{"id":24675,"date":"2017-08-16T09:17:33","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T14:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24675"},"modified":"2017-08-16T09:17:33","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T14:17:33","slug":"can-economic-growth-continue-without-fossil-fuels-the-ipcc-thinks-so%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8aheres-why-its-decarbonisation-models-are-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=24675","title":{"rendered":"Can economic growth continue without fossil fuels? The IPCC thinks so\u200a\u2014\u200ahere\u2019s why its decarbonisation models are\u00a0broken"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Can economic growth continue without fossil fuels? The IPCC thinks so\u200a\u2014\u200ahere\u2019s why its decarbonisation models are\u00a0broken<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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(Source: VICE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Published by <\/em>INSURGE INTELLIGENCE<\/em><\/a>, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. <\/em>Support us<\/em><\/a> to keep digging where others fear to\u00a0tread.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this third contribution to our symposium, \u2018Pathways to the Post-Carbon Economy\u2019<\/a>, biophysical economist Graham Palmer assesses the plausibility of conventional economic forecasts of a global energy transition away from fossil\u00a0fuels.<\/h4>\n

Most forecasts paint a rosy picture of continued, unimpeded economic growth, even as the world weans itself entirely off carbon-intensive energy sources. But are such scenarios really possible?<\/h4>\n

Palmer argues that they aren\u2019t\u200a\u2014\u200anot when we consider how the economy is fundamentally embedded in its biophysical environment. And if it isn\u2019t, then we need a new approach to modelling, which pays greater attention the intimate relationship between energy, our societies, and their economies.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Climate change discourse is structured around competing narratives\u200a\u2014\u200adegrowth, pro-renewables, pro-nuclear, localism, green business, techno-optimism, and so on. The energy scenario modelling by the UN\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a foundation for much of the discourse.<\/p>\n

Integrated models are connected with socioeconomic and technological storylines to forecast a picture of key characteristics of future transformation pathways.<\/p>\n

When we look at models from the most recent IPCC report (AR5)<\/a>, we see that that baseline scenarios project a 300% to 800% increase in GDP-per-capita by 2100. In these scenarios, strong mitigation is achieved with global consumption losses of only between 3 to 11% relative to baseline. Hence, the net-cost of decarbonising seems trivial over the long run.<\/p>\n

From this perspective, the solution<\/a> that follows is to put in place appropriate policies, support technology, remove fossil fuel subsidies and apply a modest but comprehensive carbon price.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can economic growth continue without fossil fuels? The IPCC thinks so\u200a\u2014\u200ahere\u2019s why its decarbonisation models are\u00a0broken (Source: VICE) Published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. Support us to keep digging where others fear to\u00a0tread. In this third contribution to our symposium, \u2018Pathways to the Post-Carbon Economy\u2019, biophysical economist Graham […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,7],"tags":[6410,240,328,15631,6113,440,15632],"class_list":["post-24675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-decarbonization","tag-economic-growth","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-graham-palmer","tag-insurge-intelligence","tag-ipcc","tag-medium-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24676,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24675\/revisions\/24676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}