Description
Model run by Jason Jay, MIT Sloan
This plan attempts to achieve the Hansen/McKibben goal of 350 ppm stabilization. Hansen believes this will avoid the worst impacts of climate change and actually be sustainable and stable, without triggering positive feedback loops.
This is evidenced in the temperature graph - this model run is one of the few (perhaps the only) in which temperature actually starts to level off by 2100.
With the C-ROADS model, the only way to get to 350 is to floor all the emissions parameters, taking 99% of carbon out of the economy. This is not probable; it therefore highlights the limits of the model and the gravity of the situation. What radical innovations are required to accomplish this? What is outside the model boundary, for example carbon sequestration through agriculture and aquaculture, and geo-engineering?
Like the 80% model, this one necessarily involves radical cuts in emissions by 2050, along with effective elimination of deforestation and substantial increases in natural CO2 sequestration from the planting of new trees.
This plan addresses the concerns expressed by some experts, such as NASA climate scientist James Hansen, that the 450 ppm stablization target advocated by the IPCC and IEA is too high. Hansen and others have called for a return to the 350 ppm atmospheric concentration of CO2 that prevailed prior to the industrial revolution. This is a tall order, since concentrations today are nearly 400 ppm.
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