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Tuesday 22 May 2007

RAPID ROUNDUP: CO2 Emissions accelerating in Australia and globally, according to new analysis:  Scientists respond

A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)  today shows that global carbon dioxide emissions are accelerating at a far greater rate than expected over recent years.  

A breakdown of Australian data is included in a press release by CSIRO.   Lead author of the paper is Dr Mike Raupach from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and co-chair of the Global Carbon Project.  

Below, several climate scientists respond to the paper.  Feel free to use these quotes in your stories.  If you wish to speak to a climate scientist, contact the AusSMC on 08 8207 7415 or email us.  If you have any difficulty getting access to the PNAS paper, please let us know.


Professor Andy Pitman is from the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.

“In 1990, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected carbon dioxide emissions, heavy criticism was thrown at those projections at the higher end. It was stated that ‘there would be technological solutions’, the IPCC were purveyors of ‘doom and gloom’ etc.

Now, Raupach and colleagues have demonstrated that the IPCC basically underestimated emission increases. Humans are showing no capacity to de-accelerate emissions. The technical solutions remain a glint in the eyes of policy makers unable to confront phenomenally difficult decisions. But, the combination of accelerating carbon dioxide emissions with evidence of reducing sinks of carbon dioxide into the oceans and vegetation is confronting. While we can celebrate an outstanding example of world-leading research from Australian scientists, this study quite frankly scares those of us who hoped that the IPCC were wrong.”

Professor Will Steffen is Director of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University and has worked in the areas of climate change and global environmental change for many years.

“The work of the Global Carbon Project, led by Michael Raupach, is very important in keeping us up-to-date with the latest trends in carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion. The news is not good. The efficiency gains of recent decades in the industrialised countries – emitting less carbon per unit of wealth generated – seem to have stagnated since the turn of the century.

On the surface of it, the figures for Australia look even more disappointing. However, there may be a silver lining in such a dark cloud. If we are burning fossil fuels, mainly carbon, in a significantly less efficient way than the United States and Europe, surely we can make quick and effective reductions in emissions while helping the economy at the same time.

Starting to turn our emission trends downwards, even if it is just playing catch-up with the rest of the industrialised world, may still be important. We could begin to build momentum towards more rapid cuts in coming years and gain the confidence needed to tackle such a big problem.

Globally, the data coming out of the Global Carbon Project is sobering. Over the past few years, awareness of the climate change problem has grown exponentially and the intent to do something about it has also grown. Yet emissions have accelerated sharply. Not only is there a global ‘carbon gap’ - the gap between current emission rates and those needed to stabilise the climate, but there is an equally serious global ‘action gap’ - the gulf between declarations of intent to reduce emissions and the concrete steps needed to achieve the targets.”

Dr Graeme Pearman is Interim Director of the Monash Sustainability Institute

"When I first heard Dr Raupach’s analysis of global emissions I was somewhat depressed; something that is not my usual propensity. The current, sometimes ridiculously arrogant hype over climate change policy development issue, both in Australia and overseas, was suddenly presented in a different perspective. The reality is that there is no sign that the world is turning around the growth of carbon dioxide emissions and that means further long-term commitment to global warming and a greater challenge for future generations to address emissions reductions and to cope with the consequences of a climatologically different world.

It seems that the imperative for urgent emissions reduction is simply not appreciated. ‘These things take time’ is a response we get from some of our leaders, yet, the reality is that atmosphere does not wait, it goes on accumulating carbon dioxide and the Earth responds with ever warming conditions with all of what that means in terms of impacts on human societies and the millions of other species with which we share the Earth.

It is true that unilateral action by Australia is not sufficient. It is true that what China and the USA do is important. But it is also true that Australia’s emissions, 1.43% of the global total, are almost the same as the releases respectively of the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain, etc. Each country might be entitled to claim ‘what we do will not help’. Policy should reflect the need for action by all, individual nations, and individuals. It needs to reflect that for each nation the capacity and moral responsibility to act will differ. The latter relates to amongst other things, not to current rates of emissions, but the accumulated emissions over history, the economic capacity to respond and current economic well-being of its citizens. Being part of the international solution means Australia should take urgent action, action that many studies now show have very low economic consequences. However, it also means, working in partnership with those more challenged countries where national development lags behind ours, to assist them avoid as much as possible what Dr Raupach refers to as ‘a period of intensive, often inefficient, use of fossil fuel’. It is not one or the other.”

Professor Barry Brook is Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide.

"An explosion of recent multidisciplinary research points to a rather stark conclusion – human-driven global heating and its related impacts is accelerating. There is now major scientific concern, for instance, that sea level rise this century will be considerably greater than the so-called upper bound projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2007 report, because of previously unaccounted for dynamic feedbacks involved in the loss of the polar ice sheets.

In this context, the new paper by Raupach and colleagues in PNAS provides a key assessment of the accelerating rate of change in CO2 emissions. To avoid dangerous levels of climate change (>2 degree C warming), we will need to stabilise atmospheric CO2 at about 450 parts per million (ppm), yet based on these latest figures, our current trajectory has us heading to >750 ppm – exceeding even the IPCCs most pessimistic projections! Sadly, it seems that we, as a society, are still a long way off implementing the cross-sectoral measures to achieve rapid and deep cuts in emissions – actions required to halt the momentum of the climate juggernaut."

Professor Snow Barlow is Head of the School of Agriculture and Food Systems at the University of Melbourne

"This excellent paper from Mike Raupach and colleagues is a timely but very sobering contribution to trends in international carbon emissions from fossil fuels. It is not good news for the globe and has important implications for the international adaptation and mitigation debate.

The confirmation that the globe is firmly on a high emission scenario narrows the band of climate scenarios we can expect in the next 25 years, unfortunately to the higher end. This has important implications for adaptation of Australia's agricultural and natural resource industries. It underlines the urgent need for immediate research to develop adaptation strategies for these industries which for the most part will be facing a hotter and drier future by 2030. The time frame of these changes necessitates that imminent and ongoing climate change must be factored into current resource debates such as water.

The disappointing increases in the carbon intensity of Australian and global wealth generation is a particular challenge and opportunity for all of us to make the long awaited technological solutions a reality in the next decade."

Dr Steve Hatfield-Dodds, Policy economist and convenor, CSIRO Integration Network, CSIRO

"The findings presented in this paper remind us of the importance of understanding social and economic processes in driving climate change and related changes in the world's atmosphere.

Their finding that global emissions from fossil fuel use are accelerating, and rising faster than economic growth, emphasises the urgency of finding workable national and international mechanisms for reducing emissions. These measures need to engage all significant emitters in effective global action.

The fact that emissions now appear at or above the highest of the IPCC projections underscores this urgency. The best science suggests we only have ten to fifteen years to turn things around and start making meaningful reductions in global emissions. If we miss this, it may be too late to avoid dangerous levels of climate change."