Climate change: the 3% solution
For some reason, mainstream media have started have decided now is a good time to let people know about climate change. These are some thoughts on the issue, although not as organized as I would like :)
My first concern is that people are going to be terrified, and not given tools to make a difference. The last thing the world needs now is an eco-fascist GWB. Fear is a healthy response to events like climate change. We don't need to let that happen. We have to overcome that fear if we're going to make smart decisions.
The good news is that the solutions are easier than you might expect.
Here's a flash presentation explaining "stabilization wedges", a project of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative. They even made a game! (pdf)
Bottom line: we need 7 "wedges" to stabilize CO2 emissions. Seven strategies that will reduce our emissions by one billion tons by 2050. Efficiency could account for all of it, and we wouldn't have to wait for governments to stop emissions from growing. Although if enough people do it, they'll look stupid not helping, and they will pitch in. Historically, we've been squeezing 1% more money out of each unit of energy. Refrigerators, cars, plants- everything just gets slowly more efficient (except SUVs). The speed could easily be increased, as we did during the 70's oil shock- by 3 and 4% per year.
It can sound far out that we could improve that much every year. Take a look at data for refrigerators. In 1972, the average refrigerator used 1,986 Kilowatt-hours. 1985, it was down to 1,077. By 1996 it was down further to 654. New ones today are under 500 kwh, some under 400 kwh. Admittedly, the refrigerator is an extreme example (my math says that's around a 6% a year improvement over 34 years, but I could be off... can I get a match check? (0.94^34)*4000 )
These ideas were more fully or formally developed in the Kaya Identity:
C emission = Population * $GDP/capita * Watts/$ * C/Watt
Plug those numbers in the Kaya Calculator. Try -1, -2, and -3% for energy intensity (that's efficiency per dollar of GDP in Watts/$, not the same thing as what we calculate for refrigerators). The results at 3% are staggering: by 2100, we would use half as much carbon as we do now. No wonder it gets called the "Conservation bomb."
Of course, the Kaya Identity is fairly abstract, and the stabilization wedges make things a lot more tangible. We need 7 wedges of 1 gigaton of CO2 each to stabilize emissions:
-Unless something catastrophic such as a NIMBY revolution happens, nothing will stop wind and solar from filling two wedges.
-Transport efficiency: cutting car use by half and doubling fuel efficiency would get us two more wedges.
-Heating efficiency: insulating homes or choosing energy efficient furnaces add another- let's do both.
-Finally, electric efficiency: replacing old appliances with more efficient new ones, swapping all those incandescents for compact fluorescents or LED task lights.
Actually, that's more than 7 and most of these efficiency improvements are being made as more and more people realize the savings that can be had, prices go down and governments decide to subsidize the change. So things are far from hopeless if you ask me. There's a lot of other smaller solutions that can each reduce our emissions one gigaton of CO2 by 2050:
-Carbon sequestration
-Using wind to create Hydrogen
-Biofuels
-Stopping deforestation and doubling the rate of plantation creation.
If we keep emissions flat for the next half-century, we still double CO2 levels in our atmosphere. That's not a good thing, but it's better than the anticipated tripling - which would be a full-blown catastrophe. Or we can do what we did during the last oil shock, and systematically increase efficiency. Hey, we are in the middle of an oil shock now, aren't we?
My first concern is that people are going to be terrified, and not given tools to make a difference. The last thing the world needs now is an eco-fascist GWB. Fear is a healthy response to events like climate change. We don't need to let that happen. We have to overcome that fear if we're going to make smart decisions.
The good news is that the solutions are easier than you might expect.
Here's a flash presentation explaining "stabilization wedges", a project of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative. They even made a game! (pdf)
Bottom line: we need 7 "wedges" to stabilize CO2 emissions. Seven strategies that will reduce our emissions by one billion tons by 2050. Efficiency could account for all of it, and we wouldn't have to wait for governments to stop emissions from growing. Although if enough people do it, they'll look stupid not helping, and they will pitch in. Historically, we've been squeezing 1% more money out of each unit of energy. Refrigerators, cars, plants- everything just gets slowly more efficient (except SUVs). The speed could easily be increased, as we did during the 70's oil shock- by 3 and 4% per year.
It can sound far out that we could improve that much every year. Take a look at data for refrigerators. In 1972, the average refrigerator used 1,986 Kilowatt-hours. 1985, it was down to 1,077. By 1996 it was down further to 654. New ones today are under 500 kwh, some under 400 kwh. Admittedly, the refrigerator is an extreme example (my math says that's around a 6% a year improvement over 34 years, but I could be off... can I get a match check? (0.94^34)*4000 )
These ideas were more fully or formally developed in the Kaya Identity:
C emission = Population * $GDP/capita * Watts/$ * C/Watt
Plug those numbers in the Kaya Calculator. Try -1, -2, and -3% for energy intensity (that's efficiency per dollar of GDP in Watts/$, not the same thing as what we calculate for refrigerators). The results at 3% are staggering: by 2100, we would use half as much carbon as we do now. No wonder it gets called the "Conservation bomb."
Of course, the Kaya Identity is fairly abstract, and the stabilization wedges make things a lot more tangible. We need 7 wedges of 1 gigaton of CO2 each to stabilize emissions:
-Unless something catastrophic such as a NIMBY revolution happens, nothing will stop wind and solar from filling two wedges.
-Transport efficiency: cutting car use by half and doubling fuel efficiency would get us two more wedges.
-Heating efficiency: insulating homes or choosing energy efficient furnaces add another- let's do both.
-Finally, electric efficiency: replacing old appliances with more efficient new ones, swapping all those incandescents for compact fluorescents or LED task lights.
Actually, that's more than 7 and most of these efficiency improvements are being made as more and more people realize the savings that can be had, prices go down and governments decide to subsidize the change. So things are far from hopeless if you ask me. There's a lot of other smaller solutions that can each reduce our emissions one gigaton of CO2 by 2050:
-Carbon sequestration
-Using wind to create Hydrogen
-Biofuels
-Stopping deforestation and doubling the rate of plantation creation.
If we keep emissions flat for the next half-century, we still double CO2 levels in our atmosphere. That's not a good thing, but it's better than the anticipated tripling - which would be a full-blown catastrophe. Or we can do what we did during the last oil shock, and systematically increase efficiency. Hey, we are in the middle of an oil shock now, aren't we?