Jonathon Porritt, Co-Founder and Programme Director of Forum for the Future, called for an agreed-upon time scale for climate change issues in his address to World Future Energy Summit.
Porritt offered that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found in their Fourth Assessment Report that:
1.) They are 90% certain that climate change is caused by man-made factors
2.) It is critical that global temperatures do not increase more than two degrees centigrade
3.) Global concentrations of CO2 need to be stabilized at 450 ppm (currently at 380 ppm)
4.) Even with CO2 at 450 ppm, there is only a 50% chance that global temperatures will not increase more than two degrees
5.) CO2 levels need to be stabilized and reduced below 450 ppm within 10 years in order to avoid a ‘chaos point’, indicating little opportunity for positive change or control.
As gloomy as the IPCC projections may seem, Porritt believed the IPCC to be “seriously understating the degree to which climate change will affect our lives.”
In asking “Where are the actions to match these words,” Porritt listed as an example the UK Climate Change Bill that aims to reduce CO2 emissions 60% by 2050 — well outside the scope of the IPCC’s ten-year window.
In order to slow down and reverse the global rate of CO2 emissions, Porritt asserted that developing and mandating energy efficiency measures should become our most important priority, followed by renewable energy development and carbon capture technologies.
Pressed further, Porritt offered that he would like to call for an end to the insane rates of global deforestation and a more intensified focus on stabilizing population growth.
Porritt likened the nature of the challenge faced in global climate change to that of the United State is war-torn 1942.
Arguing that the US was able to completely reorganize its economy for war within just one year, Porritt contended that nothing short of that sort of effort will effectively solve global climate change and energy demand at the same time.
