“Beyond Dangerous”
The Global Climate & Energy Dilemma
- emergency action & integrated solutions Population, Resources & Climate Change
Implications for Australia’s Near Future
2013 Fenner Conference
Canberra
11th October 2013
Ian T. Dunlop
Director Australia 21
Member, Club of Rome
Chairman, Safe Climate Australia
Fellow, Centre for Policy Development
Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil
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Key Driver
World Population
- a unique point in history -
12
Population - billion
Where to ?
10
8
?
Today
A Full World
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4
2
0
-2000
1945 – An Empty World
-1000
BC
Source: J.E.Cohen, Columbia University, New York, 2005
0
1000
Year
2000
AD
3000
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The Challenge
Growth
Negotiating the Rapids
The Rapids of “Creative
Destruction”
Sustainable
?
Collapse
2008
----
20th
Century --
----
21st
Century -------------------------
Time
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Global Risk Management
Converging Limits
Peak Oil
& declining EROEI
Climate Change
Water
Food
Financial & Social
Instability
All Symptoms of an
unsustainable World
- and all inextricably
linked
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Likely loss over time of all ice
sheets. No ice sheets on planet =
70 metre sea-level rise
Likely loss over time of
Greenland & West Antarctic ice
sheets = 6-7 metre sea-level rise
Climate
Paleoclimate History
+4C
+2C
PETM 55
million years
ago.
Peak Holocene: over last 10,000 years up 1900AD
Global average temperature now ~0.6C above peak Holocene
2C of warming: consequence of current level of greenhouse gases
4C of warming: consequence of current government policy commitments
Source: Paleoclimate, Energy Imbalances & Milankovic papers, James Hansen et al, GISS NASA 2011.
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Climate
Implications
Current policies, if
implemented, are likely
to result in temperature
increase above 40C and
produce sea level rise
of 70m over time, with
catastrophic impact on
humanity
The “official” objective,
of limiting warming to
less than 20C above
pre-industrial levels, is
likely to produce 6-7m
sea level rise over time,
wiping out major global
cities in their current
form.
Source:informationisbeautiful.net 2013
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Global Surface Temperature Changes
Climate
Arctic and
West
Antarctica are
warming
fastest
Decadal mean surface temperature anomalies relative to base period 1951-1980.
Source: update of Hansen et al., GISS analysis of surface temperature change. J. Geophys. Res.104, 30997-31022, 1999.
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Climate
The evidence - Arctic Sea Ice Volume
- accelerating melt – ice free in summer by 2015 ?
- ice free all year by 2030 ?
Months
- actual volume
Sea Ice Volume
Km3
Months
- forecast
quadratic trend
Years 1979 – 2012 actuals
Source: Neven et al, PIOMAS, University of Washington 2013
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Climate
The evidence – Greenland Ice Sheet
Insufficient data over
a long enough period
as yet, but if current
trends of an
exponential ice mass
loss rate are
confirmed:
-10 yr doubling time
(green line) would
lead to 1metre sea
level rise by 2067 & 5
metres by 2090
- 5 yr doubling time
(red line) would lead
to 1 metre sea level
rise by 2045 and 5
metres by 2057
Source: “Update of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss; Exponential?”, J Hansen & M Sato, GISS, December 2012
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Climate
Potential Climate Tipping Points
Source: Schellnhuber, after Lenton et al, PNAS, 2008
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Implications
Climate
We have probably already passed climatic tipping points at the
0.8oC warming already experienced, let alone the additional 1.2oC
to which we are committed by virtue of historic emissions.
This was not supposed to happen until end-21C
Without emergency action to avert the worst impacts, this is likely
to trigger sooner or later :
• irreversible runaway warming globally
- with counter-intuitive regional variations
• rapid sea-level rise
• permafrost melt leading to increased methane & CO2 emissions
• potential slow-down of North Atlantic thermohaline conveyor
with major impact on European climate
• severe implications globally
The 2oC target is too high.
Our inaction is probably locking in these changes today
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Climate
The Full Impact of Climate Change
Source: Prof. Tony McMichael AO, ANU
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Climate
Much talk about adaptation to 4oC
- what does it really mean ?
“In such a 4oC world, the limits for human adaptation are likely to be exceeded in many
parts of the world, while the limits for adaptation for natural systems would largely be
exceeded throughout the world”
UK Royal Society – January 2011
“What is the difference between a 2oC world and a 4oC world?”
“Human Civilisation”
“A 4oC temperature increase probably means a global
carrying capacity below 1 billion people”
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, June 2011
It's extremely unlikely that we wouldn't have mass death at 40C. If you have got
a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 40C, 50C or 60C, you might have
half a billion people surviving.”
Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director,
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, 2009
“There is no certainty that adaptation to a 4oC world is possible. The projected 4oC
warming simply must not be allowed to occur”
“Turn Down the Heat”, World Bank, 19th November 2012
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Energy
World Energy Outlook 2011
World Primary Energy Demand by Fuel in the New Policies Scenario
“ The world is currently following a trajectory which will increase
temperature by 6oC relative to today, for which the energy sector is largely
responsible. If that is allowed to happen, we are all in trouble”
Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency, March 2012
Source: World Energy Outlook, Nov 2011, International Energy Agency
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Energy
Fossil Fuels - Cumulative World Consumption
- 3083 billion boe since 1850
Current forecasts estimate the world will use, in 24 years from 2011-35, around
70% of all fossil fuels ever consumed (EIA, IEA Scenarios 2012)
Source: Grubler :Technology & Global Change, 1998,
BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2012
This is simply suicidal
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Energy
World Energy Outlook 2011
- conventional oil peaked in 2005 World Oil Production by Type in the New Policies Scenario
4 Saudi Arabia’s are required by 2035 to just maintain current
supply – highly unlikely, and unconventionals will not solve it –
We are now scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel
Source: World Energy Outlook, Nov 2011, International Energy Agency
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Energy
Oil Availability “Official Future” 2013
-
abundant resources, but far more expensive
- and environmentally problematic
Source: IEA - Resources to Reserves 2013
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Energy
What matters is not resources, but sustainable oil
flows to market – that is increasingly difficult:
•
•
•
•
•
Not discovering new oilfields quickly enough
•
certainly no giant fields
Data on existing oil reserves is suspect
•
particularly in the Middle East - “ the paper barrels ”
Many established oil provinces are in decline
•
depletion rates may be more rapid than officially admitted
Unconventional resources proving difficult to develop
•
technically, economically & environmentally
Oil producing nations
•
•
using more oil domestically & exporting less
conserving for future generations
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Energy
Energy Return on Energy Invested is dropping rapidly
- conventional economic growth cannot be sustained
EROEI to
maintain
industrial
civilisation
is around
10:1
Source: Murphy & Hall 2010
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Climate & Energy
Climate & Energy are Inextricably Linked
- global carbon budget to avoid dangerous climate change
From 2011 onwards, we can
only afford to burn 30% of
existing fossil fuel reserves
to have a 50% chance of
remaining below 2oC
temperature increase
(and 2oC is too high)
20% is more realistic
So why are we continuing to
explore for fossil fuels?
- and what value should we
place on fossil-fuel companies?
Sources: Meinhausen et al, Greenhouse-gas emission targets, Nature, April 2009,
Updated from IEA World Energy Outlook November 2012
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Climate & Energy
Carbon
Accounting
On current trends, the World has 15
years in which to completely
decarbonise.
Australia, as one of the highest per
capita carbon emitters, has 3-5
years to decarbonise.
And 2oC is too high!
Source: Climate Commission, Australia. 2013
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Climate & Energy
“Official” solutions are not working
•
Carbon Capture & Storage:
- may make a significant contribution to addressing climate change, but not in the time, or to the extent, required.
•
Other clean coal technologies:
- do not achieve the emission reduction required.
•
Rush from coal to gas:
- worsens warming
•
New high-carbon infrastructure:
- locks in emissions for next 50 years and eliminates potential solutions.
•
Major changes to our energy system:
- take decades to implement if we rely on conventional reform processes.
•
Geo-engineering is now being talked about seriously
- but reflects a refusal to face up to reality
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Policy response
Leadership Failure
•
Lack of honesty in facing the challenges:
– Climate
•
•
Carbon pricing is a start, but overall policies are woefully inadequate
glaring inconsistencies:
–
–
–
•
rapidly increasing coal & gas investment while supposedly reducing emissions
continuing fossil-fuel subsidies but lukewarm, variable, support for alternatives
real risks of coal seam & shale gas, & shale oil, not being considered
water & food security implications ignored
– Energy
•
•
•
•
assumption is that our high-carbon future can continue ad infinitum.
security risks ignored
objective is to maximise exports without considering domestic needs
Business
– Continued ambivalence on both climate and energy security risk.
– Focus is on maintaining the status quo, rather than the opportunities of change.
•
NGOs
– failure to articulate real challenges and demand appropriate action.
•
Lack of systems-based thinking
– No-one is joining the dots
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Policy Implications
Resilience declining
Resilience – “the capacity
of a system to absorb
disturbance and reorganise so as to retain
essentially the same
function, structure &
feedbacks – to have the
same identity”
“How Resilient is Australia”
Australia 21, February 2008
Re-birth
Over-extended
High-Carbon Growth
Growth
Catastrophic
Breakdown of
Carbon Bubble
Systemic
Breakdown
“It is difficult to get a man
to understand something if
his salary depends on him
not understanding it”
Upton Sinclair
Re-organisation
Collapse
Source: Resilience Alliance, Thomas Homer-Dixon
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Solutions
The Reality
– We have solutions, but inaction to date has cut off our options to make
the transition to low carbon economies in good order.
– Avoiding a 4OC world requires global emissions to peak in 3-4 years, then
decline rapidly at around 9% pa.
• an unprecedented challenge.
– Existing political, corporate & market economy processes will not deliver
either:
• the required level of technological, social and economic innovation and
implementation.
• in time, or in substance.
– A circuit-breaker is required to move:
• from incrementalism to rapid transformation.
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Solutions
An Emergency Response is Essential
“Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We
either continue with rising emissions, and reap the radical
repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge we
have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions. No
longer is there a non-radical option. Moreover, low-carbon
supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of
emission reductions – they need to be complemented with
rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption.”
Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK
July 2013
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Framework
•
Solutions
Set out real risks, opportunities & time frame of response
– Honest definition of the problem is 90% of the solution
•
Change context of debate:
– from incremental change to emergency response
•
Build coalition of champions, committed and prepared to speak out:
–
–
–
–
–
–
•
Community
Activist groups & progressive NGOs
Progressive corporates, insurance & institutional investors
Military
Government – wherever prepared to participate, particularly local.
International institutions: IEA/OECD/UN/IMF/WB
Expand climate & resource scarcity emergency movement
– go around conventional politics
•
Mandate critical policy outcomes
(eg realistic emissions targets)
– not solutions a priori, nor constrained by “political realism”.
•
Emphasis on National Security & Competitiveness of Alternatives
– Remove subsidies for fossil-fuel industries.
– Halt all high carbon investment for export and domestic use.
•
In the interests of the “Common Good”, set existential issues such as climate
change & resource scarcity, outside conventional politics

Handled by system of global governance, but not global “government”
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Solutions
Implications for Population
• Australia’s carrying capacity is likely to be severely reduced by
natural events, even with emergency action on climate change.
• Euphoric plans for population growth must be tempered by a realistic
assessment of the Climate/Energy/Water/Food nexus.
• There is a total disconnect between current policy development and
Australia’s real carrying capacity
• No one is joining the dots!
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Solutions
We must have business leadership
Major corporations are well aware of the science
Business claims to be the expert in risk management
Business will have to make it happen
But so far business has abrogated responsibility
and, in many cases,
is being deliberately obstructive
The Directors role is to:
- to act honestly, in good faith and to the best of their ability in the interests
of the company in perpetuity
- ensure risks are identified and suitable systems put in place to manage
those risks
Climate Change & Resource Scarcity are the biggest risks of all
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In Conclusion
Put simply: business & politics in a 4oC world is not possible
The solutions are available, but time is short.
We need informal groups of progressive leaders to
initiate a new conversation,
building coalitions to trigger emergency action.
“You already know enough. So do I. It is not the knowledge we
lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know
and draw conclusions.”
Sven Lindquist
www.iandunlop.net
www.clubofrome.org
www.safeclimateaustralia.org
thefrogthatjumpedout.blogspot.com
Thank you
itdunlop@ozemail.com.au
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