Why Bali will be another missed opportunity

There is almost no chance the Bali round of negotiations, which get underway this week, will actually accomplish anything of consequence. Mostly because the United States has no stomach for mandatory greenhouse gas emission caps, but also because too many people still can't get their minds around the numbers involved in climate change.

CNN predicts "lengthy and contentious negotiations on how best to combat global warming." That's putting it mildly.

For example, take this sentence from the just-released United Nations Development Program's 2007 Human Development Report: "On the basis of current trends and present policies, energy-related CO2 emissions could rise by more than 50 percent over 2005 levels by 2030."

The current CO2 concentration is 382 parts per million (although some are quoting 385, let's not quibble). Half again that much is 191, for a total of 573 ppm.

There's something like general agreement that "dangerous" climate change is likely if we don't keep emissions below 450 ppm, and almost no one would argue that 550 ppm is safe. So what the UNDP is saying is, business as usual will be really, really bad for everyone.

So what will it take for us to avoid catastrophic change? Here are the numbers as detailed by the UN:

We currently crank out 29 billion tonnes of CO2 (and equivalent sundry gases) each year.

We need to cut those emissions by at least 80 per cent (probably closer to 90, but let's try to stay optimistic for a moment) to avoid exceeding danger levels.

That means we need get those emissions down to about 6 or 7 Gt of CO2.

(I'm ignoring population growth for the sake of simple math and because I don't want anyone to slit their wrists while trying to get their heads around the problem.)

There are between 6 and 7 billion people on the planet, meaning that if we allocated this "safe pollution quota" equitably, each country would eventually be permitted to emit just one tonne per capita. This is not a popular idea, but ultimately, any scheme that doesn't try to apportion emission rights fairly is doomed to failure because the developing world -- i.e., China -- will ignore it.

Nigeria, Bangladesh and Tanzania, among others, by comparison, emit a fraction of their per capita tonnes, so there's no reason for them to even think about cutting back. (See here for the "footprint" data.) So we can forget about them. India is currently at only 1.2 t per person. So even they've got to cut back a bit, although it shouldn't be too hard, relatively speaking.

But Canada, at 20, and the U.S., at 20.6, are spewing 20 times their share. Compare that with the latest House-Senate compromise on a US energy bill, one that will ask the auto companies to increase average fleet fuel economy by 40 per cent by 2020. Better than nothing, but not nearly enough to amount to a significant reduction.

We're a long, long way from a widespread understanding what it's going to take. We're going to need more of thinking behind Google RE < C plan -- renewable energy supplies that are cheaper than coal. A lot more.