Page 21 - Respond 2016 Magazine

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New calculations from a US NGO
indicate tar sands extraction in
Alberta, Canada will have to stop
for the world to have a chance of
limiting warming to below 2C

Pic: © sbamueller @Flickr.com

New wells have investment and political interests behind them To sum it up:
that makes them harder to shut down when the time comes. Carbon Tracker: 50% chance of 2C > some new gas and oil OK

“Since political action is required, we should look for solutions Oil Change International: 66% chance of 2C > no new extraction
that are not just economically optimised, but politically optimised.
Politically, it is much more difficult to demand the loss of physical The difference is important because it reveals a split amid
capital – on which dollars have been spent, and steel and concrete influential thinkers in the climate debate about the best way to
installed – than to relinquish the future hope of benefits from effect change.
untapped reserves,” argues the report.
The question hinges on whether to engage fossil fuel companies
Here we find the crux of the disagreement. Carbon Tracker offers on their terms: the IEA is considered an authoritative voice within
an olive branch of leniency to oil and gas companies to continue the energy sector and some new oil wells is better than none. Or is
doing what they do for a while longer. OCI says they are drunk on it time for all-out war?
profits and we should take away their keys.
McKibben notes that his initiation to carbon budgets came when
Having made that decision, the maths was found to back it up. he based a seminal essay on the subject on the work of Carbon
According to Kretzmann the major difference between Carbon Tracker. But he now clearly believes their approach is too weak for
Tracker’s report one year ago and Oil Change’s more recent one the times.
is the budget under which we allow ourselves and the fossil fuel
companies to operate. Writing in the Guardian, Monbiot frames it as the conflict we must
have: “Preventing climate breakdown means defending democracy
This is a risk judgement. In the climate world, the more carbon you from plutocrats. It’s their interests versus the rest of humanity’s.”
emit, the less chance you have of achieving a certain temperature
limit. Carbon Tracker base their budget on a scenario developed by The war has already begun. Climate activists are drawing “red
the International Energy Agency (IEA) – called IEA 450. lines” in the grassy hills of Dakota and the courtrooms of the US, in
the mud of the Ecuadorean Amazon, on the backs of whales in the
“IEA 450 is based on a 50% chance of 2C, which frankly we think Great Australian Bight and dozens of other places.
is too low to represent the top end of the Paris range,” Kretzmann
told Climate Home. “If this is our policy ambition, shouldn’t we be Calls for a moratorium on new coal mines will now shift to all
aiming for better than a coin flip’s chance of success?” new fossil fuel extraction. The above formula will be cited as the
justification.
OCI chose a scenario that gave a 66% chance of staying within 2C.
Their budget also gives the world a 50% shot of staying below 1.5C The reason McKibben invokes mathematics is its immutability. “The
– the more ambitious end of the Paris agreement. numbers are the numbers,” he says. An equation is inarguable. But
the simplicity hides the subtext.
So the new maths is based on a decision about acceptable risk.
Which is fair enough but hardly revelatory. A decision is being taken and as the maths gets more complicated,
we shouldn’t ignore the rounding.

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