‘A planned economic recession’: Global warming prof. Kevin Anderson – who has ‘cut back on showering’ to save planet – asserts economic ‘de-growth’ is needed to fight climate change

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 NoteClimategate’s Phil Jones admitted the 2C target temperature was was ‘plucked out of thin air’]

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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%

Shock: UK Guardian’s Fiona Harvey on admits CO2 targets will be published in 2015 ‘chiefly’ to avoid ‘introducing the incendiary subject of climate change’ into the 2014 US congressional elections

Shock: Fiona Harvey on admits that planet-saving CO2 targets will be published in 2015 “chiefly” to avoid “introducing the incendiary subject of climate change” into the 2014 US congressional elections

http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2013/11/shock-fiona-harvey-on-admits-that.html

As the Warsaw climate talks end, the hard work is just beginning | Fiona Harvey

Publishing targets in the first quarter of 2015 do not leave long for the assessment process to take place. However, that timetable has been drawn up chiefly to take account of the realities of the US electoral timetable. The US government announced earlier this year that it would set its post-2020 targets in the first quarter of 2015. That is necessary to ensure that the decision does not get tangled up in the US congressional elections in autumn 2014 – they are likely to be touchy enough, without introducing the incendiary subject of climate change.…