<
https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/best-path-to-net-zero-cut-short-lived-super-pollutants/>
"Time is of the essence for slowing these feedbacks: The planet is
currently on course to add 50 percent more warming and exceed the 1.5
degrees Celsius threshold for dangerous warming as early as 2030, with a
one-in-10 chance of doing so a full five years earlier, or 2025. As
warming continues to accelerate, weather extremes are expected to
worsen, imposing more serious impacts on ecosystems and public health.
Already, in the 20 years prior to 2015, weather-related disasters have
killed 30,000 people a year on average—more than 600,000 in total—while
leaving more than four billion people injured, homeless, or in need of
emergency assistance.
The window for limiting these threats has shrunk to perhaps 10 years,
according to a recent Comment piece in Nature aptly titled “Global
warming will happen faster than we think.” Whatever pathway we select to
reach the goal of net zero must harvest all the low-hanging fruit of
mitigation opportunities over the next decade; that way, we stand a
chance of slowing climate change enough in the near-term to stay in the
game and possibly win by 2050.
The harvesting should start with immediate cuts to the emissions of
short-lived super-pollutants—black carbon, methane, tropospheric ozone,
and HFCs. As a net-zero carbon dioxide strategy, fast cuts to
super-pollutants would halve global warming by 2050, cut the rate of
warming in the Arctic by up to two-thirds, and at least halve the amount
of warming over elevated regions of the Himalayas and Tibet. This would
avoid up to 0.6 degrees Celsius of global warming by 2050, and provide
life-saving collateral benefits along the way. (And, of course, we need
to continue our efforts to simultaneously cut carbon dioxide emissions
and protect our carbon sinks. But we should be able to walk and chew gum
at the same time.)"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
