Tag Archives: ipcc

Survivable IPCC projections are based on science fiction – the reality is much worse Updated for 2026

The IPPC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published in their latest report, AR5, a set of ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ (RCP’s).

These RCP’s (see graph, right) consist of four scenarios that project global temperature rises based on different quantities of greenhouse gas concentrations.

The scenarios are assumed to all be linked directly to emissions scenarios. The more carbon we emit then the hotter it gets. Currently humanity is on the worst case scenario of RCP 8.5 which takes us to 2°C warming by mid century and 4°C warming by the end of the century.

As Professor Schellnhuber, from Potsdam Institute for Climate Research (PIK) said, “the difference between two and four degrees is human civilisation.”

In 2009 the International Union of Forest Research Organisations delivered a report to the UN that stated that the natural carbon sink of trees could be lost at a 2.5°C temperature increase.

The ranges for RCP 4.5 and RCP 6 both take us over 2.5°C and any idea that we can survive when the tree sink flips from being a carbon sink to a carbon source is delusional.

Where does this leave us?

Of the four shown RCP’s only one keeps us within the range that climate scientists regard as survivable. This is RCP 2.6 that has a projected temperature range of 0.9°C and 2.3°C.

Considering we are currently at 0.85°C above the preindustrial level of greenhouse gas concentrations, we are already entering the range and as Professor Martin Rees says: “I honestly would bet, sad though it is, that the annual CO2 emissions are going to rise year by year for at least the next 20 years and that will build up accumulative levels close to 500 parts per million.”

The recent US / China agreement supports Rees’s contentions. But even if Rees is wrong and we do manage to curtail our carbon emissions, a closer look at RCP 2.6 shows something much more disturbing.

In his image (see graph, right), IPCC SMP Expert Reviewer David Tattershall has inserted vertical red lines to mark the decades between years 2000 and 2100. Within this 21st Century range he has also highlighted a steep decline in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (shown by the steep declining thick red line).

It is interesting that concerted action for emissions reductions is timed to occur just beyond the date for the implementation of a supposed legally binding international agreement.

Stopping emissions does not reduce atmospheric carbon. The emissions to date are colossal and the warming effect is delayed by around 40 years. Therefore, even if we halt emissions, we know there is much more warming to come. That will also set off other positive feedbacks along the way that will amplify the warming further, stretching over centuries.

So how does the IPCC achieve these vast reductions in greenhouse gases?

If we look at the vertical red lines, at around 2025 the steep decline in atmospheric greenhouse gases begins. Accumulated emissions not only are reduced to zero in 2070 but actually go negative.

This chart shows that carbon is removed from the atmosphere in quantities of hundreds of billions of tonnes, for as far ahead as 2300 to sustain a temperature beneath 2°C.

What makes this idea of projected large-scale Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) even more perverse is the talk by policymakers of a “carbon budget”. This refers to the amount of fossil fuel that can be burned before we are at risk of reaching a 2°C rise in global mean temperature.

It is quite clear that we have no carbon budget whatsoever. The account, far from being in surplus, is horrendously overdrawn. To claim we have a few decades of safely burning coal, oil and gas is an utter nonsense.

Sequestering billions of tonnes of carbon for centuries

If all of the above has not raised any alarm bells then perhaps it is time to consider the proposed methods for sucking the billions of tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere.

In February 2015 the National Research Council in the United States launched their two reports on “climate interventions”. Dr Nutt concluded with this statement on CDR:

“Carbon Dioxide Removal strategies offer the potential to decrease carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere but they are limited right now by their slow response, by their inability to scale up and their high cost.”

Dr Nutt’s conclusion points to very important factor that we can elaborate on with a rare case of certainty. There is no proposed CDR technology that can be scaled up to suck billions of tonnes out of the Earth’s atmosphere. It simply does not exist in the real world.

This is reiterated by Dr Hugh Hunt in the Department of Engineering, at the University of Cambridge, who points out:

“10 billion tonnes a year of carbon sequestration? We don’t do anything on this planet on that scale. We don’t manufacture food on that scale, we don’t mine iron ore on that scale. We don’t even produce coal, oil or gas on that scale. Iron ore is below a billion tonnes a year! How are we going to create a technology, from scratch, a highly complicated technology, to the tune of 10 billion tonnes a year in the next 10 years?”

Science fiction

It is not just that there are currently no ideas being researched to such a degree where they are likely to be able to bring down atmospheric carbon to a safe level of around 300 parts per million. It is also that the level of funding available to the scientists doing the research is woefully inadequate.

These RCP’s are used by policymakers to decide what actions are required to sustain a safe climate for our own and future generations. The information they are using, presented by the IPCC, is nothing more than science fiction.

It makes for sober thinking when glossy images of President Obama and the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, are presented to the world shaking hands on global emissions reductions by 2030 that we know will commit us to catastrophe.

Nick Breeze is a film maker and writer on climate change and other environmental topics. He has been interviewing a range of experts relating to the field of climate change and science for over five years. These include interviews with Dr James Hansen, Professor Martin Rees, Professor James Lovelock, Dr Rowan Williams, Dr Natalia Shakhova, Dr Michael Mann, Dr Hugh Hunt, among others.

Additional articles can also be read on his blog Envisionation.

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Solar power is getting cheaper quicker than the IPCC thought Updated for 2026

IPCC figures are already out of date when it comes to the price of solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation, according to analysis by the Fraunhofer Institute.

The numbers suggest that the IPCC’s capital expenditure figures for solar PV – provided in a minimum / maximum range to account for the variations from country to country – are actually higher than recent figures for key regions, including Germany, China and the US.

This matters because policymakers will compare the costs of reducing emissions using solar and other technologies in the coming negotiations to reach a global climate deal.

So why are the figures somewhat overstating the cost of solar? Usually when calculating and comparing the cost of energy generation options – which the IPCC do all the time – the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) is used.

This the overall cost of each unit of power, and accounts for all the costs involved in generating the power: capital expenditure, operating costs, maintenance etc.

The Fraunhofer Institute has also been calculating the cost of different energy generation technologies for a number of years – levelled out to account for startup costs and subsequent operation and maintenance.

The most expensive bit – starting out – actually costs less now than the IPCC reports

It found the IPCC’s most recent levelised costs of electricity for solar may be based on much higher capital expenditure costs than is currently the case. Put simply, solar panels have got cheaper.

That means the ‘overnight capital expenditure’ of solar PV is significantly lower, both for small-scale, distributed models such as rooftop solar and for larger-scale solar infrastructure such as a solar thermal plant.

For example, you would only have to spend between $1,500-4,900 per kWp for rooftops installed with solar PV if you were using the Fraunhofer figures (on average), compared to the IPCC’s $2,200-5,300, which refer to the 2012 situation.

The figures fall even further when looking at utility-scale solar PV (think fields, with panels, and maybe sheep, or geese). The institute calculates that now, to start a solar plant the cost would be $1,300-3,300, rather than $1,700-4,300 as the IPCC had reported.

David de Jager, Managing Consultant at Ecofys and Operating Agent for the IEA-RETD agrees that the IPCC’s costs for solar are already outdated.

“Costs of solar photovoltaics have been declining so fast, that almost any publication will be outdated at the moment the ink has dried”, says de Jager who was involved with the IPCC report’s energy chapter as a Contributing Author. “The growing market will drive further cost reductions even further.”

Both minimum and maximum costs from the Fraunhofer ISE are lower than the most recent IPCC estimates from 2012, for both utility and rooftop capital expenditure.

Overall average cost levelled out across the life of the project is therefore also too high

If the capital expenditure figures are outdated, then the LCOE figure will also be calculated on an inaccurate basis, particularly because the capital expenditure for renewables is higher than fossil fuels like gas.

Economically it follows too that the cheaper installation gets, the cheaper the cost of solar gets overall, because of the much lower (and steady) operation and maintenance costs.

If the capital expenditure is higher than it should be, the levelised cost in solar-producing countries will also be higher.

The Fraunhofer institute have calculated the average cost of generating power from solar panels in a range of countries using the latest data. The ‘median’ cost of solar from the IPCC report is at the higher end of their LCOE values.

The IPCC looked at literature reflecting a wide range of PV-applications and regions. If you look at the key markets today, the study shows that PV costs are already at or below the low end of the range presented by IPCC.

Money for solar is cheaper too

Borrowing costs may also have been overstated by the IPCC, says Fraunhofer.

The IPCC uses a uniform 10% weighted average cost of capital so as to be able to compare costs across different energy generation methods which has a large impact on renewables because of their large up front capital costs.

Because the costs of borrowing capital in many parts of the world is cheap at the moment due to low interest rates – and certainly in places like Germany and the UK – this number may also therefore inflate the cost of installing solar.

In fact, loan finance for solar installations is readily available at 5% or less – half the assumed interest rate.

However it’s impossible to verify the PV cost figures actually used in the most recent IPCC report, published last weekend, as no actual figures are quoted. Rather, assumed costs are opaquely woven into ‘scenario’ models.

Helle Abelvik-Lawson blogs for Greenpeace UK. Her background is as an academic in energy and human rights, and she now reports on global energy issues.

This article was originally published by Greenpeace.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/newsdesk/energy/analysis/how-solar-power-getting-cheaper-quicker-ipcc-thought

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IPCC must speak out – we are creating a hell for future generations Updated for 2026

The headline statements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s new Synthesis Report – unequivocal climate change, almost certainly driven largely by humans, and an urgent need to cut emissions – won’t come as any surprise to people who paid attention to the three larger reports the IPCC has released over the past 14 months.

But reading the full synthesis report, as opposed to the shorter Summary for Policymakers (SPM), shows that while the facts haven’t changed, the IPCC has subtly altered its approach to how it presents this information.

Instead of dealing largely in forecasts and responses, as in previous syntheses, it now frames the climate problem squarely in terms of risk management.

Not everything of importance in the full synthesis report made it into the SPM. The language in the SPM is also weaker, particularly about the nature of irreversible risks and about threats to food security. The full report contains valuable pointers for managing climate risks and the benefits of acting, so should be preferred for decision-making purposes.

The report is also great for debunking some of the persistent myths about climate change, both scientific and economic. But, unfortunately given the urgent need for new economic policy to cut carbon, it’s stronger on the former than the latter.

Combating climate myths

The report is useful in addressing some of the misinformation flying around in political commentary and the popular press. These include the following:

Myth 1: climate action is a barrier to development, especially for the poor.

The report says:

“Risks … are generally greater for disadvantaged people and communities in countries at all levels of development. Limiting the effects of climate change is necessary to achieve sustainable development and equity, including poverty eradication.

“Substantial emissions reductions over the next few decades can reduce climate risks in the 21st century and beyond, increase prospects for effective adaptation, reduce the costs and challenges of mitigation in the longer term, and contribute to climate-resilient pathways for sustainable development.”

Myth 2: The planet hasn’t warmed since 1998.

The report says:

“Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence), with only about 1% stored in the atmosphere. It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0−700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010.

“The globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data as calculated by a linear trend, show a warming of 0.85C over the period 1880 to 2012. In addition to robust multi-decadal warming, the globally averaged surface temperature exhibits substantial decadal and interannual variability.

“As one example, the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998-2012; 0.05C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951-2012; 0.12C per decade).”

Myth 3: Coal will be the fuel of the future.

The report says:

“There are multiple mitigation pathways that are likely to limit warming to below 2C relative to pre-industrial levels. These pathways would require substantial emissions reductions over the next few decades and near zero emissions of CO₂ and other long-lived greenhouse gases by the end of the century.””

IPCC should make a stronger economic case for climate action

The one major omission from this report (which, to be fair, is also poorly represented in the research literature) is how the economic case for taking action can be better addressed.

The report contains an incomplete and flawed cost-benefit structure. Cost-benefit analysis is the standard method for assessing whether a policy is merited. It is used for short-term decision making but is totally unsuited to decisions over century-long time scales.

The lack of clear cost-benefit outcomes in this and previous reports has been used as a deny-and-delay tactic for the past two decades. This argument is nothing more than a red herring, and it’s getting very smelly.

The report pretty much admits the shortcomings of cost-benefit analysis, in the following two sentences:

“Methods of valuation from economic, social and ethical analysis are available to assist decision making. But they cannot identify a single best balance between mitigation, adaptation and residual climate impacts.”

Yet the report is perfectly clear on the physical risks to global-scale systems and the potential for total disruption of regional, national and international economies. It states:

“Without additional mitigation efforts beyond those in place today, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts globally.”

and:

“Climate change exacerbates other threats to social and natural systems, placing additional burdens particularly on the poor.”

What about the dystopian future we are creating?

There is no existing economic model that can assess the full costs of either of these outcomes adequately. When costing mitigation to keep likely warming below 2C, the report suggests an annual reduction of consumption growth by 0.04-0.14% over the century. This is against a backdrop of consumption growth of between 1.6% and 3% per year.

It’s ridiculous to suggest that severe, widespread, and irreversible climate impacts would cost us less than this. Much more likely is that these growth rates of 1.6% to 3%, if they were achievable and sustainable at all, would be severely disrupted by a changing climate.

The report could certainly afford to address this point more forcefully. It says:

“Effective decision making to limit climate change and its effects can be informed by a wide range of analytical approaches for evaluating expected risks and benefits, recognizing the importance of governance, ethical dimensions, equity, value judgments, economic assessments and diverse perceptions and responses to risk and uncertainty.”

But acting on climate is ultimately an ethical, not an economic, consideration. Insufficient policy action is a declaration of self-interest, condemning our children, grandchildren and the planetary system that supports them, to a dystopian future. That’s what the report should say.

Roger Jones is a Professorial Research Fellow at Victoria University. He was also a coordinating lead author in the Fifth Assessment Report and received a travel grant from the former Department of Climate Change to take part.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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