Surviving Global Warming: Why eliminating greenhouse gases isn’t enough

By Roger A. Sedjo, Surviving Global Warming: Why eliminating greenhouse gases isn’t enough, Prometheus Books, ISBN 9781633885288, hardcover $24, 245 pages.

Climate change and global warming remain controversial topics in fewer and fewer circles, but President Trump’s policies are minimizing action to combat it which is one of the reasons this book is topical. The current amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere of 410 ppm is the highest in over 800,000 years and is largely driven by increased burning fossil fuels since the beginning of the industrial age. The recent meeting of the working group of the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that the nations of the world are not meeting their goals to address reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The author, a contributing member of the IPCC, has the credentials to evaluate how to address the impacts of global warming. However, the book gives the impression that his idea of adaptation to climate change in addition to mitigation of GHG emissions is a new one, when in fact adaptation is in the Paris Agreement. Nevertheless, the focus on the adaptation part of that agreement is welcome as it has had much less publicity than mitigation. The book’s discussion of the many issues that face the nations of the world in response to a changing climate demonstrate the importance of the Paris Agreement.

Well before humankind had a chance to have a major impact on the climate by emitting large amounts of GHGs (especially CO₂) into the atmosphere, Earth had major warm and cold periods. The large long term (tens of thousands of years) cycles of ice ages and warmer periods are driven largely by changes of Earth’s orbit and orientation to the sun. Shorter, far less extreme periods of cooling or warming are believed to have been driven largely by changes in solar radiance. These natural (non-human caused) impacts cannot be ignored and the author concludes that reducing GHG emissions are a necessary but not sufficient action to prevent major global warming. He notes the IPCC has stated that human caused global warming accounts for something over half of the recent temperature rise and expresses doubts that the pledges to reduce GHG emissions will be met.

Following a description of the history and current drivers of global warming the book turns to actions to address this problem with what the author calls Plan A and Plan B. Plan A focuses on mitigation of CO₂ emission (which he calls the Gore plan) using a variety of methods, but largely through switching to renewable sources of energy. Making mitigation more difficult is that China (the #1 emitter) and India, in particular, have been focusing on increasing their economic development so their GHG emissions have been growing rapidly. In contrast the U.S. and EU have actually been able to reduce their emissions in recent years. One of the first mitigation steps to take is replacing the use of coal by natural gas, which emits half as much CO₂ per joule of produced energy. GHG-emissions-free sources of energy, which have grown recently, come with their own issues such as the intermittency of wind and solar, and long-term waste and safety concern issues with nuclear. He notes that Germany has increased both solar and wind power while eliminating nuclear power, but has actually increased its emissions. This is because the needed backup power required when the intermittent sources are not producing is now coal, a major GHG emitter.

Even if the world meets its Paris Agreement mitigation targets, the author does not believe it will be sufficient to keep the temperature rise to the Paris target of 2 deg C by 2100. His Plan B adds adaptation to mitigation, which essentially amounts to the Paris Agreement. Actions will be needed to address impacts such as sea level rise, loss of habitat, increases of extreme weather and concern about food production. Sedjo describes examples of specific impacts in several U.S. locations and actions that to minimize impacts of global warming, including construction of sea walls such as have been used in the Netherlands for 50 years. Agricultural impacts may require planting different crops and changing tree types in forests. He notes that protective actions may be necessary, but could also be viewed as welcome insurance even if the temperature is held to moderate levels.

New technology will need to be part of the adaptation solution. Options such as carbon capture and sequestration, and geo-engineering, will require considerable research and development. Carbon capture and sequestration would capture CO₂ before it reached the atmosphere and store it underground, while geoengineering could include changes to the reflectivity of Earth or introducing aerosols into the atmosphere the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface. But geo-engineering brings concerns about unintended consequences. One social barrier to some actions will be the reticence of people to adapt. For example, economic concerns such as the loss of house value, or the loss of the house itself, when families must move away from a shoreline. Solutions to such issues will involve politics. It’s a difficult problem, especially since it is global. The Montreal Protocol that addressed the emission of chloro-fluoro-carbons which were depleting atmospheric ozone has been successful, but addressing global warming is and will continue to be more complex. A carbon tax is currently being used in some countries as a stimulus to get people to reduce carbon emissions but is a hard sell in many parts of the world.

The topic of addressing global warming is certainly relevant, but I would have preferred that the book explained issues such as the Paris Agreement plan, rather than suggesting that the author was proposing something new. Additional editing would have been beneficial as there was some repetition, but the book is nevertheless a relevant discussion of a global problem.