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Global Cooling: Strategies for Climate Protection redefines climate protection measures and readjusts climate protection targets in line with what is scientifically necessary and economically feasible. The reader is provided with an overview of recent developments and failings in, and successful instruments for, fighting climate change and global warming. Effective climate protection measures rest on two pillars: stopping all greenhouse gas emissions and cleaning the atmosphere of spare carbon. Both are possible, if the use of fossil fuels in the energy, transport, construction and chemistry sectors is terminated and the decision is made to consistently switch to a world economy with zero emissions instead. Global Feed-in-Tariffs can provide incentives for renewable energies as the German Feed-in-Tariff has proven – a measure which has been copied by almost 70 nations around the world.
At the same time agricultural practices are necessary to support an increase in biodiversity, e.g. re-greening the desert, afforestation and organic agriculture and active storage of atmospheric carbon emissions within agricultural soils. Global Cooling: Strategies for Climate Protection demonstrates that investment in renewable energies and a sustainable economy is not only a worthwhile cause but also has an economic value. Global Cooling: Strategies for Climate Protection introduces new actors such as the financial industry as an investor and political actor. If the financial industry becomes a political actor and calls for a necessary regulatory framework, more nations will follow – accompanied by an economic benefit – which will create a class of pioneer nations instead of the ever failing project of a global climate agreement.
The transformation of the world economy can be accelerated through the right political measures. Active legislative support is necessary, for example the implementation of Feed-in-Tariffs for renewable energies, ending all subsidies for fossil fuels and the internalization of external damage costs such as nuclear waste management. Global warming does not have to be our inescapable fate. If mankind pursues the right climate protection strategies, the earth can be cooled down to an acceptable level in a few decades.
About the book series
Editorial board
Foreword by Caio Koch-Weser
Foreword by Mark Z. Jacobson
About the author
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
1.1 The purpose of this book
1.2 Renewable energy as a jobs miracle
1.3 Renewable energy is not an economic burden
1.4 Renewable energy does not increase prices for energy customers
1.5 Renewable energy as the most effective climate protection measure
1.6 Renewable energy can grow much faster than generally assumed
1.7 Success of biological agriculture in Germany
1.8 The Success of green chemistry in Germany
1.9 Poverty reduction with renewable energy and biological agriculture
2. The crisis of the fossil-atomic age is accelerating dramatically
2.1 The disasters are increasing as a result of global warming
2.2 Fossil fuel raw materials cause more than just climate problems
2.3 Fukushima has once again revealed the uncontrollability of nuclear energy
2.4 Global warming speeds up dramatically: Tipping points and political failure
3. Low carbon: pseudo-solutions for climate protection
3.1 Carbon capture and storage (CCS)
3.2 Nuclear energy
3.3 Industrial, intensive agriculture
3.4 Transport systems with more efficient use of fossil fuels
3.5 Geoengineering
4. Cooling of the Earth is possible: in some decades 330 ppm CO2 can be achieved
4.1 First pillar: zero emission
4.2 Second pillar: carbon removal from the atmosphere
5. Policy measures for cooling the Earth
5.1 The necessity and effect of state regulations to redirect global financial flows
5.2 Demand-oriented innovation policies break the vicious circle of obstacles to innovation
5.3 The EEG as an example of an effective State regulation to divert private cash flows into climate protection
5.4 The permission problems
5.5 State regulations required for effective climate protection
5.6 Policy measures with little or nil effectiveness for climate protection
6. The key role of the financial sector as political climate protection motor
References
Subject index
Hans-Josef Fell, is a physicist by education and currently a member of the German Parliament for the Green Party. Fell is a globally recognized expert on energy policy with a visionary view on alternative energy sources. He serves as the Spokesperson on Energy Policy for the Green Party in the Parliament. Fell is the key architect of the German Feed-in-Tariff, which was copied by almost 70 nations around the world. Hans-Josef Fell and his wife live in the south of Germany and have three children. The family house is built according to ecological criteria and runs completely on renewable energy.
