Reducing the risk of severe adverse effects from global warming is both feasible and affordable, says PricewaterhouseCoopers

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July 7, 2008 — But the case for bold, early action is now more urgent. Ahead of the G8 Summit in Japan, the report calls on governments to demonstrate the political will to combat global warming through a ‘Greener Growth + CCS’ strategy that could halve global carbon emissions by 2050 without significantly reducing economic growth.

It is now widely accepted that global warming linked to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is one of the major potential challenges faced by mankind in the 21st century.

The scale of the challenge posed by global warming has grown even greater since an earlier PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report on this topic in 2006, thanks to higher projected economic growth in China and India. Together these two emerging giants are projected to account for around 45% of global carbon emissions from energy by 2050, compared to only around 20% of the global total for the US and EU combined.

The updated 2008 report concludes that the cost of pursuing a ‘business as usual’ approach would be a more than doubling of global carbon emissions from energy use by 2050, leading to an accelerating rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and a severe risk of adverse climate change effects on future generations.

The ‘business as usual’ scenario further assumes that:

  • the fuel mix between gas, coal, oil and others is constant in each country; and
  • there is no use of carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Given these assumptions, carbon emissions from energy use grow broadly in line with primary energy consumption, increasing by around 140% cumulatively between 2006 and 2050, or by around 2% per annum on average.

The implication of this BAU scenario is a projected rise in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere from around 385 parts per million (ppm) now to around 600ppm by 2050, with an accelerating upward trend being evident at that date

But the adoption of a ‘Greener Growth + Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)’ strategy, as outlined in detail in the report, would be technologically feasible without excessive economic costs – provided action is taken early enough across a broad range of fronts including energy efficiency, renewables and CCS.

This new scenario has the following enhanced features:

  • relative to “business as usual”, the rate of reduction in energy intensity is set at 1.5% per annum, as compared to 1% per annum for the Green Growth + CCS scenario; and
  • the share of renewables and nuclear power in total primary energy consumption is assumed to rise to around 50% by 2050, as compared to around 30% in the Green Growth + CCS scenario
The report says that what is required to reduce the risks of adverse climate change to acceptable levels is a reduction in global carbon emissions to only around half of current levels by 2050.
  • For the advanced economies, this requires a reduction in carbon emissions by around 80% relative to current levels by 2050
  • For the emerging economies, it involves mitigating the growth of emissions up to around 2020 and then aiming for reductions in emissions after that date.
12 Separate PwC research projects are underway to consider some of the key policy issues here, including the pros and cons of carbon taxes and carbon trading (and possible hybrid solutions) and the next steps required to develop global carbon markets.

Notes to Editor:

  1. For additional information, please contact Vera Totskaya, PR Manager, or Anna Kogosova, PR Assistant Manager.
  2. Download an electronic copy of the full report The World in 2050: can rapid global growth be reconciled with moving to a low carbon economy? , along with the original September 2006 report The World in 2050: implications of global growth for carbon emissions and climate change policy.
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