Kevin Anderson, a professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester and Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK, reaffirms his analysis that economic ‘de-growth’ is necessary to fight global warming. ([email protected])
Excerpts from his latest essay dated November 25, 2013:
Avoiding dangerous climate change demands de-growth strategies from wealthier nations
Don’t shoot the messenger: why disliking a conclusion is not a good basis for disregarding it.
“… for a reasonable probability of avoiding the 2°C characterization of dangerous climate change, the wealthier (Annex 1) nations need, temporarily, to adopt a de-growth strategy.”
Kevin Anderson & Alice Bows-Larkin
Climate Change negotiations; Warsaw 2013
Anderson Excerpts: This article summaries the reasoning behind the contentious conclusion arising from Alice Bows-Larkin and my research – that continuing with economic growth over the coming two decades is incompatible with meeting our international obligations on climate change. The piece was catalysed by a twitter dialogue between Nikolai Astrup (a Norwegian MP), Glen Peters (a researcher at Cicero), Paul Price and me, and followed the Tyndall Centre/Cicero event (slides available from the Tyndall site) at the Warsaw climate change negotiations (COP19, Nov. 2013).
…
To summaries, if:
1. reductions in emissions greater than 3-4% p.a. are incompatible with a growing economy,
2. the 2°C obligation relates to a twenty-first century carbon budget,
3. a 50% chance of exceeding 2°C is adjudged an acceptable risk of failure,
4. and Non-Annex 1 nations peak emissions by 2025 & subsequently reduce at ~7% p.a.,
5. then the wealthier nations’ carbon budget is the global 2°C budget minus the poorer nations’ budget,
6. and consequently wealthier nations must reduce emissions at 8 to 10% p.a.,
7. Q.E.D. Annex 1 mitigation rates for 2°C are incompatible with economic growth
For Anderson’s full analysis see here.
[Climate Depot Note: Climategate’s Phil Jones admitted the 2C target temperature was was ‘plucked out of thin air’]
Related Links:
Update: Warmist Kevin Anderson, who advocates ‘planned recessions’ and cut back on his showering, tells UN climate summit: ‘Nations should give up growth obsession’ – Focus instead on ‘health and food and shelter’ – Anderson: ‘Industrialized countries need a 70% reduction in emissions consumption in 10 years to give us an outside chance of holding temperatures to a 2C rise. They need to cut emissions by 10% annually.’
‘A planned economic recession’ to fight global warming
Morano then asked about Anderson’s advocacy of “planned recessions” to help reduce emissions and allegedly reduce man-made global warming. See: ‘Planned recession’ could avoid catastrophic climate change
Anderson responded: “First, it’s not ‘believe’. I concluded. And it’s related to some caveats that went with it.”
Anderson and his colleague Alice Bows wrote in 2008: “Unless economic growth can be reconciled with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6% per year15), it is difficult to envisage anything other than a planned economic recession being compatible with stabilization at or below 650 ppmv CO2e.”
Anderson and Bows explained that global warming was such an urgent problem that it “demands a radical reframing of both the climate change agenda, and the economic characterization of contemporary society.”
Morano concluded the interview with Anderson by stating: “So you don’t shower, you don’t bathe regularly. You believe in planned recessions.”
More Links:
Warmist Kevin Anderson on his personal efforts to prevent CO2-induced bad weather: ‘I’ve done without a fridge for 12 years, but recently relented…I’ve cut back on washing and showering’ – 2012 – –[email protected]
‘Planned recession’ could avoid catastrophic climate change – A new report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research said these targets are inadequate to keep global warming below two degrees C above pre-industrial levels. The report says the only way to avoid going beyond the dangerous tipping point is to double the target to 70 per cent by 2020. This would mean reducing the size of the economy through a “planned recession”. Kevin Anderson, director of the research body, said the building of new airports, petrol cars and dirty coal-fired power stations will have to be halted in the UK until new technology provides an alternative to burning fossil fuels.
Flashback 2011: Warmist Kevin Anderson, dir. of UK’s Tyndall Centre: ‘I think it’s extremely unlikely that we wouldn’t have mass death at 4 degrees’ rise in temps — ‘terrifying’ [Note: Anderson told Climate Depot that he was misquoted about the ‘mass death’ in the 2011 news article and registered a complaint with the newspaper]
2011: Warmist Kevin Anderson: Global warming ‘requires radical changes in behavior, particularly from those of us with very high energy consumption’ – ‘Models guiding climate policy are ‘dangerously optimistic’ — ‘Sweeping changes necessary for industrialized nations to drastically reduce their emissions’
Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for WW2-style rationing in developed world – UK Telegraph – November 29, 2010: ‘Global warming is now such a serious threat to mankind that climate change experts are calling for Second World War-style rationing in rich countries to bring down carbon emissions.’
Excerpt: In a series of papers published by the Royal Society, physicists and chemists from some of world’s most respected scientific institutions, including Oxford University and the Met Office, agreed that current plans to tackle global warming are not enough.
Unless emissions are reduced dramatically in the next ten years the world is set to see temperatures rise by more than 4C (7.2F) by as early as the 2060s, causing floods, droughts and mass migration.
As the world meets in Cancun, Mexico for the latest round of United Nations talks on climate change, the influential academics called for much tougher measures to cut carbon emissions.
In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.
This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars
11 Responses
This policy has been in place for decades.
The man is not in touch reality along with Al Gore, Jim Hansen, Jim Cameron, Michael Mann, or other ‘save the planters’ who must also believe in Witches, Dragons, Papal Indulgences, Tulip Trading and Fool’s Gold……….
Prof. Anderson needs to be retired to the asylum. He is deranged.
The population growth is going to cause the use of more energy. Ways to make energy more efficiently can be achieved. Cleaning out excess CO2 from coal furnaces is do-able. These carbon taxes, etc. they want to impose need to be more of a partnership between people, companies and govs. Not as a tax but, as a research effort. Then we’ll see what can really be done to clean up after our selves!
I’m all in favor for clean water and clean air but, there methods are not the answer. Curbing of population growth could help, that’s a slippery slope. Telling someone you can have kids…I say you can have them if you can afford to raise them, educate them and not make them a burden on society because you can’t! I made sure all my children were provided for!
climate change is really not in our control, maybe a small,small,small part. The wise use of natural resources is!
This is a curious mix of intelligence, on one side, and delusion, on the other side. The belief that someone can lower the earth temperature by taking less showers is a blatant and pathological delusion, something common among warmists.
Anderson does not understand the world. He will drive most people away from him; he is indulging his northern fantasy to experience basic, miserable conditions. He should get on with it on his own.
Lovelock is correct in saying that democracy cannot provide these radical changes.
The alternative is autocracy.
That is fine if it is the only way.
But it won’t happen – peoples will compete to survive, be willing to kill strangers and neighbours, believing they can be the ‘winners’ – that will give them hope rather than experience the despair of the destruction of their 250 year old civilisation.
The americans know that climate change will be far more severe for China and others than it will be for them and their component part, Canada; they will therefore use global climate change as an instrument of policy – they know that the projections make most of China uninhabitable, but that is not the case for the US/Canada.
Since Clausewitz, war has been an instrument of policy, and this is a form of war; it is understood by the serious players precisely what is happening and what will happen, give or take a decade or so.
Democracy and social structures will be reinforced by conflicts over resources if total nuclear catastrophe is avoided; but Mr Anderson’s suggested global ‘dirty protest’ will destroy social order, since societies need optimism like they need water.
So conflict it will be.
And the United States will be the relative winner. And after the cold war trained us to understand horror, relative success will do nicely.
I will say this. Current sustainability planning policy in-force by the government of India assumes that nations with greater supplies of water and food will have to accept several hundred million excess people from India as their water and food supplies become increasingly stretched due to climate change.
How about since Great Britain at one time ruled India as a colony that they accept at least 50-100 million climate refugees from India along with the US and Canada too, on top of at least 50-100 million surplus Chinese citizens each once China’s own water and food supplies also exceed critical supply shortage limits?
Have you read recently that the entire country of Pakistan only has 30 days of water supply on hand, or that the Brazilian cities of Sao Paulo and Recife are down to their last 45 days of water supply, along with Mexico City too? How many people out of the total of almost 300 million between those cities and countries are also going to be forced to move elsewhere to survive, and where will they move without destabilizing the dwindling sustainability of anywhere else?
Have you read the latest bad news out of the Arctic where warming is proceeding at a pace several times more-rapidly than it is in more-temperate parts of our world, which has been causing an immense and ever-growing record amount of natural methane emissions to flood into our common atmosphere from melting permafrost and glacial cover, as well as from melting methyl hydrates in shallow-depth Arctic sea beds?
Have you read the recent forecast that says that if we can’t reduce man-made GHG emissions by 80-90% by 2030 that by 2060 there is a very high chance of human extinction on our planet, caused by ever-greater annual man-made carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions plus record amounts of Asian black carbon soot, which including Arctic methane feedbacks will cause a global average temperature rise of as much as 20 degrees Celsius?
If global average temperatures increase by just 5 degrees Celsius between 1.5 and 2 billion people worldwide will be driven from their homes due to record heatwaves projected to increase in severity and longevity by quadruple by 2050, along with declining annual runoff, greater surface water-supply evaporation, shallow-depth groundwater evaporation, drying soils, and the resultant ever greater overuse of our remaining aquifers.
On down the road a piece if we last that long the human race is also looking at the end of phosphate fertilizers, which will cut crop yields by half, while at the same time water-supplies will be in critical shortage, which means that anyone alive then will have to learn not only to drink a lot less water but also to eat a lot less too!
Have you ever seen this chart? Personally I think that the actual amount of climate change will be somewhere in the middle between the white and blue lines, which would only give us another 10-15 years before 95-99% of the human race is driven extinct, as about the only places remaining that would be survivable would be underground or in areas of perpetual shadow near large deep bodies of fresh water. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HFOv5xtsctE/Uq952iCqRgI/AAAAAAAAMLs/jmrvFuEjR3w/s1600/Three-kinds-of-warming-Nov-2013.jpg
This is the caption that goes with the chart:
[quote] “As above image shows, a polynomial trendline already points at global
temperature anomalies of 5°C by 2060. Even worse, a polynomial trendline
for the Arctic shows temperature anomalies of 4°C by 2020, 7°C by 2030
and 11°C by 2040, threatening to cause major feedbacks to kick in,
including albedo changes and methane releases that will trigger runaway
global warming that looks set to eventually catch up with accelerated
warming in the Arctic and result in global temperature anomalies of
20°C+ by 2050”. [end quote]
Here are the scientific findings on runaway global warming:
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-runaway-greenhouse-event.html
Here is a November, 2013 scientific statement on runaway Arctic natural methane emissions:
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/11/methane-levels-going-through-the-roof.html
Here is a December, 2013 warning on Arctic natural methane emissions:
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-time-has-come-to-spread-the-message.html
As well as another dire warning from a different writer:
Summary:
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/12/act-now-on-methane.html
Full Scientific Study:
https://sites.google.com/site/runawayglobalwarming/the-non-disclosed-extreme-arctic-methane-threat
Here is a video on the same subject:
Press release:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/09/thom-hartmann-idUSnPNLA94934+1e0+PRN20131009
Video:
http://lasthours.org/
This item is only 2 & 1/2 weeks old.
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/arctic-heat-wave-sets-off-hottest-ever-winter-time-temperatures-major-melt-disasters-for-coastal-and-interior-alaska/
Check this chart of temperature anomalies for January 26-28th, 2014 out:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vBW56Q6CsJI/UuiNsE0_srI/AAAAAAAAMls/m7Tp1Qncr-M/s1600/Jan-26-28-2014.jpg
This item about the growing lack of world food supply security is only a week old:
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/world-food-security-in-the-cross-hairs-of-human-caused-climate-change-mangled-jet-stream-ocean-heat-and-melting-sea-ice-to-deliver-500-year-drought-to-california-brazil-turkey-australia-and-more/
This item is only 8 days old too:
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/arctic-warmth-in-early-february-sees-200000-square-kilometers-of-sea-ice-lost-greenland-melt-as-new-study-finds-massive-glacier-triples-its-seaward-velocity/
Carbon dioxide growth for 2013 was the highest annual increase on-record! (6 days old)
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/02/co2-growth-highest-on-record.html
Actually, Kevin Anderson is quite right, perhaps even a bit on the conservative side. This is no laughing matter, it is deadly serious. Either we act immediately and vigorously to rapidly reduce man-made GHG emissions or our grandchildren aren’t going to have a planet to live on, and I am afraid that economic growth, continuing population growth, and profits are not considerations that we can afford any longer, as otherwise a whole lot of people are going to die.
Sorry mate, but us brits have enough muslims here as it is.
How do you type with your head so far up your a**?
The world energy policy will regulate and stabilite is coming soon! The new theory of formula (E>P+1at) is the only solution for solve the world economical problems!
New discover of a clean energy formula to save the planet from destruction and reduce the global warming effect on the world (E>P+1at)! When the hard global question is answered on hydropower that no scientist has no answer to it over the last hundred years!
It means that the world will change soon and starts a new industrial revolution.
Turn off all fossil and nuclear power plants in the world. It is effect easiest to work new clean energy formula normally. Apart from the scientific partner, it is quite natural that one does not believe it. The reason is that all patents have been the first such. The people of world will be surprised and happy soon.
Question:
How can we get clean energy in a best way in the center of globe by the weight of highness of water in dams & lakes that this energy makes pressure to the center of our planet?
Answer:
This is by getting benefit of joint scientific formula (E
> P + 1at) with immersion turbine method inside the water of dams & lakes.
scientific new formula and this new method that has been registered officially by the Ministry of Justice of Kurdistan Regional Government under the No. 952/6 from 12th of June,2013 and it has been accepted officially & scientifically by all relevant ministries of KRG. This important and worldwide subject will obtain clean energy that we can say it is parallel to the attempts of Mr. Obama, The president of Unites States of America for Cutting Carbon Emissions by 30% by 2030 The importance of this invention is to decrease the rate of carbon and decrease the duration from 2030 to downwards.
The global warming is true and very danger but the important solution is discovered! Today is the end time of two world wars: 1- Energy world war 2- Climate change world war. The global hardest hydropower question was answered and amazing effect on the climate change! The global hydropower hardest question is: How to get the energy potential of the water level weight in dams and seas? The most advanced answer: The scientific use of the formula (E > P+1at) and the most advanced new method of producing electricity from immersion turbines in depth of seas and oceans water. With amazing discover of a new clean energy formula in depth of water (E>P+1at). The immersion turbine method in depth of sea water is the base of this new model. This invention can change the world and it can start a new industrial revolution in the world. Many scientists believe that the discovery of the formula is unparalleled. Although many still in shock! How this formula has not be discovered by scientists in the world. The project titled (Kurdestan and US clean energy coordination) runs in cooperation with the United States introduced. Of course, this beautiful project after the National Hydropower Association 2015 conference is done in the United States. This invention is patented in Department of Justice in Kurdestan of Iraq No. 952/6 on 12/6/2013. Now all countries can benefit from that if they are Kurdestan partners and businesses in this new clean energy method. You can read the articles of (Change the world with Kurdistan’s industrial revolution) and (A Kurdish inventor has found a new method for electricity production under water).
You can call with Mr. Dr. Sherko Jawdat.
Dr. Sherko Jawdat
Parliament of Kurdistan- Iraq
Head of Energy & Natural Resources Committee
Mobile No. 00964-7701562687
Mr. Dr. Chris Spindler in UF No. 0019043776904
http://rudaw.net/NewsDetails.aspx?pageid=110844
Guess he’s never heard of the water cycle.