Kevin Anderson Beyond Dangerous Climate Change Does Paris Lock-out 2 Degrees?

There is another new talk by Kevin Anderson. The image is his title page and the title is Beyond Dangerous Climate Change: Does Paris Lock-out 2 Degrees?.

Kevin Anderson gave the talk on 9th of March 2016 to the Institute of International and European Affairs which is Ireland’s leading think tank on European and International affairs. They describe his message in this way.

In his presentation, Kevin Anderson revisited the scale of the climate challenge, arguing that whilst the science of climate change has progressed, there has been no corresponding acknowledgement of the rate at which our emissions from energy need to be reduced. He suggested that the Paris Agreement exemplifies this duality. Similarly, he argued that the focus on green growth continues to eclipse analysis which demonstrates the need for radical social as well as technical change. Prof. Anderson developed a quantitative framing of mitigation, based on IPCC carbon budgets, before finishing with more qualitative examples of what a genuine low-carbon future may contain.

Anderson's key message is that due to the constant privileging of economic analysis over physics, the finite carbon budget consistent with no more than two degrees Celsius of average global warming will only be achievable with an "outside" probability of 33% if the developed countries suppress energy demand and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10% each year and fully de-carbonise their energy sectors by 2035.

The talk is available as a podcast in mp3 format. Also available is Kevin Anderson's slide presentation.

The talk is also available on Youtube in two parts. Part One has had 1,975 views. Part Two has had 664 views.

I usually browse with Firefox and I have installed an add-on called Down load helper. That enables me to download talks as mp4 files I can listen to later.

There are two differences from the talk given to the University of Sheffield. The sound is a bit boomy and not as clear as the University of Sheffield recording. And when Kevin Anderson says "people with grey hair or no hair have failed the generation born since the IPCC was established", the grey-hairs seems to be the audience from the two in the foreground.

New Kevin Anderson talk Delivering 2 Degrees Triumph and Tragedy in Paris

The other day I noticed that Kevin Anderson has tweeted a new talk.

Anderson spoke at the University of Sheffield on 28 April 2016. Anderson's host was the Carbon Neutral University Network Sheffield and they provide a fulsome description of Anderson's 47 minute talk.

However, you should watch it for yourself or better still download the talk from Youtube. The sound quality is very good.

Kevin Anderson climate change - triumph and tragedy in Paris talk in Ireland

Kevin Anderson has just been in Ireland where he gave a talk with the title Climate change triumph and tragedy in Paris

Anderson was hosted by the Climate Change and Environmental Sciences Committee of the Academy, and Future Earth Ireland and the Environmental Protection Agency. The venue was the Academy House, Dawson Street, Dublin on Thursday March 10 at 6pm.

The talk was recorded and has been uploaded to You Tube where it has had 258 viewings.

Speaking of the numbers of viewers, Anderson's recent talk at the London School of Economics is also now on You Tube, where it has had 10,242 viewers!

Kevin Anderson returns to the London School of Economics

Update: 6 March 2016. There is a 580 MB MP4 of this talk available for download.

Kevin Anderson has just given a talk with the title Going Beyond "Dangerous" Climate Change How Paris Locks Out 2C at the London School of Economics (LSE) about climate change and the Paris Agreement.

The London School of Economics have provided this audio download 44.3MB mp3

For me this this is almost a case of the wheel turning a full circle. I first got to really know about climate change from listening to Anderson's 2011 LSE talk Going Beyond Dangerous Climate Change: Exploring the void between rhetoric and reality in reducing carbon emissions. I would also recommend that podcast too.

LSE describes the event which took place last week on 4 February 2016 like this.

Speaker(s): Professor Kevin Anderson

Chair: Professor Tim Dyson

Recorded on 4 February 2016 at Old Theatre, Old Building

Despite high-level statements to the contrary, there is little to no chance of maintaining the global mean surface temperature increase at or below 2 degrees Celsius. Moreover, the impacts associated with 2°C have been revised upward sufficiently so that 2°C now more appropriately represents the threshold between 'dangerous' and 'extremely dangerous' climate change.

Kevin Anderson will address the endemic bias prevalent amongst many of those building emission scenarios to underplay the scale of the 2°C challenge. In several respects, the modeling community is actually self-censoring its research to conform to the dominant political and economic paradigm. However, even a slim chance of 'keeping below' a 2°C rise now demands a revolution in how we consume and produce energy. Such a rapid and deep transition will have profound implications for the framing of society, and is far removed from the rhetoric of green growth that increasingly dominates the climate change agenda.

Kevin Anderson (@KevinClimate) is Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester.

I am really looking forward to listening to the podcast. Audio download 44.3MB mp3

Video Kevin Anderson on COP21 the Paris Agreement honesty hope

Marc Hudson is an Australian based in Manchester. He writes for the Manchester Climate Monthly. He has done another interview with Kevin Anderson and uploaded it to You tube. I appear to have been viewer number 479.

Anderson thinks that the Paris Agreement has a very strong headline message in endorsing the 1.5 Celsius warming temperature limit, but then turns out to be 31 pages of legal fluff that supports an implicit endorsement of a climate change techno-fix of bio-energy carbon capture and storage later in the 21st century instead of immediate deep reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.

Nick Breeze video 1.5 Degrees COP21 and the Paris Agreement

Nick Breeze has done another excellent short summary video about COP21 and the Paris Agreement and Government responses. The video includes short excerpts of interviews with Brit MP Caroline Lucas, Saleemul Huq, Kevin Anderson, Jason Box and Michael Bloomberg. I was viewer number 116 on You Tube

The key message I get from this is that irrespective of the obvious high ambition represented by the 1.5 (or 2) Celsius of warming temperature limit in the Paris Agreement, the actions and responses of governments and policy-makers are still rhetoric and business-as-usual. In other words, nowhere near anything like a rational response to the seriousness of the risk.

This is exemplified in the short interview with Shannon Phllips, Minister for the Environment in the Province of Alberta, who squirms and says its unfair to be asked if the Alberta tar sands industry should be shut down so as to stay within a carbon budget consistent with 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius.

Mind you we in New Zealand are no better than the Canadians. Within days of COP21 winding up, John Key was denying the need to make any changes to New Zealand's inadeqate climate change policies.

Dr. Hugh Hunt & Professor Kevin Anderson discussing Climate Change realities at COP21

Yes, we are still talking about climate change and COP21! This interview is with Hugh Hunt and Kevin Anderson and is courtesy of Nick Breeze and You-tube.

Anderson and Hunt discuss carbon budgets, the emissions of the 1% and the feasibility of "Dr Strangelove" technology such as bioenergy carbon capture and storage. There is a transcript at Nick Breeze's blog.

COP21 Kevin Anderson the crisis is worse than we think & scientists are self-censoring to downplay risk

Kevin Anderson talking to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now at COP21 Paris.

COP21 Paris Agreement Johan Rockstrom Kevin Anderson

Johan Rockstrom and Kevin Anderson speaking as a panel of 5 scientists commenting on the final text of the Paris Agreement.

Must-Read Kevin Anderson views on the Paris Agreement and COP21

The Paris Agreement: 10/10 for presentation; 4/10 for content. Shows promise.

"If the global community is to maintain emissions with the 2°C carbon budget, there needs to be much greater recognition of the profound and immediate challenges we face. The scale of emission reductions will not be delivered through eloquent speeches, win-win rhetoric and green-growth spin. Zero carbon energy technologies are a prerequisite of a 2°C future – but they are far from sufficient. They will only deliver the necessary levels of mitigation if they are accompanied by fundamental changes to the political and economic framing of contemporary society. This is a mitigation challenge far beyond anything discussed in Paris – yet without it our well-intended aspirations will all too soon wither and die on the vine. We owe our children, our planet and ourselves more than that. So let Paris be the catalyst for a new paradigm – one in which we deliver a sustainable, equitable and prosperous future for all."

Talks in the city of light generate more heat. Nature

"The allying of deep and early reductions in energy demand with rapid substitution of fossil fuels by zero-carbon alternatives frames a 2 °C agenda that does not rely on negative emissions. So why was this real opportunity muscled out by the economic bouncers in Paris? No doubt there are many elaborate and nuanced explanations — but the headline reason is simple. In true Orwellian style, the political and economic dogma that has come to pervade all facets of society must not be questioned. For many years, green-growth oratory has quashed any voice with the audacity to suggest that the carbon budgets associated with 2 °C cannot be reconciled with the mantra of economic growth."

I can't really add anything to Anderson's analysis. I strongly recommend that you read both items.

Kevin Anderson shocks Bloomberg with net zero carbon message by 2050

More COP21 media coverage. Kevin Anderson does a five minute interview emphasizing the need for carbon dioxide emissions to drop to zero by 2050 with the slightly incredulous Bloomberg Business channel hosts. I don't think rapid and radical decarbonization of the economy is really part of their world view!

COP 21 and the path to controlling climate change.

Kevin Anderson on the Copenhagen Accord 2 degrees C budgets and COP21 Paris

Courtesy of You Tube and Manchester Climate Monthly.