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SUMMARY:Paris\, climate and surrealism: how numbers reveal an alternate re
 ality - Professor Kevin Anderson
DTSTART:20170309T193000Z
DTEND:20170309T210000Z
UID:TALK70986@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Per Ola Kristensson
DESCRIPTION:Attending this talk in person requires reserving a ticket (whi
 ch is free):\n\nhttp://www.climate-series.eng.cam.ac.uk/ways-to-participat
 e/attend-a-lecture\n\nHowever\, please note that we will live stream the t
 alk here:\n\nhttp://www.climate-series.eng.cam.ac.uk/\n\n—Abstract—\n\
 nThe Paris Agreement’s inclusion of “well below 2°C” and “pursue 
 … 1.5°C” has catalysed fervent activity amongst many within the scien
 tific community keen to understand what this more ambitious objective impl
 ies for mitigation. However\, this activity has demonstrated little in the
  way of plurality of responses. Instead there remains an almost exclusive 
 focus on how future ‘negative emissions technologies’ (NETs) may offer
  a beguiling and almost free “get out of jail card”.\nThis presentatio
 n argues that such a dominant focus reveals an endemic bias across much of
  the academic climate change community determined to voice a politically p
 alatable framing of the mitigation landscape – almost regardless of scie
 ntific credibility.\n\nThe inclusion of carbon budgets within the IPCC’s
  latest report reveals just how few years remain within which to meet even
  the “well below 2°C” objective.\n\nMaking optimistic assumptions on 
 the rapid cessation of deforestation and uptake of carbon capture technolo
 gies on cement/steel production\, sees a urgent need to accelerate the tra
 nsformation of the energy system away from fossil fuels by the mid 2030s i
 n the wealthier nations and 2050 globally. To put this in context\, the na
 tional mitigation pledges submitted to Paris see an ongoing rise in emissi
 ons till 2030 and are not scheduled to undergo  major review until 2023 
 – eight years\, or 300 billion tonnes of CO2\, after the Paris Agreement
 .\n\nDespite the enormity and urgency of 1.5°C and “well below 2°C” 
 mitigation challenge\, the academic community has barely considered delive
 ring deep and early reductions in emissions through the rapid penetration 
 of existing end-use technologies and profound social change. At best it di
 smisses such options as too expensive compared to the discounted future co
 sts of a technology that does not yet exist. At worst\, it has simply been
  unprepared to countenance approaches that risk destabilising the politica
 l hegemony.\n\nIgnoring such sensibilities\, the presentation concludes wi
 th a draft vision of what an alternative mitigation agenda may comprise.
LOCATION:Winstanley Lecture Theatre\, Trinity College\, Cambridge
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