[geo] Paris Climate Agreement: Shaky Technological Foundations

[Rau, Greg]

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/544551/paris-climate-agreement-rests-on-shaky-technological-foundations/?utm_campaign=newsletters_source=newsletter-weekly-energy_medium=email_content=20151221

"Simply put, the technology for separating carbon dioxide from power-plant 
emissions—not to mention the infrastructure to transport it and store it 
underground—is too expensive and too cumbersome for commercial deployment. 
While there is intriguing research going on, there is no prospect on the 
immediate horizon for making it economical.

Equally fanciful are visions of 
“afforestation”<http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/14/climate-expert-calls-for-decarbonisation-tech-to-help-meet-paris-targets>—planting
 large forests to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The Australian 
climate scientist and author Tim Flannery has estimated that it would take a 
forest four times the size of the Australian 
continent<http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/cop21-the-global-warming-targets-agreed-in-paris-will-drive-a-carbon-capture-revolution-a6771136.html>
 to make even a small dent in atmospheric carbon. In its 2014 Emissions Gap 
Report<http://www.unep.org/publications/ebooks/emissionsgapreport2014/portals/50268/pdf/EGR2014_LOWRES.pdf>,
 the U.N.’s Environmental Panel came to a similar conclusion: “Theoretically, 
carbon uptake or net negative emissions could be achieved by extensive 
reforestation and forest growth, or by schemes that combine bioenergy use with 
carbon capture and storage. But the feasibility of such large-scale schemes is 
still uncertain.” That means any international climate scheme founded on these 
technologies is uncertain at best. It’s entirely reasonable to hope for rapid 
advances in energy storage and nuclear power over the next couple of decades. 
But if we rely on capturing carbon from power plants and removing it from the 
atmosphere to accomplish our climate goals, those hopes are likely to be 
dashed."

True, the technologies required to stay below 2 deg C are currently uncertain, 
the most egregious of these being CCS.  So isn't this a clarion call for a much 
broader solicitation and testing of additional carbon management ideas? At the 
end of the day there may be no cost-effective, safe and quickly deployable 
technological solutions, but this outcome will be guaranteed as long as CCS, 
afforestation and BECCS continue to be peddled as the only "winning" approaches 
worth pursuing.

Greg

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[geo] Talks in the city of light generate more heat - Nature

[Andrew Lockley]

http://www.nature.com/news/talks-in-the-city-of-light-generate-more-heat-1.19074?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews

Talks in the city of light generate more heat

Rather than relying on far-off negative-emissions technologies, Paris
needed to deliver a low-carbon road map for today, argues Kevin Anderson.

21 December 2015

Article toolsPDFRights & Permissions

The climate agreement delivered earlier this month in Paris is a genuine
triumph of international diplomacy. It is a tribute to how France was able
to bring a fractious world together. And it is testament to how assiduous
and painstaking science can defeat the unremitting programme of
misinformation that is perpetuated by powerful vested interests. It is the
twenty-first century's equivalent to the victory of heliocentrism over the
inquisition. Yet it risks being total fantasy.

Related storiesA seismic shiftA ‘perfect’ agreement in Paris is not
essentialIs the 2 °C world a fantasy?

More related stories

Let's be clear, the international community not only acknowledged the
seriousness of climate change, it also demonstrated sufficient unanimity to
define it quantitatively: to hold “the increase in … temperature to well
below 2 °C … and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5
°C”.

To achieve such goals demands urgent and significant cuts in emissions. But
rather than requiring that nations reduce emissions in the short-to-medium
term, the Paris agreement instead rests on the assumption that the world
will successfully suck the carbon pollution it produces back from the
atmosphere in the longer term. A few years ago, these exotic Dr Strangelove
options were discussed only as last-ditch contingencies. Now they are Plan
A.

Governments, prompted by their advisers, have plumped for BECCS (biomass
energy carbon capture and storage) as the most promising
'negative-emissions technology'.

What does BECCS entail? Apportioning huge swathes of the planet's landmass
to the growing of bioenergy crops (from big trees to tall grasses) — which
absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis as they grow. Periodically,
these crops are harvested, processed for worldwide travel and shipped
around the globe before finally being combusted in thermal power stations.
The CO2 is then stripped from the waste gases, compressed (almost to a
liquid), pumped through large pipes over potentially very long distances
and finally stored deep underground in various geological formations (from
exhausted oil and gas reservoirs through to saline aquifers) for a
millennium or so.

The unquestioned reliance on negative-emission technologies to deliver on
the Paris goals is the greatest threat to the new agreement. Yet BECCS, or
even negative-emission technologies, received no direct reference
throughout the 32-page package. Despite this, the framing of the 2 °C goal
and, even more, the 1.5 °C one, is premised on the massive uptake of BECCS
some time in the latter half of the century. Disturbingly, this is also the
case for most of the temperature estimates ascribed to the outcome of the
voluntary emissions cuts made by nations before the Paris meeting.

“The almost euphoric atmosphere that accompanied the drafts could not be
squared with the content.”

The scale of the assumption is breathtaking. It would be the equivalent of
decades of planting and harvesting of energy crops over an area of one to
three times that of India. At the same time, the aviation industry
envisages powering its planes with biofuel, the shipping industry is
seriously considering biomass to propel its ships and the chemical sector
sees biomass as a potential feedstock — and by then there will be 9 billion
or so human mouths to feed. This crucial assumption deserves wider scrutiny.

Relying on the promise of industrial-scale negative-emissions technologies
to balance the carbon budget was not the only option available in Paris —
at least in relation to 2 °C.

Reducing emissions in line with 2 °C remains a viable goal — just. But
rather than rely on post-2050 BECCS, deciding to pursue this alternative
approach would have begged profound political, economic and social
questions. Questions that undermine a decade of mathematically nebulous
green-growth and win–win rhetoric, and questions that the politicians have
decided cannot be asked.

Move away from the cosy tenets of contemporary economics and a suite of
alternative measures comes into focus. Technologies, behaviours and habits
that feed energy demand are all amenable to significant and rapid change.
Combine this with an understanding that just 10% of the population is
responsible for 50% of emissions, and the rate and scope of what is
possible becomes evident.

The allying of deep and early reductions in energy demand with rapid
substitution of fossil fuels by zero-carbon alternatives frames a 2 °C
agenda that does not rely on negative emissions. So why was this real
opportunity muscled out by the economic bouncers in Paris? No doubt there
are many 

Re: [geo] List of current thing we do which affect the climate, like geoengineering

[emily]

Hi All,

Thanks for the emails on this. My thinking stems from a place where some of the 
things we currently do look a lot like some proposals for geo-eng, and we don't 
bat an eye, yet when these same activities are proposed for good purpose, they 
are slammed. I struggle with this, and feel it needs exploring to help deepen 
our understanding of the gut reactions against technologies which may have 
potential to help. Maybe we need or already have a list which covers this 
elsewhere? Please advise. 

As an encologist and conservationist, to me it is clear cut: we mess up, we 
clean up. Environmental restoration and rehabilitation is normal, desirable, 
and a legal (and moral) duty, enshrined in uk, eu and other law.  

One thing that strikes me from the methane release - geo-eng - Food security 
angle below, is reversibility. Am I right in thinking that many geo-eng 
approaches are reversible, whereas methane hydrates reaching a point of thawing 
and releasing ch4 is irreversible for a given lens of hydrates? Or is methane 
destabilisation reversible once it is warmed to the point of off-gassing? 
Understanding and considering the reversibility of the processes and also of 
the impacts of technologies seems important in relation to the 
reversibility/irreversibility of CC process and impacts (including feedbacks). 

On intention and the definition of geo-eng, in the ecological field, animals 
and plants are said to have engineered their environment, such as beavers 
changing whole landscapes (inadvertently) by making one dam. This is perhaps a 
lose use of the word which engineers might not like. No insult intended. 
English isn't a very precise language and a melting pot of expertise from 
different disciplines, such as this list, will find we use words in different 
ways. 

I am reminded that when we crash an environment into a wall, we are legally 
bound to mend the car and the wall. Simply reducing ghg will not mend the CC 
environmental and humanitarian car crash, even IPCC rely on net negative 
emissions in their scenarios, even without full inclusion of feedbacks. Which 
is challenging, but just another uncomfortable fact we face through our own 
folly.

It has been useful for me at least to observe and learn from this debate and 
others on this list, and thank you for the opportunity to engage and learn from 
your inputs and expertise. 

Good wishes to all and please do understand how much I appreciate everyone's 
efforts to understand, respectfully debate and develop solutions to our 
collective crises, regardless of our sometimes differing views.

Best,
Emily. 
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2

-Original Message-
From: John Nissen 
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2015 22:48:27 
To: 
Cc: Emily Lewis-Brown; ; 
geoengineering; Michael 
MacCracken
Subject: Re: [geo] List of current Geoengineering?

Dear Alan,

I've watched your TED talk, and I think I understand why you are so
passionately against geoengineering: you fear the inadvertent production of
a nuclear winter; you fear the terrible famine which would follow, with 2
billion people dying of starvation.  But this is exactly what some of us
fear from climate change if the Arctic continues warming apace and there is
further disruption of the jet stream producing an escalation in extreme
weather events.

Sir David King produced a report on food security and the effects of
multiple breadbasket failure from extreme weather [1].  We must fight to
keep the sea ice and cool the Arctic, otherwise famine will follow.  How
can we do this?  There is nothing that the individual can do except support
the politicians in doing what hitherto has been thought unthinkable and you
say is a "bad idea" in your talk.  They have to deploy geoengineering
techniques to cool the Arctic and save the sea ice.  This is their moral
duty.  It is the only chance to prevent widespread famine and other
dreadful consequences of continued Arctic warming: methane feedback and
metres of sea level rise this century.

I've said enough.  Please think about it.

Regards, John

[1]
http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pdfs/extreme-weather-resilience-of-global-food-system.pdf


On Sun, Dec 20, 2015 at 3:29 PM, Alan Robock 
wrote:

> None of those are geoengineering. Geoengineering is deliberate. That is
> its definition.
>
> There is no such thing as accidental geoengineering. Certainly we do those
> things, but please discuss them elsewhere.
>
> Alan Robock
>
> Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
> Department of Environmental Sciences
> Rutgers University
> 14 College Farm Road
> New Brunswick, NJ  08901
>
> rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
> http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
> http://twitter.com/AlanRobock
> ☮☮
> Watch my 18 min TEDx talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEk1oZ-54
> Sent from my 

Re: [geo] List of current thing we do which affect the climate, like geoengineering

[NORTHCOTT Michael]

I appreciate your reasoned argument Emily but I don't think the repeated use of 
this list by a few individuals to advocate for geoengineering is helpful. Such 
contributions killed another useful list and are not in the spirit of academic 
listserves. I agree with Alan. This list is for scientific information (and 
occasionally discussion by scientists and other academics with relevant 
informed expert opinions) on geoengineering, which is intentional manipulation 
of the climate system. As an environmental ethicist I value it for that reason. 
Its use to advocate for geoengineering is unhelpful and will eventually kill it 
if contributors continue to use it in this way.

Regards

Michael


Professor Michael Northcott
New College
University of Edinburgh
Mound Place
Edinburgh
EH1 2LX
UK

0 (44) 131 650 7994

m.northc...@ed.ac.uk

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/divinity/staff/search?uun=northcom_xml=bio.php

Latest Book: A Political Theology of Climate Change (2014) 
http://www.spckpublishing.co.uk/shop/a-political-theology-of-climate-change/

Principal Investigator: Caring for the Future through Ancestral Time
ancestraltime.org.uk
http://careforthefuture.exeter.ac.uk/2014/11/ancestral-time/

edinburgh.academia.edu/MichaelNorthcott

On 21 Dec 2015, at 08:58, "em...@lewis-brown.net" 
> wrote:

Hi All,

Thanks for the emails on this. My thinking stems from a place where some of the 
things we currently do look a lot like some proposals for geo-eng, and we don't 
bat an eye, yet when these same activities are proposed for good purpose, they 
are slammed. I struggle with this, and feel it needs exploring to help deepen 
our understanding of the gut reactions against technologies which may have 
potential to help. Maybe we need or already have a list which covers this 
elsewhere? Please advise.

As an encologist and conservationist, to me it is clear cut: we mess up, we 
clean up. Environmental restoration and rehabilitation is normal, desirable, 
and a legal (and moral) duty, enshrined in uk, eu and other law.

One thing that strikes me from the methane release - geo-eng - Food security 
angle below, is reversibility. Am I right in thinking that many geo-eng 
approaches are reversible, whereas methane hydrates reaching a point of thawing 
and releasing ch4 is irreversible for a given lens of hydrates? Or is methane 
destabilisation reversible once it is warmed to the point of off-gassing? 
Understanding and considering the reversibility of the processes and also of 
the impacts of technologies seems important in relation to the 
reversibility/irreversibility of CC process and impacts (including feedbacks).

On intention and the definition of geo-eng, in the ecological field, animals 
and plants are said to have engineered their environment, such as beavers 
changing whole landscapes (inadvertently) by making one dam. This is perhaps a 
lose use of the word which engineers might not like. No insult intended. 
English isn't a very precise language and a melting pot of expertise from 
different disciplines, such as this list, will find we use words in different 
ways.

I am reminded that when we crash an environment into a wall, we are legally 
bound to mend the car and the wall. Simply reducing ghg will not mend the CC 
environmental and humanitarian car crash, even IPCC rely on net negative 
emissions in their scenarios, even without full inclusion of feedbacks. Which 
is challenging, but just another uncomfortable fact we face through our own 
folly.

It has been useful for me at least to observe and learn from this debate and 
others on this list, and thank you for the opportunity to engage and learn from 
your inputs and expertise.

Good wishes to all and please do understand how much I appreciate everyone's 
efforts to understand, respectfully debate and develop solutions to our 
collective crises, regardless of our sometimes differing views.

Best,
Emily.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2

From: John Nissen >
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2015 22:48:27 +
To: >
Cc: Emily Lewis-Brown>; 
>; 
geoengineering>;
 Michael MacCracken>
Subject: Re: [geo] List of current Geoengineering?

Dear Alan,

I've watched your TED talk, and I think I understand why you are so 
passionately against geoengineering: you fear the inadvertent production of a 
nuclear winter; you fear the terrible famine which would follow, with 2 billion 
people dying of starvation.