Renewable energy can power the world, says landmark IPCC study | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Renewable energy can power the world, says landmark IPCC study | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

• guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 May 2011 11.13 BST
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A solar power plant in the Mojave desert. Photograph: AP

Renewable energy could account for almost 80% of the world’s energy supply within four decades – but only if governments pursue the policies needed to promote green power, according to a landmark report published on Monday.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of the world’s leading climate scientists convened by the United Nations, said that if the full range of renewable technologies were deployed, the world could keep greenhouse gas concentrations to less than 450 parts per million, the level scientists have predicted will be the limit of safety beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible.

Investing in renewables to the extent needed would cost only about 1% of global GDP annually, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC.

Renewable energy is already growing fast – of the 300 gigawatts of new electricity generation capacity added globally between 2008 and 2009, about 140GW came from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, according to the report.

The investment that will be needed to meet the greenhouse gas emissions targets demanded by scientists is likely to amount to about $5trn in the next decade, rising to $7trn from 2021 to 2030.

Ramon Pichs, co-chair of one of the key IPCC working groups, said: “The report shows that it is not the availability of [renewable] resources but the public policies that will either expand or constrain renewable energy development over the coming decades. Developing countries have an important stake in the future – this is where most of the 1.4 billion people without access to electricity live yet also where some of the best conditions exist for renewable energy deployment.”

Sven Teske, renewable energy director at Greenpeace International, and a lead author of the report, said: “This is an invitation to governments to initiate a radical overhaul of their policies and place renewable energy centre stage. On the run up to the next major climate conference, COP17 in South Africa in December, the onus is clearly on governments to step up to the mark.”

He added: “The IPCC report shows overwhelming scientific evidence that renewable energy can also meet the growing demand of developing countries, where over 2 billion people lack access to basic energy services and can do so at a more cost-competitive and faster rate than conventional energy sources. Governments have to kick start the energy revolution by implementing renewable energy laws across the globe.”

The 1,000-page Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) marks the first time the IPCC has examined low-carbon energy in depth, and the first interim report since the body’s comprehensive 2007 review of the science of climate change.

Although the authors are optimistic about the future of renewable energy, they note that many forms of the technology are still more expensive than fossil fuels, and find that the production of renewable energy will have to increase by as much as 20 times in order to avoid dangerous levels of global warming. Renewables will play a greater role than either nuclear or carbon capture and storage by 2050, the scientists predict.

Investing in renewables can also help poor countries to develop, particularly where large numbers of people lack access to an electricity grid.

About 13% of the world’s energy came from renewable sources in 2008, a proportion likely to have risen as countries have built up their capacity since then, with China leading the investment surge, particularly in wind energy. But by far the greatest source of renewable energy used globally at present is burning biomass (about 10% of the total global energy supply), which is problematic because it can cause deforestation, leads to deposits of soot that accelerate global warming, and cooking fires cause indoor air pollution that harms health.

There was disappointment for enthusiasts of marine energy, however, as the report found that wave and tidal power were “unlikely to significantly contribute to global energy supply before 2020”. Wind power, by contrast, met about 2% of global electricity demand in 2009, and could increase to more than 20% by 2050.

As with all IPCC reports, the summary for policymakers – the synopsis of the report that will be presented to governments and is likely to impact renewable energy policy – had to be agreed line by line and word by word unanimously by all countries. This was done at Monday’s meeting in Abu Dhabi. This makes the process lengthy, but means that afterwards no government or scientist represented can say that they disagree with the finished findings, which the IPCC sees as a key strength of its operations.

The launch of the report is streamed on the IPCC web site.

Scientists Cite ‘Pressing’ Need to Limit Greenhouse Gases – NYTimes.com

Scientists Cite ‘Pressing’ Need to Limit Greenhouse Gases – NYTimes.com.

Scientists’ Report Stresses Urgency of Limiting Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By LESLIE KAUFMAN

Published: May 12, 2011

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Representative Joe Barton rejected the recommendations.

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The report, by the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, did not endorse any specific legislative approach, but it did say that attaching some kind of price to emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, would ideally be an essential component of any plan.

“The risks associated with doing business as usual are a much greater concern than the risks associated with engaging in ambitious but measured response efforts,” the report concludes. “This is because many aspects of an ‘overly ambitious’ policy response could be reversed or otherwise addressed, if needed, through subsequent policy change, whereas adverse changes in the climate system are much more difficult (indeed, on the time scale of our lifetimes, may be impossible) to ‘undo.’ ”

The report, “America’s Climate Choices,” was ordered by Congress several years ago to offer “action-oriented advice” on how the nation should be reacting to the potential consequences of climate change.

But the answer comes at a time when efforts to adopt a climate-change policy have stalled in Washington, with many of the Republicans who control the House expressing open skepticism about the science of climate change. Other legislators, including some Democrats, worry that any new law would translate into higher energy prices and hurt the economy.

Not only is the science behind the climate-change forecast solid, the report found, but the risks to future generations from further inaction are profound. Already, the report noted, sea level is rising in many American towns and the average United States air temperature has increased by two degrees in the last 50 years.

The report’s authors — an unusual combination of climate scientists, businessmen and politicians — said they were very aware that the political mood on climate change had changed significantly from when the committee was formed in 2009. Because the report was also about policy advice, the council named nonscientists, including Jim Geringer, a conservative Republican and a former governor of Wyoming.

Albert Carnesale, the chairman of the panel and a chancellor emeritus of the University of California, Los Angeles, said that he hoped the panel’s diversity and that many came to the job without “prior bias” would help sell it even to skeptical policy makers.

“It is an urgent problem to turn to, and what we’ve done differently is to look at this as a risk management problem,” Dr. Carnesale said.

While no one knows the exact shape of the risks, Dr. Carnesale said, we know that they are real enough to act on. And that they will be harder to act on as time passes. “We don’t know exactly when the tsunami will hit or how high it will be, but we know it is coming, and we should prepare,” Dr. Carnesale said.

But Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, who has been leading the charge against further regulating carbon emissions, swiftly dismissed the council’s findings in an interview Thursday. “I see nothing substantive in this report that adds to the knowledge base necessary to make an informed decision about what steps — if any — should be taken to address climate change,” Mr. Barton said.

Although the report characterizes climate change as a problem that urgently needs attention, it stops short of making highly specific policy prescriptions, leaving that to lawmakers.

To many worried about climate change, that is a common flaw of such reports.

“This is the classic problem — the divide between scientific reality and political courage,” said Paul W. Bledsoe, a senior adviser with the Bipartisan Policy Center who has worked in Congress and with the White House on these issues. “The scientific organizations are reluctant to advocate detailed policy prescriptions, while political actors are tentative about the scientific realities.”

The report outlined four areas that demanded immediate action by the federal government.

For starters, it emphasized that reducing carbon emissions was critical to keeping the United States from having to make dire choices in the future. While stopping just short of recommending a carbon tax, the committee did praise its efficacy.

“Analyses suggest that the best way to amplify and accelerate such efforts, and to minimize overall costs (for any given national emissions reduction target), is with a comprehensive, nationally uniform, increasing price on” carbon emissions enough to “drive major investments in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies,” the report said.

It also called on the federal government to play a much more active role in researching new technologies and in helping the nation adapt to the changes in the natural world that are already inevitable. Even with a reduction in carbon output, the report said, some climate change will continue to occur.

It noted that while many of the nations’ cities and states are taking steps toward mitigating carbon output and preparing for hotter, wetter conditions, it suggested that the federal government could help coordinate these activities while also encouraging more research and development.

“The federal government,” the report said, “should immediately undertake the development of a national adaptation strategy and build durable institutions to implement that strategy and improve it over time.” Finally, while this report was designed, in contrast to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to be by Americans for Americans, the authors noted that climate change was a global problem and the nation had an obligation to remain engaged with the international community on possible solutions.