Environmentalists' efforts to seek out a neo-medieval future for society continue apace, with public-funded civil servants at the forefront. The Tyndall Centre - a kind of Opus Dei for the green movement - have announced a conference to brainstorm just how this future could be brought into being. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's being held at The Royal Society.
The Climate Change Context
With large-scale impacts of climate change becoming discernable from the background of natural variability, so concern is rising over the global community’s failure to control emissions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) captures this pivotal moment in history, when noting that "The current state of affairs is unacceptable … energy-related CO2 emissions are at historic highs”[i] and emission trends are “perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius, which would have devastating consequences for the planet”[ii]. In similar vein PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC)[iii], the UK Government chief scientist[iv] and a growing body of academics and researchers are allying current emission trends with 4°C to 6°C futures.
Why Radical Mitigation (i.e. emission reductions)?
Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non-radical option. Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions – they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption – the rationale for this conference.
Details here.