Transcript Document

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
Melt descending
into a moulin, a
vertical shaft
carrying water to
ice sheet base
Quite a
bit of
basal
lubrication
here ! (PR)
Source: Roger Braithwaite, University of Manchester
→
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)
Thermal input to the climate system in the last half century
and in the next if emissions are reduced to zero by 2035
450
[CO2]
400
B
350
A
300
250
200
1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080
Year
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 hard
and 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
600
A
550
Z
[CO 2]
500
F
450
400
350
300
250
200
1990
2000
2010
2020
2030
2040
2050
2060
Ye a r
A
Z
F
SRES-A2
SRES-A2 with a transition to zero emissions technologies between 2011 and 2035
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
.893
North Africa and Near East
.04
100
North Asia Urals Eastwards .28
64
.101
Asia and Pacific
.74
64
.266
South and Central America
.98
15
.833
North America
.43
54
.158
Europe
.32
63
.118
World
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