Introduction
The Special Report Emission Scenarios (SRES) was developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1996 and was published in 2000. They were made as an input to the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report and also to the wider groups such as policy community and scientists on assessing alternative mitigation and adaptation strategies.
The unique of the SRES compare to its predecessors is its 'open process' (Nakicenovic et al. 2000, p. 1). This creates a more variety of the scenarios capturing extra (but also relevant) future possibilities and suit the latest reality through a new set of driving forces ranges. Compare to only six scenarios of IS92 (the latest IPCC scenarios before SRES), SRES comprise of 40 scenarios which were built from the six scenario groups under four story lines. The 40 scenarios capture the characteristics of factors drive the future emission growth; for example: economic growth, global population development, energy efficiency, and the gap of development between developed and developing countries (Nakicenovic et al. 2000, pp. 4-5).
Despite the strengths of SRES as noted above, this paper will argue that SRES have passed their use-by date. This is because the recent development trend reveals that SRES underestimate two important things; they are: the economic development and emission intensity in key Asian countries and the role of land use changes and deforestation (especially from peat land) in increasing emissions and reducing the land absorptive ability upon emission. Furthermore, because of the characteristic of China and India—the main driving forces—the deviation from the SRES will not only for a short term period, such as 2030, but most likely to be happened along the SRES period.
Economic development and emission intensity
The average of annual globaleconomic growth of the early of last decade—that is from 2004 to 2007—was more than 5 per cent which exceeded the average of annual economic growth during the 'golden age' from 1950 to 1973 (Garnaut & Huang 2007, p. 9; IMF 2006, p. 2; Callen 2007). The development—which then called 'the platinum age'—was contributed mainly by developing countries particularly China and India. The 'platinum age' development is a new path. Not only because the key Asian countries are the centre of the global output growth, but also because the growth is associated with energy intensive economic activities which fuelled mainly by coal (Sheehan 2007, p. 1).
The global energy intensity (of GDP) increased in 2000 to 2005 compare to the 1990s (Garnaut et al. 2008, p. 83). That may influenced by the increasing trend of manufacturing industries which require more energy for the same level of output (Sandu & Petchey 2009, p. 14). The recent trends of India's economic growth has been associated with the increase of manufacturing industries relative to the overall growth (Sheehan 2007, p. 7), whereas in China the increase of manufacturing industries is in line with the rapid expansion of foreign-invested firms (Chen 2007, p. 214). As a result, the elasticity of energy use to GDP in China was more than one for 2000-2005 which higher compare to that before 2000 (IEA 2007, p. II4-II36).
The recent development of world emission intensity (of GDP) is even worst. It is higher not only compare to the 1990s but also to the 1970s and 1980s (Garnaut et al. 2008, p. 83). That is mainly because of the increase of use of coal. Coal’s carbon content is almost double of that of natural gas and about 26 per cent higher than oil (EIA 1998, p. 39; Abrams 2009, p. 9). Although coal represented only one-quarter of the total energy used in 2008, it is responsible for 43 per cent of the global CO2 emission (IEA 2010, p. 18). The demand on coal from non-OECD countries —which mainly from China—has been more than half of the total global demand since 2000 and predicted to be about three-quarter of the global demand by 2030 (IEA 2008, p. 125).
Those trends led to the recent emission trend. The annual growth rate of the global fossil-fuel carbon emissions between 2004 and 2006 has exceeded what has been presumed in IPCC scenarios (Garnaut 2007, p. 4). By 2008, the energy-related CO2 emissions from non-Annex I countries overtake those of the Annex I countries (IEA 2010, p. 7). That affect to a higher projection of developing countries contribution to the global emission (Garnaut 2011, p. 2).
Land use change and deforestation
The land use destructions and deforestation play two important roles in emission flow and carbon cycle; they are: to increase GHG emissions (Hurtt et al. 2009, p. 7), and decrease the land ability to absorb GHG emission (Australian Academy of Science 2010, p. 10; Pittock 2009, p. 226; Stern 2008, p. 22).
The GHG emission from the land use changes and deforestation are more extensive than thought earlier; that is because the emission from the peat land just being considered (Garnaut et al. 2008, p. 394). The total CO2 emission from peat land is around 8 per cent of global emission from fossil fuel (Hooijer et al. 2009, p. 29), whereas the 1997 peat land fire in Indonesia release around 13 to 40 per cent of the average annual global emission from fossil fuel (Page et al. 2002, p. 61). That leads to a significant contribution of emission from land use change and forests (LULUCF) to the global GHG emissions which in 2004 was around 17 per cent (Rogner et al. 2007, p. 104).
The absorptive functions of land and forests have been seriously damaged. Around 42 to 68 per cent of the land surface has changed since 300 years ago (Hurtt et al. 2009, p. 6). The deforestation between 1990 and 2005 was around 13 million hectares per year (FAO 2005, cited in UNFCC n.d.). As a result, the CO2 emission that remains in the atmosphere each year has increased about 40 to 45 per cent which caused by a decrease of emission absorption by land, forests and ocean (le Quéré et al. 2009, p. 831). The combination of the increase of the emission and the decrease of the absorption ability of the land will accelerate the GHG concentration in the atmosphere significantly.
Short term versus long term projection
Van Vuuren and Riahi argues that the recent trend will not make the long term trend of emissions deviate from the SRES range (2008, p. 246). Among others, their most interesting argument is the ‘catch-up process’. They argue that China and India economic growth will be decline—just like South Korea and Japan—after they complete the catch-up process (van Vuuren & Riahi 2008, p. 244)[1]. Although their argument is relevant, they fail to consider the significant difference of the size of population of China and India compare to that was of Japan and South Korea. At 1971—the latter catch-up period of Japan and the earlier period of South Korea—Japan and South Korea population was 2.8 and 0.9 per cent of global population respectively, whereas now China and India have 19.9 and 17 per cent of global population (IEA 2010, pp. 83-85). The more population the county have the longer the catch-up process. Garnaut Review predicts the peak point of China’s growth will be around 2030 while India will be around 2080 (Garnaut 2008, p. 61). Other scholars predict the growth of energy demand of China will peak between 2030 and 2050 (Rout et al. 2011, p. 8).
While the short term and long term prediction may need to be distinguished, the question is how long the ‘short term’ and the ‘long term’ are. Considering the slow effect of climate processes and the nature of path-dependent in energy economy, a century period of time may not be considered as a long term projection.
Conclusion
Despite the strength of the SRES on its open process making and its wider scenarios variety capturing relevant future possibilities, the scenarios have passed their use-by date. That is mainly because the recent developments on economic growth and emission intensity (of GDP) higher than what expected by the SRES. In addition, the disturbance to the land use and forests create a significant impact, not only by increasing the GHG emissions but also by reducing the ability of the land and forests to absorb the GHG emissions. The combination of both will increase the GHG concentration in the atmosphere more than the most pessimistic scenario of the SRES—that is the A1F1—either for the short period up to 2030 or for the longer period up to the end of this century.
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[1] Their argument on catch-up process is mixed with their prediction of slower growth as the effect of the latest global financial crisis. This argument is clearly not proven since China’s growth in 2009 and 2010 was 9.2 and 10.3 per cent respectively, while India was 5.7 and 9.7 per cent respectively (IMF 2011, p. 2).
