Final exam climate change

Adaptation + Example

• Respond to impacts already happening, don’t stop climate change

• Ex: seawalls, Ike Dike

Mitigation + Example

• Prevent climate change by reducing emissions

• Ex: solar, wind

What are the two types of geoengineering

• Carbon Dioxide removal

• Solar Radiation

Carbon Dioxide Removal

• pull CO2 out of the atmosphere

• Ex: Planting trees, Direct Air capture

• Cons: too expensive, too slow and may require more energy than it offsets

• Energy Budget: Eout, reducing greenhouse effect, more long wave radiation out

Solar Radiation Management

• increase earths albedo to cool it

• Ex: stratospheric sulfer dioxide injection

• Cons: only fixes temperature not ocean acidification, dramatically alters perception patterns and can’t stop once you start

• Energy Budget: Ein, increasing albedo and reducing incoming solar energy

Why focus on mitigation ?

• dealing with damage is more expensive than preventing it

• more fair

• saves money through efficiency

• fossil fuels will run out eventually

Why focus on adaptation ?

• most of us can wait

• focus on the worst impacts

• future generations will bear the costs and will likely be richer

• we have to adapt regardless

What is carbon capture and storage ? Pro’s and Con’s

• Capture CO2 at the source, smoke stacks of power plants

• Pros: carbon neutral, current technology captures 85-90 percent of the CO2 produced and storage options exist

• Cons: uses 10-40 percent of the plant energy to run the capture process, increased costs get passed down to the consumers, doesn’t eliminate emissions entirely

CCS vs Direct air capture

CCS: captures CO2 at the source, ex: smoke stack of power plants

Direct air capture: pull CO2 out of the atmosphere

What are the two largest sources of GHG emissions in the United States ?

Transportation and Electricity generation

Which fossil fuel produces the most CO2 per unit of energy ?

Coal

How long we have known about the greenhouse effect and how GHG warms the earth?

• 1820: Behavior of GHG

• 1859: water vapor and CO2 are main GHG

• Known since the 19th century

What is the tobacco strategy and one example of it being used in climate denialism ?

• Tobacco strategy: create doubt in the science, cherry pick data, highlight anomalies, question reliability, invoke “fairness” for equal time

• Ex: Reagan Administration acid rain report to congress, tobacco strategy is to justify taking no action even though clear science linked power plant emissions to acid rain

Why was the Montreal Protocol a success?

• ozone layer is healing and CFC’s reduced globally.

• Two stage approach (rich countries go first followed by developing countries) made it financially and politically possible

What does common but differentiated responsibilities mean ?

• All countries must participate but not necessarily in the same way, rich countries go first because they caused most of the emissions and have more resources

Which climate proposals were part of the UN framework ?

• FCCC

• Kyoto protocol

• Copenhagen accord

• Paris Agreement

• UAE consensus

What does the Paris Accord require the participants to do ?

• Submit a NDC ( nationally determined contribution) every five years, each more ambitious than the last

What did the Green new deal address besides climate change ?

• Social Injustice: guaranties high paying jobs in clean energy and ensuring that vulnerable groups benefit from green economy

What type of pollution did the Clean Power Plan target ?

• Carbon pollution from power plants

Why is the Inflation Reduction Act called climate change policy?

• it has a misleading title, 369 billion of its spending went for energy security and climate change.

• Consumer tax credits, environmental injustice/clean up programs

What happened under Republican administrations that was helpful to the environment ?

• Nixon: created EPA, signed the clean air act of 1970

• Bush Sr: Implemented cap and trade for sulfur/ acid rain

Why would it be a good idea to use cost-benefit analysis for climate change ?

• helps evaluate which strategies give you the biggest benefit

Why would it be a bad idea to use cost-benefit analysis for climate change ?

• too many unknowns

• can’t put dollar value on catastrophes

• ignores fairness

Why 2 degrees?

• within natural variation of the past few hundred thousand years

• maintains conditions that human civilization developed under

• politically/ economically achievable

• not a magic number