ONLY ZERO
THE POLICY
 
 
 
                           Is Not the same as carbon neutral.
Only Zero means NO Fossil Fuel Emissions and that means-
No use of fossil fuels for energy, which means-
 
Total conversion from fossil fuel energy
 to energy conservation and renewable energy sources.
 
 
 
1) Only an international plan agreed to under the UN can achieve global zero CO2 emissions.
 
2) As has been said by many observers only a war time approach can achieve the emergency scale response needed.
 
    This would entail the same suspension of peacetime politics, governance and economics that happens under a war government.
     Our governance as usual democratic politics and our business as usual economics cannot respond as is needed.  
 
3) This will not happen without the world's climate change scientists formally stating to governments and the UN that only zero CO2 emissions can stop global warming and prevent global climate catastrophe.
 
4) It will not happen unless the international environmental NGOs campaign to make it happen.
 
5)  A massive global civil society campaign is needed to make it happen.
 
  
 Carbon Pricing Policy  
 
 A zero CO2 emissions policy must price carbon (see 2006 Stern Commission report).
   This means adding in the cost of the social damages and environmental damages of fossil fuel emissions.
 
 There is only one way that governments can add the cost of carbon-  taxing carbon.
 
Capping emissions and trading carbon permits may be useful but they do not entail a government policy to add the actual cost of pollution and greenhouse gases to the production and sale of fossil fuels and cannot possibly be relied on to do so.  
 
There is no possibility of capping and trading being able to achieve zero CO2 emissions.
To legislate zero CO2 emissions is clearly the responsibility of governments.
 
The invest and banking and banking industry have to be regulated to finance and profit by only sustainable development (zero financing of fossil fuel development or fossil fuel based development).
 
If the IPCC scientists do not make a statement on ONLY ZERO CO2 there will be no government action to do so.
 
All eyes are on Copenhagen this December 09
 
December 2009 Copenhagen
UN Climate Change Summit Conference
 
A new UN treaty will replace the Kyoto Protocol expiring 2012
 
There no proposal for a target of Zero fossil fuel emissions
 
There is no group of climate change scientists that has proposed a policy of zero CO2 emissions or anything even close.
There is no international environmental, human development, human  rights, or public heath organization
that has proposed a policy of zero CO2 emissions or anything close to it.
There is no group of nations that has proposed zero CO2 emissions or anything close.
 
 
The Long History of Fossil Fuel Pollution.
 
It has been known for decades that air pollution from fossil fuel combustion is dangerous to health. The more the issue has been researched the more the deadly diseases that are caused or made worse by fossil fuel air pollution is discovered.
 
The fossil fuel industry has fought any and every attempt to regulate fossil fuel air pollution and so in most nations it is in fact still not regulated.
Today over 80% of energy world wide (and in the US) is from burning fossil fuels.  
The very worst is coal.  All nations and the world economy as a whole still rely heavily on burning coal for energy. It makes up over 50% of world and of US energy.
 
The global investment and fossil fuel industries plan to continue fossil fuel energy growth  with increasing reliance on coal.
                                 The fossil fuel industry
                                        The deadly  killer that  keeps on killing
                 What  National and International Climate Policy Has to Put Right
 
The IPCC worst case scenario is A!F1.  (That means continued fossil fuel dominated economic growth.)
 
At present the CO2 level is still rising exponentially.  That is - it is still accelerating.
 
The real world global fossil fuel CO2 emissions are above the worst case IPCC scenario and accelerating.  .
 
                          What National and International Economic Policy Plans to Do  -----   DESTROY THE EARTH
IPCC 07. A1F1 (not shown) is projected at +4oC.
It will last for over 1000 years.
IPCC 07 global warming projections.
 
These are IPCCs imaginary possible scenarios.
 
The worst case (A1F1 not shown) scenario gets to
4oC warming by 2100 with a risk up to 6.4oC from 2000
 
That is 4.5oC from 1900 (the usual period).
We are now on a course above this.
 
Note the global warming lasts for over 1000 years.
 
The yellow is with emissions stopped at year 2000-
there is still another 0.6oC global warming by 2100
 
The other extended plots show what happens if emissions are stopped at 2100. Global warming continues for over 1000 years
over which time there is slower additional warming.
The latest projection from the UK Hadley Center on today's rate of GHGas emissions. 
 This gets a global warming of  5.5oC to 7.1oC by 2100.
 
Humanity would not survive a warming of 7.1oC.   
    Business as usual 
The fossil fuel industry emits mostly the main GHGas CO2 but also the other main GHGases- 
methane (CH3), nitrous oxide (N2O) and ground level ozone O3 (indirectly).
 
 It also emits numerous toxic air pollutants that are very damaging to human health killing huge numbers of people (and very costly). 
 
Only by strict government regulations to the fossil fuel industry can zero CO2 emissions be achieved which the industry will continue to fight.
 
The fossil fuel industry has to be all converted to renewable energy-
 if humanity is to survive.  
 
                                               How to Get an ONLY ZERO CO2 emissions policy
                     -  that is if climate change scientists tell the whole truth
 
       CUT CO2
     80% by 2020 
                                                                            Zero CO2 emissions means
 
      1) no fossil fuel energy- only conservation and renewables
      2) no burning other stuff ((biomass) for energy (rich and poor nations alike)
      3) rapid development and deployment of carbon capture from the air.
  Money being wasted on fossil fuel CCS and biofuels must be put into the above
All national and international energy policies support the growth projections of the fossil fuel industry and international energy agency.
This is for continued business as usual fossil fuel dominated economic growth.
 
The projected result is a 50% increase in global GHGas emissions by 2030 and 100% by 2050.
This would be catastrophic to the future of life on Earth.
 
Governments world wide provide the fossil industry with a staggering $300 billion a year (Int.Energy Agency 08).
All fossil fuel incentives are murdering life on Earth and must be banned immediately.  
Global Carbon Project 2008
IPCC 2007 scenarios
By today's real world emissions scenario
 
                                                                     An International agreement under the UN
 
We have an adequate binding agreement - the 1992 UN Convention on Climate Change.
 
The Annex 1 wealthy nations have spent the past fifteen years ignoring their obligations by substituting and negotiating down their obligations via the Kyoto Protocol that does not implement any of the terms of the Climate Convention.
They are doing the same thing now negotiating a replacement for Kyoto.
Though Kyoto has achieved next to nothing the nations are negotiating for the treaty model as Kyoto.
 
Unlike all other forms of government the UN requires all nations to agree on a new treaty.
The result is that any one nation in effect has a veto.  So the US Suadi Arabia and Kuwait for a few examples have been able to block any
progress on global mitigation.
If nations really intended to stop destroying the Earth by global warming they would all agree to implement in full the intention and terms of the Climate Convention right away.
 
For this to happen nations would have to stop their denial. They would have to agree that the world is far past dangerous atmospheric levels of atmospheric GHGses with a huge risk of civilization collapsing in most peoples lifetime, and of the eventual extinction of most all life on Earth from runaway global heating.
 
That would have to lead to a UN declaration of a global state of emergency.
That would lead to nations making a global peace and disarmament treaty an combining all their forces for the survival of humanity by  launching a global zero carbon development and redevelopment venture as a global negative carbon project.
  
 The Deadly Environmentally  Perverse Economics
 
 With runaway global heating a real and present danger there is no time left for economic instruments alone to save us.
 
The only chance now is a massive global investment of public money by deficit financing from all wealthy nations.
A peace dividend and aerospace dividend would provide very large  funds with the skills and technolgies needed.
 
The only global emergency response is a huge global economic stimulus in renewable energy development and conservation
re -development. Before the bank mortgage bonanza there was about one trillion dollars of debt to the banks globally.
Now nations are adding several tens of trillions of dollors to the global debt.
About 10% per cent of this may be going to renewable energy. Why not 80% to renewable energy.
 
The world economic system must be redesigned to stimulate and finance renewable energy output to meet the total global energy use in under a decade. The last fossil fuel energy must be burned to build the renewable energy high conservation world.
 
The currrent approach is wrong. Our economics is designed to to be dependent on using unlimited amouts of fossil fuels, and climate change mitigation is being worked out to accomodate this economy - impossible.
The economy must be redesigned to accomodate the renewable energy revolution.  
 
BAN FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES & INCENTIVES
                             TAX CARBON 
GLOBAL EMISSIONS
estimated from
world energy plans.
50% incease by 2030
100% increase by 2050