Full Title: Legal Disputes Related to Climate Change Will Continue for a Century
Author(s): Richard J. Pierce Jr
Publisher(s): George Washington University Law School
Publication Date: January 1, 2012
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
The average global temperature is already certain to increase by 2 degrees Fahrenheit. It will increase by far more, with other major attendant changes in climate, unless we reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases (ghgs) by at least 50% by 2050. The effects of failure to accomplish that daunting task will be catastrophic. They include the deaths of millions and the displacement of scores of millions. The worst effects will be experienced in places like central India and central Africa, which will suffer extreme desertification, and in many island states, coastal Indonesia and large portions of Bangladesh, which will be underwater. The US will suffer some significant adverse effects, however, including desertification of much of the southwest, submersion of significant parts of Florida and Louisiana, increases in the incidence and severity of storms of various types, and a 13 degree increase in the average summer temperature in Washington, DC.
The main impediments to effective climate change mitigation are economic and political. Hydrocarbons are much less expensive than carbon-free alternative sources of energy. I will focus primarily on the electricity sector, which accounts for nearly half of CO2 emissions,16 but the economic and political impediments are similar in the transportation and industrial sectors.