CLIMATE CHANGE: GOING BEYOND DANGEROUS

An article by Sarah J Pain, based on a lecture by Professor Kevin Anderson, University of Manchester

What is the reality of a 2°C future? Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Energy Programme, is regularly called on to give advice to government and industry stakeholders as well as contributing to wider public and policy forums. As part of the School of Engineering’s Andrew Little Series at Warwick, he exposed the reality and rhetoric surrounding climate change.

Professor Kevin Anderson’s message in his lecture, subtitled ‘brutal numbers and tenuous hope’, is harsh. The Copenhagen Accord’s target (2009) is “to hold the increase in global temperature below 2°C and to take action to meet this objective consistent with science and on the basis of equity”. We are failing to meet this, and the environmental, social and financial consequences of not doing so are severe. He asks, How do we ensure a good chance of staying below this threshold, what mitigation is necessary, and how do we split the carbon budget between Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 countries?

Targets are all very well but as Anderson points out, we could achieve the CO2 emissions target for 2050 by simply “turning everything off” globally for five minutes before midnight 2049. However, this would do nothing for climate change, which can only be slowed by cumulative emissions reduction. Based on extensive ongoing research, the chronology of climate change has to move from long-term gradual reduction to urgent radical reduction. As Anderson succinctly puts it, the shift must move from “my children will do something for me” to “I’d better think about how I’m getting home tonight, and I’d better turn the heating off when I get there!”

What needs to change includes transporting 70kg of flesh three miles to pick up a newspaper.

The UK aims for an 80 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050, and for the EU the target is 60 to 80 per cent. So far the growth rate of CO2 in the atmosphere has been exponential, from 2.7 per cent per annum in the last 100 years, to 3.5 per cent p.a. between 2000 and 2007, to a worrying 5.6 per cent between 2009 and 2010. Emissions have not yet reached the peak of growth. This “abject failure” means that rather than a gradual drop in emissions to reach the target, the fall-off must be a sharp one to have any hope of reaching it. The Committee for Climate Change has suggested 2016 as the peak year, after which emissions must reduce dramatically: at least 10 to 20 per cent p.a. globally (and even then there is a high probability of exceeding 2°C).

So, asks Anderson, if this all looks too difficult, what about a 4°C future? This would require a 3.5 per cent p.a. reduction in CO2. A global increase of this magnitude would equate to a potential 6 to 8°C increase on the hottest days in China, 8 to 10°C in Central Europe and 10 to 12°C in New York – enough to jeopardise the underground rail system. It would also reduce maize and rice production in low latitudes by 40 per cent. The widespread view is that a 4°C future would be devastating to the majority of ecosystems, has a high probability of not being stable, and should be avoided at all costs. Notably, current global models do not take serious note of large evolving economies such as China and India, where many people live on extremely low incomes (200 million Chinese live on less than $1.25 per day) and hope to move out of poverty, increasing their emissions.

Contrasting statements from the Committee for Climate Change and his own research, Anderson states that in the orthodox view, short-term emission growth is seriously played down, peak-year choices are dangerously misleading and assumptions about ‘big’ technology are naively optimistic.

Prof Anderson believes his carbon footprint is much lower than a typical academic’s.

This all sounds rather gloomy, but before despairing we should look at where the changes actually need to be made. There is little chance of changing policies aimed at 6.85 billion (now 7 billion) people worldwide, but how many people realistically need to make these changes? Pareto’s 80:20 rule implies that 80 per cent of emissions come from 20 per cent of the global population. If one runs this rule three times over, it means that 50 per cent of emissions come from 1 per cent of the population – rather easier numbers to manage. This 1 per cent, says Anderson, includes climate scientists, climate journalists and pontificators, OECD (and other) academics, anyone who gets on a plane and (for the UK) anyone earning over £30k. Most of the people concerned will live in Annex 1 countries, so are we sufficiently concerned to “make or have enforced” substantial personal sacrifices and changes to our lifestyles?

Anderson’s list on what needs to change includes one person living in a three-bedroom house; use of wasteful patio heaters; halogen bulbs in kitchens (which are worse than 1920s bulbs); two-ton four-wheel drive cars “transporting 70kg of flesh three miles to pick up a newspaper”; business tycoons with private jets; academics flying to climate change conferences; musicians flying to climate change awareness concerts; celebrating the excesses of celebrities (consumerism); the ‘right’ to fly and drive whenever we want; and year-round strawberries. All of this with a potential nine billion people on the planet...

Anderson himself downsized from a larger house to a flat, walks or takes public transport wherever possible, avoids flying and keeps heating and lighting to a minimum (proven by household energy bills of just £300 per year). He believes his carbon footprint is much lower than a typical academic’s, but readily admits that it is greater than, for example, the average Chinese person's.

To conclude, from Anderson and Bows (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 2011), “... this is not a message of futility, but a wake-up call of where our rose-tinted spectacles have brought us. Real hope, if it is to arise at all, will do so from a bare assessment of the scale of the challenge we now face.”

A message for all of us who fall in the 1 per cent to take on-board.

Kevin Anderson holds a Chair in Energy and Climate Change at the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester from where he leads the Tyndall Centre's energy and emissions-related research.

In addition to Kevin’s academic work, he is regularly called on to give advice to Government and Industry stakeholders, as well as to contribute to wider public and policy fora on climate change.

Kevin is a qualified marine engineer and has 12 years industrial experience, principally in the petrochemical industry. He is currently a non-executive director of Greenstone Carbon Management – a London-based company advising leading firms and public bodies on how to manage their carbon emissions.

Sarah Pain is Research Office Manager at the School of Engineering, and organises the Andrew Little Lecture Series. She also has a personal interest in ecology and conservation, and is undertaking a Certificate in the subject at the University of Warwick.