Climate Solutions: WWF’s Vision for 2050, a report by the global conservation organization, shows that the world has more than enough sustainable energy and technology to curb climate change, but key decisions need to be made now.

WWF’s Climate Solutions report shows how the world can limit its heat-trapping emissions with known technologies and policy changes, using only sustainable, environmentally friendly energy sources.

“The question for leaders and governments everywhere is how to rein in dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide emissions without stunting development and reducing living standards," said James Leape, WWF International’s Director General. “The Climate Solutions report shows not only that this can be done, it shows how we can do it. We have a small window of time in which we can plant the seeds of change, and that is the next five years. We cannot afford to waste them.

“This is not something that governments can put off until the future. Governments in power now have a unique opportunity, a duty, to do something big for the future of the planet. If they fail, generations to come will have to live with the compromises and hardships caused by their inability to act.”

Princeton University’s Professor Robert Socolow, who in his work with Professor Stephen Pacala developed the climate stabilization wedges used in the WWF study, endorsed the Climate Solutions report.

“The WWF study provides a much needed integration of climate change mitigation within a comprehensive framework of environmental stewardship,” he said.

Overview over the WWF Climate Solutions Report

Climate Solutions is the report of WWF’s Energy Task Force which was set up in December 2005. More than 100 scientists and experts contributed their knowledge.

The task force set out to answer the question: “Is it technically possible to meet the growing global demand for energy using clean and sustainable energy sources and technologies that will protect the global climate?”

It began by reviewing 25 different commercially available sustainable energy sources or technologies and ranking them. From this process, three groupings emerged: those technologies with clear benefits, those with some negative but mostly positive impacts, and those where the negatives clearly outweighed the positives.

Those technologies found to have more benefits than negative impacts were then run through the newly designed WWF Climate Solutions model.

The findings were clear and had a note of hope: the model showed, with a high degree of probability (i.e. greater than 90 per cent), that known energy sources and proven technologies could be harnessed between now and 2050 to meet a projected doubling in global demand for energy while at the same time achieving the necessary significant drop (about 60-80 per cent) in carbon dioxide emissions to prevent dangerous climate change.

The model shows for the first time that this is technically and industrially feasible. It also shows that measures must be taken within five years to bring about a reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions within the next ten years.

The report identifies six key solutions to the problem of meeting global energy demand without damaging the global climate:

• Improving energy efficiency.
• Stopping forest loss.
• Accelerating the development of low-emissions technologies.
• Developing flexible fuels.
• Replacing high-carbon coal with low-carbon gas.
• Equipping fossil-fuel plants with carbon capture and storage technology.


For further information:
Moira O’Brien-Malone, Head of Press
WWF International
mobrien@wwfint.org
+41 22 364 9550

Martin Hiller
WWF Climate Change Communications
mhiller@wwfint.org
+41 79 347 2256