MUCER Conference 3-4 June, 2008 Global Gardening with a Leaky Bucket Managing Climate Risk
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MUCER Conference 3-4 June, 2008 Global Gardening with a Leaky Bucket Managing Climate Risk Peter Read Massey University Centre for Energy Research
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MUCER Conference 3-4 June, 2008 Global Gardening with a Leaky Bucket Managing Climate Risk. Peter Read Massey University Centre for Energy Research. What climatic risk? (The bad news). Surface Melt on Greenland. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Transcript of MUCER Conference 3-4 June, 2008 Global Gardening with a Leaky Bucket Managing Climate Risk
MUCER Conference3-4 June, 2008
Global Gardening with a Leaky BucketManaging Climate Risk
Peter ReadMassey University Centre for Energy Research
What climatic risk?
(The bad news)
Surface Melt on Greenland
Melt descending into a moulin, a vertical shaft carrying water to ice sheet base
Source: Roger Braithwaite, University of Manchester
Quite abit of basallubricationhere ! (PR)
→
Ca. 6000 year deglaciations followed by slower glaciating phases in the last ~half million years. * indicates the insolation peaks ending the warming phases. Note → the increase of CO2 levels since the last (St1)insolation peak, attributed to anthropogenic emissions related to forest fire deforestation in the course of land clearance for agricultural expansion (PR)
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1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080
Year
[CO
2]
Thermal input to the climate system in the last half centuryand in the next if emissions are reduced to zero by 2035
AB
Art 3.3
• The Parties should take precautionary measures….
• Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage , lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as reason for postponing such measures …[which] … should be cost effective so as to ensure global benefits
The good news
EMMISSIONS REDUCTIONS is hardand can’t do the job
But
CARBON REMOVALS is easy
Read, P. “Commercial forestry and LULUCF for a ‘carbon neutral New Zealand’ – the ‘leaky bucket’.” IPS Working Paper 2008/01, VUW. http://ips.ac.nz/publications/publications/show/218.
Comparison of carbon removals (F) with emission reductions(Z) in mitigating the level of CO2 (in ppm) in the atmosphere
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1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060
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[CO
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A
Z
F
A SRES-A2Z SRES-A2 with a transition to zero emissions technologies between 2011 and 2035F SRES-A2 with a transition to land improvement carbon removal technologies over the
same period, with land use change complete by 2035 and technological progress to 2060
Global gardening
CARBON REMOVALS is widely beneficial because it means
• Better soil quality• Better water management• Better rural livelihoods• Secure food supplies• Geographically diversified energy supply• Etc etc etc
1. Invest in forest plantations to stock carbon and act as a strategic reserve of biomass raw material
(quite useful as timber if the climate change panic goes away)NZ carbon neutral by 2020 EASY
2. Invest in a vehicle fleet that is compatible with biofuels(a useful hedge against ‘peak oil’ – the dear oil age which is
the main cause of high food prices
3. Invest in biofuel supply systems• maybe 2nd generation cellulosic ethanol• maybe gasification and Fischer Tropsche liquids• most likely pyrolysis with biochar for soil improvement• maybe on-farm gasification linked to ‘herd-homes’ and riparian tree plantations to prevent pollution of our rivers
Where?
Potential rain-fed arable land, net of protected land and urban settlement, has been estimated by Moreira [28] based on IPCC and FAO studies [29,30], viz:
Gha %used available (Gha)Sub Saharan Africa 1.05 15 .893North Africa and Near East .04 100North Asia Urals Eastwards .28 64 .101Asia and Pacific .74 64 .266South and Central America .98 15 .833North America .43 54 .158Europe .32 63 .118World 3.82 38 2.38
of which 1.99 tropical .38 temperate
THERE’S PLENTY OF LAND – THE NEED IS TO INVEST IN LAND NOT CHASE AFTER INCREASINGLY HARD TO FIND OIL
The Silver Teaspoon
The Kyoto Protocol’s CDM (the Clean Development Mechanism) for transferring mitigation funds to the South is a silver teaspoon
Perverse Incentives driven by negative psychology of emissions reductions against an emissions cap
Additionality High transactions costs
Not much use for baling CO2 out of the atmosphere
The Leaky Bucket
The need is to incentivize management to get into the technologies of carbon removals
A bucket for baling CO2 out of the atmosphere
But measurement difficulties vitiate deployment under the CDM
The need is for carbon removals policies and measures as ex-ante buy-out of commitments to replace the ex-post offsets of the CDM
Thank you
