Time to Act.

Having looked at accelerating atmospheric CO₂ in the previous post I decided to move things along a little and consider the challenge that humanity faces to keep warming to a minimal and the impacts of delaying actions.  Thankfully as we saw in an earlier post COP21 is trying to address these issues.  But I found two interesting papers in Nature that looked at just such issues, Peters et al, 2013 and Allen and Stocker, 2014 both discuss such issues in their papers.

Peters et al, 2013 postulate that as emissions track towards the high end of scenarios it is uncertain if warming will stay below the 2°C target and that delay in mitigation will create significant problems in attaining the 2°C target as well as raising the issue of a delay in response to any mitigating actions allow emissions to continue to rise even after implication of mitigating actions.  Put quite simply this means that even if we act now we may still pass our 2°C target.

Allen and Stocker, 2014 look in to the impacts in delaying mitigation actions and discuss the rate of peak warming during mitigation delay.  They find that “peak-committed warming is increasing at the same rate as cumulative CO₂ emissions, about 2% per year, much faster than observed warming, independent of the climate response”, they show in their paper that delays now will require an increased rate of reduction in the future.  Allen and Stocker, 2014, provide an illustrated figure of the emission scenarios (see below, figure 1). They echo the ethos of Peters et al, 2013, that in order to meet the agreed target emissions must be reduced and go on to say that temperature targets alone are insufficient, stating that stronger mitigations should be implemented incorporating other additional climate targets. 



Figure 1 Illustrating emission scenarios. 

Allen, M.R.  Stocker, T.F.  (2014). Impact of delay in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE. 4, pp.23 - 26.

 

What I take from this is that action is required now so do mind admitting that I am glad that COP21 took place.  In my personal opinion it is a step in the right direction, however I do feel that we still have quite a way to go if we are to even meet the suggested target.  What about you dear reader?  Do you feel the same?

 

 

Figure 1 references as cited by Allen and Stocker, 2014. 

9. Stocker, T. The closing door of climate targets. Science 339, 280–282 (2012).

22. Andres, R. J. et al. A synthesis of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion. Biogeosciences 9, 1845 (2012).

Reference;

Peters, G.P.  Andrew, R.M. Boden, T. Canadell, J.C.  Ciais, P.  Le Quéré, C. Marland, G. Raupach, M.R. Wilson, C.  (2013). The challenge to keep global warming below 2 °C. NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE. 3, pp.4 - 6.

Allen, M.R.  Stocker, T.F.  (2014). Impact of delay in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE. 4, pp.23 - 26.