Could the New IPCC Carbon Budget Cause Another Recession?
September 27, 2013
The carbon budget is the amount of carbon dioxide that climate scientists say humans can emit and still keep global warming below 2°C -- a target that nearly every country on Earth, including the United States, has agreed to meet. IPCC has set the world's carbon budget at 1 trillion tons.
The new number is a sharp increase over past estimates. Last spring, the Carbon Tracker Initiative out of London issued a report that put the carbon budget at 565 billion tons, which would to give the world an 80-percent chance of sticking below a 2°C temperature rise. In 2011, the International Energy Agency (IEA) came to a similar conclusion, staking the carbon budget at around 679 billion tons for a 75-percent chance keeping the global average temperature increase to 2°C.
Other estimates for the carbon budget have ranged from 225 billion tons (for listed fossil fuel companies, assuming proportional allocation based on reserves) to 900 billion tons of CO2, based on an assumption that society will be able to control other sources of greenhouse gas emissions, such as methane.While the number seems to give more latitude for emissions, the IPCC is quick to note that more than half that amount has already been emitted since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. It also estimates that the trillionth ton will be emitted sometime around 2040.
The carbon budget could have profound implications for the global economy, according to a release by environmental group 350.org. Fossil fuel companies have nearly 3 trillion tons of carbon dioxide stored in known reserves of coal, oil, and gas -- far more than any carbon budget suggested thus far. As IMT Green & Clean Journal reported in May
The new carbon budget and the threat of a carbon bubble has added significant momentum to a movement to divest public institutions from the fossil fuel industry, led by environmental writer Bill McKibben, who also founded 350.org. His organization launched the campaign last fall and the movement has spread to over 300 colleges and universities and 100 cities and states in the United States, Australia, and Canada. More than 15 cities, six colleges, and numerous religious institutions, including the entire United Church of Christ, have already committed to dumping their fossil fuel holdings.
In an article written for the Daily Beast last week, McKibben called fossile fuel stocks "a bad bet." He noted, "Those carbon numbers make clear that the industry sits on a bubble, with $20 trillion worth of fuel it can't sell if the planet ever takes even minimal action against climate change."
For environmental and liberal-minded organizations, the new carbon budget and the threat of the carbon bubble gives credence to the need for Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new rules
Some business and conservative groups attacked the IPCC, calling the organization and its report "alarmist." In its own study issued earlier this month, the Heartland Institute said claims about climate change made by IPCC were "exaggerated." Based on its own research