Fwd: [New Report] Near-term Climate Risk and Intervention: A Roadmap for Research, U.S. Research Investment and International Scientific Cooperation
H simmens
Begin forwarded message:
From: Kelly Wanser <kwa...@silverlining.ngo>
Date: February 15, 2023 at 12:35:24 PM EST
To: hsim...@gmail.com
Subject: [New Report] Near-term Climate Risk and Intervention: A Roadmap for Research, U.S. Research Investment and International Scientific Cooperation
Reply-To: Kelly Wanser <kwa...@silverlining.ngo>
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A new report by SilverLining calls for the United States, as a leading provider of open climate research internationally, to undertake a “Climate Safety Initiative” to deliver against a well-defined roadmap of research supported by $13 billion in new funding over 5 years.
The magnitude of escalating climate threats, particularly for the world’s most vulnerable people and ecosystems, warrants a concerted effort to improve projections of near-term climate risks and impacts and to assess the potential for climate interventions to reduce them.
Climate interventions are approaches to rapidly remove greenhouse gases or heat energy from the atmosphere to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. The most rapid approaches involve dispersing particles to increase the reflection of sunlight (or release of longwave radiation) from the atmosphere, also called “solar climate intervention”. These approaches are similar to processes that occur in nature and as effects of pollution that are long-standing areas of uncertainty that limit climate prediction and risk analysis.
Read the Report
Read the Overview
“To bring global temperatures down quickly, the only button we can push - that we know about - is solar climate intervention,” says David Fahey, Co-Chair of the Scientific Assessment Panel of the Montreal Protocol and Director of the Chemical Sciences Laboratory, NOAA, “There are many uncertainties, which is why scientists should be studying the issue carefully.”
These uncertainties create an urgent need for a major public research effort. Such an effort, structured around a 5-year roadmap, could fill information gaps and support robust scientific assessment of the potential for solar climate intervention to reduce near-term climate risks. Research should include improved modeling and analyses of climate and impacts, improved observations of the atmosphere and other natural systems, research on specific sunlight reflection approaches, socio-economic studies, and international scientific programs.
There are large uncertainties in predicting near-term climate, including dangerous “tipping points” for irreversible changes in natural systems and how expected reductions in particulate pollution could add to near-term warming. Yet U.S. and global funding for climate research (excluding energy and other emissions reduction) are relatively low given their importance to public welfare and the economy. This funding has been flat in real terms for several decades and requires increased investment.
The report calls for increasing U.S. funding for research by $2.6 billion per year (60-70% above existing levels) for 5 years to rapidly improve our ability to predict and manage near-term climate change, with emphasis on improving the understanding of atmospheric influences on climate.
U.S. scientific research plays a central role in supporting international climate and environmental science and governance for the rest of the world. A coordinated U.S. scientific research effort on near-term climate risk and intervention could also facilitate expanded international participation in research to support more effective and equitable decision-making, including for those most affected by climate change.
Related Content:
The report builds on information in SilverLining’s 2019 report, Ensuring a Safe Climate: A National Imperative for Research in Climate Intervention and Earth System Prediction, and a series of papers by international climate law experts Sue Biniaz and Daniel Bodansky, Solar Climate Intervention: Options for International Assessment and Decision-making.
About SilverLining
SilverLining is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that society has sufficient options to address near-term climate risks. SilverLining engages with the research community, policymakers, technologists, civil society, and people from all walks of life to help advance research and innovation in efforts to ensure a safe climate.
Learn more at our website and follow us on social media below.
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Robert Chris
Hi Daniel
Thanks for noting this report. It contains the following:
Limiting heating to 1.5°C is still physically possible. It will require deep and sustained emissions reductions, with immediate action needed to ensure emissions peak in the next couple of years (IPCC 2022a). This can only happen if, in the words of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), there is an “urgent system-wide transformation” of societies globally over the 2020s and beyond (UNEP 2022a). This is why Birol has also said that “proponents of the existing energy systems will be the beneficiaries if the obituary of 1.5°C is written” (Harvey 2022). Declaring the 1.5°C goal lost could benefit those who wish to delay rapid emissions reductions and use unproven and risky technologies to make potentially dangerous promises about how societies do not need significant change. (emphasis added)
Birol is Faith Birol, CEO of
International Energy Agency. The Harvey reference is to an
article in the Guardian reporting Birol's comments just before
COP27. UNEP 2022a refers to their Emissions Gap Report 2022.
If Hansen et al's Warming in the Pipeline is sound science, the fundamental premise of this report is unsound - limiting heating to 1.5°C is NOT still physically possible, at least not through a sole focus on GHGs.
This is either an innocent error of timing - the report was written before Hansen et al's paper, or it's another example of institutional denial of the failure of the existing policy regime. Take your pick!
The final sentence above is
playing to the so-called moral hazard argument that wrongly
assumes that not delaying rapid emissions would make much
difference. It also totally fails to assess the relative
risks of deploying the supposedly risky technologies and not
doing so, and assumes that their risks cannot be mitigated by
further research and experience.
Regards
Robert
Hi Herb,
Thanks for sharing the Silver Lining report. Very useful. Glad to see such progressive and realistic thinking coming out of the US regarding the need for urgent investment into R&D for direct cooling tech.
By contrast, 2 UK think tanks (Chatham House and IPPR) have released a new report which refers to geoengineering as an 'extreme' measure and implies the climate problem can be solved by 'virtuous' carbon reduction measures such as insulation, heat pump installation etc. Again there is no differentiation between different types of geo-engineering or its relative merits compared to carbon reduction alone /carbon reduction + carbon removal etc.
Here's an article from today's Guardian about this report:
It also implies that geoengineering would be considered / taken seriously as a policy option if 1.5C is no longer viewed as a viable / possible warming limit with current 'net zero' type approaches.
As we all know, exceeding 1.5C is certain to be exceeded with current national / international approaches to climate change, yet denial of this fact leads to denial of the urgent need for direct cooling intervention. We therefore have to focus on combatting this new type of climate denial - based on the false hope that keeping below 1.5C is still possible by 'virtuous' GHG reduction actions alone. With the timescale we have this is a complete fantasy.
Kind regards,
Daniel
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