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 summarizes 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 Note: Climategate’s Phil Jones admitted the 2C target temperature was was ‘plucked out of thin air’]
Related Links:
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% annually.’
‘A planned economic recession’ to fight global warming
Morano then asked about Anderson’s advocacy of “planned recessions” to help reduce emissions and allegedly reduce man-made global warming. See: ‘Planned recession’ could avoid catastrophic climate change
Anderson responded: “First, it’s not ‘believe’. I concluded. And it’s related to some caveats that went with it.”
Anderson and his colleague Alice Bows wrote in 2008: “Unless economic growth can be reconciled with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6% per year15), it is difficult to envisage anything other than a planned economic recession being compatible with stabilization at or below 650 ppmv CO2e.”
Anderson and Bows explained that global warming was such an urgent problem that it “demands a radical reframing of both the climate change agenda, and the economic characterization of contemporary society.”
Morano concluded the interview with Anderson by stating: “So you don’t shower, you don’t bathe regularly. You believe in planned recessions.”
More Links:
Warmist Kevin Anderson on his personal efforts to prevent CO2-induced bad weather: ‘I’ve done without a fridge for 12 years, but recently relented…I’ve cut back on washing and showering’ – 2012 – –[email protected]
‘Planned recession’ could avoid catastrophic climate change – A new report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research said these targets are inadequate to keep global warming below two degrees C above pre-industrial levels. The report says the only way to avoid going beyond the dangerous tipping point is to double the target to 70 per cent by 2020. This would mean reducing the size of the economy through a “planned recession”. Kevin Anderson, director of the research body, said the building of new airports, petrol cars and dirty coal-fired power stations will have to be halted in the UK until new technology provides an alternative to burning fossil fuels.
Flashback 2011: Warmist Kevin Anderson, dir. of UK’s Tyndall Centre: ‘I think it’s extremely unlikely that we wouldn’t have mass death at 4 degrees’ rise in temps — ‘terrifying’ [Note: Anderson told Climate Depot that he was misquoted about the ‘mass death’ in the 2011 news article and registered a complaint with the newspaper]
2011: Warmist Kevin Anderson: Global warming ‘requires radical changes in behavior, particularly from those of us with very high energy consumption’ – ‘Models guiding climate policy are ‘dangerously optimistic’ — ‘Sweeping changes necessary for industrialized nations to drastically reduce their emissions’
Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for WW2-style rationing in developed world – UK Telegraph – November 29, 2010: ‘Global warming is now such a serious threat to mankind that climate change experts are calling for Second World War-style rationing in rich countries to bring down carbon emissions.’
Excerpt: In a series of papers published by the Royal Society, physicists and chemists from some of world’s most respected scientific institutions, including Oxford University and the Met Office, agreed that current plans to tackle global warming are not enough.
Unless emissions are reduced dramatically in the next ten years the world is set to see temperatures rise by more than 4C (7.2F) by as early as the 2060s, causing floods, droughts and mass migration.
As the world meets in Cancun, Mexico for the latest round of United Nations talks on climate change, the influential academics called for much tougher measures to cut carbon emissions.
In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.
This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars