How to cut emissions by 50%

Source

The IPCC climate change report's conclusions:

• Human activities have caused about 1C of global warming since pre-industrial times (expressed as a likely range of 0.8-1.2C).
• We are seeing the effects of this through increased extreme weather, rising sea levels, coral bleaching and shrinking Arctic sea ice, among other changes.
• We’re likely to reach 1.5C warming sometime between 2030 and 2052 on the current path. The effects of this warming would be materially and noticeably different from today. It would be worse again at 2C and higher temperature rises.
• To limit warming to 1.5C we need to cut global emissions by about 45% by 2030 compared with 2010 levels.
• Scientists say it could be done but it would require rapid action now. It would mean significant changes in all sectors of society. We would also need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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A 45% decline from 2010 is about a 50% decline from today.  To halve emissions by 2030, we need to cut them by 7% compound per annum, which will be very hard to do. But if we cut them by 5% per annum, that would still mean a 43% decline by 2030, a 50% decline by 2032 and an 80% decline by 2050.   Far from perfect, but doable.

How?

1. Stop building new coal power stations, and close the existing ones over the next 15-20 years. This will be much easier than it was 10 years ago. Then solar power cost 3.2 times as much as coal. Now it costs 1/3rd of coal. Wind, similarly, is much cheaper than coal. Every year from now on, the gap between the costs of coal and the costs of renewables will grow.  A switch to 80 or 90% renewables in electricity generation would reduce global emissions by 25%.

2. Encourage the take up of electric vehicles (EVs). Again, this will get easier every year.  By 2022 all except the very cheapest petrol-driven cars will have a higher "sticker price" than EVs. Governments could set the equivalent of a "cap-and-trade" system, where a target for EV sales is set, and every manufacturer which exceeds this target generates excess "credits" and those which don't meet the target have to buy "credits" from those who have generated them. China has just introduced such a system. This would reduce global emissions by 15%. More important, transport is a rapidly growing source of emissions, and accelerating the switch to EVs will help prevent a rapid rise.

3. Introduce a carbon fee, starting at $20/tonne of CO2 emitted, and rising by $5 per year, applicable to all sectors.  The carbon fee would be returned to the people by way of a quarterly dividend, and it would apply to imports from countries without a similar carbon price. This would work to reduce the emissions of iron and steel, cement, chemicals, and air and sea travel, which are each smallish, but together account for a quarter of emissions.  In the US, with per capita carbon emissions of 16.5 tonnes (2014 data), the per capita "carbon dividend" would be $330 per annum in the first year.

4. Agriculture needs regulatory change to cut emissions. And it matters--along with forest clearing, it contributes 24% of global emissions.   As individuals, we can eat less meat and dairy--the principal contributors to agricultural greenhouse gas emission .  Even cutting meat consumption to once or twice a week will make a difference.  And we can refuse to buy products containing palm oil, which is produced from plantations in cleared and burnt rain forests in the tropics.

We could do it, if we wanted to. It's entirely in hands of the people of the world.  We could vote in parties which are genuinely committed to cutting CO2 emissions.  We could implement a carbon fee, and encourage all countries to do the same by taxing imports from countries which don't have a price on carbon.  Smaller countries could club together to commit to a 5% per annum reduction in emissions and try to shame the larger ones to do the same.  40% of global emissions come from countries which each emit less than 2% of global emissions. 

Will we do it?  It's up to us.  Get active.  Get militant.  Fight for our world.