Climate Stabilization Targets

Climate Stabilization Targets PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309208939
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have ushered in a new epoch where human activities will largely determine the evolution of Earth's climate. Because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe. Emissions reductions decisions made today matter in determining impacts experienced not just over the next few decades, but in the coming centuries and millennia. According to Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia, important policy decisions can be informed by recent advances in climate science that quantify the relationships between increases in carbon dioxide and global warming, related climate changes, and resulting impacts, such as changes in streamflow, wildfires, crop productivity, extreme hot summers, and sea level rise. One way to inform these choices is to consider the projected climate changes and impacts that would occur if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were stabilized at a particular concentration level. The book quantifies the outcomes of different stabilization targets for greenhouse gas concentrations using analyses and information drawn from the scientific literature. Although it does not recommend or justify any particular stabilization target, it does provide important scientific insights about the relationships among emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, and impacts. Climate Stabilization Targets emphasizes the importance of 21st century choices regarding long-term climate stabilization. It is a useful resource for scientists, educators and policy makers, among others.

Climate Stabilization Targets

Climate Stabilization Targets PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309208939
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
Emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have ushered in a new epoch where human activities will largely determine the evolution of Earth's climate. Because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe. Emissions reductions decisions made today matter in determining impacts experienced not just over the next few decades, but in the coming centuries and millennia. According to Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia, important policy decisions can be informed by recent advances in climate science that quantify the relationships between increases in carbon dioxide and global warming, related climate changes, and resulting impacts, such as changes in streamflow, wildfires, crop productivity, extreme hot summers, and sea level rise. One way to inform these choices is to consider the projected climate changes and impacts that would occur if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were stabilized at a particular concentration level. The book quantifies the outcomes of different stabilization targets for greenhouse gas concentrations using analyses and information drawn from the scientific literature. Although it does not recommend or justify any particular stabilization target, it does provide important scientific insights about the relationships among emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, and impacts. Climate Stabilization Targets emphasizes the importance of 21st century choices regarding long-term climate stabilization. It is a useful resource for scientists, educators and policy makers, among others.

Southeast Asia and the Economics of Global Climate Stabilization

Southeast Asia and the Economics of Global Climate Stabilization PDF Author: David A. Raitzer
Publisher: Asian Development Bank
ISBN: 9292573055
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Climate change is a global concern of special relevance to Southeast Asia, a region that is both vulnerable to the effects of climate change and a rapidly increasing emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs). This study focuses on five countries of Southeast Asia that collectively account for 90% of regional GHG emissions in recent years---Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam. It applies two global dynamic economy–energy–environment models under an array of scenarios that reflect potential regimes for regulating global GHG emissions through 2050. The modeling identifies the potential economic costs of climate inaction for the region, how the countries can most efficiently achieve GHG emission mitigation, and the consequences of mitigation, both in terms of benefits and costs. Drawing on the modeling results, the study analyzes climate-related policies and identifies how further action can be taken to ensure low-carbon growth.

Climate Stabilization Targets

Climate Stabilization Targets PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309151767
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels have ushered in a new epoch where human activities will largely determine the evolution of Earth's climate. Because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe. Emissions reductions decisions made today matter in determining impacts experienced not just over the next few decades, but in the coming centuries and millennia. According to Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia, important policy decisions can be informed by recent advances in climate science that quantify the relationships between increases in carbon dioxide and global warming, related climate changes, and resulting impacts, such as changes in streamflow, wildfires, crop productivity, extreme hot summers, and sea level rise. One way to inform these choices is to consider the projected climate changes and impacts that would occur if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were stabilized at a particular concentration level. The book quantifies the outcomes of different stabilization targets for greenhouse gas concentrations using analyses and information drawn from the scientific literature. Although it does not recommend or justify any particular stabilization target, it does provide important scientific insights about the relationships among emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations, temperatures, and impacts. Climate Stabilization Targets emphasizes the importance of 21st century choices regarding long-term climate stabilization. It is a useful resource for scientists, educators and policy makers, among others.

Coping with the Climate Crisis

Coping with the Climate Crisis PDF Author: Rabah Arezki
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547358
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Reducing carbon emissions is the most complex political and economic problem humanity has ever confronted. Coping with the Climate Crisis brings together leading experts from academia and policy circles to explore issues related to the implementation of the COP21 Paris Agreement and the challenges of accelerating the transition toward sustainable development. The book synthesizes the key insights that emerge from the latest research in climate-change economics in an accessible and useful guide for policy makers and researchers. Contributors consider a wide range of issues, including the economic implications and realities of shifting away from fossil fuels, the role of financial markets in incentivizing development and construction of sustainable infrastructure, the challenges of evaluating the well-being of future generations, the risk associated with uncertainty surrounding the pace of climate change, and how to make climate agreements enforceable. They demonstrate the need for a carbon tax, considering the issues of efficiently pricing carbon as well as the role of supply-side policies on fossil fuels. Through a range of perspectives from academic economists and practitioners in the public and private sectors who work either at the country level or under the auspices of multilateral organizations, Coping with the Climate Crisis outlines what it will take to achieve a viable, global climate-stabilization path.

Climate Intervention

Climate Intervention PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309305322
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
The signals are everywhere that our planet is experiencing significant climate change. It is clear that we need to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere if we want to avoid greatly increased risk of damage from climate change. Aggressively pursuing a program of emissions abatement or mitigation will show results over a timescale of many decades. How do we actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make a bigger difference more quickly? As one of a two-book report, this volume of Climate Intervention discusses CDR, the carbon dioxide removal of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere and sequestration of it in perpetuity. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration introduces possible CDR approaches and then discusses them in depth. Land management practices, such as low-till agriculture, reforestation and afforestation, ocean iron fertilization, and land-and-ocean-based accelerated weathering, could amplify the rates of processes that are already occurring as part of the natural carbon cycle. Other CDR approaches, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration, direct air capture and sequestration, and traditional carbon capture and sequestration, seek to capture CO2 from the atmosphere and dispose of it by pumping it underground at high pressure. This book looks at the pros and cons of these options and estimates possible rates of removal and total amounts that might be removed via these methods. With whatever portfolio of technologies the transition is achieved, eliminating the carbon dioxide emissions from the global energy and transportation systems will pose an enormous technical, economic, and social challenge that will likely take decades of concerted effort to achieve. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration will help to better understand the potential cost and performance of CDR strategies to inform debate and decision making as we work to stabilize and reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.

Growing Cooler

Growing Cooler PDF Author: Reid H. Ewing
Publisher: Urban Land Institute
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Based on a comprehensive study review by leading urban planning researchers, this investigative document demonstrates how urban development is both a key contributor to climate change and an essential factor in combating it -- by reducing vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation

Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation PDF Author: Ottmar Edenhofer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781139248709
Category : Climate change mitigation
Languages : en
Pages : 1076

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Book Description
This Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report (IPCC-SRREN) assesses the potential role of renewable energy in the mitigation of climate change. It covers the six most important renewable energy sources - bioenergy, solar, geothermal, hydropower, ocean and wind energy - as well as their integration into present and future energy systems. It considers the environmental and social consequences associated with the deployment of these technologies and presents strategies to overcome technical as well as non-technical obstacles to their application and diffusion. SRREN brings a broad spectrum of technology-specific experts together with scientists studying energy systems as a whole. Prepared following strict IPCC procedures, it presents an impartial assessment of the current state of knowledge: it is policy relevant but not policy prescriptive. SRREN is an invaluable assessment of the potential role of renewable energy for the mitigation of climate change for policymakers, the private sector and academic researchers.

Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal

Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal PDF Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178873985X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
An engaging conversation with Noam Chomsky—revered public intellectual and Manufacturing Consent author—about climate change, capitalism, and how a global Green New Deal can save the planet. In this compelling new book, Noam Chomsky, the world’s leading public intellectual, and Robert Pollin, a renowned progressive economist, map out the catastrophic consequences of unchecked climate change—and present a realistic blueprint for change: the Green New Deal. Together, Chomsky and Pollin show how the forecasts for a hotter planet strain the imagination: vast stretches of the Earth will become uninhabitable, plagued by extreme weather, drought, rising seas, and crop failure. Arguing against the misplaced fear of economic disaster and unemployment arising from the transition to a green economy, they show how this bogus concern encourages climate denialism. Humanity must stop burning fossil fuels within the next thirty years and do so in a way that improves living standards and opportunities for working people. This is the goal of the Green New Deal and, as the authors make clear, it is entirely feasible. Climate change is an emergency that cannot be ignored. This book shows how it can be overcome both politically and economically.

Verifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Verifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309152119
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description
The world's nations are moving toward agreements that will bind us together in an effort to limit future greenhouse gas emissions. With such agreements will come the need for all nations to make accurate estimates of greenhouse gas emissions and to monitor changes over time. In this context, the present book focuses on the greenhouse gases that result from human activities, have long lifetimes in the atmosphere and thus will change global climate for decades to millennia or more, and are currently included in international agreements. The book devotes considerably more space to CO2 than to the other gases because CO2 is the largest single contributor to global climate change and is thus the focus of many mitigation efforts. Only data in the public domain were considered because public access and transparency are necessary to build trust in a climate treaty. The book concludes that each country could estimate fossil-fuel CO2 emissions accurately enough to support monitoring of a climate treaty. However, current methods are not sufficiently accurate to check these self-reported estimates against independent data or to estimate other greenhouse gas emissions. Strategic investments would, within 5 years, improve reporting of emissions by countries and yield a useful capability for independent verification of greenhouse gas emissions reported by countries.

Understanding Earth's Deep Past

Understanding Earth's Deep Past PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309209196
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
There is little dispute within the scientific community that humans are changing Earth's climate on a decadal to century time-scale. By the end of this century, without a reduction in emissions, atmospheric CO2 is projected to increase to levels that Earth has not experienced for more than 30 million years. As greenhouse gas emissions propel Earth toward a warmer climate state, an improved understanding of climate dynamics in warm environments is needed to inform public policy decisions. In Understanding Earth's Deep Past, the National Research Council reports that rocks and sediments that are millions of years old hold clues to how the Earth's future climate would respond in an environment with high levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Understanding Earth's Deep Past provides an assessment of both the demonstrated and underdeveloped potential of the deep-time geologic record to inform us about the dynamics of the global climate system. The report describes past climate changes, and discusses potential impacts of high levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases on regional climates, water resources, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and the cycling of life-sustaining elements. While revealing gaps in scientific knowledge of past climate states, the report highlights a range of high priority research issues with potential for major advances in the scientific understanding of climate processes. This proposed integrated, deep-time climate research program would study how climate responded over Earth's different climate states, examine how climate responds to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and clarify the processes that lead to anomalously warm polar and tropical regions and the impact on marine and terrestrial life. In addition to outlining a research agenda, Understanding Earth's Deep Past proposes an implementation strategy that will be an invaluable resource to decision-makers in the field, as well as the research community, advocacy organizations, government agencies, and college professors and students.