To avoid climate breakdown, eliminating fossil fuels is that the simple half, consistent with faculty member Johan Rockström, co-director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact analysis in European nation. He says that safeguarding biological resources like water, soil and diversity are going to be the last word take a look at of whether or not warming targets are often reached.
You’ve light-emitting diode the science on the framework of 9 supposed planetary boundaries that we have a tendency to shouldn’t cross, that embody global climate change, however conjointly factors like land-system modification and fresh use. Why take this approach?
‘(The framework) answers wherever are the biophysical processes within the Earth’s system that regulate our ability to possess a stable climate system and planet. And what you discover is that it’s not solely concerning carbon, it’s conjointly concerning biological systems and processes. it’s taking all the planetary boundaries seriously and (recognising that) all of them move with one another.’
How will this approach tie in with the challenge to limit warming to one.5°C higher than pre-industrial levels, as elaborate within the eight October report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
‘If you browse the one.5°C report rigorously, it tells you that, yes, we’ve got to essentially decarbonize the world’s energy system by 2045, 2050 by the newest, to face an opportunity at one.5°C. however the belief is, and it’s very a necessity to it exploit, that the general resilience of the earth is maintained, that carbon continues to be sequestered (stored) all told our natural ecosystems.
‘How we have a tendency to cater to natural capital and therefore the living region are going to be elementary as to whether we’ll fail or succeed with Paris (the Paris Agreement to limit world warming).’
The EU this month proclaimed its new strategy on the bioeconomy – the a part of the economy that deals with natural resources – to bring the alinement nearer to the Paris climate objectives. Why is that this important?
‘We focus all our attention on coal, oil and gas, however after you observe the agenda overall, that’s the simpler a part of the climate challenge. The far more difficult half is water, soil, diversity, nitrogen, phosphorus, the bio dimension of the economy and of the climate challenge.
‘Not solely do I see several opportunities during a bio-based resource economy, I conjointly see monumental challenges to induce this right.
‘The key here is to require a systems approach (i.e. perceive however ecosystems and climate interact) and to require a full life cycle approach, so to seem at the general challenges around all the aspects of the bioeconomy. If one will that, i feel several solutions can emerge.’