Climate Change: A Chance To Buy Some Time?

One of the few achievements of the UN climate talks in recent years was when all nations agreed to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees C at all costs. Presumably they'd all realised that the consequences of going above 2 degrees would be pretty disastrous. Not just for the environment but for humans and the global economy.

This goal is achievable but climate scientists have estimated that, to make it, global CO2 emissions have to reach a peak by 2020 (at the latest) and fall steeply thereafter.

Unfortunately, whilst all nations are committed to reaching a climate change agreement by 2015, it won't be implemented until 2020 at the earliest.

Considering that the 2015 agreement is likely to be a watered-down compromise that has little chance of peaking CO2 by 2020, it looks like we're not going to keep warming below 2C after all. Not good. Not good at all.

If only we could buy ourselves enough time to do the job right.

So I read with interest that climate scientists have discovered a possible window of opportunity:

One of several contributors to global warming is so-called 'black carbon' (soot) from the likes of diesel engines and wood burning. The scientists have discovered that it's actually the second largest contributor to climate change, providing two thirds the warming effect of CO2. Twice as much as they thought when the last UN report was written back in 2007.

The implications of this are potentially enormous. If global agreement could be reached to drastically reduce these emissions, it could cut warming by half a degree C very quickly (because soot has a very short life in the atmosphere), AND improve the health of millions (Wood burning in developing countries is a serious health issue).

Half a degree C would buy us a couple of decades in which to sort out climate change properly.

Luckily, cutting black carbon emissions is already on the UN agenda. This latest news should give them the best possible incentive to come to an agreement without delay.


(Click here to read about just one of a number of cheap cookers that could help save lives and cut black carbon emissions in the developing world).