Memorandum submitted by Global Commons
Institute
1. SUMMARY
1. The UK budgets came from Contraction and Convergence
via the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution [RCEP] 2000
report "Energy—The Changing Climate". The report
recommended C&C but applied it at rates that are too slow
to keep within the 2° limit.
2. To keep within the 2 degrees Celsius temperature
limit, the budgets need to be based on a global emissions contraction
of 80% by 2050 and where the airborne fraction may still stay
constant @ 50% giving a 450 ppmv outcome. But with sinks failing
@ 0.5%/yr, the outcome may still be 450ppmv.
3. By not taking account of the "new"
Coupled-Carbon-Cycle modelling in IPCC AR4 Chapter 10 [2007],
the UK Climate Change Committee models and the assumptions used
by the Committee on Climate Change are not valid in setting carbon
budgets.
4. There is unanimous agreement among the coupled
climate carbon cycle models driven by emission scenarios run so
far that future climate change would reduce the efficiency of
the Earth system (land and ocean) to absorb anthropogenic CO2.
There is evidence that the CO2 airborne fraction is increasing,
so accelerating the rate of climate change.
5. Until about 1800 the overall climate system
was at equilibrium. The very sudden rise of the atmospheric concentration
of CO2 and CH4 since then shows that the system is no longer in
conditions of homeorhesis, it is going out of control.
6. Joke Waller Hunter, Executive Secrearty of
the UNFCCCCOP-9 in Milan in 2003 said, "Achieving the
goal of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
inevitably requires contraction and convergence."
7. The basis on which the UK Committee on Climate
Change arrived at the UK's share of the global effort to cut emissions
was the RCEP and their advocacy of Contraction and Convergence.
8. Convergence to equal per capita emissions
entitlements globally for example by 2020, would reflect the C&C
principle where, "if contraction must be accelerated for
reasons of urgency, convergence must be accelerated relative to
that for reasons of equity."
9. There appears to be an emerging consensus
for Contraction and Convergence as the UNFCCC-compliant global
framework for climate mitigation, as evidenced in the reference
material attached to this memorandum.
10. There is real danger of not doing enough
soon enough to avoid dangerous rates of climate change.
2. Question: Where did the UK budgets come
from? Are they adequate to keep within the 2° limit?
1. whether the UK's statutory targets for greenhouse
gas emissions are consistent with the Government's objective of
limiting global warming to no more than 2°C and whether they
are enforceable;
2. the extent to which the Committee on Climate
Change's recommended budgets to 2020 are consistent with the UK's
target for 2050.
Answer: They came from Contraction and Convergence
[C&C], but applied at rates that are too slow to keep within
2° limit
1. But with sinks failing @ 0.5%/yr, the outcome
may still be 450ppmv.
2. In concert with others, the UK Government's
aim is to limit overal global temperature above pre-industrial
to no more than two degrees Celsius. Not exceeding 450 ppmv CO2
in the atmosphere is considered a pre-requisite of keeping within
that limit.
3. "Enforcing" the right target will
be no harder than enforcing the wrong target.
Chart 1
Presently the budgets are a function of a global
emissions contraction of 50% by 2050 with convergence to equal
per capita entitlements globally by 2050. The UK budget came from
IPCC's "canon" of "uncoupled carbon-cycle models"
assuming an airborne fraction of emissions constant @ 50% giving
500 ppmv. But with sinks failing @ an average of 0.5%/yr, the
outcome will be 500 ppmv.
To keep within the 2 degrees Celsius temperature
limit, the budgets need to be a function of "coupled modelling"
with a global emissions contraction of 80% by 2050 and where the
airborne fraction may still stay constant @ 50% giving a 450 ppmv
outcome. But with sinks failing @ 0.5%/yr, the outcome may still
be 450ppmv. Convergence to equal per capita emissions entitlements
globally for example by 2020, would reflect the C&C principle
where, if contraction must be accelerated for reasons of urgency,
convergence must be accelerated relative to that for reasons of
equity.
Chart 2
3. Question: Were the climate models and the
assumptions used by the Committee on Climate Change valid in setting
carbon budgets?
The suitability of the climate models and the
validity of the assumptions used by the Committee on Climate Change
in setting carbon budgets
Answer: No. By not taking account of the Coupled-Carbon-Cycle
modeling in IPCC AR4 Ch. 10 [2007], the Climate Change Committee
was not up to date
1. Lord Adair Turner incorrectly told the EAC
that "feedbacks" were in the climate models that his
committee had relied on for their revision of the control figure
for the UK.
2. He said, "I mean you're absolutely
right to identify that one of the things that you have to be very
aware of is the process of going to two degrees or three degrees
in itself produces feedback loops that which increase the chance
of going to a higher level, but those feedback loops should be
in the scientific models to start with. Right, so that is precisely
what the scientists are attempting to get to grips with. So when
the scientists say this emissions trajectory, we believe, has
a 99% chance of keeping us below 4 degrees, they have embedded
their best judgment of the feedback loops within it. They haven't
produced a model without feedback loops and then you have to add
feedbacks loops as a separate thing; those feedback loops are
in there already. I think what gets very complicated is whether
there is anywhere you know what people call `tipping points' or
thresholds—does it become totally irreversible or do we
simply have feedback loops without absolute irreversibility and
I think the scientists vary on that. But we did highlight that
it was possible that some of the feedback loops became very strongly
reinforcing above a certain temperature and that there were some
physical things which might be irreversible; you know the melting
of the Greenland ice-sheets etc. So I think we have taken fairly
rigorously those into account in the way that we did it, and that
was... it was a sense of those feedback loops and that irreversibility
that made us believe that the crucial thing is to limit the increase
to two or slightly above two degrees and to make very likely that
we don't go above three and almost certain that we don't go above
four."
Chart 3
3. The underlined section above is significantly
incorrect. Indeed the opposite is true with regard to the modelling
of carbon cycle feedbacks. This is the omission of feedbacks that
was finally addressed in IPCC AR4, the modelled images here are
unpacked on pages 12 and 13 of this document.
Chart 4
4. It comes from Ch 10 WG1 IPCC AR4 [2007]:—http://ipccwg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch10.pdf
5. Lord Turner refers to the Hadley Centre models.
It is the Hadley Centre coupled model in the image where the difference
in the future weight of global carbon emissions between the "uncoupled"
models ["b"—where feedbacks are largely omitted]
and the "coupled models" ["c"—where
feedbacks are considerably represented] is greatest [as shown
in "d"—where the differences are weighed]. In
a phrase, the contraction events are accelerated [or shrunk by
more than 40%] when the carbon-cycle feedbacks are included. Lord
Turner's committee appeared to be unaware of this.
6. In concert with others, the UK Government's
aim is to limit overal global temperature above pre-industrial
to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. Not exceeding 450 ppmv CO2
in the atmosphere is considered a pre-requisite of keeping within
that limit. As things stand that we will fail in that aim.
7. The contraction events for 450 ppmv modeled
in the image on the bottom of page seven were published for the
first time by IPCC AR4 in 2007. They come from the Hadley Centre
and are "uncoupled" [without feedbacks] compared with
"coupled" [with feedbacks].
8. With the effect of "positive-feedbacks"
now understood as an issue of urgency, the "coupled"
emissions contraction event has been shrunk to only 60% of the
earlier "uncoupled" event. In weight terms, 2000-2100,
it is the difference between around 550 and 330 Gtc.
9. In percentage terms, this is the difference
between the 50% and the 80% cut in emissions globally by 2050
shown. Note the 80% cut by 2050 was called for at WEF/DAVOS [p
24 point 1].
10. A full-term global emissions "contraction-and-convergence-event"
at sufficient rates is the strategic necessity to keep within
the 450 ppmv limit. With a global cut of emissions by 50% by 2050
and international convergence to equal per capita by that date,
these rates of contraction & convergence [C&C] are the
stated basis of the UK Climate Act as things stand. For reasons
of urgency and equity, these must be accelerated to for example
the rates in lower graphic page 6.
11. C&C came from GCI via the Royal Commission
on Environmental Pollution [RCEP] report 2000. C&C requires
rates sufficient to solve the problem. RCEP accepted the principle
that the rate of global convergence must be accelerated relative
to the rate of contraction of greenhouse gas emissions required
for to achieve the 550 ppmv they advocated 550 ppmv.
12. Lord Adair Turner, Chairman of the independent
Committee on Climate Change, wrote to Ed Milliband, the Minister
for Energy and Climate Change [07/10/08]. He confirmed acceptance
of the original RCEP C&C target of a 60% cut in UK emissions
by 2050, and justified its revision to the RCEP figure of an 80%
cut by 2050 inside a 50% cut globally for 450 ppmv, on the grounds
of urgency:—"the dangers of significant climate
change are greater than previously assessed;"
13. Being, on the grounds of equity, equal per
capita globally by 2050, telling an enquiry by the House of Commons
Environmental Audit Committee (EAC);—"The core [of
the Act] is contract and converge. We cannot imagine a global
deal which is both doable and fair which doesn't end up by mid-century
with roughly equal rights per capita to emit and that is clearly
said in the report. This is strong support for what Aubrey Meyer
has been saying."
14. The House of Commons Energy and Climate Change
Committee (ECCC) then told Lord Adair Turner that;—"[your]
pragmatic support for Contraction and Convergence, on the record
from a meeting with the EAC [04/02/09], is very welcome."
15. Then, referring to the call in January 2009
from World Economic Forum for an 80% cut globally by 2050 on grounds
of increased urgency, [see pages 24/25] they asked him;—"Would
you accept that as the speed of Contraction accelerates, the speed
of the acceleration of Convergence will also have to pick up?
There's always been a presumption at the International Climate
Change negotiations that Developing Countries will be allowed
to increase temporarily their emissions to help development. But
that's going to be a concertina'd process—is that really
how you'd see it?"
16. Lord Adair Turner replied;—"While
this raises a complex issue of international negotiations, you
are right."
IMPACT OF
INDUSTRIAL EMISSIONS
ON HOMEORHESIS
ON CO2 & CH4 FROM
LONG PAST
1. Noting the "heat-trapping" properties
of carbon dioxide [CO2] and methane [CH4], they are known as "greenhouse
gases" [ghgs].
2. The record of these ghgs in ice-core samples
collected around the world, now extends to one million years before
the present. Measurements have been made of flows between their
sources and sinks.
3. The correlation between the varying temperature
and atmospheric concentration of CO2 and CH4 is apparent from
the data charted opposite through four ice-ages over the last
450,000 years.
4. What is also observable is that the overall
climate-system was at equilibrium. In conditions that were clearly
"homeorhetic",—in other words, overall self-correcting—the
correlation between the varying temperature and atmospheric concentration
of CO2 and CH4 was in "band-widths" of [a] 180-280 parts
per million by volume [ppmv] CO2 [b] 300-700 parts per billion
by volume [ppbv] CH4, with [c] Temperature varying between 5-15
degrees Celsius.
5. This is fundamental to understanding the circumstances
we are now in. The very sudden rise of the atmospheric concentration
of CO2 and CH4 since 1800, shows that while the correlation is
still there, the system is no longer in conditions of homeorhesis,
it is going out of control.
6. John Knaess who led the US delegation to the
2nd World Climate Conference in Geneva in November 1990, made
the key points at a news conference receiving the IPCC First Assessment
Report [FAR]. When he was asked if this "global warming stuff"
was really happening, he said:—"Its simple sophomore
physics; the questions are only how much change and how soon?"
Chart 5
OBSERVED CO2 IN
TODAY'S
ATMOSPHERE [MOUNA
LOA; US GOVERNMENT]
1. Since 1974 and from Mauna Loa Observatory
in Hawaii, the US Government has coordinated a world programme
making direct measurements of rising atmospheric concentrations
of CO2 and other gases.
2. The wavy blue line is the aggregate of measurements,
going up and down on a rising average, reflecting seasonal flux
in the "carbon-cycle".
3. Compared with the straight line [the dotted
line], the overall trend curvature [the solid as the average of
the blue] shows "acceleration" in the rise of the concentrations
of CO2.
4. This reflects the first and probably already
as well, the second of two things:—[a] acceleration in the
source-rise of human CO2 emissions globally and [b] declining
"sink-capacity" for these extra CO2 emissions in the
natural sinks of CO2.
5. In geological time, as shown by linking to
the graphic above, this rise is very sudden. It is like "an
explosion in slow motion' and represents a complete loss of "homeorhesis".
UNCOUPLED CLIMATE
MODELS TO
ASSESS FUTURES
WITH SUDDEN
LOSS OF
HOMEORHESIS
1. Since the 1980s "climate models"
have been developed to help predict the future atmospheric concentration
of CO2 and CH4 under various forest and fossil-fuel burning "scenarios".
With that, the implications of this array of potential "futures"
on global temperature and climate change have been assessed.
2. A main focus of these has been on the "carbon-cycle"
through the oceans, atmosphere and biosphere, but as influenced
by the impact of the emissions of these gases from human sources
as a result of the start of burning forests and fossil fuels [coal,
oil, gas] with the onset of industrialisation.
3. The principal carbon cycle model used to help
answer this question was the "Berne Model" and output
from it was first published by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change [IPCC] in 1994. Five "scenarios" were
published; these were future carbon-emissions "contraction-events"
or "budgets" for outcomes of 350, 450, 550, 650 and
750 ppmv atmospheric CO2 concentration in the global atmosphere.
Chart 6
4. These reflected a judgment given in the IPCC's
"First Assessment Report" [FAR] from 1990. In 1990 the
atmospheric CO2 concentration was 353 parts per million by volume
[ppmv] or 25% above the pre-industrial maximum value of 280 ppmv.
IPCC's judgment was that an immediate 60-80% cut in human emissions
of CO2 would be needed if the upward rise in the atmospheric concentration
of CO2 in that year were to be halted immediately. They didn't
say it had to be done and they didn't say it didn't; but two things
were crucial.
5. First: It was apparently not the 100% cessation
of emissions that was required. Continuing with 40-20% of emissions
was judged to be consistent with atmosphere CO2 "stabilisation".
This view came from observing human emissions and global concentrations
of CO2 since 1800. Measurements covering those 200 years showed
[a] roughly half of any year's emissions from human sources returned
to the apparently enlarging natural "sinks" for CO2
and [b] the other half remained in the atmosphere—where
a pattern seemed to have emerged of what became misleadingly known
as the "Constant Airborne Fraction" [CAF].
6. Second: The "airborne fraction".
Whether this fraction was in reality constant or not, it was cumulative
because the human emissions that stayed in the atmosphere added
up over time as a rising "stock". That explained the
rise in ppmv of atmospheric concentrations of CO2. By June 1992
the UN had agreed a Climate Convention, the objective of which
was to stabilise the rise of ghg in the global atmosphere below
a value that was "dangerous". The probability of "positive-feedback"
where natural "sinks" ceased to enlarge, shrank and
even turned to sources, so accelerating the rates of climate change
was largely ignored, as they were "speculative" and
difficult to model.
7. Fossil fuel dependency had become fundamental
to modern economic activity and the correlation of GDP to CO2
from fossil fuel burning has been and remains at nearly 100%.
The heat-trapping implications of rising CO2 had serious implications
for the future. The climate change questions "how much how
soon" became "will the benefits of global growth gradually
be outweighed by the damages caused by global climate changes".
8. All the questions about UK carbon budgets
in the Climate Act asked by the EAC relate to that global question.
In this "battle-of-the-rates" the C&C propositions
offered by GCI for the last 15 years relate to feedbacks and fighting
that battle by answering that question rationally.
9. With the 350 ppmv budget removed and one for
1,000 ppmv added due to pressure from industry lobbyists in Working
Group Three of IPCC, the IPCC re-published these Berne-Model-type
results from 1995 onwards. As is shown below, for the IPCC 1995
Second Assessment Report [SAR] the 2001 Third Assessment Report
[TAR] and the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report [AR4], these scenarios
were repeated and have remained the standard reference set for
the "climate-policy" community for more than 10 years
until the present time.
10. It is of note that over 300 years of future
time with CO2 concentrations theoretically stabilising "safely"
at up to 1,000 ppmv, on the back of finding, extracting and combusting
an inventory of up to two trillion tonnes of future fossil fuel
resources, these scenarios all modelled contraction:concentration
events that, ignoring the positive feedbacks not-too-mention the
rapid depletion of reserves of oil and gas, ludicrously
assumed the airborne fraction of emissions in these scenarios
would all remain constant at around 50% right up to 1,000 ppmv.
Chart 7
COUPLED CLIMATE
MODELS TO
ASSESS FUTURES
WITH SUDDEN
LOSS OF
HOMEORHESIS
1. However, in Chapter 10 of IPCC AR4 [2007]
Working Group One [WG1] an important contribution from the "Models
Inter-Comparison Group" was included which addressed this
feedback issue openly for the first time. All the carbon-cycle
emissions scenarios were revisited comparing the past "Uncoupled"
model runs with the new "Coupled" model runs, with IPCC
saying:
2. "There is unanimous agreement among
the coupled climate carbon cycle models driven by emission scenarios
run so far that future climate change would reduce the efficiency
of the Earth system (land and ocean) to absorb anthropogenic CO2."
3. Published in a non-headline-grabbing manner
with a complexity of graphic information that discouraged interpretation,
the graphic [exactly as below] appeared on page 791 where:
7. Because of the density of this overlay, but
especially because of the significance of the acknowledgement
of the positive-feedback issue being modeled and published by
IPCC for the first time, GCI wrote to the Technical Support Unit
[TSU] of IPCC Working Group One [WG1] to get confirmation that
the information as shown in the graphics on page 13 had correctly
disentangled the IPCC graphic on page 12. With thanks, TSU confirmed
this saying, "we wish out authors had been this clear."
8. The principal reason for this enquiry was
the quite extraordinary discovery that in all the coupled-uncoupled
comparisons and unclearly shown in the images published in the
AR4, two different paths for emissions globally were being shown
prior to 2000, as is shown by following the dotted lines.
9. The reason for this was finally given by the
Hadley Centre who said that when "coupling" to reflect
feedbacks was calculated, the revision of source:sink relations
in the carbon-cycle showed that sink-function in the models had
certainly been over-estimated prospectively and retrospectively
as well.
10. In other words, with the "weight-record"
of concentrations and past fossil fuel emissions well documented,
the modelers concluded that the recent historic emissions from
deforestation had also been overestimated, throwing their estimates
of the strength of sink-function into further doubt.
4. Question: What was the basis on which the
Committee on Climate Change arrived at the UK's share of the global
effort to cut emissions?
The basis on which the Committee on Climate
Change arrived at the UK's share of the global effort to cut emissions.
Answer: The basis was the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution [RCEP] and their advocacy of GCI's Contraction and Convergence
[C&C] who made C&C a key recommendation of their report
"Energy—the Changing Climate" [2000]
Key RCEP recommendations:
— The UK should continue to play a forceful
leading role in international negotiations to combat climate change,
both in its own right and through the European Union. The gov-ernment
should press for further reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions
of devel-oped nations after 2012, and controls on the emissions
of developing nations (4.68).
— The government should press for a future
global climate agreement based on the contraction and convergence
approach, combined with international trading in emission permits.
Together, these offer the best long-term prospect of securing
equity, economy and international consensus (4.69).
— The government should now adopt a strategy
which puts the UK on a path to reducing carbon dioxide emissions
by some 60% from current levels by about 2050. This would be in
line with a global agreement based on contraction and convergence
which set an upper limit for the carbon dioxide concentration
in the atmosphere of some 550 ppmv and a convergence date of 2050
(10.10).
"ENERGY—THE
CHANGING CLIMATE
RCEP" [2000] CHAPTER 4—PROSPECTS
FOR AN
EFFECTIVE INTERNATIONAL
RESPONSE: CONTRACTION
& CONVERGENCE
"The government should press for a future
global climate agreement based on the Contraction & Convergence
approach, combined with international trading in emission permits.
Together, these offer the best long-term prospect of securing
equity, economy and international consensus (4.69).
4.47 Continued, vigorous debate is needed,
within and between nations, on the best basis for an agreement
to follow the Kyoto Protocol. Our view is that an effective, enduring
and equitable climate protocol will eventually require emission
quotas to be allocated to nations on a simple and equal per capita
basis. There will have to be a comprehensive system of monitoring
emissions to ensure the quotas are complied with. Adjustment factors
could be used to compensate for differences in nations' basic
energy needs. Those countries which regularly experience very
low or high temperatures might, for instance, be entitled to an
extra allocation per capita for space heating or cooling.
4.48 A system of per capita quotas could
not be expected to enter into force immediately. At the same time
as entitling developing nations to use substantially more fossil
fuels than at present (which they might not be able to afford),
it would require developed nations to make drastic and immediate
cuts in their use of fossil fuels, causing serious damage to their
economies.
4.49 A combination of two approaches could
avoid this politically and diplomatically unacceptable situation,
while enabling a per capita basis to be adhered to. The first
approach is to require nations emission quotas to follow a contraction
and convergence trajectory. Over the coming decades each nation's
allocation would gradually shift from its current level of emissions
towards a level set on a uniform per capita basis.
By this means `grandfather rights' would gradually
be removed: the quotas of developed nations would fall, year by
year, while those of the poorest developing nations would rise,
until all nations had an entitlement to emit an equal quantity
of greenhouse gases per head (convergence). From then on, the
quotas of all nations would decline together at the same rate
(contraction). The combined global total of emissions would follow
a profile through the 21st and 22nd centuries that kept the atmospheric
concentration of greenhouse gases below a specified limit.
4.50 The upper limit on the concentration
of greenhouse gases would be determined by international negotiations,
as would the date by which all nations would converge on a uniform
per capita basis for their emission quotas, and the intermediate
steps towards that. It would probably also be necessary to set
a cut-off date for national populations: beyond that date, further
changes in the size of a country's population would not lead to
any increase or decrease in its emission quota.
Chart 10
4.51 In table 4.1 we have applied `Contraction
& Convergence' approach to carbon dioxide emissions, and calculated
what the UK's emissions quotas would be in 2050 and 2100 for four
alternative upper limits on atmospheric concentration. We have
assumed for this purpose that 2050 would be both the date by which
nations would converge on a uniform per capita emissions figure
and the cut-off date for national populations. If 550 ppmv is
selected as the upper limit, UK carbon dioxide emissions would
have to be reduced by almost 60% from their current level by mid-century,
and by almost 80% by 2100. Even stabilisation at a very high level
of 1,000 ppmv would require the UK to cut emissions by some 40%
by 2050.
4.52 The UK-based Global Commons Institute
has taken the lead in promoting `Contraction & Convergence',
and has developed a computer model that specifies emission allocations
under a range of scenarios. The concept has been supported by
several national governments and legislators. Some developed nations
are very wary of it because it implies drastic reductions in their
emissions, but at least one minister in a European government
has supported it. Commentators on climate diplomacy have identified
contraction & convergence as a leading contender among the
various proposals for allocating emission quotas to nations in
the long term.
4.53 The other ingredient that would make
an agreement based on per capita allocations of quotas more feasible
is flexibility of the kind already provided in outline in the
Kyoto Protocol. Nations most anxious to emit greenhouse gases
in excess of their allocation over a given period will be able
and willing to purchase unused quota at prices that incline other
countries to emit less than their quota, to the benefit of both
parties. The clean development mechanism, which allows developed
nations to claim emission reductions by sponsoring projects that
reduce emissions in developing nations to levels lower than they
would otherwise have been, can also be seen as a form of trading.
4.54 In the longer term trading by companies
in emission permits, drawn from national emission quotas determined
on the basis of a contraction and convergence agreement, could
make a valuable contribution to reducing the global costs of stabilising
greenhouse gas concentrations while transferring resources from
wealthy nations to poorer ones. Trading needs to be transparent,
monitored and regulated, and backed by penalties on nations that
emit more than they are entitled to. If it became merely a means
of enabling wealthy nations to buy up the emission entitlements
of poor countries on the cheap, thereby evading taking any action
at home, trading would not serve the cause of climate protection.
Nor would it if developing countries that had sold quota heavily
went on to emit in excess of their revised entitlements."
5. C&C METHODOLOGY
FOR A
FRAMEWORK-BASED
MARKET—HOW
IT CAME
INTO RCEP
1. From 1990 GCI argued for the notion of the
future sharing of permits to emit ghg on an equal per capita basis
globally. It was seen as a general expression of "global
equity". When the results of the Berne Model were first published
in 1994 GCI uniquely created the rational calculating model that
we called "Contraction and Convergence" [C&C] that
calculates any rate of achieving equal rights, subject to the
limit that achieves the objective of the UNFCCC. Following the
lead given by the Bern Model, in this order C&C calculates
and integrates:—[a] any global path-integrals of future
emissions [Contraction:Stable-Concentration-events] with [b] any
rate of arriving at the globally/internationally equal per capita
sharing of such events [Contraction:Convergence] with linear convergence
and an optional population base-year function.
2. The model includes:—[c] historic data
for emissions of all countries 1800-2000 [CDIAC] and [d] population
projections for 50 years [UNSTAT] and the "base-year"
function can be invoked for any one of those years as desired
by users. As C&C is integrated in spread-sheet architecture,
internationally comprehensive graphic output demonstrating different
rates of C&C is quite easy to generate and the trend rates
of growth for the economy, emissions, concentrations and the damages
caused by climate changes can be compared to this, as follows
for example:
Chart 11
3. The costs of continuing to cause the problem
faster than we respond to avoid it are incalculable. The key is
to calculate and demonstrate futures where we understand communicate
and organise to solve the climate problem faster than we cause
it. C&C is a tool for that purpose. The UK Climate Act is
a globally defined, national response to what it now accepts is
a C&C-based engagement with that international dilemma.
4. GCI displayed large graphic output of C&C
to the UN climate negotiations from 1996 onwards and C&C immediately
became fundamental to the UNFCCC's equity-debate on QELROs [Quantified
Emissions Reductions Limitations Options] and it came close to
being adopted at COP-3 in Kyoto in 1997: http://www.gci.org.uk/temp/COP3_Transcript.pdf
[p 43].
Chart 12
5. In 1999, as a result of all this, the Royal
Commission on Environmental Pollution [RCEP] requested GCI to
provide Contraction and Convergence [C&C] input to the report
they were preparing based on the Berne model. GCI presented them
with material resembling the three scenarios along-side. GCI's
"rule" was as shown; where contraction was accelerated,
convergence was accelerated relative to that.
6. As shown on pages 14 and 15 of this document,
in their report to Gov-ernment "Energy—the Changing
Climate" [2000], the RCEP adopted C&C at rates for
550 ppmv with convergence to per capita equality by 2050 and this
gave the figure of a 60% cut in UK emissions by 2050. RCEP made
C&C and minus 60% for the UK, a "key recommendation"
to Government. While the Government wavered on the adoption of
C&C, the figure of minus 60% for UK emissions by 2050 derived
from it became the initial basis of the UK ghg control.
7. Keeping scenarios for 450 and 550 ppmv, RCEP
incautiously replaced the scenario for 350 ppmv with ones for
750 and 1000 ppmv adding:
8. "Concentration of 550 ppmv represents
approximately double the concentration of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere prior to industrialisation (2.7). Some environmental
groups (including the Global Commons Institute, see 4.52) regard
550 ppmv as a dangerously high concentration which is incompatible
with the aim of sustainable development.8 8. Global Commons Institute's
website, http:/www.gci.org.uk
9. The institute regards 450 ppmv as an upper
limit."
6. NOTE ON
THE METHODOLOGY
AND POLITICS
OF C&C AND
POSITIVE FEEDBACKS
1. From the outset GCI had been concerned about
the really problematic nature of the "positive-feedback issue"
because:—[a] the threat of climate change becoming "runaway"
was a reality proportional to the extent the effects of warming
started feeding off each other, generating a global fast-breeder
reaction the possibility of which was hard to discount though
[b] the difficulties of numerically "modeling" this
were nearly insuperable.
2. There was understandably fierce resistance
to allowing the questions about "how much change, how soon?"
and "at what rates will the benefits of economic growth be
outweighed by the costs of the damages it causes?" to entertain
the possibility that all our efforts to organise a global contraction-and-convergence
equivalent event may just become too little too late and so ultimately
futile.
3. Moreover, by 1996 GCI had already generated
a reputation for "radicalism" because of publicly fighting
and also winning a battle against "the economics of genocide"
in the preparation of the IPCC Second Assessment. [IPCC SAR WG3
Chapter 6].
4. With the C&C model's introduction in 1996,
the contraction:concentrations part of calculus simply mimicked
the procedures of the Berne model. These, although modeled a different
way, showed a relationship between emissions and concentrations
that de facto equaled and extended an airborne fraction forward
over time that remained roughly constant at 50%.
5. Indeed, all the Berne-type emissions:concentration
scenarios published by the IPCC 1994 to 2007, were for all practical
purposes, expressions of an airborne fraction of emissions constant
at 50% and these—dangerously—have held the status
of "holy-writ" since 1994.
6. GCI's method was to go from mimicking the
contraction:concentrations relationship as modeled in the Berne
model [and the other models that were gradually appearing], to
a method of simple mathematical trend-projection. Unlike the so-called
carbon-cycle models, which whether "coupled" or "uncoupled"
were opaque, GCI's method was simple, precise and transparent.
As the C&C model was designed to compute any rates of contraction
with any rates of convergence, at first mimicking the convention
of 450, 550 ppmv and so on, GCI computed with C&C: [a] a range
of emissions contraction-events, with rates and dates and carbon
weighed conventionally in gigatonnes of carbon [Gtc] as flows
of carbon per unit time; but then:—[b] with 1 ppmv CO2 equalling
2.13 Gigatonnes carbon, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were
converted to weight, so accumulations [concentrations] were more
easily computed as a fraction of emissions. The value of 280 ppmv
in 1800 gave atmospheric stock of carbon in that year as 595 Gtc.
and the rising atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were then projected
as an accumulation of various fractions of the emissions contraction-events
i.e adding to the existing atmospheric stock at constant rates
of of 50%, 75% and 100% airborne fractions. As the graphics opposite
show, this procedure gives a frame of reference [yellow band]
against which different rates of "sink-failure", eg
at 0.5%/year, 1%/year, 2%/year, can be projected for comparison.
7. Presently the budgets are a function of a
global emissions contraction of 50% by 2050 with convergence to
equal per capita entitlements globally by 2050. The UK budget
came from IPCC's "canon" of "uncoupled carbon-cycle
models" assuming an airborne fraction of emissions constant
@ ~50% giving <500 ppmv. But with sinks failing @ an average
of ~0.5%/yr, the outcome will be >500 ppmv.
8. To keep within the 2 degrees Celsius temperature
limit, the budgets need to be a function of "coupled modelling"
where a global emissions contraction of 80% by 2050 and where
the airborne fraction may still stay constant @ ~50% giving a
450 ppmv outcome. But with sinks failing @ ~0.5%/yr, the outcome
may still be >450ppmv.
9. Convergence to equal per capita emissions
entitlements globally for example by 2020 [as shown here], would
apply the C&C principle where, if contraction must be accelerated
for reasons of urgency, convergence should be accelerated relative
to that for reasons of equity.
10. This rate-of-convergence of course is the
principle means whereby correction of the past asymmetries of
"Expansion and Divergence" can be negotiated.
11. As noted in the Garnaut Review [2007], "The
contraction and convergence approach addresses the central international
equity issue simply and transparently. Slower convergence (a later
date at which per capita emissions entitlements are equalised)
favours emitters that are above the global per capita average
at the starting point. Faster convergence gives more emissions
rights to low per capita emitters. The convergence date is the
main equity lever in such a scheme."
Chart 13
7. IMPACT OF
FEEDBACK ON
"C&C PROPORTIONALITY-RULE"
AND THE
UK CLIMATE ACT
1. In a letter to the Secretary of State [07/10/08],
Lord Adair Turner confirmed acceptance of RCEP's C&C-derived
target of a 60% cut in UK emissions by 2050. He then, consistent
with RCEP figures for [uncoupled] C&C, [see RCEP table 4.1
row 1, page 13 of this document] justified its revision to an
80% cut by 2050 on the grounds of urgency and equity telling the
Environmental Audit Committee [EAC]:—"The core [of
the Act] is contract and converge. We cannot imagine a global
deal which is both doable and fair which doesn't end up by mid-century
with roughly equal rights per capita to emit and that is clearly
said in the report. This is strong support for what Aubrey Meyer
has been saying."
2. The Energy & Climate Change Committee
[ECCC] subsequently put to him that:—"[your] pragmatic
support for Contraction and Convergence, on the record from a
meeting with the EAC, is very welcome."
3. Then, referring to the call from WEF for an
80% cut globally by 2050, [pages 24 25] asked him:—"Would
you accept that as the speed of Contraction accelerates, the speed
of the acceleration of Convergence will also have to pick up?
There's always been a presumption at the International Climate
Change negotiations that Developing Countries will be allowed
to increase temporarily their emissions to help development. But
that's going to be a concertina'd process—is that really
how you'd see it?"
4. Lord Adair Turner replied:—"While
this raises a very complex issue of international negotiations,
you are right."
8. THE EMERGING
CONSENSUS FOR
C&C
1. Since 1992 and embracing the years of the
so-called "Kyoto-Protocol" [1995-1997-2008], valuable
time has been lost in negotiation of a genuinely UNFCCC-compliant
global framework.
2. At COP9, Milan, 4 December 2003, Joke Waller
Hunter Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC said publicly:—"Achieving
the goal of the climate treaty inevitably requires contraction
and convergence."
3. Lord Adair Turner's evidence to the EAC in
Feb 2009 was encouraging and said:—"The core [of
the Climate Act] is contract and converge. We cannot imagine a
global deal which is both doable and fair which doesn't end up
by mid-century with roughly equal rights per capita to emit and
that is clearly said in the report. This is strong support for
what Aubrey Meyer has been saying."
4. After 20 years of campaigning for C&C,
this was another notable example of feeding the the emerging consensus
for C&C described by Kemal Dervis Chief Administrator of the
UNDP. On 5 April 2008, the UK Government hosted an international
Conference on "Progressive Governance" outside London.
At this a paper by Lord Nicholas Stern (LSE) and Laurence Tubiana
(Iddri/SciencesPo) entitled "A Progressive global deal on
climate change" was presented to the conference. It stated
that:—"An international agreement is essential.
It must be based on the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency
and equity. Effectiveness demands a long-term global goal capping
global emissions and providing a long-term trajectory for investment
in low-carbon technologies. This should be at least a halving
of global emissions by 2050. A pragmatic principle of equity would
require an equalisation of per capita emissions by then."
5. This was immediately then endorsed by the
Head of UNDP, Kemal Dervis, who was present and welcomed it as
part of what he called "the emerging consensus" which
the UNDP had itself described as C&C in their Human Development
report for 2007-08 "Fighting Climate Change; Human Solidarity
in a Divided World" in the section "Contraction and
Convergence; Sustainability with Equity" [see Section 10.9
of this document].
6. Section 10 provides some of the evidence of
this "emerging consensus for C&C". The eminent persons
and institutions in this only partial list is long, but from it
the names, Tony Blair, John Schelnhuber, Kemal Dervis, Nicholas
Stern stand out because they have been conspicuously part of a
version of "the emerging consensus for C&C" that
advocated minus 50% globally by 2050 with equal per capita by
then.
7. The 50% cut by 2050 globally coincided with
the equalization of per capita emissions globally by that date
too, involving an 80% cut in the emissions of Developed Countries.
8. In other words part of the C&C principle
where, "for reasons of equity, convergence must be accelerated
relative to the rate of contraction" was accepted in this
"emerging consensus".
9. Yet a year later these people signed the statement
from the World Economic Forum in DAVOS [Jan 2009] which called
for an 80% cut globally by 2050 [see Section 8.2 of this document].
10. This new position of an 80% cut globally—ie
by everyone—remarkably abandoning the equity part of the
principle that convergence must be accelerated relative to the
rate of contraction.
11. For reasons of "urgency", the call
for the cut of 80% by Developed Countries stood and was simply
extended to everyone else in Developing Countries to do likewise.
12. The UK Climate Act applies the equity aspect
of the C&C principle that "convergence must be accelerated
relative to the rate of contraction". However, it is at overall
rates that are too slow to achieve the UK Government's target
of 450 ppmv/2 degrees.
13. The Stern et al WEF/DAVOS position correctly
accelerates contraction for reasons of urgency to a rate that
could keep us within that target, but abandons the aspect of the
principle where convergence must be accelerated relative to that
for reasons of equity.
14. It is notable these people on the WEF/DAVOS
list didn't pick up on the issue of feedbacks even with the arrival
of the "coupled" modeling published in IPCC AR4 in 2007
and that only, finally with their publication of that WEF/DAVOS
statement in 2009, would it appear that they did.
15. However, to have abandoned "the emerging
consensus for C&C" which they had become a significant
part of generating, by failing to uphold the aspect that, if contraction
must be accelerated for reasons of urgency, convergence must be
accelerated relative to that for reasons of equity as well, it
was provocative and counter-productive.
16. In the Energy and Climate Change Committee,
Colin Challen MP correctly emphasized what he called the dangers
of Developing Countries being "concertina'd" as the
rate of contraction inevitably "picked up" for reasons
or urgency without the rate of convergence being accelerated relative
to that for reasons of equity.
17. He welcomed the acceptance by Adair Turner
that the C&C principle was the core of the Climate Act. He
then questioned him about the situation created by the WEF statement
where accelerated contraction was called for asking that, "if
contraction must be accelerated for reasons of urgency, convergence
must be accelerated relative to that for reasons of equity."
18. Lord Turner took Colin Challen's point and
responded by saying that he was right.
19. So the questions posed by EAC about the derivation
of the carbon-budgets in the UK Climate Act are appropriate. The
control figure as advocated and defended by Lord Adair Turner's
Climate Change Committee is a result of being unaware of, or possibly
just ignoring, the coupled modeling in the AR4, the "debut"
of which was itself was years overdue.
9. RISK:—THE
REAL DANGER
OF NOT
DOING ENOUGH
SOON ENOUGH
1. However, all this reveals another and more
serious problem and it is in this risk-context that the emissions
control paradigm outlined in the UK Climate Act needs to be understood.
With sinks failing and feedbacks becoming more net positive as
concentrations rise, a reality becomes more and not less likely
that the higher concentrations are forced to go by unrestrained
emissions or even by insufficiently restrained emissions, the
faster the annual rate of sink failure will become.
2. The models don't really tell us that on current
trends of failure to control emissions and the momentum that is
being generated by this, it is not implausible to foresee rates
of net sink failure that can eventually become greater than 100%
of emissions per annum. The interactive effect of positive feedbacks
can accelerate and even totally overwhelm the declining of source:sink
"balance" we still presently have.
3. Runaway climate change can become unstoppable
as we all go beyond a point of no-return, where all attempts of
"emissions-control" become futile as we are overtaken
by the damages from the momentum of what becomes increasingly
catastrophic rates of global climate change.
4. As the RCEP correctly recognised in 2000,
a fully global solution is needed to this definitively global
problem and that the global framework for organising the ghg emissions
control to prevent this is Contraction and Convergence.
5. The key is to bring C&C to bear as an
organising principle and then apply it at rates that are fast
enough to head off the threat of what the eminent Australian Government
economist Prof. Ross Garnaut had already called in 2007, "the
diabolical problem of climate change to which humanity may well
lose." As with the UK RCEP his Climate Review for the Australian
Government in 2007 was based on Contraction and Convergence, about
which this year he wrote:—"Over the last 20 years,
Aubrey Meyer's sustained work through the GCI with the `Contraction
and Convergence'—or C&C—concept and campaign,
has created a global standard that is now widely recognized as
an outstanding and essential contribution to the global debate
on what to do to avoid dangerous rates of climate change. This
is remarkable and reflects the integrity of the argument where
C&C is mathematically rooted in the science of climate change
and marries the limit to future human emissions that avoids dangerous
rates of climate change to the politically compelling requirement
of equal shares in the use of the atmosphere subject to that limit.
It embodies the economic political reality, that adjustment to
equal per capita emissions entitlements will take time. It is
a rational, flexible and transparent concept that holds out the
best hope of all urgent proposals that might form a basis of an
environmentally and economically rational global agreement on
climate change mitigation. The contraction and convergence idea
was at the core of the proposals for inter-national agreement
that are part of the Garnaut Climate Change Review, commissioned
by and presented to the Australian Prime Minister and all State
Premiers (R. Garnaut, 2008, The Garnaut Climate Change Review,
Cambridge University Press; www.garnautreview.org.au ). Support
should be given to this campaign particularly at this time as
this year—2009—leads to a UN event in Copenhagen in
December at which it is intended that the global plan to avoid
dangerous rates of climate change is agreed and established for
the long-term."
10. REFERENCE
MATERIALS SUPPORTING
THE GCI MEMORANDUM1. Garnaut
"Climate Change Review" June 2008 [p 23].
2. World Economic Forum 2008: "Shaping an
Opportunity Out of Crisis—A message to participants in the
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2009 from Members of the Global
Agenda Council on Climate Change." [pp 24/5].
3. "Global Warming—The Complete Briefing"
3rd Edition 2004, Sir John Houghton. [pp 26/9].
4. "Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change"
CUP 2006, edited by Schelnhuber, Cramer, Nakicenovic, Wigley,
Yohe. [pp 30/1].
5. IPCC Third Assessment 2001: WGIII, Chapter
1, Page 90. [p 32].
6. IPCC Fourth Assessment 2007: WGIII, Chapter
3, Page 214. [p 33].
7. "Climate Protection Strategies for the
21st Century: Kyoto and beyond" 2003, German Advisory Council
on Climate Change (WBGU). [p 34].
8. "The Economics of Climate Change—The
Stern Review" 2006, CUP: Part I, Climate Change, 2A Ethical
frameworks and inter-temporal equity, page 47. [p 35].
9. "Human Development Report 2007-08",
UNDP, [pp 36/9].
10. "Breaking the Climate Deadlock—A
Global Deal for our Low-Carbon Future" 2008, Tony Blair and
The Climate Group. [p 40].
11. "Energy—The Changing Climate"
2000, RCEP 22nd Report. [pp 41/2].
12. Letter from Sir Tom Blundell to GCI, 2000.
[p 43].
13. UK Government response to RCEP 2000, Recommendation
3, RCEP para 4.69. [p 44].
14. "The Scientific Case for Setting a Long
Term Emission Reduction Target" 2003, DEFRA. [p 45].
15. "The International Challenge of Climate
Change: UK Leadership in the G8 and EU" 2005, House of Commons
Environmental Audit Committee, page 268. [p 46].
16. "Beyond Stern: From the Climate Change
Programme Review to the Draft Climate Change Bill" 2007,
House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee. [p 47].
17. Links to GCI materials and information. [p
48].
18. C&C At The Climax Of The Kyoto [Cop3]
UN Climate Negotiation, 10-12-1997. [p 49].
19. "The Incontestable Truth" 2007—DVD
commissioned by the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate
Change. [p 50].
20. "Carbon Countdown" 2008, Global
Commons Institute, Section 10, C&C Support. [pp 51/62].
21. Tributes and awards to GCI Director Aubrey
Meyer.
22. Insurance Industry views of Contraction and
Convergence.
29 April 2009
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