Abstract
The most recent US Congressional climate bill, H.R.5271 in 2014, proposes to reduce US emissions of carbon dioxide relative to their 2005 value by 80% in 2050. This bill does not provide a rationale for this rapid phase down of CO2 emissions. In 2012, we crafted a Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s Climate such that: 1) The cumulative trade-adjusted CO2 emissions by the developing countries equal the cumulative trade-adjusted CO2 emissions by the developed countries; 2) The maximum global warming above preindustrial temperature does not exceed the 2°C (3.6°F) chosen by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change “to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”; and 3) The phase out of CO2 emissions begins as late as possible in the 21st century and proceeds at the slowest possible pace, consistent with objectives 1 and 2. The Fair Plan begins in 2020 and reduces the world’s emissions to zero in 2100. In the Fair Plan the emissions of the developed countries, including the United States, reach 80% below their 2005 values in 2094, that is, 44 years later than proposed by H.R.5271. While it is imperative that humanity begins to wean itself from fossil fuels no later than 2020, the transition from fossil to non-fossil energy need not be completed before 2100 if all countries follow their Fair Plan trajectories.
Highlights
The Congress of the United States has considered several bills to reduce the US annual emission of greenhouse gases, the most important of which is carbon dioxide (CO2)
In these Congressional bills the emissions are given in “carbon dioxide equivalents” which was first defined in the 2005 bill as: “For each greenhouse gas, the amount of each such greenhouse gas that makes the same contribution to global warming as one metric ton of carbon dioxide, as determined by the administrator” [2]
The annual CO2 emissions for the developed and developing countries are shown in Figure 5, together with those proposed for the United States by the 2014 US Congressional bill (Table 1), in terms of the percentage change from the 2005 CO2 emissions for the developed countries, developing countries and the United States
Summary
We have endeavored to learn the origin of the “80/50” notion to reduce emissions by 80% relative to a reference year by 2050 It appears that a “causality chain” is from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 4 (AR4) to the European Council to the EUCO2 80/50 project. “Characteristics of post-TAR stabilization scenarios” (Category A.1) of the Summary for Policymakers of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of Working Group 3 (WG3) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [10], and Table 3.10 (Class I) and Figure 3.38 of Chapter 3 of AR4 of IPCC WG3 [11] These tables show that to limit global warming to 2.0 ̊C - 2.4 ̊C requires emissions reductions below 2000 values of 85% - 50% in 2050. Doing this allows for a much more gradual reduction in (equivalent) CO2 emissions than does stabilizing the (equivalent) CO2 concentration
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