A new web-based tool named the “Global Calculator” is designed to interactively raise awareness of looming climate change impacts. A lack of swift and meaningful action on behalf of the international community to implement global mitigation and adaptation strategies is expected to increase the severity of these climate change impacts.
An accompanying report with insights from the Global Calculator entitled “Prosperous Living for the World in 2050” attempts to answer a critical question for all of mankind:
“Is it physically possible to meet our climate targets and ensure everyone has good living standards by 2050?” The backdrop here is the confluence of three trends projected to come to a cataclysmic head by 2050: the United Nations Population Fund projects the global population to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 from a current level of 7.2 billion, while at the same time, the global economy is expected to triple in size – i.e. global GDP is to surpass $200 trillion in 2050 – led by the then ‘Asian global growth engine’ and, according to scientists’ estimates, harmful global greenhouse gas emissions will need to be curtailed to “around half of today’s levels to have a chance of meeting (…) international commitments to constrain the global mean temperature increase to 2°C.”
To help answer the above question, an international team – with scientists and experts from over ten leading international organizations – under the auspices of the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change and co‐funded by the EU’s Climate-KIC, a public-private climate innovation initiative, built the so-called “Global Calculator” to model the world’s energy, land, food and climate systems to 2050. “The climate impacts of different pathways are also illustrated by linking the model to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate science,” the report states.
Now everyone is able to visualize the potential climate impacts of different pathways because the “Global Calculator” allows users to “design their own vision of the future energy, land and food system to 2050 by combining their choices of 40 levers.” The model, its assumptions, definitions, and methodology are all made available on the website.
Illustrating that there are multiple pathways to the 2°C target, users are able to view four pre-loaded plausible exemplary pathways. Some are meant to “recreate the results of other models, some show an organisation’s view of how they would decarbonise the world, and some have been designed to illustrate particular points,” the report explains.
These four plausible 2°C pathways point to the following:
- The world has enough energy, land and food resources for all people to ‘live well’ while cutting carbon emission “to a level consistent with a 50% chance of 2°C warming.”
- The prerequisite for that, however, is a meaningful transformation that includes ‘clean-up’ measures applied to current technologies and fuels. The report indicates that “the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of electricity globally needs to fall by at least 90% by 2050.” Interestingly, the report views solar, wind, hydro, nuclear and carbon capture and storage (CCS) as energy sources for power generation with the biggest potential. However, it stresses that “very ambitious effort on at least two of these” is critical and explains further: “We will still need some fossil fuel electricity generation (for example, for electricity balancing) but it must be cleaned up. We need to move away from unabated coal power plants with immediate effect and install CCS on 500 to 1,500 GW of our fossil fuel generation capacity by 2050 (equivalent to around 700 to 2,100 power plants).”
Source: “Prosperous Living for the World in 2050” report
- A more productive use of the world’s limited arable land resources is indispensable. In this respect, forests play a significant role in acting “as a valuable carbon sink” globally. The report paints a bleak picture: “Over the last 10 years, almost 200 million hectares of native forest land has been cut down, partly driven by increased demand for agricultural land. Total demand for food could rise by around 45% by 2050 as population and wealth increase, so this deforestation trend is at risk of continuing. But to protect our climate, we should be expanding our forest area by 5-15% by 2050.”
The report finds that “rely[ing] on running out of fossil fuel as a means of abating climate change” is a poor strategy because the “world has enough fossil fuel resources to put the world at risk of a global mean temperature increase of over 6°C by 2100.” You can now explore what that actually means by using the “Global Calculator” to get a better understanding – based on scientific insight – of trade-offs and interaction between certain lifestyles, food production, carbon emissions and the subsequent impact of climate change on these variables. 
Source: The Global Calculator
To create your own pathway, click ‘Designing a Pathway’ here. Please see the entire report for detailed findings, definitions and caveats. Remember, models are only imperfect tools to replicate the complex climate reality. Nevertheless, they serve as a decent approximation and can help devise appropriate strategies based on the understanding of the underlying interconnected processes that science has deciphered to date.
Lastly, even if the world ideally agreed on a globally concerted effort to reduce CO2 emissions, it appears a pattern of more frequent and increasingly severe weather events has been set in motion by changes already made to the earth’s climate. Many expect historically extreme weather to become the new normal regardless of future climate action.
