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To Meet Emissions Targets, We’ve All Got to Be like France [View all]
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/518711/to-meet-emissions-targets-weve-all-got-to-be-like-france/[font face=Serif]
Kevin Bullis
August 26, 2013
[font size=5]To Meet Emissions Targets, We’ve All Got to Be like France[/font]
[font size=4]Even with a terrible recession and a natural-gas bonanza, the U.S. isn’t cutting emissions fast enough.[/font]
[font size=3]Some experts still think it is possible to reduce emissions 50 percent globally by 2050, a somewhat arbitrary goal thought to minimize the risk of climate-change disasters. But they say hitting that goal is possible only if we try really hard.
…
Over a remarkable period of 30 years, France went from getting less than 1 percent of its power from nuclear power plants (which emit no carbon dioxide directly) to getting about 80 percent from them. During the period of the fastest nuclear build-out, France managed to reduce emissions at a rate of 2 percent per year, says David Victor, co-director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California, San Diego.
Victor says to hit emissions targets the whole world needs to do the same thing, and keep it up over a longer period.
The French transition wasn’t easy. Victor notes that this project was very expensive. And it got more expensive over time, something that would undoubtedly be the case worldwide as the cheapest options for reducing emissions are quickly picked off in the early years.
…[/font][/font]
Kevin Bullis
August 26, 2013
[font size=5]To Meet Emissions Targets, We’ve All Got to Be like France[/font]
[font size=4]Even with a terrible recession and a natural-gas bonanza, the U.S. isn’t cutting emissions fast enough.[/font]
[font size=3]Some experts still think it is possible to reduce emissions 50 percent globally by 2050, a somewhat arbitrary goal thought to minimize the risk of climate-change disasters. But they say hitting that goal is possible only if we try really hard.
…
Over a remarkable period of 30 years, France went from getting less than 1 percent of its power from nuclear power plants (which emit no carbon dioxide directly) to getting about 80 percent from them. During the period of the fastest nuclear build-out, France managed to reduce emissions at a rate of 2 percent per year, says David Victor, co-director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California, San Diego.
Victor says to hit emissions targets the whole world needs to do the same thing, and keep it up over a longer period.
The French transition wasn’t easy. Victor notes that this project was very expensive. And it got more expensive over time, something that would undoubtedly be the case worldwide as the cheapest options for reducing emissions are quickly picked off in the early years.
…[/font][/font]
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