A 2014 report (external link in English, large .pdf file, 218 pages) prepared by teams of energy experts from the world’s 15 largest economies under the auspices of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), a global initiative for the United Nations, on a pathway to cut carbon emissions by 2050 while maintaining reasonable rates of growth. It will require:

• A fundamental change on the way energy is used.
• A huge investment in energy technologies.
• Enormous compromises and a cooperative attitude among and within governments on how to combat climate change.
• Acknowledging that replacing coal with natural gas in power plants is insufficient and may even be counterproductive as it would lock a country’s energy infrastructure into a high-carbon path.
• Assuming that new economically feasible, commercial-scale technologies will be deployed, including second-generation biofuels by 2020, carbon capture and storage by 2024, and hydrogen fuel cells and power storage technology by 2030.
• Assuming that technologies that appear to be technically and economically feasible at present may in fact turn out to be.

• Calculating of the cost of the global conversion/effort, who will pay for it, how much, and methods of amortization.
• Addressing the water connection. Currently it deals only with the energy aspect of the crisis, not water. Both are inextricably linked to each other and cannot be treated as separate issues.

In contrast, Plan A:

• Pays for itself.

• Does not require the development and deployment of new technologies.
• Eliminates the need for nuclear and fossil fuels to generate electricity.
• Creates a new, truly drought-proof source of pure water anywhere, even in inland areas far from any coastline.

The first worldwide report (in English) on future emissions of carbon dioxide, also known as “committed emissions,” prepared by Steve J Davis (Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697) and Robert H Soicolow (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544), published by IOP Publishing (Open Access) and the journal Environmental Research Letters, August 2014. The study shows that despite international efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, total remaining commitments in the global power sector have not declined in a single year since 1950 and are in fact growing rapidly—by an average of 4 percent per year from 2000 to 2012.

By region, the United States is retiring more plants than it’s building and the European Union is unchanged –about the same number of plants are being built as are being retired. But in China, India, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, as much as 4 times as many plants are being built as are being retired. To be sure, since 2010 China has slowed construction of coal-fired power plants, however Southeast Asia has been building more to expand industrial output.

A World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report (in English) reveals that between 2012 and 2013, carbon dioxide increased by 2.9 parts per million (ppm) to an average of 396 ppm.

The chart below shows how average CO2 levels have risen over time.

This September 2014 Low Carbon Economy Index by multinational accounting firm Pricewaterhouse-Coopers measures how G-20 countries are performing relative to their agreement at the 2009 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to do what they must to keep global temperatures within 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels. The result: almost everyone is falling short. Their performance is critical; together they account for 85 percent of global carbon emissions.

2014 National Security & Climate Change Report (in English, .pdf file) issued by the Center for Naval Analyses Military Advisory Board.

Overview (in English, .pdf file) of the 3rd National Climate Change Assessment Review, explaining its impact on the United States

A special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 95, No. 9, September 2014 entitled Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 From a Climate Perspective.