleague Miguel Arias Canete jointly October 8 welcomed the IPCC report, saying it provides policy-makers across the globe with a strong scientific basis for their efforts to modernise the economy, tackle climate change, promote sustainable development and eradicate poverty.
"The EU has been at the forefront of addressing the underlying root causes of climate change and strengthening a concerted global response to it in the framework of the Paris Agreement. Taking the valuable input from the report into account, the Commission is working towards presenting in November a proposal for an EU strategy for long-term greenhouse gas emission reduction. It will be a comprehensive vision for the modernisation of our economy, our industries and our financial sector. The EU will work to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in-line with the Paris Agreement's temperature goals, and to make our economy more modern, innovative, competitive and resilient." The EU will continue to work to address those challenges and expect others to follow. All parties must step up efforts from the pledges made under the Paris Agreement," they said in a statement.
UK union calls for more hydrogen
In the UK, the energy workers' union GMB called on the government to step up investment in hydrogen to decarbonise the UK gas network as a top priority, as it responded to the report.
“Hydrogen is a solution that will benefit the 26mn UK homes using gas for heating and cooking, those working in the gas industry and crucially it can reduce emissions from central heating by 73%. Meanwhile Britain still needs at least five new low carbon nuclear power stations if we are to meet our energy needs and reduce our dependency on foreign imports of power whilst ensuring we have the reliable electricity that comes from very low carbon nuclear, and lower carbon gas, to complement our growing renewable energy sources," it said.
“GMB is calling on the UK government to step up investment in hydrogen to decarbonise the UK gas network as a top priority.
It said that for the 12 months up to 7 March 2018, every one in 5.6 days was a low wind day (65 days in total) when the output of the installed and connected wind turbines in the UK produced less than 10% of their installed and connected capacity for more than half of the day. And for 341 days in the year, solar output was below 10% of installed capacity for more than half of the day.