Climate Warming and the Role of CO₂

Authors

Prof. Dr. Dr.h.c. R. Zellner, Universität Duisburg-Essen

Year

2008

Print Info

Fortschritt-Berichte VDI, Reihe 12, Nr. 672

Summary

Whilst a warming of the global climate by almost 1°C since the beginning of industrialization is hardly disputed, there is still substantial controversy in the public discussion over the causes of this warming. In the centre of this discussion is the anthropogenic climate gas CO₂. The increase of its concentration is to a very large extent made responsible for the warming of the climate since the middle of the last century by the majority of climate scientists working together in the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC 2007). The critics of the IPCC on the other hand argue that natural factors such as the sun are more important and they deny the important role of CO₂ and/or the existence of the greenhouse effect as a whole.

The discussion of the role of CO₂ in the climate system would probably remain entirely unnoticed were it not that it had substantial consequences. The future development of our climate for a business-as-usual scenario for the use of fossil energy material and the associated CO₂ emissions would, according to IPCC, lead to an additional warming of our planet by 2.5 – 4.5°C by the end of this century. Since such an extent of additional warming would seriously endanger the living conditions on Earth there is urgent need for substantial action with respect to the reduction of global CO₂ emissions. Such action which undoubtedly represents serious impacts on our conventional energy supply systems – either mobile or stationary – would not be necessary were the role of CO₂ overestimated as suggested by the IPCC critics. In this paper we review the different arguments confirming and/or disputing the role of CO₂ in the climate system.

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