The last part of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published Monday, April 4, looks at ways to reduce emissions responsible for global warming. His analysis highlights the importance of switching to less emitting technologies, or improving the energy efficiency of existing technologies. He discusses the importance of individual behavior in reducing emissions and the policies to promote these lifestyle changes.
Franck Lecocq, director of the International Center for Research on Environment and Development (Cired), is one of the co-authors of the third part of this sixth IPCC report. He returns for L’Express to the technological possibilities of reducing CO2 emissions and their limits presented in the report, and sheds light on the question of sobriety that underlies this voluminous scientific document.
L’Express: For the first time, the report mentions CO2 storage and absorption techniques. Is it to recognize that negative emissions are a viable solution in the commitments of States to reduce their CO2 emissions?
Frank Lecocq: There are many debates on the question of CO2 absorption, and the report does not limit itself solely to technological solutions. There is indeed a first debate which is on the capture and storage of carbon at the level of energy production plants operating on the basis of fossil fuels or industries emitting greenhouse gases. The report does note significant potential there, but it points out that the development and improvement of these techniques has been extremely slow in recent years. There remain a host of questions and barriers to scaling up these carbon capture and storage methods.
This means that these solutions cannot be relied upon to keep fossil fuel power plants running. The report also notes that if we look at the CO2 emissions of coal-fired or liquefied gas power plants already installed and those that are planned, and if we imagine that they will operate within the expected lifetime, we will already be emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the total budget we have to stay below 1.5°C of global warming. And we would even emit about as much as the total budget we have to be able to stay below two degrees. In other words, reducing emissions and meeting global warming targets requires closing fossil fuel power plants early.
But these carbon-absorbing solutions can still be useful at the margin, right?
This is the second, more general debate, which is that if we want to achieve carbon neutrality, we will actually have to get rid of residual emissions, that is to say the CO2 emissions that persist in the sectors where it is impossible to avoid them. This requires techniques to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it. The report looks in detail at all the methods. He notes that the only methods, whose effectiveness has been proven and which are known to work on a large scale, are those linked to the storage of carbon in biomass, that is, in soils and forests. We can increase this phenomenon of natural pump but all the other methods are still very far from having proven their effectiveness.
The other interesting approach of this report is that it also raises the question of demand, and how to adapt it to climate ambitions…
The report does explore individual behaviors and their impacts on reducing emissions. For example on how you can change your diet, by consuming less meat, or how to travel long distance, that is to say opt for the train rather than taking the plane… This kind many things reduces emissions globally. And then the report also insists a lot on the importance of the policies and measures to be put in place to allow these behavioral changes. For example, I may want or be ready to walk or even take a bike to get to my work, but that assumes that I can live not too far from my work and therefore have the infrastructure to avoid taking my car. . This affects land use planning and housing policies. In detail, the report really shows how policies that structure demand also have the potential to reduce energy demand and CO2 emissions.
Does this mean that the IPCC speaks of the need for a form of sobriety?
It is not a word that is used in the report. But this report shows, with regard to the literature on the subject, that access to a decent standard of living for populations who do not have access to it is in no way incompatible with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. and including a very rapid and very significant reduction in these emissions.
This will have a cost, and significant social repercussions. How do scientists observe this?
We have options at our disposal that allow us to halve emissions in 2030, at limited cost, below 100 dollars per tonne of CO2. But this type of reduction can only be achieved through efforts in all sectors. The necessary transformations are important all over the world and they will inevitably have repercussions in many different sectors. The scientific literature on the implications from an economic point of view is vast, it actually shows that this transition has an impact on GDP. There is a reduction associated with the constraint of the low carbon transition. It is often modest but it is very real, with obviously significant disparities between regions and countries, but also in the different employment sectors. There are sectors and regions that stand to lose, such as those that depend on fossil industries, or that are very large energy consumers. But some sectors, on the contrary, are favored by these transitions and the net balance is balanced, or even appears slightly positive.
Of course, behind these figures hide transitions that are very complex to implement. This is why we insist a lot on the importance of working in fair transitions so that everyone finds their place in a low-carbon world. There are opportunities in this transition not only to reduce emissions, which is the main objective, but also to advance on other objectives that societies give themselves. It’s not the climate against the rest. For example, having decent and affordable housing, not too far from city centers, is in itself a shared objective in many countries and has nothing to do with the climate. But it turns out that if we manage to move in that direction, reducing emissions becomes easier, since the demand for transport is lower and it is easier to find alternative means of transport. This report is very interested in this articulation.