Chris Green, professor of economics from McGill University of Montreal, to speak on "Stabilizing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide: What Will it Take?" on Wednesday, July 10, at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Green's talk will begin at 3 p.m. in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences auditorium, room 338. The event is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by CIRES' Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.
Green, along with engineer Douglas Lightfoot, has examined the claim made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group III, that known technological options can stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide without requiring "drastic technological breakthroughs."
"Our work finds that a combination of energy efficiency improvements and renewable energies are not nearly sufficient to achieve stabilization," Green said.
Most carbon released into the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is the primary greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. But because CO2 has a long atmospheric life, scientists have determined that emissions must be reduced well below 1990 levels in order to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations by 2100, and control warming.
"If climate policies are framed on the assumption that existing technologies are sufficient to achieve stabilization when, in fact, they are not, they are likely to be very costly and result in time lost and resources wasted before other strategies are pursued that are more likely to contribute to stabilization," Green said.
"An energy-climate policy with greater prospects for successful stabilization than that assumed by the IPCC would have leading industrial nations commit to long-term research and development into new carbon-free technologies."
A map to the CIRES auditorium is available online at .