The world will have to completely phase out fossil fuels in electricity generation by the end of this century and reduce their use to 20 per cent by 2050 if disastrous consequences of climate change are to be avoided, the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its synthesis report released in Copenhagen on Sunday.
It said if all nations failed to bring emissions of greenhouse gases to nearly zero by year 2100, climate change would leave “severe, widespread and irreversible impacts”.
The report, considered the most reliable source of climate information, will form the basis of climate talks leading, hopefully, to a global deal in Paris next year on reducing emissions.
The IPCC synthesis report’s findings and recommendations on completely phasing out fossil fuels are expected to be discussed thoroughly when more than 190 countries would assemble for a climate conference in Lima, Peru, next month.
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There is a range of options we brought out, which include reducing and doing away with deforestation, reduction in emissions of GHGs from fossil fuels and a movement towards more renewable sources of energy. So I think we need to look at a whole menu of these options and start implementing them effectively
RK Pachauri, IPCC chairman
Expectedly, representatives from Saudi Arabia and other oil exporting countries protested against such drastic recommendations during the consultations round before accepting the IPCC report in Copenhagen.
Asked by TOI whether he envisages a world without fossil fuels, IPCC chairman RK Pachauri said, “We have brought out very clearly (in the report) that if we want to keep global temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius from 1880 level, then by the end of this century, fossil fuel based power generation will be phased out unless we use carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility technology.”
CCS is a technology that can capture carbon dioxide emitted during electricity generation and store it underground to prevent this greenhouse gas (GHG) from entering the atmosphere. The technology, however, hasn’t been perfected yet.
Since CCS is not yet fully developed, the report calls for cutting GHG emissions by 40 per cent-70 per cent by 2050 from the 2010 level and to near-zero by 2100 to keep global warming below 2-degrees celsius by the turn of the century.
“There is a range of options we brought out,” said Pachauri, “which include reducing and doing away with deforestation, reduction in emissions of GHGs from fossil fuels and a movement towards more renewable sources of energy. So I think we need to look at a whole menu of these options and start implementing them effectively, and hopefully, we will also develop CCS and bio-energy options, as we have spelled out very clearly.”
The synthesis report, released by UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon along with many climate experts including Pachauri, reiterated what IPCC had said in its three previous working group reports in the past 13 months. It said the impacts of climate change have already been felt in recent decades in all continents and across oceans.
In his advise to Indian government while responding to a question on action expected by his home country, Pachauri said, “India has a national action plan on climate change that, I think, will need to be revisited in the light of the findings of the report. I hope that will be beneficial.”
Scientists widely accept that if the world cannot keep temperature rise to below 2-degrees celsius, it will face disasters like a sharp rise extreme weather events, sea level rise, melting of glaciers and consequent food crisis and human conflicts.
“It is technically feasible to transition to a low-carbon economy,” said Youba Sokona, co-chair of the IPCC third working group. “But what is lacking are appropriate policies and institutions. The longer we wait to take action, the more it will cost to adapt to and mitigate climate change.”
The synthesis report says that although estimates of mitigation costs vary, global economic growth would not be strongly hit by these investments. In business-as-usual scenarios, consumption — a proxy for economic growth - grows by 1.6 per cent to 3 per cent per year over the 21st century. Ambitious mitigation would reduce consumption by just about 0.06 per cent, the IPCC notes.
