The short answer is, “Not today — not even close.”

The long answer is the subject of this post (and my book and this entire blog).

Certainly regular readers know that the nation and the world currently lack the political will to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at 450 ppm or even 550 ppm.

The political impossibility is also obvious from anyone familiar with Princeton’s “stabilization wedges” — and if you aren’t, you should be (technical paper here, less technical one here). The wedges are a valuable conceptual tool for showing the immense scale needed for the solution (although they have analytical flaws).

Of course, if solving the climate problem were politically possible today, I would have found something more useful to do with my time (as, I expect, would you). But 450 ppm or lower is certainly achievable from an economic and technological perspective. Indeed, that is the point of the wedges discussion (since they rely on existing technology) and the Conclusion to Hell and High Water.

The purpose of my last post on the adaptation trap was to make clear that 800 to 1000 ppm, which is where we are headed, is a catastrophe that is far beyond human imagining, that makes a mockery of the word “adaptation,” that has a “cost” far beyond that considered by any traditional economic cost-benefit analysis. It is both a rationally impossible and morally impossible choice. So, I think is 550 ppm, assuming we could stop there, which as I argued, we probably can’t thanks to the carbon cycle feedbacks like the melting tundra.

What needs to be done?

STABILIZING BELOW 450 PPM

[Note: I am going to do this entire post in billions of tons of carbon (GtC) even though I just wrote a long post explaining why carbon dioxide is better. That's because the wedges were formulated in GtC and are much more intuitive that way.]

As Princeton’s Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala (S&P) explain:

A wedge represents an activity that reduces emissions to the atmosphere that starts at zero today and increases linearly until it accounts for 1 GtC/year of reduced carbon emissions in 50 years. It thus represents a cumulative total of 25 GtC of reduced emissions over 50 years.

They wrote their Science paper when we were at 7 GtC and rising slowly — an ancient time you may remember as 2003, before Bush was reelected, before anybody ever heard of Reverend Wright or Paris Hilton or the need to stabilize below 450 ppm. An innocent time, really, but I digress.

So they said that 7 wedges would keep emissions flat for 50 years and then, assuming we invested in a lot of R&D, we could start cutting global emissions rapidly after 2050, and stabilize at 500 ppm. And everybody would live happily ever after driving fuel cell cars, watching YouTube, and popping the occasional Xanax.

Problem 1: The world is at 8 GtC annual emissions.

Just to stabilize emissions at current levels thus requires adopting at least 8 wedges.

Problem 2: S&P assume “Our BAU [business as usual] simply continues the 1.5% annual carbon emissions growth of the past 30 years.” Oops! Since 2000, we’ve been rising at 3% per year (thank you, China). That means instead of BAU doubling to 16 GtC in 50 years, we would, absent the wedges, double in 25 years. That would mean each wedge needs to occur in half the time, assuming our current China-driven pace is the new norm (which is impossible to know, but I personally doubt it is).

Problem 3: A wedge is a mind-bogglingly large amount of “activity.” For instance, a post last year on the Keystone report explained that one nuclear wedge would require adding globally:

• an average of 14 plants each year for the next 50 years, while building an average of 7.4 plants a year to replace those that will be retired;
• Plus 10 Yucca Mountains to store the waste.

If you believe 3% growth is the new norm, then double that — 43 nukes a year for 25 years — for one wedge.

One wedge of coal with carbon capture and storage means storing the emissions from 800 large coal plants (4/5ths of all coal plants in 2000) — a flow of CO2 into the ground equal to the current flow of oil out of the ground. That’s right — you have to re-create the equivalent of the planet’s entire oil delivery infrastructure.

So one wedge from nuclear and one from CCS would be a stunning global achievement. Those who want to rule them out need 2 more wedges.

Here are other typical wedges (these are examples, not endorsements):

• If we built two million large (one megawatt) wind turbines, or 2000 GW. “Last year’s global wind power installations reached a record 20,000 MW, equivalent to 20 large-size 1 GW conventional power plants.” So we’re at half the rate needed for 1 wedge of wind (or mayber a quarter).
• If the fuel economy of the 2 billion or so cars in the world in 2050 got 60 mpg, that would be one wedge.
• For the conservation/peak oil folks, if the 2 billion cars in 2050 travel 5000 miles a year, rather than 10,000.
• If we grew biofuels requiring one-sixth of the world cropland.
• For S&P, ending all deforestation and doubling the current rate of tree planting is one wedge. In fact, if we don’t sharply reduce deforestation, we probably need to add another two wegdes (S&P used optimistic numbers for deforestation).

Problem 4: Stabiling emissions at current levels for 50 years and then declining sharply would probably not stabilize us below 600 ppm (even assuming that 1.5% annual growth was BAU, and not 3%).

For 450 ppm, we need to average 5 GtC this century. So we must be back down below 4 GtC globally by mid-century (and then head to zero by century’s end). Thus we need a minimum of 12 wedges if we started last year, which we didn’t. We probably won’t start putting serious measures into place before 2010 at the earliest, when we’ll be at 9 GtC. So that is 2 more wedges.

[Yes, I know, know, why in God's name did we elect and reelect two oil men who would spend their entire time in office not merely blocking all domestic action, but all international action, too. That is one for the history books, I'm afraid. What is especially depressing is that China's torrid love affair with coal plants only began after 2000, after it was clear the U.S. wouldn't take any action.... As Richard the III might have put it, a time machine, a time machine, my Kingdom for a time machine....]

Problem 5: The baseline of the wedges is unknown even to the the original authors, S&P. This is related to Problem 2.

Read more

Despite a Court-issued directive to develop a plan for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, Johnson goes back to square one, writes Robert Sussman. Read more from the Center for American Progress here.

Even for a do-nothing Administration, Johnson is a standout!

Earlier this week Alexandra Kougentakis, Fellows Assistant at the Center for American Progress, attended one of the American Meteorological Society‘s seminars discussing the latest in climate science (which are great resources for policymakers, as they tend to take place on Capitol Hill). She has kindly reported on the event below:

One of the favorite, though well-debunked, claims of the global warming skeptics is that the recent warming is due to the recent up tick in solar activity. The current solar cycle has indeed seen higher-than-average sunspots, but what most strengthens skeptics’ argument is the lack of knowledge about what this means. In that light, the American Meteorological Society’s recent seminar, “Solar Radiation, Cosmic Rays and Greenhouse Gases: What’s Driving Global Warming?” was especially illuminating

The core of the skeptics’ argument is to take legitimate scientific fact and distort it to serve a false premise. Solar activity is among the external factors listed by the IPCC whose variation could be a source of radiative forcing, which is the net change in solar ray penetration between the two atmospheric layers closest to the earth. In other words, solar activity is potentially a cause of climate change. The historic correlation between solar activity and climatic shifts seen in the paleoclimate record provides evidence to this effect. Since the 17th century, the record of 11-year cycles of solar irradiance, or brightness, charted through the analysis of tree rings and ice cores makes clear that solar irradiance has increased. A correlation has been observed between solar activity and climate shifts, at least up until the mid-20th century, when the connection became sharply weaker.

One of the strongest arguments against attempts to link solar activity to current warming has to do with inconsistencies in the solar signal.

Read more

Lofty Pledge to Cut Emissions Comes With Caveat in Norway – New York Times. Norway has been stunning speculators with its pledges to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, and then by 2030. This article reports on the disappointment that much of Norway’s promise relies more on offsets than policies that make actual reductions. Similar realities and hurdles are likely to proliferate as we get more serious about global warming policy, and this is a challenge policy-makers must overcome.

New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears – Wall Street Journal. This article is sort of Jared Diamond’s book Collapse in brief in that it’s an exploration of how modern societies are handling economic, industrial and population growth as it merges with dwindling natural resources. Two questions emerge – Can we handle the management challenge, and can the earth handle us?

Even with stricter CAFE standards than our own, China Facing Renewed Fuel Shortages – AP. “China’s leaders are facing renewed pressure over shortfalls in diesel and gasoline, with lines growing at filling stations in major cities Monday as the gap widens between international crude oil values and centrally controlled fuel prices.”

Sharp to invest $729 million in new solar cell plant – Reuters. A Japanese company has recently announced how much capital funds it will be putting into its upcoming solar cell manufacturing plant. I think the real story is simply that this is another example of how international businesses are committing to building a green energy base, while American companies are not. Sharp intends to compete with a large German solar cell production company, both to act as exporters of the solar cell technology. We need to pay more attention to this market before we lose the potential to have an edge in it.

– Kari M.

Today, former Vice President Al Gore and his organization, the Alliance for Climate Protection, launched a $300 million, three-year campaign with the goal of “educating people in the US and around the world that the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable.” The Washington Post reports that the “We” campaign “aims to enlist 10 million volunteers through a combination of network and cable commercials, display ads…and online social networks.” Gore told 60 Minutes he and his wife Tipper had donated the Nobel Peace Prize money and all the profits from his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” to this new campaign.

The campaign’s website, wecansolveit.org, includes action alerts, blogger outreach, and the message of a “clean energy economy” fueled by energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The campaign will launch TV advertisements later this week that “will team up offbeat celebrity couples who may not have much in common but share a belief that it is important to address climate change,” including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson, and the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith. Sign up for the campaign, and watch its debut ad:

The Alliance’s spending of $100 million per year on a public advocacy campaign may be without precedent. However, the public is being bombarded with propaganda from the industries whose emissions are causing global warming and thus have the most to lose — or gain — from how the United States regulates greenhouse gas pollution. Here’s a look at what Gore’s campaign is up against:

• The energy, transportation, agribusiness, chemical, and energy-intensive manufacturing sectors have spent a combined $80 million in donations to Congress and presidential candidates since 2007;
• The coal industry is sponsoring a $20 million lobbying campaign by the National Mining Association and a $40 million campaign by its front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices;
• The American Clean Skies Foundation, a natural gas industry front group, is launching a “multi-million dollar media advocacy campaign” with a 24-7 online TV channel on Earth Day;
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Council for Capital Formation, and the energy industry front group Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth have launched a 17-state tour painting a doom-and-gloom scenario for the economics of climate change action;
• Chevron, a major exploiter of the Alberta tar sands, is running the “Power of Human Energy” campaign;
• General Motors, whose chairman recently called global warming “a total crock of shit,” is running “GMNext,” Gas-Friendly to Gas Free” and “Live Green Go Yellow” campaigns;
• ConocoPhillips, who spent $506 million to purchase oil and gas leases in polar bear habitat in February, is running ads with the tagline “So we can pass on what matters … to the ones who matter most.”