‘Carbon Revolution’ Needed to Curb Global Warming
The McKinsey Global Institute said on Thursday that the world needs a shift as radical as the Industrial Revolution to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 while safeguarding economic growth.
A modern "carbon revolution" to curb global warming would require a tenfold rise by 2050 in the level of economic output for every ton of greenhouse gasses emitted mainly by burning fossil fuels.
"This is comparable in magnitude to the labor productivity increases of the Industrial Revolution," a 48-page report said. The institute is the economic research arm of consultants McKinsey & Co.
The world needs to produce $7,300 of gross domestic product (GDP) for every ton of carbon dioxide emitted by 2050.Â
"Increasing carbon productivity tenfold in less than 50 years will be one of the greatest tests humankind has ever faced. But both history and economics give us confidence it can be done," it said.
The Institute also said most technologies were already available, ranging from better building insulation to cleaner coal generation, to axe world emissions of greenhouse gasses by 64 percent by 2050, or to 20 billion tons a year from 55 billion in 2008.
The Group of Eight leading industrial countries are considering a goal of a 50 percent cut in world emissions by 2050.Â
The costs of a "carbon revolution" is likely to be "manageable", at about 0.6 to 1.4 percent of global GDP by 2030, according to an estimate by the study. Large amounts of the costs could be raised by borrowing, muting any impact on growth.
The study said that the pace of change would have to be faster than during the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
It noted that labor productivity rose tenfold in the United States between 1830 and 1955. "The tenfold increase in labor productivity was achieved over 125 years; the carbon revolution needs to be achieved in only 42," it said.
It said that the world could make big savings in energy use with measures such as improving insulation of buildings and should also invest in more research and development, perhaps up to $80 billion a year by 2050.
India and China now use about 20 percent more energy to produce a ton of steel than the European Union or Japan. The McKinsey study said the attitudes of both managers and consumers had to change, partly by sharing new clean technology.