Schellnhuber raakt oververhit – tot wel 12 graden!

In een recent interview heeft Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, directeur van het ‘Potsdam Institut für Klimafolgenforschung’ (PIK), en de Nostradamus van het klimaatalarmise in Duitsland en het Vaticaan, zijn onheilsboodschap weer een tandje hoger gezet. De opwarming zou wel eens tot 12 graden kunnen oplopen! Hij roept wetenschappers op neer te dalen uit hun ivoren torens en de straat op te gaan om te strijden tegen klimaat’ontkenning’.

Onder de titel, ‘Schellnhuber: ‘Scientists have to take to the streets’ to counter climate denial’, rapporteerde ‘DW’:

It’s high time to act if we want to reach the goals of the Paris Accord, says climate researcher Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. He also urges scientists to come out of their ivory towers to fight climate denial.

DW: Where are we at with the world’s carbon budget – how much have we spent and how much have we got left?

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber: If we want to hold the 1.5 degrees [Celsius; 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit] line, which is the ambitious goal of the Paris agreement, we have maybe 300 billion tons left – more or less the budget of 10 years – if we do business as usual. If we want to hold the 2 degrees line, which is more realistic, we have another 20 to 30 years to go, but no more actually. So it’s a very tight budget.

DW: And in order to meet this tight budget, what do you see as being the major things that need to happen between now and then?

It’s quite mind-boggling – for example, by 2030, we have to phase out the combustion engine. And we have to completely phase out the use of coal for producing power. By 2040 we will probably have to replace concrete and steel for construction by wood, clay and stone.

DW: We now have an international climate agreement signed and ratified. Are we on track to meet our emissions reduction targets?

Germany actually has the more ambitious goal – here within the European Union – a 40 percent reduction by 2020. It looks fairly bleak actually, with the current policies in place we will not even meet our own target. Something fairly disruptive needs to happen, like closing down some of the operating coal-fired power stations. The European Union is underambitious – it should have raised its ambition immediately after Paris, but that did not happen. So it’s a very sluggish process.

China has probably already peaked its emissions now, which is amazing. India has an extremely ambitious solar energy program – [and is] now investing a lot. So, the only black horse in the race is the US.

DW: US President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the Paris accord. How big an impact would this have on the international climate action we’ve achieved so far?

That’s the one-billion-dollar-question. First of all, it’s not clear whether Trump will pull the US out of the Paris Agreement. I don’t think he will. Like other laggards and obstructers, in the past – like Saudi-Arabia – I think the US will just stay on-board and try to slow down all the processes.

What effect will it have? 10 years ago this would have been a complete disaster for climate policy. Now with China – the biggest emitter and also the biggest investor in renewables – and with the Asian economies now slowly changing, I think the world could achieve climate protection even without the US. …

I think if the very system of the scientific method and the scientific research is in doubt, then scientists have to take to the streets in the end and have to demonstrate and say: “Hey we are doing a job for you!”

We scientists love to sit in our ivory towers, untainted by the dirt of the real world and so on, [but] we have to take to the streets, we have to speak up. We have to leave our ivory towers, and we have to communicate to everybody that we want to be part of the solution. …

We are at the crossroads now: We either say: this thing is too big for us, this task cannot be done. [Then] we will be transformed by nature, because we will end up with a planet warming by 4, 5, 6 or even 12 degrees. It would be the end of the world as we know it, and I have all the evidence. Or we say: We’re doing the transformation ourselves.

Aldus Schellnhuber.

Lees verder hier.

Indien – om maar een voorbeeld te noemen – de president van de Nederlandse Bank herhaaldelijk zou waarschuwen voor de grote kladderadatsch, zou hij snel van zijn functie worden ontheven en worden toevertrouwd aan de liefdevolle zorg van gespecialiseerde instellingen. Schellnhuber zit echter nog steeds op zijn plek.

Voor mijn eerdere bijdragen over klimaat en aanverwante zaken zie hier, hier, hier, hier en hier.