Containing Climate Change Urgent Yet Affordable: Global Analysis

"Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy," by the global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company analyzes 200 greenhouse gas abatement opportunities across 10 major sectors and 21 world regions.

It focuses on ways to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by about 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. The analysis shows that while the costs and investments appear manageable at a global level, they are likely to be challenging for individual sectors.

Wind Farm, Blyth Harbour, Northumberland, England (Photo by Ian Britton courtesy FreeFoto)

Governments are negotiating all this year to shape an effective international response to climate change that will follow the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period in 2012. A first draft of the text will be available at a UN gathering in Bonn in June and a final agreement is expected in Copenhagen in December.

"Whilst leaders in many nations discuss ambitious targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, there is also an intense debate underway regarding the technical and economic feasibility of different target levels, what emission reduction opportunities should be pursued, and the costs of different options for meeting the targets," McKinsey said, releasing the report today.

To provide a quantitative basis for these discussions, the company produced this analysis, supported by 10 global companies and organizations - The Carbon Trust, ClimateWorks, Enel, Entergy, Holcim, Honeywell, Shell, Vattenfall, Volvo, and WWF.

The McKinsey report finds that the potential exists to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by just enough to stay on track until 2030 to contain global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, the level most scientists say will avert the most drastic impacts of climate change.

According to WWF, one of the report's sponsors, world leaders now have all the information they need to shape a global climate deal for both developed and developing countries.

"The McKinsey study shows once and for all that taking action on climate change is both urgent and affordable," said WWF Director James Leape, speaking at the launch of the report in Brussels.

"As governments now invest in rebuilding the global economy, they have a unique opportunity, and indeed the imperative, to build a low-carbon economy that will both create jobs and stabilize the climate," said Leape. "The low-carbon technologies and production models already exist and they make economic as well as environmental sense."

"When the world's leaders meet in Copenhagen in December to agree a global deal on climate change, they will have no excuse for inaction," he said. "The world will be watching and expecting those leaders to adopt measures which will lead to a low-carbon economy, giving a fighting chance of keeping climate change below the crucial 2°C level."

Solar concentrating Stirling dishes at Sandia National Lab in Albuquerque, New Mexico set a new record for solar-to-grid conversion efficiency of 31.25 percent. December 2008. (Photo courtesy Sandia)

Peer-reviewed by scientists, economists and expert bodies including WWF, the McKinsey study presents its findings in the form of an "abatement cost curve."

Greenhouse gas abatement opportunities are grouped into three categories of technical measures - energy efficiency, low-carbon energy supply, and terrestrial carbon.

The analysis concludes that by 2030, wind, solar and other sustainable renewable energy could provide almost a third of all global power needs. Energy efficiency could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 25 percent.

Deforestation in developing countries, one of the biggest drivers of climate change and a major threat to sustainable development, could be almost fully halted by 2030, according to the report.

The cost of these and other measures outlined in the report amounts to less than half a percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product, a measure of the market value of all goods and services.

"Capturing all the potential will be a major challenge," the company said releasing the report. "It will require change on a massive scale, strong global cross-sectoral action and commitment, and a strong policy framework."

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