Futuríveis
sexta-feira, junho 06, 2008
Technology to the rescue... part 2
The world needs to spend $45,000bn on green technologies in the next 40 years, or 1.1 per cent of annual global economic output, to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency said on Friday.
The investment – much of it needed to accelerate development of new technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells and carbon storage – is roughly equivalent to the gross domestic product of Italy, though the IEA said it represented “a re-direction of economic activity and employment, and not necessarily a reduction of GDP”.
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an advisory body to world leaders, concluded last year that global carbon dioxide emissions would need to fall by 50-85 per cent by 2050 to prevent average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees centigrade.
Among the G8, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Canada – but not the US or Russia – have endorsed the goal of cutting emissions by half.
The IEA report, commissioned by G8 leaders at the Gleneagles summit in 2005, said reducing carbon emissions by half would require commercialising technologies now deemed too experimental or expensive given the present economic costs of polluting.
European emissions credits, for example, currently trade at about $30 a tonne, but under the IEA’s scenario could rise to between $200 and $500, depending on the rate of technological advance.
The agency said meeting the reduction target would require building 32 new nuclear plants and 17,500 wind turbines a year, and outfitting 35 coal-fired power stations annually with carbon capture and storage equipment. It added: “Nearly 1bn electric and fuel cell vehicles need to be on the roads by 2050.”
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