Was James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis, right when he said it was too late to prevent “apocalyptic” climate change? That’s one reading of the International Energy Agency’s latest estimates of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, which hit record highs last year.
Despite the financial crisis, last year’s emissions from power stations and transport surpassed 2009 levels by 1.6 gigatonnes, hitting 30.6 Gt. This is close to the 32 Gt per year the IEA warns would cause warming of 2 °C if it is reached before 2020.
What’s more, around 80 per cent of the predicted 2020 emissions from power stations are already “locked in” – from stations that are already built or under construction.
“This significant increase in CO2 emissions and the locking in of future emissions due to infrastructure investments represent a serious setback to our hopes of limiting the global rise in temperature to no more than 2 °C,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA, said in a statement.
So should policy-makers focus on adapting to the effects of climate change rather than trying to mitigate its cause?
“We will need to adapt to some extent but we will need to mitigate to a greater extent,” says Simon Buckle of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London. “We need to adapt to what’s already in the system and to mitigate to limit the extent of climate risks, and in case we are unable to do enough of either, we also need to develop negative emissions technologies that suck CO2 from the air.”
In any case adaption might not be an option, says Clare Goodess of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in the UK. “Beyond a 2 °C temperature rise some things become impossible to adapt to – like sea level rises in low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.” Emission control will be the key to limiting the amount of damage, she adds. “The further you go beyond 2 °C, the harder it is to adapt.”
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