Those who plan to submit commits to the DNR regarding Gov. Doyle's Global Warming Task Force Work Group Draft Templates may want to cite some of the information from the three recent reports listed below.
Mike Neuman ----------------------- Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences November 20, 2007 The growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), the largest human contributor to human-induced climate change, is increasing rapidly. Three processes contribute to this rapid increase. Two of these processes concern emissions. Recent growth of the world economy combined with an increase in its carbon intensity have led to rapid growth in fossil fuel CO2 emissions since 2000: comparing the 1990s with 20002006, the emissions growth rate increased from 1.3% to 3.3% y1. The third process is indicated by increasing evidence (P = 0.89) for a long-term (50-year) increase in the airborne fraction (AF) of CO2 emissions, implying a decline in the efficiency of CO2 sinks on land and oceans in absorbing anthropogenic emissions. Since 2000, the contributions of these three factors to the increase in the atmospheric CO2 growth rate have been 65 ± 16% from increasing global economic activity, 17 ± 6% from the increasing carbon intensity of the global economy, and 18 ± 15% from the increase in AF. An increasing AF is consistent with results of climatecarbon cycle models, but the magnitude of the observed signal appears larger than that estimated by models. All of these changes characterize a carbon cycle that is generating stronger-than-expected and sooner-than-expected climate forcing. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/short/104/47/18866 http://www.pnas.org/cgi/data/0702737104/DC1/1 Related: MIT Sees Acceleration In US Greenhouse Emissions by Staff Writers Cambridge MA (SPX) Nov 20, 2007 U.S. greenhouse gas emissions could grow more quickly in the next 50 years than in the previous half-century, and technological change may cause increased emissions rather than control them, according to a new study by an MIT economist and his colleague. What's more, technology itself cannot be relied on as the most efficient tool for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions or solving the global energy crisis, said Professor Emeritus Richard Eckaus of the MIT Department of Economics and his co-author, Ian Sue Wing, of Boston University. Their paper, "The Implications of the Historical Decline in U.S. Energy Intensity for Long-Run CO2 Emission Projections," was published in the November issue of Energy Policy. In it, the pair portray the changing interplay among technology, energy use and CO2 emissions based on a simulation of the U.S. economy. "We found that, in spite of increasing energy prices, technological change has not been responsible for much reduction in energy use, and that it may have had the reverse effect," said Eckaus, who with Sue Wing is also affiliated with the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change at MIT. The researchers studied the periods 1958 to 1996 and 1980 to 1996 and projected from 2000 to 2050. Based on their findings from the past 50 years, and adjusting for a more realistic expectation for technological changes, they found that the rates of growth for energy use and emissions may accelerate from the historical rates of 2.2 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively. "The rates of growth could be higher by a half percent or more, which becomes significant when compounded over 50 years," Eckaus says. Eckaus acknowledged it has become counter-intuitive to question technology's potential to solve the energy problem. But U.S. steelmaking illustrates how fossil fuel consumption can increase along with technological change: Steelmakers' furnaces are now electrical, reducing coal use at the plant. But coal generates some of the electricity that powers the factory furnace, resulting in more CO2 emissions. "The net savings in this case comes from the use of scrap steel instead of iron ore, not from new furnace technology," Eckaus said. "There is no 'a priori' reason to think technology has the potential for reducing energy use while meeting the tests of economics. It's politically unappetizing in the U.S., but in Europe, gas costs six dollars a gallon. Make energy more expensive: People will use less of it," Eckaus said. A former consultant to the World Bank, Eckaus has been an adviser on economic policy to Egypt, India, Mexico and Portugal, among other countries; he advocates policies to control both energy use and CO2 emissions. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/MIT_Sees_Acceleration_In_US_Greenhouse_ Emissions_999.html ----------- UN Panel Gives Dire Warming Forecast Sat Nov 17, 2007 VALENCIA Global warming is "unequivocal" and carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere commits the world to an eventual rise in sea levels of up to 4.6 feet, the world's top climate experts warned Saturday in their most authoritative report to date. "Only urgent, global action will do," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, calling on the United States and China the world's two biggest polluters to do more to slow global climate change. "I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role," Ban told reporters. "Both countries can lead in their own way." Ban, however, advised against assigning blame. Climate change imperils "the most precious treasures of our planet," he said, and the effects are "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent global action will do. We are all in this together. We must work together." According to the U.N. panel of scientists, whose latest report is a synthesis of three previous ones, enough carbon dioxide already has built up that it imperils islands, coastlines and a fifth to two-thirds of the world's species. As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, according to the report. Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water, says the report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore this year. The panel portrays the Earth hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace and warns of inevitable human suffering. It says emissions of carbon, mainly from fossil fuels, must stabilize by 2015 and go down after that. In the best-case scenario, temperatures will keep rising from carbon already in the atmosphere, the report said. Even if factories were shut down today and cars taken off the roads, the average sea level will gradually rise over the next 1,000 years to reach as high as 4.6 feet above that in the preindustrial period, or about 1850. "We have already committed the world to sea level rise," the panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, said. But if the Greenland ice sheet melts, the scientists said, they could not predict by how many feet the seas will rise, drowning coastal cities. Climate change is here, they said, as witnessed by melting snow and glaciers, higher average temperatures and rising sea levels. If unchecked, global warming will spread hunger and disease, put further stress on water resources, cause fiercer storms and more frequent droughts, and could drive up to 70 percent of plant and animal species to extinction, according to the panel's report. The report was adopted after five days of sometimes tense negotiations among 140 national delegations. It lays out blueprints for avoiding the worst catastrophes and various possible outcomes, depending on how quickly and decisively action is taken. "The world's scientists have spoken clearly and with one voice," Ban said, looking ahead to an important climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, next month. "I expect the world's policy makers to do the same." The report is intended to both set the stage and serve as a guide for the conference, at which world leaders will begin discussing a global climate change treaty to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. That treaty, which expires in 2012, required industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gases and a smooth transition to a new treaty is needed to avoid upsetting the fledgling carbon markets. "This report will have an incredible political impact," Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate change official, told The Associated Press. "It's a signal that politicians cannot afford to ignore." The United States opted out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing that the science was unproven and that the burden of mandatory emission cuts was unfair since it excluded fast-growing China and India. Chief U.S. delegate Sharon Hays said doubts have been dispelled. "What's changed since 2001 is the scientific certainty that this is happening," she said in a conference call late Friday. She did not indicate that Washington would abandon its policy of voluntary emission cuts. China and India have said any measures impinging on their development and efforts to lift their people from poverty were unacceptable a point likely to be heeded at the Bali talks. The report offered dozens of measures for avoiding the worst catastrophes if taken together at a cost of less than 0.12 percent of the global economy annually until 2050. They ranged from switching to nuclear and gas-fired power stations, developing hybrid cars, using more efficient electrical appliances and managing cropland to store more carbon. Ban said a new agreement should provide funding to help poor countries develop clean energy resources, adapt to climate conditions and give them the technology to help themselves. He said he witnessed the devastation of climate change in disappearing glaciers of Antarctica, the deforested Amazon and under the ozone hole in Chile. "These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie," said Ban. "But they are even more terrifying because they are real." http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2007/11/17/1104777-un-panel-gives-dire-warm ing-forecast ------------- Original Message --------------- Re: [Bikies] Governor's Task Force on Global Warming -- Opportunity to Review and Comment on Work Groups' Draft Policy Templates Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:58:48 -0800 Draft state policy templates prepared by the Governor's Task Force on Global Warming's work groups on Transportation; Conservation and Energy Efficiency; Industry; Electric Generation and Supply; and Carbon Tax/Cap and Trade are now posted and available for public review on the DNR's web site at: http://dnr.wi.gov/environmentprotect/gtfgw/templates/index.html Each work groups prepared a number of templates, each of which contains various policy options that "may" reduce greenhouse gases emitted from Wisconsin, according to the DNR web site. Comments on the templates are due on either November 27th, December 1st, December 6th or December 8th. According to DNR, the Work Groups will revise the policies after considering comments received on the draft templates and submit the final policy templates to the Governor's Task Force by around the end of the year. Mike Neuman "It is incumbent on us here today to so act throughout our lives as to leave our children a heritage for which we will receive their blessings and not their curses". - Theodore Roosevelt, from a speech he gave in Dickinson, North Dakota, July 4, 1886 _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
