McKinsey 2008 Research in Review: Stabilizing at 450 ppm has a net cost near zero

The McKinsey Global Institute has summarized their recent work in a new report, which concludes that stabilizing atmospheric CO2 will cost "in the order of 0.6–1.4 percent of global GDP by 2030" — the same conclusion as the International Energy Agency and IPCC.  Some nice graphics:

i have been going 'insulation, insulation, insulation' its easily the lowest hanging fruit for both cold and warm climates. mmmm green roofs my favourite right now for cool temperate.

very pleased to see 'energy efficient commercials' in second place. there are developments here, but of course they do depend on oil prices heavily. a few years ago i had the pleasure of driving a methane powered hgv. lovely truck, easily as good as diesel, it had a cooled and pressurised tank so avoided the exesses of danger from high pressure while being ordinary tank size. it sounded a bit funny as the fuel expanded in a pre combustion heating chamber, but was a lovely drive. unfotunately, i have not seen one since. i presume the usual supply chain problem did it in. the comany was called CHivE which i thought was very clever.

We can do two things with automotive, first reduce littres of fuel per megametre travelled, secondly reduce numbers of km travelled. And yes, part of reducing km travelled may mean  shared rides, public transport, use of trains.

Just moving cars from 100 litres / megametre to 50 litres, vere doable, but it only cuts usage of fuel in half. If we also cut km driven in half, we cut down on fuel used by 75%. Unfortunately this will not accomplish anything.

Why? as we cut consumption we drive prices back down to use up all the fuel being extracted. Once furel is extracted it will be consumed. The only way to reduce consumption and emissions is to mandate that the amount of fuel being extracted or imported must be reduced at least as much. The benefit is not just reduced emissions but equally we keep that fuel in the ground for a future day of need.

If people switch to electric cars, it doesn't matter what the price of oil/gas is, consumption (by vehicles) won't increase.  And that's the direction we're headed.

"We" can be heading in that direction, but our auto industry and our petroleum industry are not toatally convinced. I expect to see those industries still selling more than half fossil fuel burning vehicles for another 25 years if the price of fossil fuels does not become prohibitive.

But even with electric cars we can reduce the number of km we drive, and switch to trains or public transit. 

I don't.  There will probably be plug-in hybrids for quite a while, but i expect pure gas vehicles to be eliminated from new car production within a 10-15 years.

there is also the rebound effect to consider with efficiency improvements in particular.

dana, if the total miles driven continue to rise, how can that not increase consumption regardless of type of vehicle?

The linked wikipedia entry gave a good example of this.

if a 10% improvement in vehicle fuel efficiency results in only a 4% drop in fuel use, there is a 60% rebound effect

Even in this 60% rebound effect example, you still get a 4% drop in fuel use.

However, I don't see any reason to expect that total miles driven will continue to rise.  In fact, it's been declining over the past several months.  As of the end of November, in the USA

According to the Department of Transportation, ‘vehicle miles driven‘ (VMD) fell for the 11th month in a row, 4.4% in September alone.

It began due to high gas prices.  Now that gas prices have plummetted in the US, vehicle miles have continued to fall because gas prices fell due to economic recession.  Once the economy recovers, gas prices will rise, and vehicle miles will continue not to rise.

I think we've reached a point where Americans at least have begun to realize that we can limit the amount of driving we do.  I don't really think that increasing fuel efficiency will cause people to drive significantly more miles.  In particular when we start to get plug-in hybrids and electric cars, fuel efficiency will skyrocket (you're talking around 100 mpg for a plug-in hybrid), and there's no way for vehicle miles to rise enough to negate that efficiency effect.

ah right, i was thinking global. all those folk in india and china saving for their first car.

Ah yes well that does complicate things.  Not due to a rebound effect, but due to the fact that these countries are rapidly becoming developed.  That certainly complicates things, but China at least has already begun offering plug-in hybrids and India electric cars.

Cool.