Question

What are stabilization wedges and how might their use offset future increases in greenhouse gas emmision? Give 5 wedge examples and indicate how might they help.

Answer 1

Since CO₂ is main greenhouse gas contributing to global warming, a consensus was made to check on the emission of the carbon into the atmosphere. For that “stabilization wedges” concept was introduced. The “stabilization wedges” acts as tool to cut the emissions leading to dramatic climatic changes. This tool argues that if we keep the carbon emission at the current rate for the next 50 years, it will result into the reduced emission of carbon thus stabilizing the atmosphere. To keep the emission flat, carbon project are required to reduce carbon emission around 8 billion tons per year. For that various strategies are proposed called “wedge strategies”. Below are the 5 strategies-

1. Fuel switching- It was proposed that switching from coal to gas will significantly reduce the carbon emission as there is almost complete burning of gas with less carbon emission than coal.
2. Generation of electricity using wind energy is second such strategy but to achieve that it was proposed that the wind capacity and electricity production has to be increased 10 times.
3. Solar electricity—Solar/photovoltaic cells are excellent source of carbon free and renewable energy source and its increased use by a factor of 50 will prevent significant carbon emission in upcoming years.
4. Nuclear fission provides around 17% of total global electricity with no carbon or CO₂ emission. Thus it is proposed a significant wedge strategy to reduce carbon emission in coming 50 years.
5. Transport efficiency: Fuel in car is one of the major source of carbon emission and reduction in its use as well as increase in the efficiency of fuel in cars will automatically reduce the carbon emission. It was proposed that increasing the fuel efficiency from 30mph to 60 mph would save a wedge of carbon emissions.