Adaptation just as important as Mitigation

20. November 2009 · 4 comments · Categories: collaborative science, sustainability, Uncategorized

Brad points out that much of my discussion for a research agenda in climate change informatics focusses heavily on strategies for emissions reduction (aka Mitigation) and neglects the equally important topic of ensuring communities can survive the climate changes that are inevitable (aka Adaptation). Which is an important point. When I talk about the goal of keeping temperatures to below a 2°C rise, it’s equally important to acknowledge that we’ve almost certainly already lost any chance of keeping peak temperature rise much below 2°C.

Which means, of course, that we have some serious work to do, in understanding the impact of climate change on existing infrastructure, and to integrate an awareness of the likely climate change issues into new planning and construction projects. This is, of course, what Brad’s Adaptation and Impacts research division focusses on. There are some huge challenges to do with how we take the data we have (e.g. see the datasets in the CCCSN), downscale these to provide more localized forecasts, and then figure out how to incorporate these into decision making.

One existing tool to point out is the World Bank’s ADAPT, which is intended to help analyze projects in the planning stage, and identify risks related to climate change adaptation. This is quite a different decision-making task from the emissions reduction decision tools I’ve been looking at. But just as important.

Will Peak Oil Save us from Climate Change?

20. November 2009 · 8 comments · Categories: reducing emissions

Yesterday, I posted that the total budget of fossil fuel emissions we can ever emit is 1 trillion tonnes of Carbon. And that we’ve burnt through about half of that since the dawn of industrialization. Today, I read in the Guardian that existing oil reserves may have been deliberately overestimated by the International Energy Agency. George Monbiot explains how frightening this could be, given the likely impact of lower oil supplies on food production. Madeleine Bunting equates the reluctance to discuss this with the head-in-the-sand attitude that preceded last year’s financial crisis. Looks like the more pessimistic of the peak oil folks may have had it right all along.

None of these articles however makes the link to climate change (Monbiot only mentions it in passing in response to comments). So, which problem is bigger, peak oil or climate change? Does one cancel out the other? Should I stop worrying about the trillionth tonne, if the oil simply doesn’t exist to get there?

A back of the envelope calculation tells me that more than half of the world’s estimated remaining reserves of fossil fuels have to stay buried in the ground if we are to stay within a trillion tonnes. Here’s the numbers:

  • Oil: The Energy Watch Group estimates there are 854 Gb (gigabarrels) of oil left, while industry official figures put it at well over 1200Gb). Let’s split the difference and say 1,000Gb (1×10^12). Jim Bliss calculates that each barrel of crude oil releases about 100kg of carbon. That gives us 0.1 trillion tonnes of Carbon from oil.
  • Coal: Wikipedia tells us there are just under 1 trillion tonnes of proved recoverable coal reserves, and that coal has a carbon intensity of about 0.8, so that gives us 0.8 trillion tonnes of Carbon from coal.
  • Natural Gas: The US EIA gives the world’s natural gas reserves as about somewhat over 6,000 trillion cubic feet, which converts to about 170 trillion cubic meters. Each cubic meter gives about 0.5kg Carbon, so we have 85 trillion kg, or 0.08 trillion tonnes of Carbon from gas.

That all adds up to about 1 trillion tonnes of carbon from estimated fossil fuel reserves, the vast majority of which is coal. If we want a 50:50 chance of staying below 2ºC temperature rise, we can only burn half this much over the next few centuries. If we want better odds, say a 1-in-4 chance of exceeding 2ºC, we can only burn a quarter of it.

Conclusion: More than one half of all remaining fossil fuel reserves must remain unused. So peak oil and peak coal won’t save us. I would even go so far as to say that the peak oil folks are only about half as worried as they should be!