Notes from Bruno Giussani's LunchOverIP

Andy Reisinger is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC - wikipedia page) that won -- collectively -- the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Al Gore for their work on scientifically assessing the state of the Earth's climate. He's actually a very important member of the group, because he has coordinated the small group writing and editing the summaries of the reports -- the documents that you've read about in the press and that have landed on governmental desks all over the world.
I'm moderating the session and introduce him as a "co-laureate of the Nobel Prize for Peace". Before starting his talk, he stresses that he's expressing only his personal views and is not representing the IPCC in a formal capacity.
He shares five key messages:

• Climate change is unequivocally happening. There is an increasing confidence among scientists that the change over the last 50 years is very likely due to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities.
• Changes in climate of 21st century will be unilke everyting that human civilization has experienced previously. "The world has not been that warm, nor has the global climate changed that rapidly, at any time over the past 10'000 years (ie. The span of human civilization)". Some key impacts of climate change if warming keeps going as it is going: Water stress for more than 1 billion people; 20-30% of species at increasing risk of extintion; Reduced crop yield at lower latitudes; Costal flooding in megadeltas of Africa/Asia; Health risks from heath, malnurition and diarrhea; Long-term (centuries) risks of meters of sea level rise
• Greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow largely because they're linked to development status, and alot of people ispire to the development status of the western world (China and India and Brazil). Under business-as-usual global emissions are projected to increase by 25-90% by 2030. It's of course very difficult to tell developing countries that they can't seek that status.
• Technology is the key tool that will allow us to provide more and more people with better "services", but provided at a lower amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Lots of potential for energy efficiency in building, industry, plants. And of course renewables can make a significant contribution in reducing growth in emissions. Nuclear power is also an option, if reducing emissions is your focus. Carbon capture is the newest tech, it's not expected to make a significant contribution in the next 15 years. So a portfolio of technologies both on the supply and the demand side can do the job.
• But the real question is that the application of available technology is not only a function of tech itself: it's a societal choice. Most of the technologies are currently available, but they also have to be affordable of cost-effective (societal choice: put a price on carbon), must be attractive, and must not be crowded out by existing investments. This can only be achieved with adequate policies and choices.

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