International Energy Agency finds cost-neutral route to major CO2 cuts

The IEA would like to see a lot less of this.

Research.gov

Yesterday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report in which it urges the adoption of four approaches to curb greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. In announcing the report, the IEA noted that, at the earliest, the next international treaty won't even be finalized before 2015 (and its implementation won't start until 2020). But in the intervening years, we're likely to build infrastructure and continue emissions that will make the goals of that agreement nearly impossible to reach. In the interim, the IEA suggests steps that are needed to keep the planet on a path that would limit emissions to 2°C.

The report comes immediately in the wake of the first recordings of carbon dioxide levels that exceed 400 parts per million at Mauna Loa, far from any sites of industrial emissions. These levels haven't been seen in millions of years and, if current emissions trends continue, we're expected to reach temperatures we've not seen in equally long: between 3.6°C and 5.3°C warmer than the preindustrial era, according to the IEA. And, as the World Bank recently noted, that sort of rise would radically reshape our world.

So, the IEA is sold on the goal of limiting future temperature rises to 2°C. Unfortunately, energy-related emissions went up by 1.4 percent last year to 31.6 Gigatons. If we wait to 2015 to finalize plans to keep future temperature rises to 2°C, the IEA estimates we'll need to spend $5 trillion to get back on track.