Climate Change: Grand Challenges

Introduction

Part 1 ~ Grand Challenges

Part 2 ~ Framing a Solution

Part 3 ~ Sustainability Framework for Carbon Reduction

Sustainability Framework for Carbon Reduction (entire article)

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Climate Change is Real

Anthropogenic causes of climate change are real, the scientific reality that CO2 emissions brought on by numerous carbon based emission sources and the lack of a coherent plan to manage these emissions, pose a threat to planet Earth through increased atmospheric and oceanic temperatures.

NOAA: Atmospheric CO2 Animation

Grand Challenges

A recent LinkedIN article by Bill Gates; My plan for fighting climate change, discusses potential investments in technologies or methodologies to reduce carbon emissions in five sectors, described as the “grand challenges” that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) documented as the economic sectors that produce greenhouse gas emissions.

The IPCC 2014 report (PDF 50 MB) has estimated emissions by economic sector as well as offers different mitigation “pathways” to limit global warming to 2 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Gates, a big picture thinker, looks towards grand solutions focused on entrepreneurial corporate technological innovation to mitigating climate change from the “lab to market, at scale” a method that is difficult for governments to execute. Gates plan is to create a privately managed fund for cutting edge research and development based on a framework of the five “grand challenges”. The idea is to cut bureaucracy and have flexibility in funding and operations. 

Global Framework for Carbon Reduction

With the magnitude of challenges to reduce carbon emissions, multiple levels of framework based methodologies are needed to make a difference. The UN based initiatives involve worldwide and country level emissions.

Gates mentions how each economic sector above relates to a core part a consumer’s life including food, clothes, housing and the products that are consumed. With the worldwide growth of the middle class, individual carbon footprints increase along with the each sector and the related energy needs and emissions. Gates suggests the need for breakthroughs in how these goods are grown or made, transportation and how a home or car is powered.

A few summary paragraphs from IPCC 2014 show both human influence in carbon emissions as well as the monumental scale of carbon emissions.

About half of cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions between 1750 and 2010 have occurred in the last 40 years (high confidence). In 1970, cumulative CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion, cement production and flaring since 1750 were 420±35 GtCO2; in 2010, that cumulative total had tripled to 1300±110 GtCO2. Cumulative CO2 emissions from Forestry and Other Land Use (FOLU) since 1750 increased from 490±180 GtCO2 in 1970 to 680±300 GtCO2 in 2010. [5.2]

Annual anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased by 10 GtCO2eq between 2000 and 2010, with this increase directly coming from energy supply (47%), industry (30%), transport (11%) and buildings (3%) sectors (medium confidence). Accounting for indirect emissions raises the contributions of the buildings and industry sectors (high confidence). Since 2000, GHG emissions have been growing in all sectors, except AFOLU. Of the 49 (±4.5) GtCO2eq emissions in 2010, 35% (17 GtCO2eq) of GHG emissions were released in the energy supply sector,

Globally, economic and population growth continue to be the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. The contribution of population growth between 2000 and 2010 remained roughly identical to the previous three decades, while the contribution of economic growth has risen sharply (high confidence). Between 2000 and 2010, both drivers outpaced emission reductions from improvements in energy intensity (Figure SPM.3). Increased use of coal relative to other energy sources has reversed the long-standing trend of gradual decarbonization of the world’s energy supply. [1.3, 5.3, 7.2, 14.3, TS.2.2]

Without additional efforts to reduce GHG emissions beyond those in place today, emissions growth is expected to persist driven by growth in global population and economic activities. Baseline scenarios, those without additional mitigation, result in global mean surface temperature increases in 2100 from 3.7°C to 4.8°C compared to pre-industrial levels (range based on median climate response; the range is 2.5°C to 7.8°C when including climate uncertainty, see Table SPM.1) (high confidence). The emission scenarios collected for this assessment represent full radiative forcing including GHGs, tropospheric ozone, aerosols and albedo change. Baseline scenarios (scenarios without explicit additional efforts to constrain emissions) exceed 450 parts per million (ppm) CO2eq by 2030 and reach CO2eq concentration levels between 750 and more than 1300 ppm CO2eq by 2100.

( Page 25-26 Climate Change 2014 Mitigation of Climate Change )

Kyoto Protocol

The current worldwide framework for carbon reductions has its origins in the Kyoto Protocol, the 1992 United Nations Convention on Climate Change. The Kyoto Protocol involves pledges by individual countries to collectively reduce carbon emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol applies to the reductions of the following greenhouse gas, with its related Global Warming Potential (GWP) of each gas, a multiple of CO2, based on the different properties of a greenhouse gas and how much heat energy is trapped over a 100 year time period, in the atmosphere, per the mass of the gas. This methodology allows for the designation of a value of “CO2e”, with “e” designated as “equivalent.”

This situation is monumentally complex and difficult to find consensus on methods of mitigating further damage or ways to adapt through resilience. Yet, humankind has faced numerous challenges throughout time and typically faced the challenges through strategy and cooperative human engagement.

Framing a Solution

Civic and corporate entities tackle climate change through sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks based on the global initiatives and carbon accounting methodologies, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol is a common method of accounting for carbon emissions.

Corporate sustainability frameworks are structured around organizational principles and the bigger picture of creating efficiencies that not only lower emissions but create more cost effective, safer and environmentally sound processes. The complexity of the framework is dependent on the size of the organization as well as the "buy-in" of the participating members of the organization.

Yet, how can a smaller organizations participate and potentially drive demand (for a green economy) to the corporations that produce and market carbon intensive products as well as driving demand for civic institutions from a neighborhood to a town, city county and state work within a carbon reduction framework?

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Introduction

Part 1 ~ Grand Challenges

Part 2 ~ Framing a Solution

Part 3 ~ Sustainability Framework for Carbon Reduction

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