U.N.Report On Global Warming And What To Do About It

Explainers:

How to attack global warming, in 6 steps. Brad Plumer in Vox.

Summary: U.N. issues guide to slow climate change. Reuters.

Governments must do more in face of dire global-warming threats. "Global greenhouse gas emissions soared to 'unprecedented levels' during the decade that ended in 2010, despite efforts to limit carbon from sources such as power plants and cement factories, as well as deforestation. At a meeting in Berlin, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Sunday released a report that found that nations still have a chance to fulfill the goal but must aggressively turn away from relying largely on fossil fuels such as coal for energy and replace them with cleaner energy sources such as solar and wind power. To reach their target of 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) over preindustrial levels, nations must work together to lower emissions 'by 40 to 70 percent' of what they were in 2010, the report said....In a week-long meeting riven with disagreements between developing and industrialized nations, there was little confidence that the challenge spelled out in the report can be met." Darryl Fears in The Washington Post.

The emissions problem is only becoming worse. "The good news is that ambitious action is becoming more affordable, the committee found....Moreover, since the intergovernmental panel issued its last major report in 2007, far more countries, states and cities have adopted climate plans, a measure of the growing political interest in tackling the problem. They include China and the United States, which are doing more domestically than they have been willing to commit to in international treaty negotiations. Yet the report found that the emissions problem is still outrunning the determination to tackle it, with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rising almost twice as fast in the first decade of this century as they did in the last decades of the 20th century. That reflects a huge rush to use coal-fired power plants in developing countries that are climbing up the income scale, especially China, while rich countries are making only slow progress in cutting their high emissions, the report said." Justin Gillis in The New York Times.

Well, this stinks: Gassy cows are warming the planet, and they're here to stay. Maanvi Singh in NPR.

How politics are ensarling the IPCC process. "In Berlin, the politics showed through in a dispute over how to categorize countries in graphs showing the world's carbon emissions, which are currently growing the fastest in China and other developing countries. Like many scientific studies, the IPCC draft used a breakdown of emissions from low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high income countries. Some developing countries objected and wanted the graphs to follow the example of U.N. climate talks and use just two categories -- developed and developing -- according to three participants who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the IPCC session was closed to the public." Karl Ritter in the Associated Press.

What policy routes are available? "The IPCC report sets out multiple possible routes. Some, based on renewable energy and cutting energy waste, are low-risk and comfortable, rather like a fast electric train. Other more circuitous routes, such as delaying action and then being forced to suck carbon out of the air later, look more like a four-wheeled drive over a mountain range. The IPCC has put a definitive map on the table and shown that the price of climate action is affordable. But the hardest choices remain in the hands of the powerful: which route to take and, even more difficult, who pays for the ticket." Damian Carrington in The Guardian.

Other environmental/energy reads:

Ohio finds link between hydraulic fracturing and sudden burst of earthquakes. Paresh Dave in the Los Angeles Times. (Alan: Let's not forget that natural gas is nearly half as dirty as oil.)