Page 83 - Managing Global Warming

54 Managing Global Warming

the mainstream view is that by 2100 population is forecast to be anywhere between 7
and 16 billion [16].
Although there may be ample scope for consumption per capita to be reduced in
OECD and other developed countries, Kahneman et al. have shown [17] that we
are reluctant willingly to forego benefits we already enjoy. Substantial resistance
may therefore be assumed should policymakers attempt to impose significant cuts
in energy consumption.
More than 70% of the global population are poor or on low income, defined as liv-
ing on less than 10 dollars per day (2011 PPPUS$) [18]. For those 5 billion people,
there are both moral and economic imperatives that will drive them to increase energy
consumption per capita. Hitherto, energy for the world’s poor has largely come from
traditional biomass. Notwithstanding efforts to facilitate the transition to low and zero
emission energy sources, extensive reliance on biomass seems likely to continue.
Fig. 2.4 (supra) illustrates that even in the wealthy United States, the consumption
of traditional biomass has hardly changed in absolute terms in 200 years, a period
that has seen a thirtyfold increase in its population and several generations of new
primary energy sources.
Given the current distribution of fertility rates [16], if population were to approach
the higher estimates, the likelihood is that most of that growth would be in societies
with low-energy consumption per capita. Nevertheless, even low levels of personal
consumption across large numbers of new people amount to a substantial additional
demand for energy. In short, a reversal of the long-term historical trend of growth of
energy consumption per capita is improbable and if it does happen, is likely to be mod-
est; indeed, the possibility cannot be ignored that the historical growth trend might
even accelerate.
Combining the factors affecting energy consumption, it is hard to imagine that in
any orderly transition, significant global reductions would be feasible. As fast as the
wealthy reduce consumption (and that might not be very fast at all and may even con-
tinue to follow the historical growth trend), the world’s poor would be increasing it.
The idea that, save in extremis, governments across the world would act in concert to
force deep reductions in energy consumption that negatively impact their citizens’
lifestyles, seems unlikely. For these reasons, I set the plausibility range for reductions
in TFC from its historical trend, between 0% and a generous 20%.
The start date for these efforts to reduce energy consumption is a matter of public
policy. There seems little reason to prefer one start date against another and therefore
any year is plausible.

2.5.3 Reduction in FF carbon intensity (CIR)

As already noted, reduction in FF carbon intensity (CIR) refers only to reducing emis-
sions by burning FF with lower carbon emissions. Natural gas has the lowest emis-
sions of all FF, about half those of coal when used to produce electricity [19,20].
Even if all FF were replaced with gas and used to produce electricity to power a wholly
electrified global economy, the reduction in emissions could not exceed 50% and