The Triad Approach to Preventing Global Climate Catastrophe

Fossil-fuel Energy Use on Track to Double Current 1.5ºC Warming and Rapidly Worsen Climate Extremes

Essential for:

• Bringing Down Peak Warming
• Limiting Intensification of Weather Extremes & Disruption
• Limiting Need for Climate Intervention and Direct Cooling
• Reducing Biodiversity Loss
• Ending Ocean Acidification and Loss of Marine Biosphere

Actions:

The Triad Approach: 1. Accelerate Reductions in Emissions

Reducing Global Emissions of CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gases has been the near- exclusive approach to ending climate disruption since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

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Climate Disruption will continue to increase until annual human-induced emissions not only stop increasing but are brought back down to zero. Otherwise intolerable levels of warming and climate disruption will get worse. This will happen well into the second half of the 21^st century and beyond, if emissions are not rapidly cut to zero.

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Effective steps for ending the rise and then reducing global emissions can be investigated using the EN-ROADS simulator.

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The best options for reducing emissions include switching from use of fossil fuels for energy to renewables like wind, solar, and geothermal. But this will require upgrading national transmission capacities (preferably with underground lines) that reach from sources of supply to centers of demand. Rapid (within decades) emissions reductions will also require transfers of funding and technologies from rich to poor countries and individuals.

Source: Skeptical Science

Fossil-fuel Energy Use on Track to Double Current 1.5ºC Warming and Rapidly Worsen Climate Extremes

The Triad Approach: 2. Pull Past CO₂ Emissions Back from

Atmosphere and Oceans

Fossil-fuel Energy Use on Track to Double Current 1.5ºC Warming and Rapidly Worsen Climate Extremes

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This figure illustrates various of the proposed approaches for eventually pulling a large share of past and continuing emissions back out of the atmosphere to return atmospheric composition to that compatible with roughly the climate of the mid-20^th century (fSource: Third Way).

Cooling the Planet to its mid-20^th century conditions using approaches that would remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and oceans would require pulling back and sequestering most of the CO₂ created by mining and combusting coal, oil, and natural gas from the mid-20^th century until global emissions are brought to Net-Zero. The total removal requirement is currently ~100 times current annual emissions and will continue growing until Net-Zero is reached.

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Not only would many decades and more be required, but most current approaches are relatively expensive and there are presently no sources for paying the costs. New research is exploring approaches that may become less expensive by using sun-powered uptake of carbon by forests and algae to concentrate the carbon that is then made into biochar that farmers can apply as a soil additive to promote plant growth.

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Most of the 21^st century or more is likely to be required to develop carbon dioxide removal (CDR) at scale that is capable of pulling more CO₂ out of the atmosphere than is being added by fossil fuel emissions. Only after that is achieved will CDR be able to start bringing the atmospheric CO₂ concentration down toward mid-20^th century levels and thereby initiate a global cooling influence..

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The Triad Approach: 2. Proposed Approaches for Pulling Back Past CO₂ Emissions Back Out of the Atmosphere and Oceans

(Source: Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Initiative)

For a continuously updated review of carbon removal projects, see www.stateofcdr.org.

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The Triad Approach: 3. Intervening to Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe

The only ways to offset projected global warming and reduce the global average temperature by 2050 are Global-Scale Climate Intervention and very substantial reductions in emissions of Short-Lived Greenhouse Gases (e.g., by essentially eliminating fossil-fuel and other sources of methane by taking actions that would accelerate the rate of its chemical loss in the atmosphere)

In the near term the Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC) advocates augmenting the present mitigation and CDR based international approach to limiting climate change by including research-evaluated deployment of one or more Climate Intervention Approaches that are sometimes referred to as Solar Radiation Management, Solar Reflection Methods, or simply Geoengineering. The chart on he next three slides provides HPAC’s comparative analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of a range of suggested approaches.

As global-scale intervention and mitigation are underway, locally and regionally focused applications of some of the Climate Intervention Approaches may offer the potential to moderate some of the most harmful impacts of global climate disruption. See a list of possible approaches on the following slides

To offset a 50% increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration, which would cause a warming of about 1.5 C, would require reflecting back to space about 1% more of the incoming solar radiation (e.g., increasing the Earth’s present reflectivity from about 30% to 31%). Theoretically, this can be done by approaches located in space, in the stratosphere, in the troposphere or at the surface, or by increasing the emission to space of infrared radiation by an equivalent amount (Source: NOAA Research).

Fossil-fuel Energy Use on Track to Double Current 1.5ºC Warming and Rapidly Worsen Climate Extremes

The Triad Approach: 3. Global and Hemispheric Interventions that have the Potential to Avoid a Climate Catastrophe (Part I)

Descriptions of Column Values and explanation of Ordering Priority

The Triad Approach: 3. Global and Hemispheric Interventions that have the Potential to Avoid a Climate Catastrophe (Part II)

Descriptions of Column Values and explanation of Ordering Priority

The Triad Approach: 3. Global and Hemispheric Interventions that have the Potential to Avoid a Climate Catastrophe (Part III)

Descriptions of Column Values and explanation of Ordering Priority

The Triad Approach: 3. Global & Hemispheric Interventions to Avoid Climatic Catastrophe (Part IV)

NOTE: Approaches deemed unlikely to make a noticeable global to hemispheric scale contribution to near-term cooling (not just reduce the rate of warming) by 2050 include:

• Reroute aircraft to reduce formation of IR trapping contrails;
• Increase albedo of global ocean;
• Thin wintertime cirrus and/or mixed clouds;
• Reduce global emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases; Restore ocean ecosystems to increase carbon uptake;
• Deploy carbon capture and storage to reduce power plant emissions; and increase the albedo of the global land surface.

Some of these approaches may, however, be able to contribute to local and regional reduction of, especially severe, climate impacts.