" In other words, at the present rate, the world will burn the ration that the Allen et al. have set aside for the next 500 years just in four decades. And according to Meinshausen’s the carbon budget estimated between now and 2050 would be exhausted before 2030 " According to preliminary estimates, only a total of around 700 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide can be emitted into the atmosphere. However, given the current rate of emissions, this “budget” is likely to be exhausted in the coming two decades. On the other hand, if an increase in emissions is permitted, it will render the world carbon insolvent even sooner.
Publication of three reports early this year provided a new twist to the ongoing debate on climate change. The first report, prepared by Susan Solomon et al. and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on February 12, 2009, showed that the climate change presently caused was largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. About 40 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced by human beings during this century will remain in the atmosphere until at least the year 3,000.
The second report, prepared by a team led by Myles R. Allen and published in the April 2009 issue of the prestigious journal Nature, demonstrates that preventing more than two degrees warming means producing a maximum of half a trillion tonnes of carbon or 1,830 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between now and 2500.
The third report, written by a team led by Malte Meinshausen and published in the April 2009 issue of Nature, suggests that producing 1,000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2000 and 2050 will deliver a 25 per cent chance of exceeding two degrees of warming.
In other words, at the present rate, the world will burn the ration that the Allen et al. have set aside for the next 500 years just in four decades. And according to Meinshausen’s the carbon budget estimated between now and 2050 would be exhausted before 2030.
According to the 2007 data available at the World Energy Council, which publishes figures for global reserves of fossil fuels, 848 billion tonnes of coal, 177,000 billion cubic metres of natural gas and 162 billion tonnes of crude oil are good to go.
Keeping in view the fact that the molecular weight of carbon dioxide is 3.667 times that of carbon, the burning of the current reserves of fossil fuel would yield 3,000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
According to Allen’s suggestion, we can burn a maximum of 60 per cent of current fossil fuel reserves by 2500 if we don’t want to exceed two degrees of global warming.
Meinshausen opines that we can afford to burn only 22 per cent of the current reserves between now and 2050 because we have already used one-third of this budget.
In the wake of these stern warnings, there is dire need for setting an absolute limit to the amount of fossil fuel to be burnt - an urgent agenda for the Copenhagen summit.
The writer, former minister of culture, professor and chairman of the Political Science Department, University of Jordan, is president of the Orient Centre for Studies and Cultural Dialogue. alrfouh@hotmail.com. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.
* Published in the JORDAN TIMES on Sept. 9. |
