The reports just keep coming in, each more dire than the one before it. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, published its latest report on the 13th of April. It’s tone is even more urgent than the one they issued in 2007. The panel speaks very plainly: ‘A rapid shift to less-polluting energy will be needed to avoid catastrophic global warming, because global emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases have accelerated to unprecedented levels…”

The panel is also very clear about the source of the problem-carbon energy-principally oil, gas and coal. These emissions-largely from the burning of oil, gas and coal-grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in any of the three previous decades and will need to be slashed 40%–70% by mid-century, and the transition out of the carbon energy era must be nearly complete by century׳s end, or global temperatures will spiral out of control, says the report. None of this should come as a surprise to anyone. This increase directly correlates with the trend of growing development, particularly China, India and Brazil. And the panel is adamant about the time line. We have less than a century to complete the transition out of the […]