This document was written
immediately after the Copenhagen conference. I intended to rewrite or update it
when the final declarations were made at the end of January 2010. In fact these
declarations are exactly the same as those discussed during the conference and
used here. Since then many other organizations and scientific papers have come
to the same conclusions. These, and other new information, were included in my letter to the new UK Minister for Climate Change of 14 May
2010 John Gorman June 2010
Why
Copenhagen Failed.
By John
Gorman. Chartered engineer.
This document is written to explain to politicians
what happened in Copenhagen. The
failure in Copenhagen was caused by bad science not by politicians. It is much to the credit of politicians that
they refused to be railroaded into making promises that they knew were
impossible to fulfill.
The "plan" for Copenhagen had four steps:
1) A 2°C rise is safe and acceptable for the world.
2) This will be safely achieved if we keep CO2
concentration to 450 parts per million.
3) This will be achieved if world carbon emissions
peak before 2020 and fall rapidly thereafter.
4) This can be achieved with the sort of national
percentage reductions being discussed prior to and at Copenhagen.
I will start with step 4 as this is where the most
glaring failure of Primary School "sums" seems to have occurred.
The final Copenhagen Accord contains nothing so I have
examined the "Internal Note by the Secretariat" dated 15th of
December at 23.00. (Pages 8 to 15 of
this document.) This suggests that
negotiations are within 1.9 to 4.2 gigatons of success. (4% or so of 2020 emissions). This was exactly the wording used on the BBC
one o'clock News the next day with the suggestion that a bit of leadership and
flexibility by politicians would secure agreement.
It is very difficult to check these numbers as there
is no basic data to work from, only reference to other models and
organisations. However it is clear from
Figure 1 in the Secretariat Note( page 10 of this document) that "peaking
around 2015 and falling thereafter" implies that 2020 emissions are either
the same as 2010 (upper curve) or substantially less (lower curve being about
40 gigatons -- down by 17% from about 48 in 2010). Alternatively using the figures in the text there is reduction of
16% from BAU (business as usual) in 2020 to the "necessary" 44
gigatons. (or even 19% from a BAU of 54 gigatons also mentioned.)
Note these percentage reductions in emissions. 16% and 17% reduction!
Doubting the realism of these figures, I decided to
work from the US Environmental Information Administration figures listed and
described by the Guardian on Monday the 30th of November 2009 as "the only
credible source of carbon emissions for every country in the world". (Page 5 of this document).
For Copenhagen, countries were divided into two
categories:
1) "Rich" developed countries called Annex
1. These countries are required to
commit to a percentage reduction compared with now (or some earlier year --
1990/2005 etc.)
2) Developing countries who are asked to make some
promise to reduce 2020 emissions in comparison with business as usual (BAU
defined by the country themselves.)
For each category I have listed and added the ten year
emissions in gigatons and percentage growth in emissions and done simple maths
to get a 2007 total. (Page 6 in this
document.)
A few points of note:
1) Totals for the two categories in 2007 are almost
identical at 17 gigatons each or 34 gigatons for the world.
2) This figure bears almost no relation to the figures
in the Copenhagen Secretariat note.
However, since the International Energy Agency 2009 World Energy Outlook
(IEA2009WEO) is defined in the note as "chosen for this assessment"
it is interesting that my totals are the same as those in IEA2009WEO, while I
can't find in that document (Executive Summary), any figures vaguely similar to
those in the Copenhagen Secretariat Note.
Next I need to predict 2020 emissions for the two
categories. For the Rich Annex 1 I have
taken the best proposed commitments in Table 1 of the Copenhagen Secretariat
Note (page 14 in this document) even where, like the 30% reduction from the EC,
they were never actually tabled.
(Fourth column page 6) This
reduces the 2020 total for Annex 1 countries to 13 gigatons an average
reduction of 23%. (I won't consider
here whether this is realistic by 2020)
Prediction to 2020 for the developing countries is
more difficult as they first define business as usual, BAU, and then make promises
to reduce the effect. There can be no
more realistic figure for business as usual than to take the increase over last
ten years and apply it to the next ten.
I have therefore done this individually for all developing countries and
made a 2020 prediction total of 28 gigatons -- an increase of 68% for these
countries. (Last column page 6)
Adding this to the reduced 2020 total for the Rich
Annex 1 countries gives 41 gigatons for the world in 2020, an increase of 20%
on now.
Is there now a reason to lower the 2020 predictions
for these developing countries on the basis of their "mitigation actions
and policy goals" as listed in Table 2 of the Copenhagen Secretariat
Note? (Page 15 in this document) Let's look at a couple of examples.
1) Singapore has offered to reduce emissions by 16% in
comparison with Business As Usual.
Fortunately someone has done a detailed analysis of this offer
(available at www.asiaisgreen.com/2009/12/03/true-or-false-singapore-to-reduce-carbon-emissions-growth-by-16-from-2020-bau-levels/
). Singapore has defined their BAU as
5% growth in emissions per year and have offered to reduce this by 16% bringing
it to 4.2% per year. However their
emissions growth over the last 10 years was 3.6% so that should be easy enough!
2) China has offered to reduce their "carbon
intensity" by 40 to 45%. This
means emissions as a ratio of GDP. At
present growth rates Chinese GDP will grow by a factor of 3.5 in 10 years. (e.g. 1996 to 2006). So if emissions are limited to 42.5% less
than this they will only double by 2020.
(102% up). Coincidentally this
is exactly the growth over the last 10 years in the Guardian table. Not much change there then!
This is not intended as a criticism of developing countries, all of whose per capita emissions, including China's, are far lower than those of the rich Annex 1 countries. It is just important to get the numbers right.
3) India's situation is similar to China’s. They will reduce their carbon intensity by
25%. But the Indian GDP, at present
growth rates will be almost three times as big by 2020 (factor of 2.9 from 1997
to 2007) so a 25% reduction will still result in a doubling of emissions by
2020. As the increase over the last 10
years was only 60% (Guardian table) this allows for another gigaton or so of
annual emissions above my calculation of business as usual.
4) Brazil has offered to reduce emissions by 39% from
their prediction of business as usual but most of this -- 25% -- is
attributable to "deforestation" (presumably not doing
"deforestation") However, since the approximately 20-25% of total
world emissions attributable to deforestation is clearly not in the
Guardian/EIA figures for either Brazil or Indonesia there is no reason to
reduce the predictions for 2020. (See
more on "Deforestation" below.)
Conclusion from Examples and Calculations.
Even the most "challenging" or optimistic of commitments by
the Rich Annex 1 countries cannot compensate for the inevitable growth in the
developing countries and CO2 emissions in 2020 will be about 20% higher than
now not 16 or 17% below as suggested by the Copenhagen Secretariat Note and by
publicity from Copenhagen.
Deforestation. (Section
rewritten January 29, 2010)
Since
circulating the first version of this document I have been trying to find
reliable figures for emissions due to deforestation. My conclusion is that there aren't any.
The
paper “CO2 Emissions
from Forest Loss” by van der Werf et
al. published in November 2009 in Nature Geoscience
(available at www.biology.duke.edu/jackson/ng09.pdf
) suggests that previous estimates back as far as 1980 were far too high
including those used for IPCC 2007.
This paper suggests that emissions due to clearing and burning are about
12% of total manmade emissions not the 17 or 20% previously quoted by most
sources.
This
makes it all more essential that energy related emissions (used in all my
calculations) are kept separate from deforestation figures (or other
agriculture figures). It also throws
doubt on the overall CO2 emissions figures used by the Copenhagen Secretariat.
The best
information I could find was the private website www.mongabay.com
"There
are no reliable estimates for annual emissions from deforestation (http://news.mongabay.com/2009/1103-redd_emissions.html).
Going forward there probably will be however (http://news.mongabay.com/2009/1216-google_earth_engine.html).
Emissions from deforestation are thought to be declining and tropical
countries have pledged to dramatically reduce deforestation by 2020 (http://news.mongabay.com/2009/1228-rainforests.html).
So deforestation is not a stumbling point. In fact, many would argue that
it has been one of the only areas of progress in negotiations."
(private email from Rhett Butler. Site author)
It is obviously vital to stop the loss of rainforest for many reasons as
well as the estimated 12 to 20% of total manmade carbon emissions caused by
clearing and burning of rainforest.
However this must not be allowed to hide the fact that world energy use
will increase and this will release CO2 until we convert to alternative sources
of energy, which will certainly not be before 2020.
This very large figure from deforestation is obviously
not in the Guardian/EIA or in the World Energy Outlook 2009 figures for either
Brazil or Indonesia. This is because
both these figures are “energy use and generation figures”. Total emissions
requires the addition of estimates for deforestation and agriculture. This
probably accounts for most of the difference between my figures (34 gigatons in
2010) and the Copenhagen Secretariat Note.
However I don’t know where these estimates come from and the source is
not defined in the Secretariat Note.
Note however, that stopping deforestation is the one
change that could be done instantly if there were sufficient political will and
money giving an almost instant reduction in worldwide CO2 emissions of 12-20%
as well as "saving the rainforests and their ecosystems".
Bad Arithmetic.
A careful reading of page 4 of the Secretariat Note (page 11 of this
document) shows where the real error lies.
The note takes the most realistic 2020 predictions from various
organisations, particularly the 2009 World Energy Outlook and subtracts from
this the promises from various countries of reductions from their own defined
projections for 2020. As we saw in the
examples above these reductions only bring their emissions down to an
historically realistic level, if that.
It is totally invalid to subtract these reductions from the realistic
projections of independent organisations.
This is what I believe has led to the 19,000 accredited delegates
leaving Copenhagen thinking that they had just failed to make an agreement when
there never was any possibility of an agreement to get the 16, 17, 20% or
indeed any reduction in emissions by 2020.
I will now look at the other steps in the “Copenhagen
Plan” (first page)
Step 3.
A limit of 450 will be achieved if carbon emissions peak before 2020.
This is more or less true arithmetically (or
geometrically). The diagram on the left
shows that the rate of increase is about 2.25 parts per million per year now
and with 20% increased emissions will probably be 2.7 parts per million per
year in 2020.
The diagram below shows the effect if we assume these
values up to 2020 but then take two hypothetical scenarios for a fall to zero
emissions.
A linear fall from 2020 to zero in 2100 allows the
concentration to pass 450 in 2035 and reach 524 in 2100.
A linear fall from 2020 to zero in 2050 almost limits
the concentration to 450.
Note however that my graph is only based on the actual
rate of increase of concentration not on the emissions. The rate of concentration increase caused by
certain level of emissions may well rise depending on the whole carbon cycle
particularly the carbon “sink” capacity of oceans as sea temperatures rise.
Step
2. Global temperature rise will be
safely limited to 2°C if we can keep CO2 concentration below 450 parts per
million.
This is what is referred to as the “sensitivity” of
the climate system and is normally expressed as the temperature rise that will
result from a doubling of CO2 concentration to 560 parts per million from the
preindustrial level of 280. Hence 2°C
resulting from 450 parts per million means a climate sensitivity of 560
–280/450 –280 x 2= 3.3°C. Is this a
safe assumption?
The IPCC report 2007 defined sensitivity as “likely to
be in the range 2 to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C, and is very
unlikely to be less than 1.5°C. Values substantially higher than 4.5°C cannot
be excluded”
3.3°C sensitivity is exactly in the middle of the most
probable range. However, if we are
trying to choose a “safe” figure surely the figure of 4.5 should be chosen and
as noted this does not exclude the actual figure being even higher. Some other references and reasons for the
uncertainty are listed on page 7 of this document.
Step 4 A temperature rise of 2°C a safe and acceptable
for the world.
I cannot explain how 2°C has
become accepted as a “safe” rise that the world can adapt to. When we see what is happening in the Arctic
and Antarctic at 0.7°C global rise it is difficult to see how anyone could look
upon three times the rise as safe.
I can only suggest that 2°C is the minimum temperature rise that can possibly be predicted by “stretching” the science to its limits – or beyond.
Personal Note by the Author.
I
have tried to keep this document as scientific and accurate as possible. This note explains my personal
interest. Although none of my careers
have anything to do with climate or weather I have studied global warming for
about four years. I quickly came to the
conclusion that emissions reductions alone could not solve the problem and keep
the world safe. This conclusion has
been very strongly confirmed by events in Copenhagen and it is very important
that all the true results of Copenhagen are widely known and understood.
There
is a massive gap between what is necessary to keep the world safe and what can
be achieved by emissions reductions alone and that can only be filled by
geoenginering. One of the few good
things that came out of Copenhagen was the realization by some of the smaller,
poorer and more tropical nations that they simply couldn’t adapt even to 2° of
warming. I do very much hope that they
will continue to refuse the 30 billion pieces of silver and demand that the
rich, technologically advanced part of the world comes up with a better
solution to the problem we have caused.
John Gorman
Chartered Engineer. MIMechE, MIET
Oaklands
New Mill Lane
Eversley
Hampshire, England
RG27 0RA
email gormans@waitrose.com
Declaration
of Interest. I am not employed in any area related to climate and have no
financial interest. I have a proposal for a stratospheric aerosol project for
which I am seeking a university partner.
This document may be used in whole or in part by
anyone for any purpose. Those diagrams
and tables that I have generated may also be used. For diagrams, tables and
text from other sources I suggest you ask permission of those sources if
obvious. This document is also
available on my website at http://www.naturaljointmobility.info/WhyCopenhagenFailed.htm
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Document page 5
Document page 6
This
last column is generated by
taking
the gigatons for 2010 as
the
same as 2007 because of the
“recession”
dip in the graph below.
Then
taking the most realistic
prediction
for ten-year growth
which
is the growth in emissions
over
the previous ten years. This
is
the previous column.
This
gives us the most realistic
figure
for “Business As Usual” BAU for these developing countries.
See
text for comments on whether
these
figures should be reduced on the basis
of mitigation promises.
Graph
showing “recession dip”
In
emissions 2008-2009
Document
page7
This
page contains various references to “Climate Sensitivity”. Some of these are
quite old but the situation has not become significantly more certain recently.
This uncertainty was emphasised by Ronald Prinn, professor of atmospheric
science and the director of the Center for Global Change Science at MIT in a
recent interview available at www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=502 In fact he seems to suggest that recent
evidence leads us to believe that the sensitivity is significantly greater than
was thought in 2003.
Page 17 of Stabilising
climate to avoid dangerous climate change — a summary of relevant research at
the Hadley Centre 2005
What does a given level of
dangerous climate change mean for concentrations?
Assuming
we know what the tolerable climate change is — for example, in terms of
temperature — how low do we need to keep greenhouse gas concentrations to
prevent this temperature being reached?
The
relationship between increased concentrations of greenhouse gases and global
average temperature rise is often expressed in terms of ‘climate sensitivity’,
defined as the warming which would ultimately occur following a doubling of CO2 concentrations. For a
particular climate model, the climate sensitivity will be mainly governed by
the strength of climate feedbacks — for example, due to changes in clouds or
sea ice — and this (and, hence, the climate sensitivity) can vary greatly from
model to model. In the IPCC 2001 Assessment, the range was from 2 °C to 5.1 °C.
For
a given level of global warming which could be called dangerous, this
uncertainty in climate sensitivity translates into an uncertainty in allowable
greenhouse gas concentrations. This is illustrated in the figure below, using
the UEA/NCAR MAGICC 4.1 model, showing the temperature rise to 2150 resulting
from different WRE stabilisation scenarios (stabilising CO2 at 350ppm, 450ppm etc)
with climate sensitivity varying from 1.5 °C to 4.5 °C.
If
the temperature rise by 2150 was required to be kept to 2 °C, for example, a
climate sensitivity of 3 °C would mean stabilising CO2 (or its equivalent) below
350ppm. If the climate sensitivity was at the bottom end of the range — say 1.5
°C — stabilisation could be as high as about 700ppm and still allow temperature
rise to be limited to 2 °C. On the other hand, if climate sensitivity was
greater than 3 °C, stabilisation at concentrations well below those of today
would be required.
Caldeira et al
Science 2003
“Even if we could determine a
"safe" level of interference in the climate system, the
sensitivity of global mean temperature to increasing atmospheric CO2
is known perhaps only to a factor of three or less”.
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4-2007)
“-likely to be in the range 2 to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C,
and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C. Values substantially higher than
4.5°C cannot be excluded”
Copenhagen Secretariat
Note
Document page8
This is the “Copenhagen
Secretariat Note” referred to at various points in this document. It has eight
pages.
This note is
also available at www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/17/copenhagen-emissions-cuts-future-temperatures and can be downloaded from the scribd website
as a pdf. On screen and printed, that source gives a more legible version than
I have been able to reproduce in this document.
Document page9
Document page10
Document page 11
Document page 12
Document page13
Document page 14
Document page 15
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