36C3 - Science for future?

36C3 preroll music

Herald: Now we come to Bernhard
Stoevesandt. "Science for future?". Your

stage - your talk. Here we go.

Applause

Bernhad Stoevesandt: Thank you very much.
OK. OK. This is not just my talk. This

talk has a history. I have a coauthor,
Martin Dörenkämper, who is a colleague of

mine who could not come here, but - so, I
will give this talk by myself, but we

worked together over the year on this talk
because this talk has a history. And it's

a bit of the history of Scientists for
Future, which is an association of

scientists that evolved this year,
basically with the movement of those

students and pupils of Fridays for Future.
And there were questions, you know, that

they took to the street and said, hey, we
want a future. We want that things change.

And they demanded for politics to change.
And this did not directly happen, but it

was questioned, so some - well -
professional politicians said, well, they

should leave it to the professionals. And
that's the point where actually a lot of

scientists and a lot of scientists I know,
all where really mad at this because

they've been doing science and research
for so many years. I mean, I don't know if

you saw the presentations before, how much
effort is being put into this, into this

research to make better and better, better
models. And what I will show you, this

presentation is about the results of the
outcome of this and what this means and

still nothing changes. So they write
papers, they write reports and, well,

nothing happens. And so the only thing we
could say was basically, hey, they are

right. Things need to change. And that's
why we got together and formed this

association. So there's a charta on this,
which says basically what we do is we go

out and we try to inform people on the
research, on the state of the art of the

research and how things are currently. And
that's why I'm here. So that's exactly

what I'm doing here. So we go out to
wherever and you can come to us and ask

for presentations, for discussions to get
informed on this topic, on what this

climate change issue actually means. And
this is the disclaimer now, I can tell you

this is not a good mood talk, okay? So,
yeah. Because the topic is very serious.

So it's a bit different than I usually do
it, in the end it will look a little bit

better than in the beginning, but
nevertheless. So where are we currently?

So this is the current graph. This is all
not research by myself. This is mainly

from IPCC reports, and this is from the
report from last year on the 1.5 degree

report, which was made - basically done,
or, put together because in the Paris

agreement in 2015, it was said, well, we,
the world, or, the governments of the

world, want to keep the climate change -
the temperature change - to well below 2

degrees, if possible, to 1.5 degrees, and
the question was, hey, is this actually

possible? Can we make that? What do we
need to do to do this? And so there has

been a lot of questions about this and a
lot of research. A huge number of

publications came out on this topic: "Hey,
what does it mean to have a 1.5 degrees

warmer earth?" "What does it mean to have
a 2 degrees warmer earth?" and "Is this

actually possible to limit climate change
to these temperatures?" And this is the

current state. I really love this graph
because it contains a lot of different

things. So what we are talking about. So
we have a pre-industrial period that we

use as a reference. So that's the period
from 1850 to 1900 here. This is the

reference period where we say, OK, this
was pre-industrial temperature and

everything afterwards, the changes from
that are all referring to this. So 1.5

degrees or so would be the difference from
this period. And then, what climate does,

it's not always constant. So every year,
sometimes it's a bit warmer and sometimes

a bit colder. So what you need to do is
you need to average. This is quite

important, because, for example, there is
this year of - where is it? here - 1998,

there was a very warm year. And
afterwards, for a long period, there

weren't so many warm years. And then there
were some people saying: "Oh, yeah, look,

the temperature does not change anymore,
so everything's fine now". And this, of

course, isn't true, because you have to
look at average periods. So the red line,

this is the so-called floating average. So
you always average with the years and this

gives us about the current temperature
change. So this would be like a typical

climate period with like 20 years. You
usually look at 20 years. But the problem

we have currently is, that the change was
so drastic, that looking for 20 years,

then you would always have to go far back
to periods when well, there was a big

difference to today. So, the last changes
in this report were taken from this 2006

to 2015 period. And the extrapolation from
this was basically, that in 2017 we

probably reached a 1 degree increase in
temperature on a global scale. That's not

always the same, and in different areas it
might be warmer and in different it's

colder, but that's the global increase.
So. So this is where we are currently. So

we have an increase from 280 parts per
million in CO2 to about 410 ppm. This is

changing. Its not constant, it's a bit
going up and down but it's about 410

in 2019. We have a strong increase in
temperature globally, but the biggest

increase is actually in the winter. It's
in the Arctic. And there's a current

antrophogenic CO2 surplus of about 40
gigatons per year. So 40 gigatons - what's

that? That was actually current, this is
already gone because we are now a bit

higher than that. But this was the average
period from 2011 to 2017. OK. Now I go

directly into this IPCC report from last
year. That's 2018. In chapter 2, there's

this table. I love this table. This table
contains a lot of climate science because

it goes into how much actually can we
further emit to reach which temperature

change. So this would be here the 1.5
degrees Celsius, this would be the 2

degrees Celsius. And then you have
probabilities: how likely you can avoid

this, or is it going to come? So if you
want to avoid it with a two sigma, that is

like a 67% probability to go over 1.5
degrees, we have 420 gigatons to emit

further additionally into the atmosphere.
420. As you remember, it's 40 gigatons per

year. And this was I think from last year.
So this refers to basically 2017. So it's

already two years gone since then. And it
has not decreased, but increased actually.

And then there is a lot of difference, you
know, if you go for a 50 percent chance,

you can you can say, ok, it's a bit more
we can emit. And if he goes, well, we just

want to have a one third chance, then we
actually would have double the amount we

could emit. For 2 degrees Celsius. This is
far more, so it's more than 1000 gigatons

of CO2 equivalents to emit. Now, there
are, of course, a lot of uncertainties,

all kinds of uncertainties that go with
that. And one is, for example, the so-

called Earth System Feedback. The earth
itself responds to this emission and also

emits CO2 and also methane. And this has
an also a long term impact. And then there

are further uncertainties. And these are I
mean, this has been also part in the

previous talks that, of course, climate
models do have uncertainties.

Nevertheless, if we take this into account
and say, ok, we want to avoid 1.5 degrees

Celsius increase in temperature with a 2/3
probability. That they call "likely" in

this report. So it's likely that we are
not exceeding 1.5 degrees. We have 420

gigatons surplus CO2 to emit into the
atmosphere in total. 100 gigatons will be

more or less gobbled up by the earth
response. This was in the report. Current

research shows that this is likely a bit
too conservative. So it's probably more,

but, well. OK. So our emission is about 40
gigatons, so the planned CO2 emissions by

coal power plants that are running, was at
that period 200 gigatons CO2. So they are

built. They are running. 200 gigatons by
that. And then we have 100 to 150 further

gigatons for our planned coal power plants
and those under construction. As we count

this together, we have already exceeded
the 420 gigatons CO2. And this is, of

course, one reason why these coal power
plants have to be shut down. But they're,

of course, not the only source. They are
only one source of CO2 emissions we have

in the atmosphere. And to make this clear,
what this means, this is what I go into

now. What does this mean? This difference
from 1.5 degree to 2 degree, and that's

been a lot of research on that. OK? Now,
the first one is, for example, on the

Arctic. I mean, there's been a lot of
talks about ice bears and so on. But of

course, this is not the only thing to care
about. It is quite crucial that there is

ice there also because the ice, we heard
this before in the previous talks, that

the ice reflects the sun and the less
reflection is there, the more warmth is

being taken up by the earth again. So we
have like a feedback system there. Also,

of course, because of all the... It's not
just the ice bear. There's like a whole

biosphere there. And this biosphere has to
somehow survive. Now, the likeliness of an

ice free Arctic is this graph here of
comparing 1.5 degrees - this is this one,

or these two studies, these are two
studies here, one with the dotted line and

another one with the full line - and 2
degrees. And this is how likely it is in a

certain period of time that this happens.
And so you can see, if we consider again

that it's likely, it's about 45 years it
takes for a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase

that we have an ice free Arctic. So this
is actually possible with this increase,

but it's like once every 45 years. If we
go for a 2 degree increase, this one is

every 10, or, even with the other study,
it's more like once every five years that

this is happening and this is quite
frequent. And this, of course, causes

quite some impact on everything that lives
there. Now, this is ice and Arctic.

There's not so many people living in the
Arctic. So there's a lot of further

studies that have been done. And this, for
example, for Africa I will only ...

because of limited time. I can do this
talk for many hours, actually. I will only

go onto this example here. Extreme heat
with record temperatures over close to 50

degrees and actually even increasing that.
That has been there in 2009, 2010 in the

months from December to February in
Africa. These are temperatures where

people cannot be outside anymore at these
temperatures. It's just too hot. And then

it's showing these curves and these are
probability density functions. So these

curves show how often, like, each of these
balconies, I don't know, boxes here are

showing: How often does this happen? And
so here we have "current", the current

status, that is the temperature from 2006
to 2015. That's what they call current. So

there is already this increase in
temperature under these conditions. This

happens every well, maybe twice every 100
years. If we go for 1.5 degrees increase,

that's the blue line we can see: This is
going to happen every more or less third

year. If we go for 2 degrees, this is
going to happen even more often. So this

is for people living there, it's getting
hard to live there. It's just the

temperature, only that. If we go for, for
example, for Australia as an example, that

we have the same, it's always these
curves, here are extreme warm

temperatures. Well, that's very easy. But
in Australia, what's also important there,

it's the temperature of the water, because
of the corals that live there. And hot

water leads to coral bleaching. So
basically, the corals die. And this all,

of course, as we've seen, the temperature
is not every year the same. But there was

this hot summer and an extreme coral
bleaching here. Temperature situation here

in the summer, in 2012, 2013. And how
often does this happen? And we can already

see here: This would be the natural. So
this would be the pre-industrial curve

here, where this very warm temperatures
hardly ever happen. While we can see here

already: This would be every third year
currently, it would be every second year

in a 1.5 degrees scenario and probably two
of three years in a 2 degrees scenario.

And this means, well, what this means I
would go into later. This is an example

for Europe. well, how often things happen.
I don't know if you do, but I always

remember that one, because I well, I was a
lot outside during that period. There was

a very warm summer we had in 2003. And a
lot of people died of that because of the

heat. I remember being in Cologne at the
time and laying outside at 40 degrees and

I was ill and so I had 40 degrees. So
outside 40 degrees was very warm. And so

naturally, this can happen. It could
happen like once every hundred years.

Currently we have like a situation, well,
this would be like every 4th year. And

this increases then to more than 59% of
all the years at 2 degrees Celsius. So

we're gonna get hot summers. This is the
prediction of this study here. Well, what

does this mean? Well, now I go back to the
IPCC reports and the IPCC reports are very

diplomatic always. And so they have
"reasons for concern". And we are all very

concerned. This sounds very nice, but of
course, there's some background to this.

So they have. And in the summary of this
IPCC report from 2018 are there five

reasons for concern. That's one: unique
and threatened systems like corals, or

extreme weather events. And you can see
that does make quite a difference from

now. And going to warmer temperatures, up
here we have the 2 degrees. So you can see

between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees: That
does make quite a difference. Distribution

of impacts. Basically, this means that
those, who suffer most, have contributed

less. And that's, of course, bad because
those who contributed most, well, don't

suffer as much. And then they won't
change. And that's a problem. That's why

they're concerned on this one. Global
aggregate impacts is basically money

impact. So how much does this cost in the
end to to cope with the outcome of this?

And well, it costs billions of dollars in
the end to have a difference between 1.5

and 2 degrees. Every year, just to cope
with the impacts. And then we have large

scale singular events that could be
something like de-icing of Greenland or

something like that. Well, when that's
gone, it's just a singular event because

it's gone. This is very abstract. So they
get a bit closer to that. So warm water

corals is basically they are having
already a problem. Well, I will show this

later. Well, they expect about 90 percent
will die off at 1.5 degrees. Well, they

will die out at 2 degrees. Most likely.
Certain. And this is of course, this is

a... Well, it's important for nourishment
and for people who live from the sea, from

whatever they fished out of the sea,
because corals that's like the childhood

bed of a lot of fish. So we do get quite
an impact in the end on fishery. This is

why this is so red. Mangroves also get an
impact on that, there is about the same

story. So a lot of small fish grow up
there. Well, the Arctic region is getting

increasing problems with the ice. Well,
these are all kind. I will go into this

later. Coastal flooding will increase from
1.5 to 2 degrees. This is, well, flooding

and rivers and so on. Well, and we'll get
some more heat related morbidity. Now,

there's been a new report this year on
land use. And this has been even more into

this. Now, different scale. Please watch
that. So the scale here, it's going up to

five degrees. And if you look for that,
yeah, so it's a bit different. So the

lower ones, 1.5 and 2 degrees are in
there. But problems they see is a dryland

scarcity and water scarcity in drylands.
So that's desertification, a lot

of that. Soil erosion, which is related to
that, vegetation loss is also related to

that. Yeah, I will come to this later. The
wildfire damage, we can see that already

today. I mean, in the news every time. Now
it's Australia and Chile. But before it

was was more California and so on. So this
will go on. This is no coincidence that

this is happening. We have permafrost
degradation. We have a tropical crop yield

decline. Crop yield is of course... That
hurts because well, this leads, of course,

in the end to food instabilities. And we
can see, it does make quite a difference

already between 1.5 and 2 degrees. But of
course, it can get worse. And they... Also

they are more specific on that, what they
mean with this. For example, in wildfire

damage, they expect an increase in fire
weather season currently, over 50%

increase in the Mediterranean area if it
gets above 2 degrees and well, if we go to

4 or 5 degrees, well, they expect, well,
hundreds of million at least, or over 100

million people additionally exposed. In
terms of food supply instabilities: Well,

what we already see is, well, we have like
spikes in the food price. This is not so

important for us usually. But of course,
for people in the world that don't have

much money and we still have almost it's
not quite 1 billion people in the world,

that live off less than 2$ a day. For such
people, this is, of course, quite

important. If we go closer to 2 degrees,
they do expect periodic food shocks across

regions. So basically that. There will be
situations where there will be no food

available anymore. If we go up to four or
five degrees, this would lead to sustained

food supply distribution problems on a
global scale. So this depends on of what

kind of scenario we are calculating. I
will go into this later. One additional

thing is also to think off on that, we are
not only talking about the temperature.

Also, the water of the oceans take up the
CO2, they take up a lot of the CO2, that we

blow into the air. And this leads to an
acidification. And so the pH value of the

oceans, they decrease and this has an
impact on a lot of animals that build up

calcium carbonate, so shells basically. So
all kinds of bi-valves, all kinds of like

cancers and all that, they depend on
building up this calcium carbonate. And if

they're not able to do this anymore, of
course, they don't grow anymore. And they

are pretty much in the beginning of this
food supply, a food chain and the oceans.

Now, I was reading this 2018 report and
somewhere there on page 223, I found them

this year, where they basically say, ok, we
do have this impact and there is this

aragonite saturation, which is well,
basically that's the point, where this

build up for specific animals is not
possible anymore, at this saturation

point, because the chemical reaction does
not work anymore. And this depends on the

temperature, this depends on the pressure.
And the higher the pressure is, the

earlier this point is reached. Also, the
colder the temperature is. And so this is

what you can see on the right hand side.
They investigated this mainly from the

polar regions on. And so that they... at
this point, where this point will reach the

surface of the ocean from 2030 onwards, so
that they're all these animals on the

surface of the ocean are not building in
the polar regions, will have problems to

build up, actually, their shells in. This
has two different impacts, of course, one

impact, they don't grow anymore. This has
a big issue on the food chain in the

oceans. The second impact is actually that
these... This was a one off the carbon

sinks. They took CO2 and with calcium,
they build up these shells and they die

off at some point and they sink to the
ground. And well the CO2 is gone. Well, if

this is not happening anymore, of course,
this type of carbon sink does not work

anymore. Okay. Now, I've talked about...
These are further, I will go skip through

this quickly. These are all kinds of
things that happen. So on this 1.5 degree

report, they compared for a lot of
regions, what will happen. So for 1.5

degree warming or less, of 1.5 to 2 degrees
and 2 to 3 degrees. And there's all kinds

of things. This is the big table in this
report in chapter three. Read these

reports. Please read these reports.
They're good! And they're actually

scientifically good. I mean, this in terms
of if you do it. If you do science, it's

really really good. Because they have so
many so much literature and so many cross

references and how they do it to be very
sure to say, OK, this is what we can say

with this certainty. This is very, very
good science. I think at least. OK. So I

will not go into all of this. But it has
to all kinds of regions severe impacts

like south east, for South East Asia, for
example, they have, you know, this risk of

increased flooding and they have increased
precipitation events and, yes. And, well,

I think the most significant of this is
the significant risk of crop yield

reductions, which is avoided, if we stay
below 1.5 degrees. If we are not staying

below 1.5 degrees, they estimate 1/3
decline in per capita per crop production

per year, one third less food. That's not
good! And if we go even higher, well, this

is getting worse. For small islands, well,
there's actually the small islands are

well-known, of course, you know, there the
sea level is rising, so they have a

problem. And actually the main problem
they have is not that just the water is

going over the island, but that the salty
water is rising and is intruding the fresh

water reserves they have. So they get a
problem with fresh water. And well, this

is already a problem for them for 1.5
degrees, for two degrees, it's like a very

severe problem. And that's why they are
pushing pushing so much for the 1.5

degrees change maximum. In the
Mediterranean, this is very close to where

we are currently. So they expect a
reduction of run-off water, so this is

rivers, of about 9 percent, it's very
likely. Well there's range given, most of

the time they have this. So there is
already a risk of water deficits at 1.5

degrees increase in temperature. If we
increase further, we reach about... at up

to 2 degrees, we have about 17% less water
in the rivers. This is, of course, not

good. I mean, I mean, especially I mean,
okay, in Germany, for example, there's a

lot of food coming from Spain. And well,
they do already have a problem with their

crops, with water for their crops. And
this is getting worse. West Africa and

Sahel. Well, there is a prediction. Well,
there's a prediction of, well, less

suitable land for maize production by 1.5
degrees already by 40% less land. 40%.

That's a lot. It's not the region where
people already have a huge surplus in food

everyday. So there is an increase in risk
for undernutrition already. For 1.5

degrees in. If we increase, well, this just
getting absurd in a way, it says higher

risk undernutrition, of course, because
it's going to get worse. Apart from this,

that it's too hot to go outside anyways.
Well, for southern Africa, it's similar.

It's not as drastic. So there is already
the high risk for undernutrition in

communities dependent on dryland
especially. So savanna areas which are

rather dry. And this is getting worse
again. Well, in the tropics, also, there

is a risk to tropical crop yields. We
already heard that on the other side. On

the other side, it's also there, these
extreme heat waves they're going to face.

So this is like this was a table and there
was a lot of, well, details of what they

expect from 1.5 to 2 degrees. Now what
scientists, scientists are a bit strange

sometimes because they are also then doing
their science and they look at different

things. And one thing they are actually
now worried about, and this is, actually

it is worrisome, very worrisome, is that
actually, well, climate change has been

always there, because that's been like a
cycle and this the so-called interglacial

cycle the earth has been going through.
This has to do with the position to the

sun and a lot of feedback systems that
kick in. If you cool the earth, you have

more ice build up, then you have more sun
being reflected again. You have less

energy that stays on the surface of the
earth and then it gets colder and colder

and colder up to a certain point where
this changes again and goes back. And this

has been going on for hundreds of years.
And the point is, now we've left the

cycle. And this is the part that's shown
up here, that basically we are now on a

completely different trajectory. And
that's the trajectory that is we're

heating this up and the Earth is
responding. And it's also heating itself

up. And so we are on the path and it's not
quite clear. So they built this. They show

this, this graph here, there is actually
the possibility that the earth will go on

this path to heat itself up without us
even. And this is called tipping points.

So there are several things that happen
there. That is, for example, the melting

or thawing of the permafrost. There is
methane hydrates in the ocean storage that

might be triggered to evolve. There will
be a reduction of CO2 intake in the

oceans. Currently, a lot of CO2 is taken
into the oceans, but this will get less

and less. the more saturation comes in
there. We have a die-off of rainforests.

So. Well, last summer we've seen they have
a lot of rainforest burning in the

Amazons. But this will also happen by the
increase of temperature without human

impact. And in this paper here by Steffen
and some others, they said they estimate

about a rainforest reduction of up to 40%
by an increase of of up to 1.5 degrees

anyways. So we gonna lose rainforest, a
lot of rainforest already like that. We

have a die-off in the boreal forest. This
was this summer in Siberia. Well, they

just don't die off. They get burned. And
there are other reasons why they die. And

so there's a lot of CO2 going to be
emitted from forests that are where carbon

starts currently into the atmosphere. We
have a reduction of ice and snow. So

there's less reflection of the sun into
the atmosphere again. And we have a

reduction of ice warming, so we have an
increase in sea level. And this whole

thing, this is like a communicating
system. And one thing triggered, will

trigger something else. This is sometimes
goes by circulations, also by ocean

circulation and so on. So one thing can
trigger the next thing and this might

trigger the next thing and this will go
on. And if this happens, at a certain

time, at a certain intensity, then we will
not have as a human beings with the

current technology and technology we have,
we will not be able to stop that. And

that's what they are worried about, so
these climate scientists, that we should

not get these tipping points to go too
strong. They are already...This is

already... These are processes that can be
already seen, but... Well, currently they

are on a level where it's, well, it's bad.
There was actually 4 weeks ago this paper

published in Nature Climate Change, where
they said, well, we might be wrong with

our estimation here with this 100
gigatons, because these tipping points are

worse than we thought. So we are actually
further there more on the upper limits of

the bounds where we thought it would be.
Yes. So these are very worrisome

situations. Now, this should trigger us to
do something about it, and that's actually

the point. So things need to be done. But
up to now, well, things have not been

done. But this is like they see it, the
climate, greenhouse gas emissions curves

from 1970 to 2010. And we can see that not
only that the curve has been increasing

more or less the whole period, but also
the increase has increased from 2000 on.

And the main increase here is by CO2. The
other gas is here methane. There is a...

nitrogen gases up here. And well there are
CO2 from well, agriculture, forestry and

land use, this is here. They are more or
less constant. Sometimes there are spikes

like this. Most likely this is like
rainforest burning. The only year in the

recent years where there has been a
decrease also in the CO2 emissions was in

the economic crisis in 2008. Well, there
actually was a decrease by 4 percent.

Yeah. Now, nevertheless, the scientists
went on and said: OK, let's calculate, how

can we manage to get to 1.5 degrees and
there are different scenarios. Some say,

OK, let's go to get to 1.5 degrees. Some
say, OK, maybe we need to get to a higher

temperature and later on change that again
to get to 1.5 degrees. So there are all

kinds of scenarios that you can calculate.
Now, if we say, we use this CDR, this is

carbon dioxide removal. We don't have
that. And we say, we use the exponential

curve each year. We do reduce this the
same percentage of our emissions and we

want to get to 1.5 degrees. And this was
the curve from 2018. So we should have

started this year to reduce our CO2
emission by 18% each year globally, 18%,

if we want to reach 1.5 degrees. If we
want to be, we reach 2 degrees, it's still

5 percent each year. 5 percent. If we do
this for Germany, by this, and I think

this is the most important figure. It's
not as important like politicians always

say, are yeah, by this year, we want to
reduce our emissions by 50 percent or

something like that. But this does not
tell you what happens but 2030, what

happens until 2030? Right? So it's very
important to keep in mind that it's likely

we have a budget and this is actually from
a paper, it's global carbon budgets. They

say they publish each year, how much
budget do we have left to to emit? And so

if we take this budget and say, OK, this
is our budget. How are we gonna spend to

spend going to spend our carbon budget?
And this is something that we should ask

all the politicians. What do you think is
your budget? Why do you think this is your

budget? And there's been actually an
article by by climate scientists Stefan

Ramsdorf in the Spiegel. Where he said,
OK, let's estimate we have more than seven

point about seven point three gigatons CO2
overall budget to Germany. And we could

say if we want to reach one point five
degrees, this would mean we continue our

share of emissions, which would be in
Germany, which is like double the average

of the rest of the world. And we'd say,
OK, we have the right to blow out in the

air twice as much as the average person in
the world. Then we still would have 1.5

gigatons CO2 in Germany to
emit. And how are we gonna do that? That's

the question. Are we do we have this in
mind? Of course we can calculate this down

to each person in Germany. So we end up
with about 40 tons per person. So each of

us can also think of this. I have 40 now,
90 tons here. Sorry, 90 tons. That is to

emit. How am I gonna spend this until the
end of my life? Now, if we go back to this

report, then we have different scenarios.
And as you can see, there are different

ways of doing that. And these are
different economic scenarios. So and you

can see already, that most of these
scenarios do have negative emissions at

some points. Actually, all of them have.
Some of them include carbon capture and

storage here shown as BECCS. And
depending on what kind of economic

scenario you go for, this is more or less.
And here it's like up to about 20 gigatons

per year to be stored in the ground. The
green part here, agriculture, forestry and

land use and other land use. This also, of
course, you can reduce CO2 by planting

trees. This is actually a very efficient
way of doing that. But of course, the land

land area is limited. And this is also
true for other things. And of course, the

land area we can use is decreasing due to
climate change. It could always should

always keep this in mind. Now. The base of
all these scenarios, they put this again

into a table and and puts and I put some
pictures to that. So they say: If we want

to reach to 1.5 degrees, what
we have to do, we need a rapid and

profound near-term decarbonisation of our
energy supply. So basically, we have to be

very, very quick and change our energy
supply. This has to be. That's the first

part. The second part, we need greater
mitigation efforts and the demand side. So

we have to use less and get smaller with
things. Third part is well we do have to

do this within the next 10 years, so we
cannot wait. This is very, very urgent.

Well, this is actually a table that looks
like this is a bit, sorry for that. So the

main thing is that the additional
reductions come from CO2 emissions because

the other greenhouse gas house gases are
already included in the two degrees

scenarios. We need to invest differently,
so investment patterns have to change

strongly. What we also, they are the best
options actually for one point five degree

scenarios are the ones that go with the
sustainable development, because if people

don't have food to eat, they don't have
the chance to take care of the climate

anymore, because first they are trying to
survive. So we do have to also care about

how people can live on this planet. This
helps protecting the climate. Well, then

they say, OK, we probably have to think of
climate, the carbon dioxide removal

somehow at the mit summit of the century.
What's the myth of the centuries? So this

has to be implemented now. And what we
also have to do is, we have to switch from

fossil fuels to electricity and the end
user sector. Now CDR, carbon dioxide

dioxide removal, I will say about that.
This is, of course, agriculture, forestry

and land use. That's very easy planting
trees. Then there is BECK. So you use by

basically biomass to produce some some gas
and then you capture the CO2 from burning

the gas and press this into ground and
carbon capture and storage. Or what you can

also do is use direct air capture as where
you use it. These are like these machines.

So they take CO2 from the air and then you
have to store it. And you can see it's such

a machine here. This was like a model at
the time. So these are these have been

already existing models. This. So
basically this can be take 1000 tons of

CO2 per year. So if we want to go for
gigatons, then we would have to build

millions of these in the end. Problem
with that, it's a bit and discuss

also in this report. So. So basically. So
we have an energy usage of that by

12.9 gigajoules per tonns CO2. So
basically, if we want to use put down 15

tons of 15 gigatonnes of CO2 per year by
this, which was in one of the scenarios, we

would need about 1/4 of the global
energy supply only for atmospheric waste

management. It's called like this. And the
funny thing, this was like a professor. We

had them in our university here in
Oldenburg and he he gave this

presentation. He said, yeah, this sounds
so crazy, but the climate change will hurt

you so much. This will be done. Yeah. And
BECCs, that's a different way of doing

that with a bio gas. So the thing is, if
we want to have that at large scale, it

requires huge amounts of land use to
produce this amount of biogas. And the

other drawback is, of course, that you do
have to take care of your storage systems

to avoid the gas to come out because.
Well, CO2 is hard. Is has a higher density

than than oxygen. And it goes so, it stays
on the ground, if there is no wind. And if

people live there, you don't have anything
to breathe anymore. Now, there are, of

course, different sectors. This for the
EU, for example, where where the

greenhouse gases come from. So the main
parts are, of course, agriculture. There

is transport and the energy industry and
this. But there's also other industries.

And it's important to keep in mind that
this is not equal of all different

countries. But it is also distributed to a
dependent strongly on on the income of the

people in the countries. So the high so-
called high income countries here, they

have the highest share in the CO2
emissions by the MID. So so-called

emerging countries, they're almost at the
same level now. While low income

countries. They mainly have a CO2
emissions here from agricultural land land

use. So the question is, can we make it to
one point five degrees? That's a good

question. So there have been a lot of
studies like. Like for Germany and the EU.

Either on like energy infrastructure,
for example, or the whole system. There

was one study from this year. They looked
for 95 percent CO2 reduction by 2050.

There was one study currently just read
you released for the complete EU and

greenhouse gas neutral EU by 2050. And so
obviously, technically there is this

assumption that this is possible. One main
thing of that is, that we have to go far

more efficient. And one thing and that is
use electricity, because electricity is

very efficient in many things. So
currently the prime currently prime energy

consumption in Germany is about two
thousand 3200 terawatt hours

in total. And the assumption
for 2050 where they have this

100 percent or 95 percent reduction would
be 1300 terawatt hours or by the other

study was even less than that. That
depends a bit on the mixture they use. The

reason for that is, for example, that the
efficiency, for example, of battery driven

cars is much higher than the one, those of
combustion driven or other methods. So it

really depends on which technology you put
into use on how good you get. On the EU

level, that looks a bit like this. So
there demand and supply today. And this

would be, so the reduction is not quite as
large, but that would be as they still

assume that we can reach this type of
reduction if we want to. Nevertheless,

they are not assuming 100 percent CO2
free. But they calculate with negative

emissions by agriculture and forestry. So
this is actually in these calculations and

I really like the one by Robinius and so
on. That's the lower one because they

actually calculated completely with
storage systems, with electricity grids

and all that and how much needs to be
invested into this. This is a very

detailed study. Very, very good one. So
this actually technically possible and

they even calculated this. What happens in
the so-called "Dunkelflaute". That's the

German word for there is no wind and no
sun in the winter for a period of time.

And what happens? And this can actually.
And that's what all they assume is that we

do have a lot of storage for gas and we
can use these curr, current strategic

storage, as for gas in the future to store
power to to gas, gas or gas that's won by

electricity there as a backup. So
basically, technically, this is possible.

So to conclude, so the climate system is
already at a critical stage. The prospect

for a one point five degree warmer
earth are already very bitter. And

while the IPCC reports and all the
reports, they are they are they. All of

them go for it. If you would not exceed 2
degrees because we have this thing of the

tipping points. And several reasons
we already have this two degrees. Yeah,

this carbon dioxide removal is presented.
Basically, this is hard to avoid. But

there are these critical things concerning
carbon capture and storage. And whatever

we need to do is we have to act fast, and
that's the main thing. This has to be done

very quickly. And I must say I'm very
sorry. But our government's. Well, yes...

applause

So it is not a technical
issue. It is a political one. Yes.

Thank you.

applause

Herald: Bernhard, I thank you very much.
We have eight minutes for questions. So we

have a couple of microhones here and the
whole. Please line up over there. We have

those eight minutes. I'm sure there will
be questions. The signal angel is

signaling over there, that we have a
question from the Internet.

Question: Do you see nuclear power plants
as a temporary solution to slow the

emission of CO2 and we had quite some
discussion in the Internet. There was

number one answered. You need more than 10
years to build new nuclear power plants.

And the response was, well, you could we
get the shutdown once back on the power

line. So is that the realistic scenario,
in your view?

Bernhard: Well, there is actually this
this is a current discussion going on. And

the issue with that is, it's not that easy
to us to get old power plants back into

running. Because, well, they have a certain
type of lifetime. And if you want to put

them back on into the into the system,
then you somehow would have to exceed the

lifetime. And that are some, of course,
some security issues. And if you want to

avoid them, then you have to put a lot of
money and effort into getting them to run.

And you need also a lot of time to do
that. And so this the question is, would

this be worth it? And I would say probably
they are faster methods to do it. You

could do it. There are, of course, the
risk and I mean after Fukushima and

Chernobyl. Basically, we we've all seen
what the risks are. So and I would say

it's probably not the best and fastest way
to do it. There are other ways they could

be worth doing it.
Herald: OK. Then we're going to hop over

to microphone number one.
Mic 1: First, I want to thank you for

your talk. It was very informative. And
yeah, my question is as follows. There was

a talk at the university where I study in
Darmstadt one and a half years ago from a

person who compared the IPCC predictions
with what really happened with the real

temperature increase and the damage which
causes the climate change. And what she

found out that the IPCC always, nearly
always underestimated the effect of the

temperature increase and what it causes.
Have you ever heard of this criticism and

do you think this is still the case?
Bernhard: I hope not. The issue is, of

course, that the IPCC reports, as always,
very, very carefully taking decisions and

is very carefully looking at this. And
there are more conservative and the rather

are lower than the than the actual
temperatures in the end, probably because

there is, of course, also a lot of
pressure, political pressure on them. And

so if they would predict something and
they would over predict, then people would

immediately say, come and say, hey, you
are doing panicking and so on. And so

that's why it is most likely that they try
to be as accurate as possible. But they

rather choose the lower the. The lower
estimates.

Question: Yeah. That was the
serious thing as well.

Bernhard: That's let's say it's a very
it's a I mean in the end it's this summary

for policymakers. I showed some slides
from that. That is actually voted on by

the buyer of governmental agents. So they
bring this intergovernmental round of the

U.N. They are a U.N. entity. And so and
the governments actually say you have to

approve this. And so that's why it's very,
very diplomatic. And the terms of. So they

are doing reasons for concern, you know.
So it's I mean, people are concerned about

all kinds of things. Thanks.
Herald: All right, then we hope over to

microphone two, please.
Mic 2: OK. First, thank you for your

talk. All good mood is gone now. And if
it's mainly a political problem, do you

have any idea how we can force politicians
to make the right decisions now? Because

what we are doing at the moment, like
protesting and voting, doesn't seem to

work.
Berhard: Well, I some applause I think

actually I'm very happy because I think
protesting works, but it does not work in

the same way that people who usually take
it to the streets think it works. It puts

a lot of pressure onto them. But it's one
pressure on. They also have pressure from

other sites, you know, and then they look
at, you know, what are the my voters. And

if their voters, are not the ones that are
on the streets. Well, they might be not as

important. And so I think the main thing
is that needs to be done is to go out to

the people. And thus going to the street
is one way of doing that. And tell that,

you know, and talk to the people and talk
especially to those who are not there on

the streets yet. Well, the potential
voters of those who think, well, I don't

have to care so much about because these
are not my voters. And we just have to go

out and talk. And I think this will put up
the pressure together with taking it to

the streets and protesting and doing
whatever talking to politicians. I mean,

we have a you know, Angela Merkel is our
our chancellor in Germany, and she is a

physicist. I mean, she knows I mean, this
is she understands all this. You know,

it's not that she doesn't know. It's just
the pressure from the wrong side yet.

Herald: All right. And we have time for
one last question. Microphone three,

please.
Mic 3: Yes. Thank you very much for my

side, for the informative talk. From the
description of the talk, I was expecting

more on the, it said something about the
resilience, about climate skepticism. Yes.

To be more resilient about their
arguments. And I was in discussion with

many other people, also climate skepticism
and they sometimes said, they didn't

criticize the entropy eugenic. Well, they
didn't criticize the climate change at

all. But the anthropogenic part of it. And
what they said that there is like an

increase of solar activity the last
decades, which increases to the

temperature. And that also like the
diagram is like only from 1860. But if you

consider like the last millennials, there
have been higher values of CO2 in the

atmosphere, but the temperature did not
correlate. So how do you argue with this,

this kind of argument?
Berhard: Yes, that's a good one. Yeah. I

didn't go into these these because they
are the sometimes the easy ones. But the

thing is that there are... I did this talk
this way because it helps. If you go into.

Climate, skeptics say this and they say a
lot of different things. If I could do a

whole talk on what climate skeptics say.
If you do that, then in the end, people

keep in mind, oh, yeah, this there is some
skepticism on this. And this is, I did a

lot of these things because by this now
people can go out and say, OK, this is

currently the state of the art of the
research. I did not go into the climate

skeptic detailed answers. Of course there
are. I mean, I can make, for example,

thunder radiation is already in the
climate models, the changes in thunder

radiations. The variations of the
centuries before actually being

precalculators in the climate models
currently, because only if you're able to

run if you if you're able to mimic that in
climate models today, for today, all of

the past. If you're able to do that, then
you're able to do to run it for the

future. And this is how climate models
work. And so all this, all these

variations are taking in. So I'm sorry.
Herald: Oh, time is up.

Bernhard: But we can talk about this also
later on. I didn't get too much to the

climate skeptics now. So much.
Herald: All right. We don't have time for

any more questions, Bernard. Applause
That's your Applaus, thank you very much.

postroll music

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