It is always interesting to see graphs like this, I am curious how much something like a new green deal would move the 2100 temperature line. A common argument against it is that everything depends on China and India. I don't suspect this is true. The USA is one of the highest per capita emitters, it doesn't seem right that we would get to live like that while we take away resources from these other countries who are not as capable of switching over.
At least we should get to a point where we all have equal per capita emitters, preferably we should be investing in the technology that would allow them to never have to use carbon-emitting technologies and even potentially profit off them.
I think Otherlab's analyses talk about this a little:
The Green New Deal: The enormous opportunity in shooting for the moon. https://medium.com/otherlab-news/decarbonization-and-gnd-b8d... (electrifying everything with clean generation will reduce energy needs by half even without any changes in lifestyle)
I'm really a fan of the new green deal, I am afraid that them trying to couple it with a jobs guarantee and universal healthcare will make it easy for the Republicans to make it look like a power grab.
I am a fan of both a jobs guarantee and universal healthcare, but those items are not nearly as important as decarbonizing as quickly as possible.
Seems like if part of the political resistance is people losing jobs in dirty indstries (and since healthcare and employment are bizarrely conjoined) then addressing all three together makes perfect sense.
> A common argument against it is that everything depends on China and India.
This is true though. If you're concerned about absolute fairness, then yes, it makes sense that China should be able to emit as much as the US and Europe does per capita.
But if you care about the environment, then this is a disastrous idea.
The US needs to continue to reduce its carbon output, and China needs to dramatically slow it's increase in carbon output.
Remember, when the US and Europe industrialized, renewables were nonexistent (other than hydro) -- so I think it's fair to expect China and India to leapfrog fossil fuels as much as possible. They've leapfrogged the west on many other technologies -- like telecom and transportation -- so why not energy?
If this is the case we should be investing heavily in research cheap renewables that would allow them to leap the carbon emitting phase. This seems like something even a Republican Congress could get on board with.
It does, and even if it didn't there is a need for a rallying cry. We've been well aware for years the threat climate change poses yet we can't even get a carbon tax to be a major talking point in the US, let alone enacted. We need to shift the discourse because right now it's lately wedge issues pushed by two parties trying to maintain their big tents above all else
However, correlate per capita emissions with per capita economic output and the calculus changes. The US also has one of the highest per capita economic outputs of the world. Suggesting that a million people in Yemen (producing very little) should have the same CO2 allowance as the US is just strange. The question isn’t about per capita output of CO2, but of per capita economic value created from that output. If a Yemeni farmer outputs x and an American farmer outputs 10x, but the American farmer is producing 15x the amount of food, we that means that 10x CO2 is a net gain, because we are getting significantly more food per x output. That would mean the Yemeni farmer should produce less CO2 since they are using it so inefficiently compared to an American farmer. In other words, fossil fuel buses produce more pollutants than a car, but they move move dramatically more people per unit of pollution. Suggesting per capita CO2 should be equal across the world is saying that a bus should emit the same as a car, despite a bus being more efficient per passenger than a car.
The problem is that most people will look at them, quickly find "another" large source of CO2 emissions (be it another country, another industry), point fingers and say "it's them!" without doing anything else. Which in the long term (as in, our children and grandchildren will suffer) will destroy our planet.
A thought I had the other day, that sort of fits in the context of what you're saying, but probably not completely:
It's interesting to step back and consider how the current Climate Change narrative is similar to the universal theme of "We offended God, so now he is punishing us."
Not really sure what the implications of that are, but seems like something that could be harnessed either for good or ill.
It's super depressing to see the acceleration of coal energy in 2000. Despite the rise of renewables, they haven't even been able to keep up with the rise of coal!
And the vast majority of it comes from energy production! Electric cars don't solve the problem if we are switching from high-efficiency gas engines to coal-fired electric.
While renewables are awesome and we should do everything we can to support their growth, they have a major problem (which is why they currently can't replace fossil fuels). Renewables are not constant energy providers and they cannot scale to demand (either up or down). The best bet with them is batteries. But that means that you have to produce at minimum enough to fulfill a full day's worth of energy demands within the time period they operate (solar: day, wind: windy parts of day, etc). Worse, tomorrow might be rainy, so you have to provide more than a few days. Unfortunately this problem is frequently left out. (And yes, we should also majorly be funding research into new batteries)
This is actually why people argue for nuclear. Not because they (we) want to replace renewables, but we want to replace fossil fuels. They compete in different areas. The more renewables you have (and battery tech) the less nuclear you need. But there still has to be something in the system to load balance and scale to demand. Because renewables currently can't tackle this problem we end up building more coal and natural gas plants (which are cheap! But they get much more expensive than something like nuclear once you price in emissions and health effects).
Don't perpetuate the myth that intermittency of renewables is a dealbreaker. While intermittency of power supply with inflexible demand is a problem when renewables hit 80% penetration, the reality is we're going to see utilities buy up demand and then flexibly shift that demand to when renewables are producing electrons.
This makes economic sense because renewables are FAR FAR cheaper than new-build nuclear, and the big businesses who supply electricity to EVs, heating, cooling, and industry are going to continue to encourage flexibility of demand.
For all the software and tech we have, you think we can't shift our electricity demand? It's laughable in the USA to imagine new-build nuclear coming online anywhere near as fast as the scenario I outlined above. It's simply far easier to shift demand than to build new nuclear.
> Don't perpetuate the myth that intermittency of renewables is a dealbreaker.
I was trying really hard NOT to do this. How can I better rephrase it?
I tried mentioning that we should continue to support battery research. I tried using qualifiers like "yet" and "currently". I tried very hard to stress that the issue is with CURRENT technology. Every time I try to talk about this problem it seems to either be dismissed or pushed off as "we'll get there". Which I do believe we'll get there, but it is an unknown time frame and we need to act 2 decades ago.
How can I better rephrase my message? Because I don't think my message and yours are at odds.
Not to mention the new HVDC tech that allows for very long transmission lines. That means that demand can be shifted by 2 hours in each direction in case of solar, depending on geography.
>Bitcoin’s electricity usage is enormous. In November, the power consumed by the entire bitcoin network was estimated to be higher than that of the Republic of Ireland. Since then, its demands have only grown. It’s now on pace to use just over 42TWh of electricity in a year, placing it ahead of New Zealand and Hungary and just behind Peru, according to estimates from Digiconomist. That’s commensurate with CO2 emissions of 20 megatonnes – or roughly 1m transatlantic flights.
Isn't that kind of what agreements like the Paris accord are supposed to accomplish? Individual nations retain sovereignty and can set their own precise laws, but as long as everyone's above some baseline you can't arbitrage by moving the polluting part of your business to Asia or Africa.
Carbon dioxide and temperature are linked. 1650 was the height of the Little Ice Age [0]. Lots of interesting theories and research, e.g. [1], for the specific carbon dioxide drop.
The link from CO2 to temperature is well discussed. But carbon does not randomly disappear from the atmosphere, so either the trigger must have been something on the ground/at sea or there's also a reverse causal link from temperature to CO2 (so it could be triggered by something sun activity), which would imply a terribly unstable system. A very interesting topic indeed. Could variations in the amount of living biomass (which temporarily binds carbon to be released after death unless buried into isolation) make that much of a dent in atmospheric carbon concentration? My gut feeling says atmospheric carbon far outweighs biologically bound (and is in turn dwarfed by geologically bound, until we have dug it all up), but that's really just a guess.
> 1.5°C consistent: there are a range of emissions pathways that would be compatible with limiting average warming to 1.5°C by 2100. However, all would require a very urgent and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Is this polite data analyst-speak for "We're fucked"?
It's polite data analyst speak for, "We need immediate and globally-coordinated _radical_ action" (action being the key term) Edit: We're not fucked yet. Apotheosis of hope.
No, return to old style living won't save us, because the planet can't sustain our current population levels with old-style living. Unless you want to trigger civil unrest and kill many people, the solution has to be technological. Renewable energy and improved energy efficiency can do it, it just needs a few trillion dollars of investment.
Triggering civil unrest and such is not really required to reduce population sizes: as we seem to be tracking ca. +3.5 C increase in average temperatures by 2100, the reduction in population levels will happen automatically by extinctions of animals, disease, extreme weather, flooding of coastal areas, loss in crop productivity, droughts, melting ice cover, societal unrest, and so on.
Renewable energy will have a hard time winning globally unless cheap dirty stuff like coal and oil is made much more expensive through taxes or other means. There is also active resistance from the fossil fuel industry too.
The parent didn't say population growth, they said population. There's way more people currently alive on Earth than the planet's carrying capacity under 1600-level tech, to which we'd had to backtrack globally if we wanted to fix the climate crisis through reducing consumption alone. This is unacceptable for pretty much every reason.
We either find technological solutions to this problem - both on the emission end and on the sequestration end - or climate change starts killing people (and making more people kill even more people). It's that simple.
Population growth is slowing itself. So we have that covered. And now what? Turns out, it's not enough, not even before considering that 2/3 of this population is still in developing countries, which are going to increase their emission levels in the pursuit of decent quality of life.
And thus population control is critical... QED. We don't have that covered at all at the moment: We are already 7 billions and will possibly be 11+ billions by the end of the century. That's insane.
Let's not forget that emissions are only a tiny part of the pressure we put on the environment.
Unless you plan on killing the top 90% GHG emitters over the next fifteen years or so, reducing population levels is not an option. Slowing population growth is important, but it's not a solution.
One of the problems we have is people not being able to take a long term view. Everything has always to work within 5 years... Result: nothing is done.
What I wrote should have started at least 30 years ago. As the saying goes, the next best time to start is now.
You're right but in my opinion, we'll either figure out how to live carbon neutral more or less regardless how many people we have in the next two decades, or catastrophic climate change will ensure that the projected population rise will never happen.
Luckily, we don't have to go back to 1600-level tech, even if our energy output falls to 1/2 of what it currently is.
Vaccines, and reducing child-mortality (and other health care), for example, are not inherently energy-intensive. Neither is massive computing power and storage (data centers are ripe for being carbon-neutral).
What might happen is that we'll have 1 farmer supporting 100 people, instead of 1000, so we'll end up having a larger agricultural population, but not as large as at the end of 19th century. Consumption WILL go down whether you like it or not, even though you might find it politically unpalatable at this point in time.
This might have the additional benefit of slowing down population growth even more, resulting in sustainable levels. It might also result in a healthier population as we embrace reduced consumption and maybe slightly more physical labor.
> Vaccines, and reducing child-mortality (and other health care), for example, are not inherently energy-intensive. Neither is massive computing power and storage (data centers are ripe for being carbon-neutral).
They may not be that emission-dependent in principle, but their supply chains might. Remember that for any technology we want to keep through changes, we also need to keep its entire supply chain in some form - from raw material through all specialized processing steps, plus populations and transportation required. These may not be so easy to decarbonize, though I do have high hopes, especially if and when electric vehicles finally take over.
> This might have the additional benefit of slowing down population growth even more, resulting in sustainable levels.
Or it may have the exactly opposite effect - accelerating population growth. So far the only thing that seems to solidly correlate with population growth is the development level, and that correlation is negative. I.e. as countries become wealthier and consume more, their population growth rates decrease.
No, those growing countries are not the ones producing the most emissions. Top priority is getting the first world to cut down it's emissions and make green technology accessible for developing countries so they don't follow the same path
Population growth is not conveniently forgotten, it's brought up constantly in any discussion. It just isn't the cause of our current situation and won't be significantly adding to it in the time frame that the west needs to adjust
Increasing population will be a contributor in the future if we do not change our technology, but that does not matter because even if everyone but the west (who has a stable population level) stopped emitting carbon we'd still be screwed
Focusing on reducing population is literally preemptive optimization on something that may or may not be a problem depending on the trajectory of energy/production over the next 10 years. It is also just a polite way of saying eugenics
It is already a massive problem and it will only get worse.
Again, emissions are only a small part of the pressure we put on the environment.
Deforestation, loss of natural habitat, dwindling fish stocks, pollution at large, and indeed emissions: These are all caused by ever more people needing ever more resources.
This has nothing to do with eugenics, which has a completely different meaning.
What I don't understand about this is, that we were flat for about three years, and then we went up a little bit. This to me signals that we are close to if not at peak emissions and we should be able to start seeing the downturn at any time. But the chart you are showing has emissions increasing for the next 20 years. Am I oversimplifying or being naive?
We are nowhere near peak emissions. There may be dips here and there (e.g. due to recession). But look what happened to China starting in 2000: https://images.app.goo.gl/F4m9zThoK7Yr9jC66. It added more CO2 than the total output of the US. That’s going to happen to India and Africa over the next few decades as those places develop into middle class economies.
In other words authorities in China, India and Africa pay lip service to what one might call the 'Greta Prediction' while their actions show they simply do not believe it.
> This image should terrify you. It should be on billboards.
> As you can see, in either scenario, global emissions must peak and begin declining immediately. For a medium chance to avoid 1.5 degrees, the world has to zero out net carbon emissions by 2050 or so — for a good chance of avoiding 2 degrees, by around 2065.
Climate aside, doesn't the increase of CO2 from 280PPM to 400PPM not have a substantial impact on the respiration of trees and animals? 42% increase of poison to animals has no meaningful impact?
I'm not sure about other animals, but 400ppm is a long way away from toxic for humanity. Poorly ventilated indoor environments can easily hit 1200-1500ppm. You've got to hit 70,000 to 100,000 ppm before you start running the risk of coma and death.
Interestingly some studies indicate that 1200ppm and higher might confer some mild cognitive impairment, even if it's a long way away from fatal. This has been used glibly to explain the poor decisions made in office rooms, but one does wonder what happens to humanity if global emissions make us slightly dumber.
At 400 ppm CO2 is only 0.04% of the total atmosphere. Increasing from 0.028% to 0.04% is a 42% increase, but 0.04% is too low to directly poison plants.
The climate change effects will be a problem long before plants and animals start getting poisoned by it.
It doesn't poison plants, they rely on CO2 in much the same way that animals rely on O2. I know that it's a negligible part of the atmosphere, but a 42% increase on the primary mechanism for plant respiration, which is also a poison for animals, seems like it would have a meaningful impact.
>the people pushing the green new deal are doomsday Sayers predicting "crisis" in 12 years.
They are saying we have 12 years to drastically reduce carbon emissions. If we don't the results of which will be seen in the following decades. I would expect NASA would agree with this just like every other reputable scientific organization.
From the Article: The researchers point out that the gain in greenness seen around the world and dominated by India and China does not offset the damage from loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions, such as Brazil and Indonesia. The consequences for sustainability and biodiversity in those ecosystems remain.
> they are more religious than some religious people about their science.
There is no correlation between people concerned about high estimated damage using the current best effort science (warming of 3-4'C) and dogma without evidence.
If you have evidence to the contrary you will have definitely earned that Nobel prize and million bucks.
You can watch the Arctic melt before your eyes[1] and we will very likely see an ice free Arctic for the first time in at least 100,000 years in our lifetime. Claiming that isn't happening isn't "skepticism" it is denying what you can easily verify with your own eyes.
But let me ask you a very important question that will easily settle where the dogma lies. What would convince you that climate change is happening? Because there is apple evidence all around us and yet you seem determined not to see it, so what would change you mind? If nothing then there's really no point having a discussion.
I totally agree that it's terrible some pepole are "weaponizing" weather for political gain by claiming that occasional cold weather in the winter is a disproof of a warming climate -- is that what you are referring to?
Because that's terrible science. Even if it sounds skeptical.
using Orwellian newspeak to change words to match your "scientific" agenda should be considered an attack on science and not regurgitated by people who believe the agenda. no conspiracy, they don't hide the manipulation
Well the scientist gave word, and the Exxon board covered it up, so... yes please!
Preferably policy is made based on facts and common sense.
If you’ve ever worked a reasonably complex system I’m sure you’ll agree that minuscule changes or additions can have unforeseen and sometimes devastating consequences.
In large systems of complexity you usually end up with really weird, cascading issues. Things triggering other things, hitting edges etc.
I don’t think I ever worked anything remotely as complex a system as the earth (or... have I?), but looking at the graphs of co2 since the beginning of industrialization it’s quite clear we are making massive changes to a system that have had many thousands of years to get in tune.
Couple this with the fact that almost all experts in related fields seem to agree that the changes we’re seeing will be destructive and also difficult to mitigate you have something that just simply makes sense.
It would be utterly foolish not to make policy of it.
> C.1. In model pathways with no or limited overshoot of 1.5°C, global net anthropogenic CO2 emissions decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 (40–60% interquartile range), reaching net zero around 2050 (2045–2055 interquartile range).
This report came out in late 2018. As of the publishing of this report, in order to keep global average temperature increase under 1.5°C, CO2 emissions must fall to 45% of 2010 levels in 12 years.
There has been a predictable amount of misstating what this report actually says by environmentalists with poor reading comprehension, and a similar amount of bad-faith readings and intentional obfuscation by climate science deniers, but in any case, this is the source of the "12 years" figure that's been going around.
Nobody is "predicting doomsday in 12 years", but you can set your clock by the outpouring of bad faith "I Told You So"s that will occur in October of 2030 when the world has not ended.
My prediction: In 2030 the people denying climate change now will say "Of course everyone believed in anthropogenic climate change! It was only some flat-earthers that denied it was happening. Don't blame us! We tried to do something but the lefties wouldn't let us build nuclear power. Its actually all their fault"
Of course, it's greener, plants are made from carbon. What you don't realize is that the biosphere puts as much carbon back in the atmosphere from respiration and fire as it puts in. In other words, it's greener but there are also bigger fires. Also, it's greener for now, but temperatures are changing so fast now that likely most plants won't keep up.
