A call for a new industrial revolution

“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change will require a transformation of the energy, industrial and agricultural sectors at a scale and speed never before attempted by humanity. It will truly be a third industrial revolution However, there are limits to the speed of change. Even in periods of extreme crisis, such as during war – no matter how powerful the country – the speed of change has always been limited by available resources.”

The report argues that, to avoid runaway climate change, global re-industrialisation to a low-carbon economy needs to happen over the next five years.

"The time threshold beyond which it may be impossible to avoid runaway climate change is approaching much faster than has previously been predicted. The necessary resources, technologies and industries are available to re-industrialise energy and non-energy sectors to achieve a low-carbon global economy, but these industries have limits as to how quickly they can develop and deploy, and represents the critical constraint in avoiding runaway climate change,” the report states.

It will require “a re-industrialisation process three times the scale of the industrial revolution. All key low-carbon resources and industries must be under development by 2013, each of them growing over 25% per year to provide reasonable certainty of achieving the necessary global emissions levels by the mid-century.

“The good news is that the economies of scale will create major long-term savings/returns compared to business-as-usual, especially in the energy sector,” the report adds.

Taking stock of where humanity stands at present, the report comes to the conclusion that:
Atmospheric greenhouse gas levels are presently higher than expected and the rate of increase has not yet begun to slow and, in fact, may actually be accelerating;

The development of low-carbon industries is too slow. Presently, the speed at which energy use transforms to low-carbon technologies is moving at sufficient pace for only three out of 20 industries;

There are less than five years left to get it right. The window to establish a fully operational, low-carbon industry architecture will close between now and 2013; and
The carbon-trading schemes presently in place are not a sufficient solution. A comprehensive plan for low-carbon industrial development is an integral part of the solution.

“Clean energy generation, energy efficiency, low-carbon agriculture and sustainable forestry must lead the transformation to a low-carbon economy,” the report states.

The magnitude of the challenge facing humanity is illustrated by the statement that: “the speed of this transformation (25% per year growth for the key industries from this year going forward) will need to surpass the highest level of sustained, long-term, worldwide industrial change that modern societies have ever experienced.”

Every government in the world must create a secure long-term investment environment to allow for major increases in the scale of production and installation required to create a low-carbon economy.

The price-support investment for renewables alone will require at least $10 trillion. Annual expenditure will peak at around $300 billion a year by 2027 and then begin to decline. Energy-efficiency measures will be cost effective immediately, while forest and other initiatives will require ongoing funding.

From 2025 to 2050, the production cost of renewable energy is forecast to become cheaper than energy produced by fossil fuels.

It is expected that government, industry and investors will begin seeing returns on their investment from 2028. The return on this investment up to 2050 is expected to be in excess of $30 trillion. During this period, it is predicted that energy prices for consumers will remain stable.

The modelling that was done for the report indicates that it is still possible to achieve emissions that are 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, which are consistent with a very high probability of avoiding a two-degree warming.

It also finds that if re-industrialisation does not get under way across all the low-carbon industries – from clean tech to forestry and agriculture – then its implementation after the year 2013 will no longer provide even reasonable probability that dangerous and runaway climate change can be avoided.

Among the conclusions of the report is that the current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions is on course to trigger tipping elements which will unlock runaway climate change."However, a small but rapidly closing window of opportunity remains, which is defined by the time needed to develop and deploy low-carbon industries at the required scale.

(The full report can be found at Climaterisk)

• Add New
• Search

Comments (0)

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Comment:

Title:

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0 beta2