Welcome to this course of The Science and Technology of Climate Change. We're going to spend quite a lot of time together. Whenever I have to spend a lot of time with somebody, I want to make sure that this investment of time is well justified. Well, let me put in front of you at least my credentials and you can make your own judgment. I am Professor of Finance at EDHEC, but my background is more varied. My academic history began with a Doctorate in Nuclear Engineering and a PhD in Solid State Physics. This gives me a perspective on climate change, endless science and the technology of climate change, which I think is very useful. I will try to communicate to you some of the insights that can come from these combined vision of a problem. The idea is not to turn you into paleoclimatologists or nuclear fission scientists. The idea is to allow you to understand critically the facts about climate change. Because this is interesting in itself. But it is also key to understanding the economics and finance of a problem, which is the subject of a different course, a different book. But nonetheless, it is something which is of relevance to everybody. When it comes to climate science, science and economics are closely intertwined. That is because the economic outcomes depend on the abatement course that we're going to take. In turn, the abatement course that we're going to take depends on our understanding of effect on the ground, the science. There is a particularly strong link between understanding the science of climate change and understanding the economic outcomes. What are the big questions to which we are going to find answers? First of all, the most obvious one; do we know for sure that the Earth is warming up? Do we know for sure whether humans are responsible for this warming up? If that is the case, can we do anything about it? If indeed we are experiences a moment in human history where the temperature is rising, is this warming unique or is this just a natural fluctuation in temperature? Then moving to more technological questions. What are the most cost-effective ways to curb climate change? Unless we understand these facts on the ground, we cannot answer the questions. These questions are linked to really fundamental questions. For instance, how big is the required technological and economic effort required to tackle climate change? How quickly should we act? Is this our last chance or shall we wait until we are smarter and perhaps richer in the future? This will bring us to looking at those aspects of climate change such as the possibility of abrupt changes. So much for the big questions. What are the big messages that I want to convey to you? Let me begin with the science messages. First of all, I will try to convince you that it is virtually certain that indeed, the temperature is increasing. This increase in temperature is very strongly correlated. I'm using my words very carefully here. Is very strongly correlated with an increase in the concentration of CO_2 or carbon dioxide. It is very likely that there is a causal link between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the increase in temperature. But this link is not simple. There could be a feedback mechanism in which one effect becomes the cause for the other. It is very likely that the increase in CO_2 concentration that we put at the root of our explanation of temperature increasing is anthropogenic. More big messages moving from the science to the technology. First of all, if we look back in our geological past, we find that increases in CO_2 similar or even greater to what we are experiencing today have already occurred. But the big difference is that humans were not around in our geological past and it is another very very important scientific fact. There have been instances of extremely rapid climate change, by which I mean tens of centigrade over decades, not over millennia. Another really fundamental fact, is that the persistence of CO_2 in the atmosphere is extremely long. Even if we stopped emissions tomorrow, the concentration of CO_2 in the atmosphere would revert to this pre-industrial level over very very long timescales. This immediately puts the spotlight on the technological solutions. Yes, emission reduction is key, is very important, but it's not going to be the only tool. We also have to look very carefully at sequestration and negative emission technologies. I am sure everybody has heard about emission reduction, the green energy push, etc, which is absolutely necessary. But perhaps you have barely heard about negative emissions technologies were about carbon sequestration and storage. These are all things we're going to look at. I have put in this first figure here a picture which is a very schematic picture which at this point in time might not make a lot of sense. But when we revisit it later on, I think it will become more informative. I have put here several mechanisms to provide energy and, or remove or add CO_2 to the atmosphere. I have in the top line, I describe what the mechanism is, for instance, fossil fuel burning, and next to it, I write whether it provides energy, whether it is energy neutral, or whether it requires energy. Then there are some arrows. The arrows are meaningful where otherwise I'm going to put them there. Red arrows mean that I am, via this process, I am injecting CO_2 in the atmosphere. Blue arrows, mean that I am removing CO_2 from the atmosphere and gray arrows mean that the process is carbon-neutral. You see we have two polar opposite. In the top left-hand corner. I have fossil burning, which obviously provides a lot of energy, but also spews a lot of CO_2 in the atmosphere. In the bottom right-hand corner, I have direct air capture, which net-net subtracts CO_2 from the atmosphere but requires a lot of energy and many other intermediate possibilities. Understanding these complex picture is very useful in order to make sense over technologies that can help us in curbing, abating, controlling, managing climate change. The big plan is to treat the science part with technology part and to show how these two parts are connected. This is a sketch of a big plan for the science part. I will start by presenting data and correlation among data. But science is a lot more than drawing pretty graphs, perhaps hockey sticks graphs, and establishing correlations. Science also means, and predominantly means explaining the data and making testable predictions and yes, you will be surprised to hear that climate science has been around for a long time, and has made predictions as far back as the 19th century. In 1859, Tyndall and before him, Fourier and later on, Arrhenius made with prediction that an increase in the concentration of CO_2 in the atmosphere would cause an increase in temperature, which is what we are observing today. Yes, science is at the basis of our understanding of our climate is changing and climate science takes over boxes of good science. We shall see that the key explanatory tool that we're going to use in order to make sense of all this data is black-body radiation. We're going to spend some time understanding what that means. So much of a science. Let's move to the technology part. The big plan with the technology part is we want to understand the physical feasibility, the scalability, and the cost implications of different energy alternatives to fossil fuels. One of the key messages I will try to convey is that there is no silver bullet and no single technology has all the answers. We have to rely on a portfolio of energy solutions. If we choose the portfolio wisely, then we can do things much, much more effectively. Doing things effectively is going to be extremely important. Because another key message I want to convey is that in order to make a difference, we have to engage in a major redirection of resources towards the abatement of climate change. I sometimes refer to the magnitude of the effort as a war effort. Given that the effort is so big, it is essential that we use our silver bullets in the most effective way. I would like to conclude this introductory section by showing a complicated picture that probably at this moment is over-complicated and won't make a lot of sense. When we go back to it later on in the course, if we go back to it later on in the course, it will be illuminating and helpful. The important thing is that starting from the top where I ever different sources of energy and with different type of technologies, firm, intermittent and dispatch-able and so on. But everything converges to two boxes and we're two boxes, our concentration and permanent and climate effects. Concentration and permanent is the concentration and permanent of CO_2 in the atmosphere. That to the best of our understanding is the key to understanding the change in temperature and the change in temperature, directly and indirectly, is the main driver for the climate effects we are ultimately interested in. In a nutshell, these are the big questions, the big messages, and the big plan of the course. We're going to start. [MUSIC]
