How will peak oil impact the climate crisis?
JAN 07, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.022967
ENN : The burning of fossil fuels - notably coal, oil and gas - has accounted for about 80 percent of the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial era. Now, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York have shown that rise in carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels can be kept below harmful levels as long as emissions from coal are phased out globally within the next few decades. The research is published in the Aug. 5 in of Global Biogeochemical Cycles.
“This is the first paper in the scientific literature that explicitly melds the two vital issues of global peak oil production and human-induced climate change,” Kharecha said. “We’re illustrating the types of action needed to get to target carbon dioxide levels.”
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
