Trevor Scott Howell

Norwegian scientist Knut Alfsen says an 'ugly future' awaits us if real steps aren't taken to address climate change.

For Knut Alfsen it’s not a question of whether climate change is going to happen, but just how bad it’s going to get. Rising food prices, oceans producing less fish, riots in the streets.

“There will be so many stressors on society as we know it that there is a real possibility for society to break down,” said Alfsen, research director for the Norway-based Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research. “To believe that we are going to carry on business as usual is an illusion.”

Speaking to a small, mostly oil and gas business crowd at the Petroleum Club May 31, hosted by the Royal Embassy of Norway in Canada, Alfsen, with a PhD in theoretical physics and 20 years working as an economist on natural resources and the environment, was unrelenting in his assessment.

The science is settled. Climate change is happening. It’s happening fast. And human activity is to blame. Thinking otherwise is folly and sets humanity on a path to surefire disaster. And despite the rhetoric, few concrete, credible plans exist to reverse humanity’s course.

“There is no reason to doubt that if we’re not doing anything about our greenhouse gas emissions we can expect the temperature to increase the next hundred years,” he said.

Earth’s temperature will likely increase 4 C during the next 100 years. The last time the planet was that warm, Europe was a swampland, Alfsen told the silent, sombre crowd.

He took aim at Norway’s target to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 30 per cent by 2020 and be GHG neutral by 2030. “Can you imagine? How wonderful. And how unrealistic,” he said.

“If we are going to stabilize the concentration at any level, we actually have to reduce our emissions on the order of 80 per cent or more.”

Yet to meet that target, society would have to be “retooled” on the same magnitude last seen during the industrial revolution — in a fraction of the time, he added.

A big part of the problem is the nature of CO2 itself. Most greenhouse gases, such as methane, break down in the atmosphere over decades. “That is not happening to CO2,” he said. “It’s basically not engaging to chemical reactions in the atmosphere.”

Instead, CO2 slowly redistributes through natural carbon sinks — soil, vegetation and oceans — taking 100,000 years to disappear from the atmosphere, said Alfsen. “This is quite dramatic.”

Because natural carbon sinks aren’t large enough to counter the CO2 output created by humans, the only realistic short-term solution is carbon capture and storage, said Alfsen.

But even that won’t be enough over the long term, he added. Governments need to take the lead, developing credible climate policies and pumping vast amounts of money into new and existing technologies, such as wind and solar power.

“If we are able to do this right, we are going to transform society radically,” he said.

Failure will result in a very “ugly future,” he said. “We have experience with this in Europe where society suddenly breaks down and neighbours start shooting at each other.”

Alfsen pointed out that China is trying to reduce its GHG emissions (expected to peak by 2025) by pouring billions of dollars into clean energy technology and expecting nothing less than success.

“When the Chinese set targets, they are serious targets,” said Alfsen. “If you’re not delivering on your targets, you’re out a job and out of politics. It has serious consequences at the personal level not to deliver.”