Russ Vernon-Jones

love, justice, and climate change … I know you can make a difference.

International

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News Items – Troubling and Encouraging

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Some recent climate news items seem particularly noteworthy. I’ll start with some bad news, but I promise some encouraging items in the remainder of this post.

For thousands of years prior to the Industrial Revolution, the atmosphere held about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. (From studying air bubbles in ancient ice scientists have determined that for most of the last 800,000 years carbon dioxide levels were even lower than that.) Once humans started burning fossil fuels at the beginning of the industrial age, the carbon dioxide level started rising. The news item is that in May the global level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a new dangerous high–50% higher than the pre-industrial level.

This undesirable benchmark is particularly problematic because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 1,000 years or more. Worse yet, the average rate of increase is faster than ever. Carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere are the primary cause of climate change and all its harmful effects.

Also in May, the International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a landmark report. The IEA has traditionally ….

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We’re Aiming for the Wrong Climate Targets — Let’s Talk About Improving Our Aim

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Let’s forget about national boundaries and governments for a minute and face the fact that the whole world needs to reduce its collective greenhouse gas emissions. We — meaning all of humanity — need to emit close to 50% less by 2030 (and get to net-zero emissions by 2050). So far global emissions are still rising, so we need to make a dramatic turn in the next few years if we are to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. It’s a global problem — greenhouse gases emitted anywhere, cause problems everywhere.

Responsibility
How are we going to pull this off? Some would argue that each nation should reduce its emissions by roughly 50%. Despite the apparent even-handedness of that approach, it would be incredibly unfair and inequitable. Some nations have emitted far more greenhouse gases than others and played a much larger role in creating the climate problem.

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Only a Global Green New Deal Will Work

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It will cost the nations of the world roughly $73 trillion to transition to completely renewable energy by 2050, according to a report from Stanford University. The expense will pay for itself in under 7 years. The shift to a zero-carbon global economy will also create 28.6 million more full-time jobs than if nations continued their use of fossil fuels at current levels. After the payback period trillions of dollars will be saved annually.

Only about 10% of the $73 trillion will be required to transition the United States. So that leaves a lot of money that needs to be spent outside the U.S., much of it in poor, developing nations. These nations don’t have the resources to make those investments themselves, but they are critical to stopping global warming.

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