TL: GLOBAL WARMING : A Greenpeace Brief SO: Greenpeace International (GP) DT: not dates (likely 1991) Keywords: atmosphere global warming climate change greenpeace reports gp / Edited by Jeremy Leggett An extended synopsis of The Global Warming Report Compiled by the Editor, originally published by OUP Summary 'Global Warming: The Greenpeace Report', was published by Oxford University Press in 1990. It was born of our certainty in Greenpeace that the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would fairly reflect the unprecedented degree of consensus among the world's climate scientists that ecological disaster awaits a world which makes no efforts to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases. And our equal certainty that some governments would choose to ignore this warning insofar as they possibly could. The book describes what the IPCC policy makers should have said about how we must respond to the greenhouse threat, as articulated by the IPCC scientists. Central to the policy prescription are the need to: ù replace fossil-fuels with renewable-energy technologies; ù massively increase the efficiency with which energy is used; ù provide additional funds to the developing world to allow them to 'leapfrog' the energy-profligate, fossil-fuel dependent roads to development which the industrialised countries have pursued. The Greenpeace Report is written by leading analysts from the US, the UK, Sweden, Brazil and India. '... as good a summary of what can be said about the machinery of the planet and what human activity has done to it. . . ' The Guardian '... a collection of well-considered chapters, by international authorities... ' The Observer '... the one book in the current environmental crop that really ought to be up there in the bestseller lists... ' The Times Higher Education Supplement '... comprehensive and excellent...' Carl Sagan Global Warming: The Greenpeace Report, published by Oxford University Press, is available from all good bookshops, priced œ5.95. In case of difficulty, customers can order direct from the OUP Bookshop, 116 High Street, Oxford OX1 4BR, UK. Please enclose full payment, plus L1.75 for postage and packing. Contents Introduction Part 1: Science Chapter 1. The Nature of the Greenhouse Threat Jeremy Leggett Chapter 2. Climate Modelling Stephen Schneider Chapter 3. Biogeochemical Feedbacks in the Earth System David Schimel Chapter 4. Halting Global Warming Mick Kelly Part 2: Impacts Chapter 5. The Effects of Global Warming George M. Woodwell Chapter 6. Lessons from Climates of the Past Brian Huntley Chapter 7. The Implications for Health Andrew Haines Part 3: Policy Responses Chapter 8. Policy Responses to Global Warming Jose Goldemberg Chapter 9. The Costs of Cutting - or not Cutting - Emissions Stephen Schneider Chapter 10. The Role of Energy Efficiency Amory Lovins Chapter 11. Renewable Energy Carlo LaPorta Chapter 12. Motor Vehicles and Global Warming Michael Walsh Chapter 13. Nuclear Power and Global Warming Bill Keepin Chapter 14. The Challenge of Choices: a case history from the Swedish electricity sector. Birgit Bodlund, Evan Mills, Tomas Karlsson and Thomas B. Johansson Chapter 15. Tropical Forests Norman Myers Chapter 16. Agricultural Contributions to Global Warming Anne Ehrlich Chapter 17. Third World Countries in the Policy Response Kilaparti Ramakrishna Chapter 18. Redefining Economics in a Greenhouse World Susan George Chapter 19. The Greenpeace View Jeremy Leggett About Greenpeace Introduction "... the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - its scientists excepted - has failed in its responsibilities in what has been the most important international consultation process in history. The policy-makers have consistently refused to listen to the dire and virtually unanimous warnings from the world's climate scientists: they continue to recommend the distribution of a few bandages in the face of an effective plague warning ... This is what makes the Greenpeace Report so important ... it says what the IPCC should have said about how we must respond to the greenhouse threat ..." World energy consumption and the ever-growing dependence on fossil fuels. Nearly 60% of all human-derived greenhouse-gas emissions come from the production and use of coal, oil and gas. The atmosphere already contains 25% more carbon dioxide (CO2) than it has for at least 160,000 years, and the rate is steadily building up at 0.5% per year. Until this century, atmospheric CO2 contained around 580 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) of carbon (GtC), and had maintained this concentration, with minor variations, for thousands of years. Atmospheric CO2 today contains 750 GtC. Carbon in recoverable coal and oil amounts to 4,000 GtNn potentially-recoverable fossil fuels there could be as much as 10,000 GtC. Around half the CO2 emitted from fossil- fuel burning (currently more than 5 GtC each year) stays in the atmosphere. From an environmental perspective, therefore, fossil-fuel dependence is manifestly unsustainable. Replacing the human addiction to fossil fuels with energy sanity is the key to beating the greenhouse threat. Global climate change will come to dominate world affairs in the next few decades - one way or the other. The message from the great majority of the world's best climate scientists is clear: humankind is heading for deep trouble unless we drastically cut our emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. If emissions continue at their present rates, the world average temperature could rise by a full degree Celsius (1.8øF) within just thirty years. Temperatures have never risen at anything approaching this rate while humans have walked the planet. An international conference hosted by the Canadian government in Toronto in 1988 spoke of effects 'second only to global nuclear war' if humankind did not mobilize effectively and cut greenhouse-gas emissions appreciably. This is the concern that led to the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC scientists calculate 'with confidence' that in order to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) at their current level, immediate cuts in global emissions of CO2 would need to exceed 60 per cent. Freezing emissions, or merely cutting them by a few tens of per cent, will merely allow concentrations to go ever higher into uncharted territory more slowly than a business-as-usual approach to emissions. All the risks would still be there. A decision to continue with anything like business-as-usual indicates a willingness to mortgage tomorrow's environmental security for today's perceived luxury. If the IPCC scientists are to be believed, a viable future for humankind could be at stake at some time in the future. The risks of doing nothing far outweigh any possible costs associated with responding. The means of response - substituting energy efficiency and renewables for the use of fossil fuels, eliminating use of CFCs and related greenhouse-gas chemicals such as HFCs and HCFCs, ending deforestation, and changing methods of agriculture - are available and ready for implementation. All that is required is the will to face the challenge of change. Chapter 1 The nature of the greenhouse threat Dr Jeremy Leggett Director of Science, Atmosphere and Energy Campaign, Greenpeace International. An award-winning scientist, Dr Leggett has sat on several advisory committees for the UK government's Natural Environment Research Council. "... in a 'business-as-usual' world in which greenhouse gas emissions continue at today's rates, we are heading for rates of temperature-rise unprecedented in human history; the geological record screams a warning to us of just how unprecedented . .. And this conclusion pertains only to existing model predictions, not the natural amplifications (positive feedbacks) of global warming which the world's climate scientists profess are 'likely' ..." Greenhouse gases act like a blanket, causing heat to be retained in the atmosphere. There is a natural greenhouse effect, which is not a problem, and an "enhanced" greenhouse effect, which is a problem. The enhanced greenhouse effect results from anthropogenic (human-derived) emissions of greenhouse gas. Atmospheric concentrations of all the main anthropogenic greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide (CO2) CFCs, methane and nitrous oxide - have been rising dramatically in recent decades. The several hundred scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predict that if this situation continues, a global average temperature rise of 1øC (1.8øF) by 2030, and of around 3øC (5.4øF) by 2100, can be expected. Such rates of warming are unprecedented. They would cause intolerable environmental stresses. There are many uncertainties involved in making climate predictions, but the likelihood of the great majority of the world's best climate scientists being right is sufficiently high to allow no choice but to stem human emissions of greenhouse gases immediately. Furthermore, feedbacks - natural processes which amplify or dampen the warming - are central to the appraisal of the risks, and as the IPCC scientists conclude sadly "it appears likely that, as climate warms, the feedbacks will lead to an overall increase, rather than decrease, in natural greenhouse gas abundances. For this reason, climate change is likely to be greater than the estimates we have given." In other words, the uncertainties only make the problem worse. Because of the natural variability of climate, the unequivocal detection of the "signal" of the human-enhanced greenhouse effect is not likely for a decade or more. But unusual recent climatic events - Hurricane Hugo, floods in Africa and India, windstorms in Europe, droughts in North America and elsewhere - are of a kind which would be expected in a world beginning to suffer from an enhanced greenhouse effect. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2, nitrous oxide and CFCs adjust only slowly to changes in emissions. As the IPCC scientists concluded, the longer emissions continue to increase, the greater would reductions have to be to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases at a given level. Chapter 2 The science of climate-modelling and a perspective on the global warming debate Dr Stephen Schneider US National Center for Atmospheric Research Dr Schneider is Head of NCAR's Inter-disciplinary Climate Systems Unit. ". . . Many critiques somehow understress that the sword of uncertainty has two blades: that is, uncertainties in physical or biological processes which make it possible for the present generation of models to have overestimated future warming effects, are just as likely to have caused the models to have underestimated change . . . " Scientists cannot build physical experiments to assess exactly what excess greenhouse gases will do to future climate. Only the real-life experiment of continuing greenhouse-gas-profligacy can tell us that. But what scientists can do is simulate the many components of the climate system mathematically. These components include things like atmospheric chemistry, the behaviour of clouds, and aldedo - the degree to which different parts of the Earth can reflect solar radiation back into space. Summing them, and their individual and interactive variations as greenhouse-gas concentrations go up, gives a mathematical model of what will happen to climate. Obviously the models have to be simplified - there is no computer fast enough to simulate individual clouds, or ocean currents. The best models, so called General Circulation Models (GCMs), sum data from grid squares several hundred kilometres across. In this chapter, one of the USA's leading exponents describes how climate modelling is done, addresses some of the common criticisms of climate models, and assesses the many uncertainties involved in modelling a complex system like Earth's climate. He concludes that the models, despite the uncertainties over some of the components included, and despite unquantifiable components of climate - such as methane supply from melting tundra - which the models have to leave out, are very useful tools. Some efforts to criticise climate models, Schneider demonstrates, have been ill-informed. Like Dr Leggett in the first chapter, he concludes that the uncertainties in modelling are all the more reason for action to stem greenhouse- gas emissions. Models must be verified, to be useful. One method of verification is the degree to which models are successful in simulating the seasonal cycle in real climate. Modern models do well in this regard. Another method is to test individual components of climate, as simulated, in real life. Recently, satellite-based measurements have allowed such verification for the upward emission from Earth of infra-red radiation. Again, the models do well. Models can and will be improved - especially in combining atmospheric and oceanic data better, in so-called coupled models. But in Schneider's view, it will be 10 to 25 years before this happens. Such are the risks of global warming, we cannot afford to wait for better climate models. Chapter 3 Biogeochemical feedbacks in the earth system Professor David Schimel Department of Forest and Wood Sciences, University of Colorado Prof Schimel is an active researcher of trace gas biochemistry in living systems. "... Feedbacks between atmosphere and biosphere are non-linear, sensitive to initial conditions, and capable of enormous amplifications. Complex feedbacks in the Earth System can produce unexpected and potent responses.... Without crying wolf, it is worthy of our concern as a society that biogeochemical and ecological feedbacks may result in more rapid environmental change than is predicted by purely physical models ..." Biogeochemistry is the science which studies the production, consumption and circulation of chemicals in the environment by and through the biota (all life on Earth). This chapter looks at how biogeochemistry and physical climate can interact to produce some of the feedbacks we have heard about in the two previous chapters. The main problem is that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide and other gases are influenced by a large number of biological processes which will themselves be changing as the impacts of a warming world are felt. These biological feedbacks, concludes Dr Schimel, are likely to cause acceleration of the greenhouse effect. Photosynthesis (the mixing by plants of CO2 with water, in the presence of sunlight, to make foodstuffs) will tend to be enhanced by increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Some scientists argue that this "fertilisation" effect will enhance the land-based "sink" for CO2. But Schimel points out that the process is finite, and is likely itself to be limited by parallel changes such as reduced availability to land plants of nutrients, or water. He describes field experimental data suggesting that this will be the case. Rather worryingly, his experiments show that soil organic carbon is steadily lost to the atmosphere, as CO2, as temperatures go up. He believes that terrestrial ecosystems (a "catchall" scientific term for life on land -dominated, of course, by forests), are unlikely to be a long-term sink for CO2. Other potential biogeochemical feedbacks involve methane. Schimel describes the uncertainties over the huge quantities of methane involved in rice paddies, in the hydrates and tundra wetlands of the Arctic, and in soils in general. Much more research is needed, he concludes, but there is clearly great potential for surprises: unpleasant ones, resulting from positive feedbacks. Chapter 4 Halting global warming Dr Mick Kelly Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK A Senior Research Associate at UEA, Dr Kelly has contributed to many climatic studies. ". . . The combined effect of the elimination of chlorofluorocarbon production (and all related substitute chemicals) by the year 1995, a halt to deforestation by the year 2000, and a 50 per cent reduction in fossil-fuel emissions by the year 2030 would be to reduce the future rate of warming by more than a third compared to the business-as-usual projection. But the effective carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere continues to rise. In order to reach the goal of stabilization, further measures are needed . . ." As we have seen, if atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are to be stabilized at present-day levels, an immediate cut in global emissions of more than 60 per cent would be needed. This would entail the world somehow, overnight, more than halving the burning of fossil-fuels and forests. Realistic policy goals, therefore, almost inevitably involve stabilizing concentrations at somewhat higher levels than today's, and therefore stabilizing global climate at a higher global average temperature than today's. Suppose the goal is to stabilize the temperature as shown in the figure: at 1.7 degrees Centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial global-average surface air temperature. In other words, very roughly a degree C (1.8 degrees F) higher than today's average temperature. (Note the uncertainty range). It is a scenario for slowing global warming over the next few decades and hopefully - provided positive feedbacks have not been awakened - stopping it sometime in the next century. What would be needed in terms of policies to achieve this goal? In this chapter, the author works out one set of answers to this question. To stabilize global average temperatures as shown in the figure, the complete strategy described by Dr Kelly consists of: ù elimination of the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and all ozone-depleting chemicals by 1995. ù a complete ban on substitutes that are greenhouse gases (i.e. HFCs and HCFCs). ù a halt to deforestation by the year 2000. ù reforestation to offset annual emissions of 1,650 million tonnes of carbon by 2020 (involving the creation of perhaps 200 million hectares of new forests, which amounts to increasing the area of the planet covered by forests today by 5 per cent). ù a reduction in the annual rise in methane and nitrous oxide concentrations (from a variety of agricultural and other sources) to 25 per cent of today's value by 2020. And finally, not least: ù a global cut in CO2 emissions of fully 70 per cent by the year 2020. This, clearly, is a very radical suite of policies. Yet it still would herald a rise in global average temperatures which would place profound ecological stresses on living systems. And it would still run the gauntlet of some of the positive feedbacks, such as those described in chapter 3, which might be awakened in a warming world. In other words, it would not guarantee that global warming would be halted as shown in the figure. Its very stringency, despite the lack of an absolute guarantee that it would halt global warming, illustrates the imperative for immediate and concerted action by humankind to begin a comprehensive programme of cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. Chapter 5 The effects of global warming Dr George M Woodwell Woods Hole Research Institute, USA Dr Woodwell is a former President of the Ecological Society of America, and a Fellow of the USA National Academy of Sciences. "... The possibility exists that the warming will proceed to the point where biotic releases (of greenhouse gases) from the warming will exceed in magnitude those controlled directly by human activity. If so, the warming will be beyond control by any steps now considered reasonable. We do not know how far we are from that point because we do not know sufficient detail about the circulation of carbon among the pools of the carbon cycle. We are not going to be able to resolve those questions definitively soon. Meanwhile, the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere rises ..." No one can predict the exact effects of global warming at the rates now forecast by the great majority of world's climate scientists. But many qualitative conclusions can be drawn from simple ecological principles. The eminent ecologist who wrote this chapter expresses a number of fears for the future. Prominent among them is the positive feedback which will be awakened as a result of the stimulation of plant respiration in a warming world. Both photosynthesis (whereby plants draw carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air to make food) and respiration (whereby they put CO2 back into the air by burning food to make energy) are stimulated at higher temperatures. But respiration is stimulated to a greater degree. Hence, argues Dr Woodwell, there will be a net flow of extra CO2 to the atmosphere. Woodwell anticipates that a 1øC (1.8øF) increase in temperature would move the forest-to-grassland transitions in the northern hemisphere 60-100 miles north. Millions of hectares of forest would be destabilised and replaced with grassland, involving a release of tens of billions of tonnes of carbon: a highly significant positive feedback. Further, new forest would regenerate only slowly at higher latitudes, if at all. Hence, Woodwell expects many species to be lost as climate and habitat migrate from under them. He anticipates losses in production of cereals in some areas of currently high production: southern Europe, southern states in the USA, and western Australia. Today's yields are likely to be vulnerable to increased aridity over large areas. He argues that the school of thought that a warming Siberia will become the grain basket of the east is "dangerous and misguided." Sea levels are projected to rise by 10-30 cm by 2030, and by 30- 100 cm by 2100, according to the IPCC scientists. This rise, the product of thermal expansion of sea-water and the melting of glaciers, (melting ice-sheets are expected to provide only a small contribution) is two to six times faster than the rate over the last century and would pose serious problems for low- lying nations and coastal zones. A rise of 1 metre, according to the IPCC Impacts Working Group, "would displace populations, destroy low lying urban infrastructure, inundate arable lands, contaminate fresh-water supplies, and alter coastlines". Up to 15 per cent of Egypt's arable land and 14 per cent of Bangladesh's net cropped area would be lost. Island states at risk of total inundation include the Maldives, Tuvalu and Kiribati. Woodwell argues that humankind has no choice but the "substantial abandonment of fossil fuels. The sooner the process is under way, the greater the hope of success. If the process is not undertaken, the erosion of the human habitat will proceed rapidly." Chapter 6 Lessons from climates of the past Dr Brian Huntley Department of Biological Sciences, University of Durham, UK Author of more than 25 studies of the history of vegetation, Dr Huntley was an advisor to the IPCC on past climates. "... the single most important lesson, assuming that no steps are taken to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, is that the climate- changes forecast for the next century will give rise to warmer climates than have been experienced on Earth for at least several million years, and that these climate-changes will take place more than an order of magnitude faster than the most rapid climate changes of the recent geological past ..." Vital lessons can be learnt from studies of environmental history on geological time scales. In ice cores, scientists have a record of past climate going back tens of thousands of years. In fossils and sedimentary strata, they have a record going back millions of years. Of particular interest are the last 2 million years, during which time the world has alternated between ice ages and "interglacials" like the most recent 10,000-year period, in which civilisation evolved. How did trees and other plants manage in those times of past naturally-fast rates-of-change in global average temperatures? The work of Dr Huntley and others in the fossil record gives us important insights on this question, and has clear implications for the response of living systems to the future changes now projected by the IPCC scientists, because - assuming that no steps are taken to curb greenhouse-gas emissions the next century will see climates warmer than have been experienced on Earth for several million years, and the changes will occur more than ten times faster than the most rapid climate changes of the recent geological past. Each species of tree examined in the fossil record shows a different migratory history. Although each region in which ancient vegetation has been examined shows a different pattern of change when examined in detail, all regions consistently indicate rapid change about 10,000 years ago, when the last ice age came to an end. Migration rates of trees then were in the order of hundreds of metres per year, or 10-100 km per century. Dr Huntley argues that these rates were close to the maximum rates at which trees are capable of migrating. It is unlikely, therefore, that many organisms - trees in particular - would be able to migrate fast enough to remain in equilibrium with future climatic changes in a world in the grip of global warming. The consequences for the natural environment would be profound. The diversity of plants - and hence animals - would be lower than before. Biomass (the total amount of living matter) would be reduced, and soil deterioration would increase. Both would constitute positive feedbacks, allowing more greenhouse gas to build up in the atmosphere, and the warming and ecological devastation to speed up still further. The fate of many individual organisms seems bleak, when we compare the evidence of what happened in the geological past when species last had to migrate quickly. Dr Huntley argues that if we allow rates of change such as those forecast by the climate prediction centres to come about, then the Earth will warm so fast that eventually - he suggests within the twenty- second century - all aspects of life on Earth may be threatened. Chapter 7 The implications for health Professor Andrew Haines University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, London A Professor of Primary Health Care, Andrew Haines researches preventive medicine and epidemiology. ". . . The primary effects of temperature on human disease are likely to be outweighed by secondary effects on health of climate change. In particular, the adverse effects on food production, availability of water, coastal flooding, and on disease vectors should be a cause of concern . . . The health- impact of climate change will not, however, be limited to the Third World . . . " The diagram shows the many ways human health and welfare can be adversely affected by a rapidly-warming climate. High temperatures overload the body's thermo-regulatory system. Deaths from stroke and cardiovascular disease are likely to be major contributors to any excess mortality experienced as a result of climate change. The distribution of a number of communicable diseases including malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, plague, dysentery, and worm infestations is correlated with temperature, and could in principle be affected by climate change. Such changes would not be limited to the Developing World. For example, in the USA tick-borne diseases including Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease could spread northwards, and Americans could face the risk of five separate mosquito-borne diseases which have at present been virtually eradicated. Prof Haines, like many doctors, is worried that the effects of global warming would be hitting a world wherein the immune system - the body's natural protection against disease - was already being weakened. CFCs and HCFCs are important greenhouse gases - but they also deplete the ozone layer, which is vital for protecting life on Earth from the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation. The immune response of living things can be weakened by increase in exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Ozone depletion is an ongoing problem, despite the negotiation of the Montreal Protocol banning CFCs in 10 or more years. This weakening of immune response might combine to amplify the effects of communicable and other diseases resulting - directly or indirectly - from the impacts of climate change. Decrease in rainfall is likely to have an adverse effect on agriculture in many areas. The impact of any further falls in per capita food production will in the first instance fall principally on children in the developing world. The availability of water for human consumption would also be threatened. In countries with poorly-developed water supply systems, a reduction in water supply could contribute to the spread of diarrhoeal and other diseases spread by the faecal- oral route. Global warming would cause a sea-level rise of 30 to 100 cm by 2100, according to IPCC predictions. The most serious implications are for the Nile Delta in Egypt, the Ganges Delta in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Netherlands: all densely populated and low-lying. Large movements of refugees may occur as a result of crop failure and coastal flooding. As well as provoking violence and unrest, they may also promote the spread of disease due to both overcrowding and a breakdown in sanitation. Chapter 8 Policy responses to global warming Professor Jose Goldemberg A world-renowned energy analyst, Prof Goldemberg was Rector of the University of Sao Paulo before becoming Minister of Science in the current Brazilian government. ". . . If the costs of the insurance against climatic change (i.e. deep cuts in emissions) were to be divided among countries proportionally with respect to their current insurance expenditures, it would cost the US another $4.5 billion per year in insurance, or an additional 1.2 % on what Americans already spend on insurance ... . . . the total amount of money needed for the operation of the fund (of the order of $30 billion per year) could easily be amassed by setting a levy of 1 dollar (1 US$) per barrel equivalent of petroleum consumed . . ." The figure shows the minimum cuts in human emissions of greenhouse gases needed to stabilize concentrations in the atmosphere, according to work carried out by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The quantities are in billions of tonnes of CO2-equivalent. The reductions-requirements are drastic. How much would it cost to bring them about? In terms of simple economics, could humankind afford to do it? In terms of environmental security, Can we afford not to do it?. These are the questions Professor Jose Goldemberg examines in this chapter. There are two main types of policy response to the global warming threat: an adaptive one, in which people migrate and/or change their living conditions, and a preventive one, in which an attempt is made to minimize climate change. Prof. Goldemberg estimates that they could have comparable costs of between $500 and $1,000 billion in the next thirty years. But the advantage of prevention is that it avoids the massive risks of an adaptation only future. The 'Polluter Pays Principle' means that polluters can be held financially responsible for the environmental side-effects of their activities. Its application in the case of greenhouse gases leads to the idea of levying taxes on emissions of carbon dioxide: a carbon tax. The easiest method would be to raise the price of fossil fuels at the source of production. An alternative would be to raise the cost of fuel consumption. The tax would build up a fund which would be used to curb further emissions of carbon dioxide, and to finance fossil-fuel energy- conservation and a reversal of deforestation in the developing world. The necessary fund is not hugely expensive, given the stakes. For comparison, money spent on personal and material goods insurance world-wide in 1986 was over $850 billion. By paying just 2.5 per cent more for our insurance premiums around the world, humankind could generate sufficient money ($1,000 billion plus over thirty years) to cover the costs of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. A carbon tax or insurance fund could be proportional to the contribution of different countries to the total carbon dioxide emissions, and would generally correspond to less than 0.5 per cent of GDP of the industrialized countries. Developing countries, which presently contribute little in the way of emissions, would be exempt from cuts until the transfer of adequate technology enables them to minimize emissions. Chapter 9 The costs of cutting - or not cutting - emissions Dr Stephen Schneider "... over one hundred and ten years (that is, from 1990-2100) even a trillion dollars in CO2 reduction costs for the U.S., which sounds very expensive, is less than $10 billion each year - only a few percent of the US annual defence budget. Moreover ... the so-called 'optimistic scenario' of $800 billion in costs to cut CO2 emissions is based on very pessimistic assumptions about the rapidly decreasing costs of renewable energy systems like solar, wind or biomass power ..." In his second chapter, Dr Schneider addresses the main barrier to immediate steps to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions: the argument of cost. Based on the first wave of economic model simulations of deep cuts, the February 1990 'Economic Report of the President' to the US Congress said that switching to less- polluting energy could cost "$800 billion, under optimistic scenarios of available fuel substitutes and increased energy efficiency, to $43.6 trillion under pessimistic scenarios ...to 2100". The implication is that in financing deep cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, industrialized nations will be bankrupted and the developing countries will remain impoverished. However, the studies on which such claims were based, as Schneider describes, have been severely criticised. They tend to take past trends and project them into the future as though they were destiny. One oft-cited model even simplistically matches GNP changes over time with energy prices. Such models fail to recognise what a growing number of people do: that modern technology has many better technical and economic solutions than the ecological disaster of Victorian industrialization, with its smog choked cities, acid rain and inefficient power-production. Unfortunately, efficient power production is initially more expensive than traditional options, such as coal, widely and cheaply available in countries like India and China. Like the Brazilian, Prof Goldemberg, the American, Dr Schneider, argues that industrialized countries need to provide technology and capital to the developing countries, which can then build up their industry with the cleanest, most efficient technologies: and that the industrialized countries can relatively easily afford to do this. But international efforts to have each nation commit itself to decrease its CO2 emissions by, say, 10 per cent by 2000 have been strongly opposed by the US, Japan, UK, USSR and some others. The Japanese, already twice as energy-efficient as the US (i.e. they use half as much energy per unit of GDP), have claimed that the cost of cutting emissions by 20 per cent would be higher to them, since American energy inefficiency gives the US the opportunity to make cuts cheaply. Let us say, using Japan as an example, that 100 million tons of CO2 were to be cut annually. Why not, suggests Dr Schneider, structure an international agreement so that Japan need be responsible either for reducing 100 million tonnes from its own industries, or alternatively, 150 million tonnes in another country (or some combination of both)? Japanese investment in China for efficient energy-production would reduce both acid rain and CO2 buildup. China would receive development assistance, and it would be cheaper for Japan to improve the poor quality of Chinese energy-efficiency than its own comparatively high standards. Everybody wins. Critics of emissions-reductions often neglect the benefits: reduced global warming, reduced acid rain, reduced air pollution, reduced balance-of-payments deficits, and reduced operating costs of more efficient equipment. Instead they cite the capital costs of controls and scare people away from action. Yet only a few percentage points of the US annual defence budget would cover the capital outlay. The best strategies should solve more than one problem with one investment. Energy efficiency is the single most important strategy. This 'planetary insurance' to slow down the buildup of greenhouse gases will almost certainly prove to be a wise investment. Chapter 10 The role of energy efficiency Dr Amory Lovins Rocky Mountain Institute, USA Dr Lovins is winner of the Onassis Prize and Alternative Nobel Prize for his work on energy policy. "... It is generally cheaper today to save fuel than to burn it. Avoiding pollution by not burning the fuel can, therefore, be achieved, not at a cost, but at a profit - so this result can and should be widely implemented in the market-place ... " Dr Lovins is internationally known for his argument that one can make an irresistibly strong case for pursuit of energy efficiency using the motives and methods of orthodox neoclassical economics alone. The fact that you help avert the global warming threat - though obviously a huge prize - can in a certain sense be regarded as incidental. In the US, according to Dr Lovins's calculations, full use of the best electricity-saving technologies already on the US market would save about three-quarters of all electricity now used, and full use of the best oil- and gas-saving technologies would save about three-quarters of all oil now used. These savings would entail no loss in the quantity and quality of services provided, indeed they often offer substantial improvements. Lovins points not just to the future potential for energy efficiency, but to the past, little-appreciated, successes of demand-management in the USA. For example, since 1979, the US has acquired more than seven times as much new energy from savings as from all net increases in energy supply. This shows the vast potential of 'mining' the reservoir of energy- efficiency potential before contemplating new supply. Because of the reductions in energy intensity achieved since 1973, the annual US energy bill has recently been around $430 billion instead of around $580 billion - a saving of about $150 billion per year (comparable to the Federal budget deficit). But if the US were as energy efficient as Japan (which itself can do much, much better than it does) it would be saving some $200 billion more. Simply choosing the best energy buys, in terms of efficiency, for the rest of this century could yield a cumulative saving of several trillion dollars - enough to pay off the entire National Debt. Each kilowatt-hour of energy saved typically costs 0.1 to 0.5 cents. This is much cheaper than the cost of nuclear, coal, and even oil power. Lovins points to a further little-appreciated revolution on the supply side. For example, during 1981 to '84, US orders-minus cancellations for fossil-fuelled and nuclear plants amounted to minus 65 gigawatts. For small-scale hydro, wind-power and so on, they amounted to more than plus twenty gigawatts. The revolution is ongoing. Twice as much electricity can be saved now as could have been saved five years ago. Many American utilities are learning that it is acceptable to sell less electricity and bring in less revenue, so long as costs fall even more. The achievements of energy efficiency are all the more startling in view of the powerful forces arrayed against it. After seven years of Reagan-administration stonewalling, Congress gave up trying to operate the Conservation and Solar Bank which it established in 1980. The US Department of Energy has cut real spending for efficiency research and development by 71 per cent. Fuels which are not mined and burnt have much lower environmental impacts. It is generally cheaper today to give away efficiency than to dig up and burn the fuels to do the same task. Rather than raising electricity bills to clean up dirty coal plants to reduce acid-gas emissions, one can use well- established delivery methods to help customers get super- efficient lights, motors, appliances and building components. Needing to supply less electricity, the utility can burn less coal and emit less CO2. The main effect will be to save everybody a lot of money, because efficiency is cheaper than coal. This makes economic sense, even if we were not worried about global warming. Inadequate electricity supplies severely constrain the development of many countries which lack the capital to build more plants and grid. Developing countries can achieve their economic goals only by building comprehensive resource- efficiency into their infrastructure from scratch. Currently, though, most of them lack the technical and commercial sophistication to ensure that they are buying the best options, especially in the face of industrialized countries' often strenuous efforts to sell them equipment so inefficient that it is obsolete on their home markets, a dangerous and immoral practice. Chapter 11 Renewable energy: recent commercial performance in the USA as an index of future prospects Carlo LaPorta Analysis, Review and Critique Division, R&C Enterprises, USA A past Director of Research at the US Solar Energy Research Institute, Mr LaPorta is a consultant to industry and government on renewable energy policy. "... technology exists that can produce electricity, or any temperature heat (up to 1,400øC) directly from natural resources available at a remote location in nearly any country. The demand can be satisfied without transporting a continuous, long distance stream of fuel or running long-distance electric-power transmission lines or emitting vast quantities of greenhouse gases . . . There is no qualification needed for these statements. Technically, it is possible. Economically, it is a more limited situation, but not nearly as limited as most observers and analysts believe ..." Greater reliance on renewable energy, argues Carlo Laporta in this chapter, will lessen the health and environmental problems associated with fossil-fuel use, will mean lower energy costs, and can contribute significantly to abatement of global warming. The potential for renewables, he demonstrates, is much higher than most people recognise. World-wide, renewable energy accounts for around 20 per cent of total primary energy supply, mainly from biomass energy and hydro-power. But, in every country, the combined solar, biomass, geothermal (heat generated inside the Earth), hydroelectric and wind-energy potential overshadows reserves of oil, gas, coal and uranium. Accessible renewable-energy resources are essentially infinite. LaPorta points out that many energy analysts persist in referring to the need to develop renewables before they are ready for widespread use. This is simply not true, he argues. Renewable-energy technologies can deliver the energy modern economies require while emitting much lower concentrations of greenhouse gases. Wind power, for example, is becoming cheaper, both in production and in installation costs, and has quickly achieved economic competitiveness in California. Only modest price-increases in fossil fuels are needed for wind-power and a range of other renewables to cross the economic and institutional acceptance-hurdles that currently hinder their diffusion. Solar designs can reduce consumption of conventional energy in buildings by 30-80 per cent. Construction of a solar-efficient building may add up to 15 per cent to the cost, but this can be recovered by the energy savings within two years. Solar technologies must be incorporated into the expanding infrastructure in developing countries. The solar water heater offers one of the largest energy savings available, and is simple to install. Five million solar water-heaters would eliminate annually the emission of nearly ten million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2). A 20 per cent market share in the US has the potential to reduce energy consumption by about 85 million barrels of oil annually. There are several applications where fossil-fuels can be replaced with renewable-energy systems under favourable economic conditions. Diesel generators, spewing out CO2 and costing more in fuel-costs than many developing- country residents can afford to pay, are often used to meet temporary energy needs. A completely clean, quiet alternative is available in a more reliable and - in the long run - cheaper system that uses batteries recharged with photovoltaic panels. New energy technologies are able to compete now with the world- wide fossil-energy monopolies. More competition will create more efficiency and lower costs for consumers. Growth of renewable- energy companies will generally create more jobs than will be lost in the fossil-fuel sector. Renewable resources offer safe, clean, reliable and economic energy. The challenge, in a world that must address global climate issues, is to understand the changing energy economy, appreciate the potential of alternative energy strategies and technologies, recognize that exponential growth in renewable- energy capacity is on the horizon, and make available to the decision makers the full range of energy choices. Chapter 12 Motor vehicles and global warming Michael P Walsh Mike Walsh headed the US Environmental Protection Agency's programme at the time the most stringent auto-emissions standards in the world were introduced by the US government. He is now a technical consultant to organisations including the World Bank and the OECD. "... based on projected increases in vehicles and their use around the world, motor vehicle CO2 emissions will skyrocket over the next forty to fifty years ... Experience gained during the 1970s and 1980s suggests that the dual goals of low emissions (CO, HC and NOX) and improved energy efficiency (and therefore lower CO2) are not only compatible but mutually reinforcing. However, significant gains in either area are dependent on forceful government requirements. Mandatory fuel efficiency standards throughout the world are feasible and necessary... the potential exists to not only offset the global impacts of expected vehicle growth over the next half century but also to start an emissions downturn." Driving motor vehicles generates more air pollution than any other single human activity. A single tank of petrol produces between 300 and 400 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned (140-180 kg). Transport represents almost one-third of the total energy consumption in the world, and motor vehicles emit almost 25 per cent of the world's CO2 output. The total world-wide vehicle population in 1985 was 500 million, of which 78 per cent were cars. And global car production and use are likely to continue to grow substantially for several decades. In this chapter, Mike Walsh describes the desperate need for reversing this situation. He demonstrates that there is considerable scope for so doing. The USA heads the league table of motor-vehicle pollution, using over 35 per cent of the world's transport energy, and emitting almost as much CO2 from this source as Eastern Europe, Asia, China, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East combined. In 1985 in the USA, transport was responsible for 30 per cent of all CO2 emissions. But vehicle emissions also dominate the emissions inventories of other OECD countries, and many developing countries. To deal with the problems of climate change a co-ordinated minimization of CO2, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides is required. Discharges of these chemicals depend on the number of vehicles in use, their emission-rates and their fuel efficiency. Stringent regulation is the surest path to the desired goal. Also in need of regulation are the CFCs used in car air-conditioning. The two main goals must be low emissions and improved energy-efficiency. The motor vehicle industry currently shows little-or-no inclination to adopt state-of-the-art pollution controls or advanced-efficiency technology. The average US car travels only 20 miles per gallon, at a time when US auto manufacturers are capable of manufacturing cars which travel in excess of 100 mpg, or use batteries. Yet, almost unbelievably, US new-car fuel efficiency slipped: from 27.5 mpg in 1985 to 26.5 mpg in 1989. The government actually relaxed federal standards in 1986,'87 and '88. In Japan, an 11.2 per cent improvement in efficiency between 1978 and '85 has also started to reverse in recent years. Less fuel consumption, argues Walsh, is the real key to lowering emissions, incorporating fewer miles driven per year, fewer and more-efficient vehicles, and a gradual shift to advanced technologies such as highly efficient fuel-cells. More public information and higher vehicle-efficiency standards, directed at both vehicle and fuel manufacturers and consumers, are necessary for the introduction and acceptance of fuel- efficient technological advances. Measures should include fuel taxes, vehicle taxes and road pricing related to fuel consumption, and parking taxes or restrictions based on efficiency. The potential for continued growth in the number of vehicles and their use must be minimized. Fuel prices should be increased significantly, argues Walsh, to encourage people to buy highly efficient vehicles. Additionally, governments must adopt policies to promote first-rate public transport as a safe, viable, clean and cheap alternative to the use of private cars. Chapter 13 Nuclear power and global warming Dr Bill Keepin Dr Keepin, a US consultant who has advised senior management in oil companies, has held past research posts at institutions including IIASA, Princeton University, and the Beijer Institute. "... given business-as-usual growth in energy demand, it appears that even an infeasibly massive global nuclear power programme could not reduce future emissions of carbon dioxide. To displace coal alone would require the construction of a new nuclear plant every two or three days for nearly four decades ... ... in the United States, each dollar invested in efficiency displaces nearly seven times more carbon than a dollar invested in new nuclear power .. . even if the nuclear dream cost of around 5 cents/kWh were realized, electric efficiency still displaces between two-and-a-half times more carbon than nuclear power per dollar invested. And these numbers may be conservative . . . " Nuclear power, which produces no direct emissions of carbon dioxide (but many indirect emissions), is sometimes portrayed as one of the means for achieving substantial reductions in future fossil-fuel consumption. In fact, as Dr Keepin demonstrates, it cannot meet this expectation. To explore the best hope for a nuclear response to the greenhouse threat, Keepin constructs in this chapter a hypothetical programme aimed at displacing coal, the dirtiest fossil-fuel, assuring the greatest reduction in carbon emissions per unit of nuclear power installed. He assumed that economic and political conditions are highly favourable to a nuclear strategy. The result - supposing that this assumption could be made reality - is that the world would have to build over 5,000 nuclear plants between now and 2025 - one every two-and-a-half days. Such a task would create a completely untenable world-wide economic burden. The total capital cost would be more than $5 trillion, or $144 billion annually, $64 billion of it in the developing world. Nuclear power is practical only for electricity generation, which is responsible for just one third of fossil-fuel consumption. Energy-efficiency improvements, though, are available for the entire range of fossil-fuel uses. In the US, today's cost of generating electricity from new nuclear plants is around 13.5› per kWh. This compares with the cost of saving electricity via improved efficiency which, for a varied basket of technologies, stands at around 2› per kWh of electricity saved. A dollar invested in efficiency therefore displaces nearly seven times more carbon than a dollar invested in new nuclear power. It is simply far more economically attractive for investors to put money into achieving energy- efficiency savings than risk their investment in new nuclear supply. One apparent allure of nuclear is that small quantities of fuel can produce large quantities of energy. A single gram of uranium can produce 3,800 kWh of electricity. However, a uranium atom can be fissioned only once, whereas a silicon solar cell can absorb photons repeatedly and convert them to electricity. Over its lifetime, 1 gram of silicon can produce 3,300 kWh (and this assumes only 15 per cent efficiency, when many physicists anticipate much higher efficiency improvements in solar cell technology in the years to come). Silicon -in the form of quartz grains in sand - is 5,000 times more abundant in the earth's crust than is uranium. The electricity that can be produced from one tonne of quartz sand and some sunshine is equivalent to the output of over half-a-million tonnes of coal. Environmental, health and security problems continue to plague the industry. A post-Chernobyl calculation places a 70 per cent chance on another nuclear accident in the next 5 years. Public confidence in nuclear power continues to be low: justifiably, given the failed promises of the industry over the years. There is still no operational long-term waste disposal programme, and waste is steadily accumulating. Nuclear power substantially increases the risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons. Nuclear power appears increasingly irrelevant to a sustainable energy future, given the bright prospects for energy efficiency and renewable energy. The challenge of managing the switch to a new global energy infrastructure, based on supply dominated by renewables and demand quelled by energy-efficiency, can and must include the responsible closure of the nuclear era. Chapter 14 The challenge of choices: technology options for the Swedish electricity sector Birgit Bodlund, Evan Mills, Tomas Karlsson and Thomas B. Johansson The authors are all eminent Swedish energy analysts. This study was originally done for the Swedish State Power Board, Vattenfall. "... This landmark study shows that Sweden's three goals-- carrying out the Referendum decision to phase out nuclear power by the year 2010, not exploiting Sweden's four remaining wild rivers, and not adding to carbon dioxide emissions --can be achieved with a mixture of energy efficiency and an expanded role for renewables, and at lower cost than a business-as-usual scenario. In the most nuclear-intensive country in the world (on a per capita basis), emissions of carbon dioxide and other substances can be lowered while switching completely away from nuclear power . . ." (Editor) The electricity production industry in Sweden is facing a major change. Following a public referendum in 1980, nuclear power must be phased out by 2010. Yet nuclear power from Sweden's twelve reactors provides about one-half of the country's electric energy. Most of the rest comes from hydro-electric power, which by law cannot be expanded. Additionally, parliament has set guidelines which restrict carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to their present level and encourage their overall reduction. Yet forecasts of electricity demand indicate continued growth of around 0.5 per cent per year. How can these apparently conflicting constraints allow Sweden to continue to enjoy economic growth - another government objective? Bodlund and her colleagues looked at four different scenarios, involving ever-more effective demand-management measures, and all assuming 1.9 per cent real growth in GNP to 2010. The end result is shown in the figure. If electricity continues to be used for services at the rate it was between 1950 and 1988, the result would be greatly increased demand, and more CO2 emissions. Scenario A assumes no policies to manage demand, merely an increase in electricity prices. Demand still rises. But, as demand-management is scaled up through scenarios B and C, demand falls. In Scenario D, which involves using the best possible energy-efficient technologies for services, in the home, and in industry, electricity demand can be cut within 20 years from the 130 terawatt-hours (TWh) of today to less than 90. To cut CO2 emissions, new supply options have to be introduced. Bodland and her colleagues looked at three supply scenarios, one of which makes much use of state-of-the-art biomass power. They find that by combining demand-management and bringing in new supply - in tither words, doubling electric end-use efficiency, fuel-switching to gas and biofuel, and operating plants which emit the least carbon - Sweden could simultaneously displace the nuclear half of its power supply, support a 54 per cent larger GNP, reduce the utilities' CO2 output by a third, and reduce the cost of electrical services by nearly $1 billion per year. Virtually any other country should be able to return even better figures than these, because Sweden has a severe climate, a heavily industrialized economy, and a high rate of energy efficiency to begin with. Chapter 15 Tropical rainforests Professor Norman Myers Prof Myers, a UK environmental consultant, was senior advisor on tropical forests to the Brundtland Commission and is a holder of the UNEP Roll of Honour. This chapter is a very slightly amended version of a paper he wrote for Friends of the Earth UK. "... As long as the overall context of economic relations between North and South reflects a reverse resource flow ... there can be little hope that tropical-forest governments, which owed $562 billion, or 58 per cent of all Third World debt, in 1987, will direct enough investment toward one of the most neglected of all development sectors, namely subsistence agriculture as practised by the poorest of the poor . . ." Deforestation leads to the release of large quantities of carbon dioxide into the global atmosphere. The overall contribution to global warming may be as high as 19 per cent. Agents of deforestation include the commercial logger, the cattle rancher and the shifting cultivator. These are farmers who often formerly made a living in long-established farmlands, sometimes far from the forests. Over the last twenty-five years or so they have increasingly been squeezed out of their homelands and so head for the only unoccupied land available - tropical forests. Their lifestyle is driven by economic, social, legal, institutional and political factors over which they have virtually no control. They penetrate deeper into the forest year by year, abandoning their degraded original sites, and now cause more destruction than all other agents of deforestation combined. More than half of the remaining rain forests are in just three countries: Brazil, Zaire, and Indonesia. In Brazil, the accumulated deforestation total was an estimated 29,000 sq. km. by 1975. By 1980 it was 125,000 sq. km., and by 1988 up to 400,000 sq. km., or 11 per cent of originally forested Amazonia. About 69 per cent of this clearing has occurred since 1980. Now, Myers points out, there are signs that the historically- increasing rate of deforestation is being reversed as a result of cancelled subsidies and other government policies. Subsequent to the publication of the chapter, Landsat satellite- imagery analyses by the Brazilian government put figures on this. These analyses show deforestation down by nearly 27 per cent from 1989 to '90, and 36 per cent from the mid 1980s. According to the Brazilian government, the highest annual deforestation rate in the mid-'80s was 21,500 sq km. In 1989, it was 18,842 sq km; in 1990, 13,818 sq km. World-wide, the rate of loss exceeds 140,000 sq km per year, according to Myers' estimates. This amounts to 1.8 per cent of the total tropical rain forest area. Put another way, 27 hectares, or the equivalent of twelve football pitches, are being cleared every single minute. At these kinds of rates, it is likely that virtually all forest will be eliminated by 2000 from West and East Africa, Madagascar, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Burma. and Central America. Most is likely to have gone from Malaysia, and Indonesia outside of Kalimantan and Irian Jaya, by 2010. A potential response to global warming lies with tropical reforestation. Thanks to photosynthesis, grand-scale reforestation would sequester substantial amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Of course, this would only work if it were accompanied by efforts to reduce deforestation and thereby stem the current release of CO2. As a rule-of-thumb, trees can assimilate 10 tonnes of atmospheric carbon per hectare per year. Planting trees over 100 million hectares (an area the size of Britain, France and West Germany combined) could take up 1 billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere per year for as long as the trees continued their rapid growth - about thirty years. This would buy enough time largely to move beyond a fossil-fuel-based economy. Large tracts of already deforested lands are available for this purpose. It would cost around $4 billion per year over ten years, an exceedingly positive investment compared with the massive concealed costs of inaction, when the impacts of the enhanced greenhouse effect are considered. Industrialized nations should cover the bulk of the costs: they have been the main source of the greenhouse-gas emissions, historically, and they have allowed a net transfer of wealth from the developing countries to the industrialised countries for a number of years, knowing that the pressures of debt- repayment almost force certain developing countries to exploit their forests unsustainably. Chapter 16 Agricultural contributions to global warming Professor Anne Ehrlich Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University, USA Dr Ehrlich, a well-known environmental biologist, served in 1980 as a consultant to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and is a holder of the UNEP Roll of Honour. "... If, in a global movement toward controlling greenhouse-gas emissions,the agricultural sector and the underlying driving force of population growth are forgotten or neglected, heroic efforts to convert the energy sector might be negated as the more potent methane and nitrous oxide emissions build up in place of carbon dioxide. In that circumstance, agriculture's fairly modest 14 per cent share of the greenhouse build-up could quickly double ..." Agriculture is responsible for around 14 per cent of the emissions which enhance the greenhouse effect, with substantial portions of the global emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. Expansion of global food production to support a growing population will increase emissions unless concerted efforts are made to cut them. Methane is some twenty times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, and accounts for about 17 per cent of the build up of greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution. Its main source is agricultural, made up of releases of gas from rice paddies, intestinal fermentation in ruminant animals (mainly cows), and biomass burning. Approximately 90 per cent of annual methane emissions are destroyed through reaction with hydroxyl (OH) radicals in the troposphere. The rapid rise in methane concentrations currently being experienced may be due in part to the weakening of the hydroxyl sink as concentrations of carbon monoxide, and other drains on hydroxyl rise. Emissions from rice paddies could be reduced significantly whilst achieving increases in production through use of higher- yield crop varieties, allowing more crops per year, and use of more efficient fertilizing practices. Another goal might be the development of rice strains with a higher ratio of grain to non- grain biomass, leaving less residue to decay and emit methane, or be burned. Emissions from livestock may be controllable through improved management. A smaller fraction of food energy is converted to methane in high-quality feed. Grain-fed cattle emit over five times less methane per pound of meat produced than do range-fed cattle with a high cellulose diet. With a concerted global effort, 15-20 per cent reductions for methane might be attainable, especially if accompanied by control of other gases that compete for the hydroxyl radical sink. If global warming is found to be stimulating emissions from natural methane sources such as offshore hydrates, much larger reductions in the agricultural sector might well become necessary. Nitrous oxide is about 230 times as effective a greenhouse gas per molecule as carbon dioxide (CO2). An immediate reduction of 23 per cent of total emissions (70-80 per cent of excess emissions) is required to stabilize concentrations at their present level. By the mid-1980s, over 70 million tonnes of nitrogen were being applied to the world's crops every year in the form of natural and synthetic fertilizers. The accumulated nitrate in soil releases nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Synthetic cause excess releases of nitrous oxide. Reductions of nitrous oxide from soils may be accomplished by more judicious fertilizing practices, which would have the added benefits of reducing farmers' costs and society's pollution problems. The manufacture of nitrogen fertilizers is very energy- intensive; so any reduction of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer-use is also a reduction in energy-use (and thus of CO2 emissions). If reducing methane emissions, for example, proves to be much easier than reducing nitrous oxide, it may pay to reduce methane more than is needed for stabilization to make up for nitrous oxide emissions that cannot be eliminated. Such trade-offs will become increasingly necessary as civilization moves into the greenhouse century. But the single most effective measure humanity can take to slow global warming and avert the most tragic consequences is to reduce birth-rates as rapidly as possible. Chapter 17 Third World countries in the policy response Dr Kilaparti Ramakrishna Woods Hole Research Institute, USA Dr Ramakrishna, a world-expert in environmental law and developing countries, has been a Professor at the Indian Academy of International Law and Diplomacy, and a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Law School. "... We have been sustained by the ocean for two million years, and it has been bountiful and continues to yield to us its bounty. We have now learned that this harmony could be interrupted by the actions of nations very distant from our shores . . . We, the peoples of the South Pacific Region, appeal to you in a common voice, the voice of those who may become the first victims of global warming . . . to ensure the survival of our cultures and our very existence and to prevent us from becoming 'endangered species' or the dinosaurs of the next century . . . " (Ernest Bani, Vanuatu, addressing the IPCC Response Strategies Working Group, Geneva, Oct. 1989.) Policy responses to climatic change must differ greatly in the industrialized nations and the developing nations. The latter are justifiably aware that responding to global warming in the absence of strong support from the nations responsible for the great majority of the historic and ongoing greenhouse-gas emissions - may slow the eco-nomic growth that they want, and which the industrialized countries have already enjoyed the fruits of. Less-developed countries see an urgent need for sustainable economic development, for relief from balance-of- payment deficits and foreign debts, for stabilized currencies and growing economies. Dr Ramakrishna discusses aspects of these motivations in this chapter. He advances the need for seminars and conferences in developing countries to help mobilize national and regional action. Roving seminars held on a regional basis have proved to be a cost- effective method of reaching a wide audience and of stimulating valuable national action in developing countries. The development of an indigenous intellectual and scientific base, backed by appropriate technologies, is a key factor in the medium- to long-term capacity of developing countries to participate fully in international programmes on climatic change. There has been a tremendous surge of interest among the developing countries in participating in the process of adopting appropriate measures to deal with the issues of climate change. The IPCC has to date had only limited success in facilitating such participation. The developing countries will be most affected by adverse climatic changes. They are not economically or technologically equipped to implement some of the practical policy measures necessary to find and implement appropriate solutions. A special emphasis needs to be placed on developing the technological capacity and infrastructure from within the developing nations. While delegates complain at being excluded from IPCC discussions, they are also often not sufficiently well-versed in the topic to suggest solutions. Global warming presents an opportunity for the industrialized and the developing countries to address trade imbalances, debt relief, technology transfer and technical and financial assistance. There is a pressing need for renewed international co-operation. The transition to a sustainable future will require investments in energy efficiency and non-fossil energy sources. To ensure that they occur, the global community must halt the current net transfer of resources from developing countries, and reverse it. Chapter 18 Redefining economics in a greenhouse world Dr Susan George Associate Director of the Transnational institute in Amsterdam, Dr George is a scholar and author well-known for her books on poverty, hanger, development and debt. "... the South cannot stay marginalised for long in the environmental debate... biospheric solidarity may yet be forced upon the governments of the North; like it or not, they finally have to recognise that debt relief and real contributions to sustainable development in the South are vital to their own survival ..." There is little hope that the pace of environmental destruction can be reversed without analysing the political and economic roots of the ecological crisis. The management of the Earth's resources, Dr George demonstrates, is in crisis. Every year an unsustainable 50 billion tonnes of minerals are dug up, soils are over-cultivated, forests are rapidly disappearing, the oceans are being poisoned, and the atmosphere is being filled with pollutants. Yet our economic practice proceeds as if nature were infinitely exploitable and pollutable. The real costs of production, pollution and the disposal of industrial wastes are rarely incurred by the industries responsible: society at large is expected to assume the burden. It would be simple-minded to blame short-term profit orientation for all the ecological woes of the planet. Environmental destruction in Eastern Europe has attained levels unheard of even in the free-market heartland. The only constraint has been lower levels of private consumption than in the West. Poland would need to spend $60 billion to limit emissions from coal- fired power-plants. Yet who would make such a sum available to a country that owes over $40 billion to foreign creditors? Transnational corporations (TNCs) and banks - guided solely by the profit motive - wield far more power than most governments, and their influence is growing. Throughout the 1970s, commercial banks made massive loans to Third World governments, mainly to finance huge, ecologically destructive projects and purchases of military hardware. Natural resources were rapidly cashed in to earn hard currency for interest payments. The rate of tropical forest destruction closely mirrors mounting debt service. The debt crisis brought to prominence two major international economic and financial agencies, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which now exercise enormous power over many Third World countries and their environments. By 1989, the World Bank had loaned to the Third World $225 billion. Few governments of poor countries can afford to do without the Bank's huge lending capacity and its ability to mobilize other funds, nor are they in a position to ignore its economic advice when accepting loans. Several of its projects have led to massive destruction of tropical forests. For example from 1982 it financed the paved highway that allowed thousands of settlers to stream into Amazonia, thus increasing both the penetration of the region by timber, mining, and cattle-ranching companies, and the discharge of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The World Bank uses standard accounting practices, taking note only of those elements that can be expressed in monetary terms. The long term costs, including climate change, are not quantified. The Bank has recently hired a much larger environmental staff, and made ecological sensitivity a cornerstone of its public relations policy, but it will need to be very 'green' indeed if it is to make up for the damage to which it has so often contributed in the past. It has yet to accept that the most important cause of 'development'-induced destruction in the Third World is the alliance between local and foreign capital seeking short-term profit through the exploitation of natural and human resources. Market forces will continue to concentrate economic power in the hands of the few, with increasingly catastrophic consequences for the Earth. 'Economic efficiency' cannot and will not produce sustainable development. The South cannot stay marginalized in the environmental debate. The governments of the North will have to recognize that debt relief and real contributions to sustainable development in the south are vital to their own survival. They must learn to differentiate between money and wealth, between assumed efficiency and actual waste, between short-term profit for the few and global sustainability. If North and South join hands, together humankind can begin to practise real economics: the economics that cares for our global house. Chapter 19 Global warming: a Greenpeace view Dr Jeremy Leggett "... The uniquely frustrating thing about global warming--to those many people who now see the dangers--is that the solutions are obvious. But there is no denying that enacting them will require paradigm shifts in human behaviour--particularly in the field of co-operation between nation states--which have literally no precedents in human history. That is the challenge for the 1990s. There is no single issue in contemporary human affairs that is of greater importance . . ." Policymakers have known for many years that forests, fish and wildlife are dying as a result of acid rain, and have tinkered rather than dealt with the causes. They have known for several years that CFCs are harming life on Earth as a result of the extra ultraviolet radiation the depleted ozone layer lets through, and still have delayed the phase-out of the substances responsible for a full decade and more, allowing vested interests to come before the needs of the environment. Now, with the emergence of the global-warming threat, some governments appear amazing as it may seem - to be adopting the same priorities. The concerns of oil, chemical and power companies, and the primacy of governments' favoured economic models, are weighed against the need to safeguard the environmental capital of future generations and are given the same or greater priority. It is imperative that policymakers heed the expert advice of their scientists and respond accordingly. Why were the scientists consulted if their conclusions are not given the respect their gravity demands? The undoing of the IPCC in its vital role of providing guidance to world leaders on how to frame effective policies to fight global warming has been the work of the policy makers' working group, who have consistently ignored or glossed over the major conclusions of their colleagues in the Science and Impacts working groups. They never even discussed - much less made the necessary recommendations for - specific cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. The needs of the environment must come first. To ignore them, and to continue with business-as-usual - or anything like it - is to risk locking humankind into a great global suicide pact. Policymakers should be aware that waiting for better scientific data on global warming entails the real risk of waiting until it is too late. The main ways of surviving the greenhouse threat are: ù Commitment to halt global warming. This must include commitment to cut global carbon dioxide emissions by 60 to 80 per cent: an effective abandonment of fossil fuels. ù Massive investment in energy-efficiency. This must involve a commitment to mine to exhaustion the vast reservoir of energy efficiency potential before even thinking about new energy supply. ù Dramatically accelerating renewable-energy supply. The equivalents of Apollo and Manhattan Projects must be directed at renewables and efficiency in the 1990s. ù An immediate, total ban on the production of all CFCs, ozone depleting gases, and substitutes such as HFCs and HCFCs. ù Less greenhouse-gas-intensive agriculture ù Reforestation in place of deforestation. Achievement of a 'low energy' future must be the goal, with consumption spread more equitably, so that developing countries can enjoy standards of living akin to those of the industrialized countries. This can be achieved by the large- scale transfer of up-to-date technologies to developing countries, to enable them to 'leapfrog' the energy-intensive, polluting routes-to-development pursued in the past. The goal should be for the world's entire energy requirement to be produced by renewable energy as soon as possible. The nuclear- power industry diverts funds from cost-effective energy- solutions to the greenhouse crisis, and should have no role in the international policy response. The money needed to fund these anti-greenhouse strategies could come from diverting some of the $1,000 billion the world spends on weapons every year, as befits the changing concepts of global security which the late 1980s have heralded. Cancel just six US 'Stealth' bombers, for example and the necessary cash to safeguard two-thirds of the Amazon rain forest would be available. In the last analysis, it is not a question of whether or not we can afford to do it. If we wish to guarantee our children - and natural world - a viable future, then we have no other choice. ABOUT GREENPEACE Greenpeace is an international organisation dedicated to the protection of the environment Since its formation 20 years ago, Greenpeace has expanded considerably and currently has offices in 24 countries, including a base in Antarctica, and over four million supporters worldwide. This expansion is partly a reflection of growing public concern over threats to the environment but also due to Greenpeace's record of campaigning successes. Greenpeace's operations are funded solely from public contributions. One of the organisation's key strengths is its independence from any government, political party, pressure group, or sectarian or business interest. Greenpeace organises its campaign work into four main areas: Atmosphere & Energy, Nuclear, Toxics and Ocean Ecology. The work of the campaigns includes publications, media briefings, and political lobbying. Campaigns are underpinned by rigorous scientific work contributed and reviewed by experts in a wide range of disciplines. Greenpeace is also prepared to physically disrupt activities which damage the environment. But such direct action is always non-violent. For Greenpeace, the 'peace' is as important as the 'green'; the means as important as the ends. This extended synopsis of Global Warming: the Greenpeace Report has been produced by the Atmosphere & Energy campaign. The campaign works to protect the ozone layer, to halt global warming, to promote the widest implementation of energy efficiency and increased reliance on renewable forms of energy and to achieve an end to acid rain. Greenpeace International, Keizersgracht 176, 1016 DW Amesterdam, Netherlands. Telephone +31 20 523 6555 Facsimile +31 20 523 6500