Peaking in 2015: the challenges

Even if the political will exists, the logistical challenge of making emissions peak in 2015 is breathtaking.

Today, annual GHG emissions are not only rising but accelerating.  Emissions rose at an annual rate of around half a billion tonnes a year from 1970 to 1994, but in the last decade they have been rising by nearly one billion tonnes a year.[1]

And the concentration of GHGs is accelerating all the time, defying efforts to stabilise it. In the last ten years, the carbon dioxide blanket has been thickening at around 2ppm per year, compared with around 1.5ppm per year from 1960 to 2005.[2]

A peak in 2015 is a huge ask when the forces that are driving emissions up – a growing world population, rising living standards and soaring growth in big economies such as China – show no sign of abating.

Take just the CO2 emissions from energy. These were around 27 billion tonnes (GT) in 2005 and they are currently expected to rise to at least 32GT in 2015 and at least 34GT in 2030, according to the International Energy Agency(IEA) - and that is provided all currently proposed environmental policies are implemented.  

If new proposals are to create a 2015 peak and a 50-85% emissions cut by 2050, then energy related CO2 emissions need to be cut to around 23GT in 2030, below today’s level and a third lower than today’s environmental policies would achieve. The IEA says this would require: “… immediate policy action and technological transformation on an unprecedented scale.”

Targeting 2015 as the peak year for GHGs will also raise issues beyond climate change. 2015 is already the deadline set by the UN for the achievement of the ‘Millennium Development Goals’, set in 2000, including ending extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education. Many will ask if the campaign to tackle these issues, which are causing widespread suffering and disadvantage today, is to be sidelined as resources are poured into the effort to beat climate change. Others will argue that integration of these tasks has a logic to it as the money used to penalise GHG emissions in trading and taxes could be switched towards development as well as cleaner energy. 

And what if the world slides into recession? Revolutionising the world’s energy industry and curbing deforestation would be tough at the best of times, but what if has to happen in the teeth of major downturn? In some ways recession might help because emissions lessen with economic activity, but conversely it might trigger a flight towards the cheapest energy, such as coal, which is also the dirtiest, as opposed to more expensive options such as renewables.