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Wednesday 18 November 2009

RAPID ROUNDUP: Global carbon emissions still increasing (Nature Geo) – Experts respond

Global embargo lifted at 5am AEDT Wednesday 18 Nov 2009

A paper published in Nature Geo on Wednesday provides the latest global assessment of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities and trends in the ocean and land “sinks” that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Despite efforts to mitigate climate change and the recent global financial crisis, emissions are still on the increase, the study reports. The global financial crisis will provide only a brief respite in the upward trend of emissions from fossil fuels, but there are encouraging signs of decreases in emissions from deforestation.

Below experts respond to the latest data.

Note: The findings were also presented at a national briefing at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney on Wed 18 Nov at 10.30am AEDT

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 **Note new number** or by email.

Dr Michael Raupach is from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, co-chair of the Global Carbon Project and an author of the research

"The study released today contains results about three trends in affecting the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: emissions from fossil fuels, emissions from deforestation, and the behaviour of the natural sinks which absorb carbon dioxide into the land and the oceans.

Fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide rose by 2% in 2008, a little more slowly than in the period from 2000 to 2007 when they increased at a massive 3.5% per year. This decreased growth is probably a sign of the onset of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008. In 2009, it is likely that the GFC will cause global emissions to actually fall by a couple of percent. Although that sounds like good news, we must remember that CO2 emissions are very tightly linked with economic activity, so a return to rapid emissions growth is likely as the world recovers from the GFC. If the recovery follows cuirrent predictions, the effect of the GFC will be as if all burning of fossil fuels had been stopped for a period of just 6 weeks. The GFC has not bought us much time.

Carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation offer a slightly more encouraging picture. In the last couple of years there are signs that emissions from deforestation are decreasing, which is good news. They now represent just 12% of all carbon dioxide emissions. One implication of this low fraction is that there is only limited scope for rich nations to offset emissions by supporting avoidance of deforestation in tropical countries like Indonesia and Brazil.

Natural sinks of carbon dioxide in the land and the oceans have been carrying out a vast, silent mitigation process for the human race for over a century, by removing over half of all carbon dioxide emissions even as emissions have increased tenfold. There are signs that for the last 50 years, the land and ocean sinks have been gradually losing the race with rapidly rising emissions and are taking up a smaller fraction. There is much year-to-year variation in the fraction of emissions taken up by land and ocean sinks, and 2008 was a good year for the land sink, which worked overtime because of a la Nina event in the Pacific Ocean. The onset of an El Nino event in late 2009 is likely to mean a weaker land sink in this period.

Although the natural land and ocean sinks of carbon dioxide have shown remarkable robustness, they are vulnerable to weakening as climate change alters the planet. They have been friends to humanity, but that friendship is not unbreakable."

Dr Will Howard is an oceanographer from the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre and the University of Tasmania.

“These new estimates on the sources and fate of carbon highlight the importance of the rates of emissions and of natural uptake processes. As we increase the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide about a hundred times faster than any time in the past 800,000 years, we outstrip the ability of natural systems to respond. As one example, the processes by which the ocean buffers CO2 have time-scales ranging from decades to millennia, so we are committing ourselves to further acidification of the oceans and “saturation” of ocean uptake as we continue emissions at increasing rates. Similarly, the radiative imbalance we have already driven in long-lived processes like ocean heat uptake and ice-sheet dynamics will be more difficult to reverse the longer we wait to reduce the rate of emissions growth.”

Professor Will Steffen is Executive Director of the Climate Institute at The Australian National University in Canberra.

“The latest data on carbon emissions compiled by the Global Carbon Project demonstrates again the immense value of careful, consistent data collected over long periods of time. Despite all the complexity of emission reduction targets, timetables, baselines for report and economic instruments to put a price on carbon, there is ultimately one fundamental indicator of success or failure - the amount of carbon dioxide that is accumulating in the atmosphere.

The record increase in carbon emissions in 2008, despite the global financial crisis, is a sobering reminder of the difficulty we face in turning around the emissions trajectory. There are many positive developments in the roll out of low or no-carbon energy technologies in many parts of the world, but clearly we must do much, much more. And we must get on with it quickly.

The Global Carbon Project's latest update on the behaviour of the natural carbon sinks sounds a note of caution. They are losing the race to keep up with emissions, and will need to be monitored carefully. Further research is urgently required to understand the nature of possible tipping points, which could weaken these natural sinks more rapidly or could activate new natural sources of carbon to the atmosphere.”

Professor John Finnigan is a Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

"This paper describes the 3rd in a series of global carbon dioxide budgets prepared by the Global Carbon Project. These detailed budgets have become the most authoritative source for the state of global carbon emissions. The budgets describe the balance between the sources and sinks of CO2 and the amount remaining in the atmosphere, which is responsible for the enhancement of the greenhouse effect by human activities.

It describes a slight decrease in the rate at which emissions are growing, falling from an average growth rate of 3.4% pa between 2000-2008 to 2% pa in the year 2007-8. This decrease can be attributed to the Global Financial Crisis and is a sign of the close coupling between global GDP or economic activity and carbon emissions. However, the net effect of the GFC on the amount of CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere will be small if the global economy recovers as expected.

One of the most important new messages in this report is contained in two graphs that are buried somewhat in the supplementary material although the key point is described in the text. This is that the rate of emissions from non-Kyoto Annex B countries (developing economies, especially India and China) exceeded those from Annex B countries (developed economies) in 2006. However, if the emissions embodied in exports from developing to developed countries are attributed to the importing rather than the exporting country, then developed countries will remain responsible for the bulk of emissions into the foreseeable future.

This prompts two observations. First, the developed world has exported to the developing world the emissions it would have produced had it met its growing appetite for consumer goods itself for the last two decades. Developing countries have produced these goods more cheaply, leading to a fall in the real price of manufactures from cars to flat screen TVs in the USA, Europe and Australia, but at the cost of greater emissions than if they were made locally. In one sense, the developed world owns a large fraction of the developing world’s emissions. Second, this transfer emphasises the strongly coupled nature of today’s globalised world. Flows in food, energy and manufactures are necessary to feed, clothe, house and provide work for a world population of 6.75 billion going on 9 billion. It also emphasises the need for global agreements on emissions reductions, where attribution of emissions is far more nuanced than a simple comparison of national budgets."