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Physicist Professors Robert Socolow and ecologist Stephen Pacala, Co-Directors of The Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University have come up with a surprisingly clear-cut way to approaching the dilemma of global warming called stabilisation wedges. The theory aims to demonstrate how global warming is a problem which can be solved by implementing today's technologies to reduce CO2 emissions

In order to stabilise the world’s carbon emissions, Socolow and Pacala suggest not searching for one solution but to harness seven categories of reduction, using current technologies. The phrase ‘stabilization wedges’ was coined in a paper in a Science journal in 2004, which set out this realistic yet effective blueprint for the reduction of CO2 emissions.

It claims that humanity already possesses fundamental scientific, technical and industrial know-how to enable us to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half century. The wedges would each play a part in lowering the angle of the line representing carbon emissions growth.

A wedge represents an activity that reduces emissions to the atmosphere that starts at zero today and increases to 1 giga tonne per year of reduced carbon emissions in 50 years, a cumulative total of 25 giga tonnes of emission reduction over 50 years.

To solve the carbon and climate problem over the next half century, would mean deploying the technologies and lifestyle changes necessary to fill all seven wedges. Combined these would reduce carbon emissions enough to stablise carbon concentration in the earth’s atmosphere.

The solution to global warming appears extremely complex, with many searching for a solution to the world’s current addiction to fossil fuels - the main contributor of CO2 emissions.

Guide to stabilization triangle theory

Socolow and Pacala identified the following potential ‘wedges’ that are already established practices or technologies today, but have the potential to be scaled up over the next 50 years to contribute to stabilising CO2 emissions.

Efficiency and conservation

• Improved fuel economy – doubling the fuel economy of the worlds cars
• Reduced reliance on cars – halving the number of miles travelled buy car
• More efficient buildings – using energy efficient light bulbs in all commercial buildings
• Improved power plant efficiency – increasing current coal based electricity at twice today’s efficiency 

 

Can CO2 emissions be stabilised by adopting the stabilisation wedge theory?

Decarbonisation of electricity and fuels

• Substituting natural gas for coal – carbon emissions from natural gas plants are almost half that of coal plants
• Storage of carbon captured in power plants – carbon capture and storage (CCS)  technology prevents 90% of carbon emissions reaching the atmosphere. Installing CCS at 800GW of baseload coal plants in next 50 years.
• Doubling the world’s current nuclear capacity – recognised that this would require restoring public confidence in safety and waste disposal.
• Increasing wind electricity capacity by 50 – estimated to require 30m hectares of land (equivalent to 3% of the area of the United States)
• Increasing solar energy capacity by 700 – estimated to require 2m hectares of photovoltaic panels (equivalent to 3 m2 per person)
• Increasing biofuel production by 50 – estimated to require a sixth of world’s crop land. Recognised that it could affect traditional agricultural output. 

Natural Sinks

• Reducing tropical deforestation and management of temperate and tropical forests – would require 2 stages
(1) doubling the current rate of forest planting
(2) eliminating tropic deforestation within 50 years
• Agricultural soil management – adopting conservation tilling in all agricultural soil, which is a way of growing crops from year to year without disturbing the soil through ploughing. reduces decomposition of organic material which would release greenhouse gases.

Wedges include solar power, wind power, bio fuel (60 second guide?) more efficient appliances, green buildings (link to eco towns), coal plant carbon capture (known as CCS – 60 second guide?) public transport, transport fuel efficiency, nuclear power (60 second guide) and so on.                    

ARTICLE: Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies