If the world’s development continues at its current acceleration rate, so will its energy use, which will be its carbon use unless policies are implemented by the major nations. Simple extrapolation of the current CO2 doubling rate gives 1000 ppm in the atmosphere by 2100. Some say we can’t exploit that much in known fossil fuel reserves, but we see new large reserves all the time, and are already finding ways to exploit the less efficient reserves. This could amount to 5 C above pre-industrial levels, and it looks like the most likely scenario to me for the reasons mentioned in the main post that replacing carbon use globally is almost impossible. Given this, the planning has to take into account the inevitable environmental effects.
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