Responding to climate change is far more like a marathon than a sprint.
The IPCC 1.5ºC Special report (#SR15) has been released:
Thoughts
It’s well worth reading the SPM and FAQs before confidently pronouncing on the utility or impact of this report. The FAQs include the following questions:
- FAQ 1.1: Why are we talking about 1.5°C?
- FAQ 1.2: How close are we to 1.5°C?
- FAQ 2.1: What kind of pathways limit warming to 1.5°C and are we on track?
- FAQ 2.2: What do energy supply and demand have to do with limiting warming to 1.5°C?
- FAQ 3.1: What are the impacts of 1.5°C and 2°C of warming?
- FAQ 4.1: What transitions could enable limiting global warming to 1.5°C?
- FAQ 4.2: What are Carbon Dioxide Removal and negative emissions?
- FAQ 4.3: Why is adaptation important in a 1.5°C warmer world?
- FAQ 5.1: What are the connections between sustainable development and limiting global warming to 1.5°C?
- FAQ 5.2: What are the pathways to achieving poverty reduction and reducing inequalities while reaching the 1.5°C world?
First thing to remember is that this special report was commissioned from the UNFCCC on the back of the Paris Accord (which is not the process for main IPCC reports). Secondly, the IPCC is constrained to only assess published literature or otherwise publically available data. This means that if no groups have studied a question, there isn’t much to assess. Sometimes the gaps are apparent even in the scoping of the reports which can encourage people to focus on them at an early stage and have publications ready in time for the final report, but one of the main impacts of any of these reports is to influence research directions going forward.
What does 1.5ºC mean?
The SR15 has defined 1.5ºC as the warming from the period 1850-1900. This is 2.7ºF and about 1/3rd of an ice age unit (the amount of warming from the depths of the last ice age 20,000 years ago to the mid-19th Century).
This baseline is not really “pre-industrial”, and there have been some interesting discussions on what that phrase might be usefully defined as (Hawkins et al ,2017; Schurer et al, 2017), but this baseline is the easiest to adopt since estimates of climate impacts are being based on climate models from CMIP5 which effectively use that same baseline. The timing of projected impacts is a little sensitive to definitional issues with the “global mean” temperature, and whether the instrumental record is biased with respect to changes in the mean – particularly in the earlier part of the record when the data is relatively sparse.
At current rates, we’ll hit 1.5ºC on a decadal-average basis by ~2040. The first year above 1.5ºC will occur substantially earlier, likely associated with a big El Niño event in the late 2020s/early 2030s.
Can we avoid going through 1.5ºC?
IPCC has to use a few circumlocutions to avoid giving a direct answer to this question (for reasonable and understandable reasons). I’m not quite so constrained…
There are many issues related to the feasibility question of which physical climate-related issues are only one. The basic issue is that the effort to reduce emissions sufficiently to never get past 1.5ºC would require a global effort to decarbonize starting immediately that would dwarf current efforts or pledges. This seems unlikely (IMO).
There are a few ‘get-out-of-jail’ cards that are considered. First, we can overshoot 1.5ºC, and then come back down after heroic efforts to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere though so-called ‘negative emissions’. This makes the immediate task less daunting, but at the expense of relying on global scale efforts with carbon sequestration, or BECCS, or direct air capture, which are extremely speculative. Second, we could start direct geo-engineering efforts to reduce temperatures and (most optimistically) buy time for carbon emissions to come down a little more slowly. Both of these scenarios come with dramatic and underexplored geo-political consequences (are there any stable governance regimes for geo-engineering? is there sufficient land for large scale BECCS?), as well as substantial moral hazard.
So my answer is… no.
I get that there is reluctance to say this publically – it sounds as if one is complicit in the impacts that will occur above 1.5ºC, but it seems to me that tractable challenges are more motivating than impossible (or extremely unfeasible) ones – I would be happy to be proven wrong on this though.
The utility of the SR15 report?
Even if you think that working on responses to impacts that are almost certainly going to be smaller than we are actually going to see, there are some useful aspects of this report. The basic fact is that moving beyond the small efforts that have been made so far implies transitions that are effectively the same whether we hope to stabilise at 1.5ºC, 2ºC or even 3ºC – only the rate at which they are implemented differs.
This is because near-term reductions in carbon emissions by ~70% are required to even stabilize CO2, and to stabilize temperature, even further (net) reductions are required. And worse still to stabilize sea level, eventual temperature drops would be required.
Efforts on these scales are not easy, and will need to be sustained over many decades and much of the work discussed in this report will be central to that. Nonetheless, this will be a marathon effort. It is thus perhaps worth paraphrasing Eliud Kipchoge, the recent winner of the Berlin marathon:
The best time to start [reducing emissions] was 25 years ago. The second best time is today.
References
- E. Hawkins, P. Ortega, E. Suckling, A. Schurer, G. Hegerl, P. Jones, M. Joshi, T.J. Osborn, V. Masson-Delmotte, J. Mignot, P. Thorne, and G.J. van Oldenborgh, "Estimating Changes in Global Temperature since the Preindustrial Period", Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 98, pp. 1841-1856, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0007.1
- A.P. Schurer, M.E. Mann, E. Hawkins, S.F.B. Tett, and G.C. Hegerl, "Importance of the pre-industrial baseline for likelihood of exceeding Paris goals", Nature Climate Change, vol. 7, pp. 563-567, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3345
C 38: I still quit and turn my back on this ‘issue’ and the waste of words that it has and will always be for all.
BPL: So you have said before. I’ll believe it when I see it.
DC, #43–
At the very least, I think you need to give the report credit for providing timelines on starving to death and some really good design criteria for the can opener.
@47 Victor
Yeah, predictions, eh. No doubt your sports master or priest warned you you’d go blind – yet you haven’t.
Short-sighted maybe. The predictions you quote were not made by a reputable scientific institution or the IPCC, yet seem to be in essence true. We’re running out of time.
#47, Victor–
Speaking of tedium…
First, because Person A was wrong in 1989, does not mean that the expert scientific consensus in 2018 is also wrong–even if “Person A” is described as a “senior environmental official.”
Second, the extent to which “Person A” was wrong is still unclear. To assess that, one must disentangle the concepts of “commitment” and “realization.” Illustratively, a smoker may be “committed” to lung cancer by mutation of lung cells years before the cancer grows enough for diagnosis, and the disease is “realized”.
So, in the case of “Person A”–Noel Brown–the period for commitment may indeed be too short, while the description of the consequences of realization may be entirely accurate. As indeed they appear to be, given that they are logically straightforward consequences of sea-level rise–which is, by the way, directly measured and therefore clearly occurring today.
Third, it’s laughable to suggest that because the Maldivean economy is doing reasonably well at present, that therefore fundamental physical challenges somehow don’t exist. Even one of the sources cited notes that “Maldivian authorities worry about the impact of erosion and possible global warming on their low-lying country; 80% of the area is 1 meter or less above sea level.” (And by the way, isn’t it a bit suggestive that, as noted in said source, for foreigners to own land in the Maldives, they must reclaim it from the sea?)
So, in terms of flooding, no, the Maldives aren’t “doing fine.” They have a complex problem, and it’s getting worse:
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-highlights-complex-maldives.html#jCp
Or, as the abstract puts it:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11069-017-2957-5
An interesting case study is the island of Kandholhudhoo. In 2004, a BBC report said that:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3930765.stm
So what happened?
This:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandholhudhoo_(Raa_Atoll)
Apparently, the fishermen didn’t make it, or got turfed out forcibly, because now it’s an expensive “vacation paradise”–one arguably suitable for temporary but highly remunerative habitation. Better hope there’s not another tsunami in the area, though. See pictures:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kandholhudhoo/138928382792633
Here’s a 2014 documentary on the “Tsunami 10 years on”, from before the redevelopment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvT0d8ok2_g
Some of the images from the documentary are posted as stills on the Facebook page, confirming that it is indeed the same island. (There’s another Kandholhudhoo, but it’s in a different archipelago.) I didn’t find anything on the history redevelopment itself, which is curious. Perhaps the distressing history isn’t the best advertisement for the place. “Lemons from lemonade”–or the height of cynicism?
Oh well, at least it’s not quite as vulnerable as some of the “resort islands”, such as the similarly-named Kandholhu:
http://www.kandolhu.com/kandolhu-maldives/factsheet.html
#48, Karsten Johansen–
Tell that to every long-term common-law married couple out there. Voluntary agreements that are mutually beneficial are among the most stable ones you can find. (Heck, even legal marriages are pretty easily terminated in most cases now–yet about half of them survive.)
To approach the point from another direction, you yourself described the status quo as a “a supersteady course to Hell.” Can you suggest any conceivable sanction to penalize defection from an “enforceable” climate agreement that would merit such as description–or even begin to approach meriting it? I can’t.
There is an appalling amount of denialist bullshit being posted here. Blatant lies, laughable nonsense, and crackpot conspiracy theories. This site used to be moderated.
Victor 47
The prediction is that the Maldives and other flat nations will be covered by a 3 foot sea level rise by 2100. The status of the Maldives in 2018 does not disprove a prediction about the status of the Maldives in 2100.
The “by 2000” part is about the urgency for mitigation, not the date when the Maldives will be inundated by sea level rise.
Hmm, the USA is grand at making trash. Just load it on those empty ships returning to China. Drop the garbage on the Maldives. I’m sure we can keep up with sea level rise if we just up our wastefulness a tad…
We keep partying and they’ll adapt. Problem solved!
Concerning Maldives. They may still be around in 2100. Mostly dredged up and man-made islands with the seat of government on them, a government willing to lease most of what little land is left for tourism and/or military bases. A sovereign nation at that location is currently worth the billions it takes to maintain it. It will survive as long as it is worth the necessary adaptation financing.
Kiribati’s current administration is hoping for the same fate.
Kevin McKinney: the Paris “agreement” surely is no marriage, at least not to anything else than hot air. 1) The nonbinding promises are usually white lies (number tricking), 2) even those promises are already being broken everywhere you check.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/13/top-climate-scientist-james-hansen-attacks-uk-fracking-plans
Yes, but in fact nearly everybody in power all over the soon boiling globe is aping Trump in deeds, if not in words (they are too smart for that, but that does not say very much…). Why not say that, when it is so? 400+ ppmv CO2 is equal the highest content of this gas in the troposphere in at least the last 26 million years according to most of the latest peer-reviewed scientific results, and *exactly nothing factual whatsoever* points to any be it even very tiny correction of that course, towards 500 ppmv and so on and the extreme runaway climate of PETM 55 million years ago and the following mass extinction. If words could have saved us, we would have been saved long ago. But deeds? By politicians, bureaucrats and business executives? Don’t make me laugh. They are only in it for the money.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.696.9961&rank=1&q=Descent%20Into%20the%20Icehouse%20Blog%20post.%2013.04.13%20Paul%20N.%20Pearson&osm=&ossid=
Here is an example of why, IMO, keeping warming to 1.5C is near impossible.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45838997
“Scientists say we ought to eat much less meat because the meat industry causes so many carbon emissions.
But the climate minister Claire Perry has told BBC News it is not the government’s job to advise people on a climate-friendly diet.”
It is probably not the governments job to advise people to drive their cars less, or make efforts to reduce their electricity/gas usage either.
If those supposed to be in authority can’t be bothered, and/or prioritise freedom over responsibility, why will the public?
It appears in the UK at least, even small things like advising people on making lifestyle choices which reduce climate change impact are unpalatable, so how we get from the current situation to Killins more extreme solution of sustainable societies on a global scale I have no idea.
And no, I didn’t vote for this lot in power, but I am only one in 70 million, and a lot of those others did.
The concluding paragraph of Kevin Anderson’s recent op-ed* about the IPCC’s Special Report:
“The Paris Agreement notes how it will take a little longer for poorer countries to fully decarbonise, raising the bar still further for the UK, USA and other wealthy nations. Even for 2°C the maths points to such nations moving to zero-carbon energy by 2035-2040, with poorer nations following suit a decade later. For 1.5°C, such ‘real’ 2°C mitigation will need to be complemented with planetary scale negative emissions. Whilst the IPCC’s 1.5°C report rightly emphasises the urgent need to research these speculative technologies, it continues to run scared of the economic elephant dominating the room. Until the IPCC (and society more generally) are prepared to acknowledge the huge asymmetry in consumption and hence emissions, temperatures will continue to rise beyond 1.5 and 2°C – bequeathing future generations the climate chaos of 3°C, 4°C or even higher.”
Anderson’s commentary resonates with me. Having said that, how do we go about convincing individuals and societies to replace a consumptive economy with something else? We would essentially be asking residents of developed countries to dial back their lifestyles. Doing so will require a massive global education/marketing effort that has yet to be invented, much less implemented. Time is not on our side.
*Response to the IPCC 1.5°C Special Report Opinion by Kevin Anderson, Manchester News, Oct 8, 2018
http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/posts/2018/10/response-to-the-ipcc-1-5c-special-report/
#57 Tom Adams: “The “by 2000” part is about the urgency for mitigation, not the date when the Maldives will be inundated by sea level rise.”
Since the prediction is ambiguous, you could be right. However, since the extreme measures called for back in 1989 never took place, by 2000 or since that date, then I suppose it’s already too late to save the Maldives from disappearing under the waves. Do you agree?
To John Hartz’s question about convincing individuals of the problem: This may sound flippant but I suggest we have people watch nature shows. Not because they show cute, fuzzy little (or big) animals, but because many of them show that Nature doesn’t care and can be incredibly brutal. What does a male bear do after defeating another male for territory? Kill the other’s cubs. Nature is the ultimate computer running an experiment (perhaps programmed by mice). Humans are giving the planet inputs of pollution, CO2, methane, aerosols, lots of people, etc. Nature responds based on laws of physics and simply doesn’t care about race, age, gender, etc. In particular, she doesn’t care about $$. I am not aware of one physics equation describing nature that has $$ in it.
So, every action is an input for the program. It isn’t personal.
I have a question. I have read a lot, been a bit isolated on the background of a few things, and apparently missed something pretty big (ie. the real carbon budget).
In the 2015 & 2016 Gap Reports, there is a Table ES1: Overview of pathway characteristics for the two global temperature targets (2016 page XV in Executive summary). The first 4 columns include overshoot and negative emissions. The last column doesn’t. It seems to be a pretty conservative number and about 1/3 the new 1.5°C budget and and 2/3 the 2°C budget. I was informed that the 4th column was what we needed to hit with no negative emissions. Apparently my informer also missed the other carbon budget (1000 Gt for 2°C) or I confused them with my question.
Anyone know why the last column is so different than the oft quoted budgets and why it was not included in the 2017 Gap report?
Thanks
62 – John H
“Having said that, how do we go about convincing individuals and societies to replace a consumptive economy with something else? We would essentially be asking residents of developed countries to dial back their lifestyles. Doing so will require a massive global education/marketing effort that has yet to be invented, much less implemented.”
Oh, it’s been invented.
Method 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hsDn2kNriI
Method 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9MjnEysfAk
60 – K v J
How about 5000 ppm?
https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past-intermediate.htm
Just in the nick of time, President Donald John Trump, leader of the free world, leader of the most prosperous and successful experiment in freedom on the planet – the USA, and Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful military, says CC is not a hoax:
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/10/14/trump-climate-change-not-hoax/amp/
I’ve been urging him (and other politicians) to pass some laws allowing property owners to install energy saving devices on buildings free from state and local codes as long as it is safe. Can you imagine how much input (good, bad, and ugly) he gets on a daily basis about CC? It’s got to be HUGE!
KVJ, #60–
Irrelevant–pars pro toto. The point is that agreements are strongest, not when sanctions are strong, but when interests are aligned. In the big picture, climate change is in no-one’s true interest. Paris codifies recognition of that as fact. (And Trump’s intention to withdraw codifies the American right’s refusal to accept the facts.)
I don’t agree with your perceptions; there are certainly many leading examples of serious NDCs, and certainly examples of countries acting on them. Consequently, I can’t agree either that everybody is ‘aping Trump.’ On the contrary, he is largely an outcast, a buffoon, literally a laughingstock, albeit one who must be taken seriously enough to manipulate.
Is the Conservative UK government’s attempt to ape America with fracking stupid and irresponsible? Of course. Yet the steep reduction in UK’s actual emissions, noted in your story as touted by the government, is a reality. And so is the transformation of the UK energy mix:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/07/how-green-is-britains-low-carbon-energy-supply
It’s not yet enough. But equally, it is far from ‘aping Trump’–or wishing to.
The world population is supposed to increase by 50% by 2100, even if we diminish the carbon footprint per capita by 50% (currently at around 5 Mt/capita) near levels from the 50s, I really cannot see how we can reduce global emissions significantly.
68 – Sam
It can be done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgi7WgB05Jo
:)
Seriously, I’d recommend thoughtful letters and calls to 45, making your arguments for CC action, and/or presenting proposals for mitigation. Maybe Ivanka or Jared will convince him to make some progress on CC. I have to agree with him – no need for the USA to enter into unfair agreements that put us at a disadvantage compared to our competitors. Making us weaker economically will not help us to solve the problem; and makes no sense if the net effect is not significant.
Letters and calls to other congressional leaders, and even state leaders, would also be worthwhile.
But if you want any real, effective action, be sure to vote for Rs, because if Ds take over, they will do nothing but obstruct and waste time/money on useless investigations for the next 6 years of his term. ;)
#68 Sam Foucher,
Although mitigation strategies are supposed to be on the FR thread, this OP is related enough that the question is appropriate.
The real issue, as I’ve pointed out before, is in framing the goal. If we finally accept that there isn’t going to be a magic solution where FF burning stops in 20 years– and lots of qualified people seem to be doing that recently– shouldn’t we ask:
What can we do that will both reduce the inevitable human suffering from the inevitable climate disruption and reduce the climate disruption itself?
We have the technology and knowledge of human behavior to do this, but it is necessary to acknowledge that accelerating the demographic transition in combination with the energy transition is the way to increase both synergistically.
If we just accept your statement “population is supposed to increase by”, it is pretty much the same as the Trump administration’s argument that 7 degrees is inevitable so we don’t need to have stricter mileage standards for automobiles.
#68, Sam F–
Thanks for a couple of well-founded numbers. The 50% is roughly correct, according to the UN 2017 stocktake on population:
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf/other/21/21June_FINAL%20PRESS%20RELEASE_WPP17.pdf
(The actual best-estimate numbers work out to just over 47%, FWIW.)
Taking your numbers as Gospel, and doing the math:
7.6 billion x 5 MT/capita = 38 Fouchers (I’m making up units ’cause I’m lazy.)
11.2 billion x 2.5 MT/capita = 28 Fouchers, for an absolute decline in emissions of ~26%. There’s probably them as would call that ‘significant’, though it would obviously blow the hell out of the carbon budget nonetheless. But if we’re considering that problem, we need to consider 2030 and 2050 more urgently than 2100.
But, staying with 2100 for a moment, there are some other factors to take into account. Population growth is happening precisely where per capita emissions are lowest. For example, Nigeria is expected to contribute more to population growth by 2050 than any other nation except India; its per captia emissions (despite being a petrostate!) are just 0.5 MT/capita.
Conversely, consider the emissions of the most populous countries with *shrinking* populations:
Obviously, the first two are the world’s leading emitters, and most of the others named in the list are well-up on the emissions league table as well.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC
(Note that that table is interactive, so you can view which nations you wish.)
Painting with a broad brush, we’re in a situation where the countries emitting 8-16 MT/c are shrinking, whereas the the countries emitting 0.5-3 MT/c are the ones growing. Moreover, many of the highest-emitting countries are also declining in absolute emissions rates (UK, Euro area) or at least per capita emissions rates (North America).
So a lot of the population growth is going to be offset in emissions terms by the shift of the mean toward low per capita emissions.
That does not negate your global numbers, of course. Revisiting the math for a moment, SR 1.5 basically calls for net-neutral by 2050, which would be:
9.8 billion x 0 MT/c = 0 Fouchers.
Of course, when you’re multiplying by zero, it doesn’t matter whether the multiplicand is 9.8 billion, 11.2 billon, or 42 (or 3). Net-neutral is net neutral at whatever scale–in theory.
SR 1.5 called the necessary attainment of net-neutral emissions by 2050 an “unprecedented” feat. You’re starting by assuming that precedent will rule, even as late as 2100, so it’s not surprising that you conclude that the goal is unreachable.
#63 Victor
Read #59. The Maldives will not sink below the rising sea until the value of this sovereign state sinks below the adaptation costs.
Victor, #63–
Well, some measures did, in fact, take place–there was this thing called Kyoto, and a fair number of nations did, in fact, follow through on their pledges and achieve absolute reductions in GHG emissions. So the emissions curve got bent a bit (though China bent it back in the other direction a good deal.)
And in the meantime, the science improved a whole bunch.
So, I’d recommend reading SR 1.5, not what was said in 1989.
FYI: Changing minds on climate change
On NPR 1A with Joshua Johnson today:
https://the1a.org/shows/2018-10-16/climate-change-is-real-but-what-will-convince-climate-deniers
72 Tom Adams: “The Maldives will not sink below the rising sea until the value of this sovereign state sinks below the adaptation costs.”
But wouldn’t that be cheating?
Tom @59, why let the facts get in the way of a good story
http://myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/pdfs/Evid_Based_Climate_Sci/Ev_Based_Climate_Sci_Chap7.pdf
KIA 69: if you want any real, effective action, be sure to vote for Rs
BPL: The real, effective action they have shown so far is to lock Latinos in concentration camps, let coal companies pour mining waste into rivers, suppress voters, appoint reactionaries to the courts, start trade wars with almost all our allies, and suck up to vicious foreign dictators who want to destroy us. Of course, maybe that’s what you mean by “effective action.”
After I got back from the hospital, after suffering severe contusions from ROFL at the recent “horseface” headlines, I went right to work on saving the world, and here’s what I found:
A glimmer of hope:
https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2018/10/iea-world-could-install-13-tw-of-clean-energy-by-2023.html
Found it here:
https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar-energy/top-news.html
“Since 1949, Fairbanks’s average winter temperature has risen by 7.8 °F (4.3 °C), average spring temperature by 4.2 °F (2.3 °C), and its average summer temperature by 2.1 °F (1.2 °C).[40] During the same period the average autumn temperature has only risen by 1.1 °F (0.61 °C).[40]”
Found here, just above the “Climate Data For Fairbanks International Airport” chart. You may have to click “show” to see the temperature chart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairbanks,_Alaska#Climate
Current daily highs are 39 to 48 F, daily lows 28 to 37. Seems too warm to me. In the 70s, snow that fell in September would likely be there until April or May.
So, when the world average is 2C higher, how much warmer will it be in Fairbanks?
We must get this fixed to save our big blue marble:
http://www.glacierdrilling.com/images/test2.jpg
How much energy does it take to remove 1 pound or 1 ton, of CO2 from the air?
Speaking of the marathon mentioned (at the top) Scottish Power has dropped natural gas for 100% wind. So they’re among the leaders now, so to speak.
“ScottishPower has become the first integrated energy company in the UK to shift completely from coal and gas generation to wind power, after completing the sale of its traditional generation business [which includes combined cycle plus pumped hydro] to Drax for £702 million.
https://twitter.com/ScottishPower/status/1052094405199441921
https://twitter.com/gsc1/status/1052498985494171648
> How much energy does it take
> to remove … CO2 from the air?
Do the words “conservation” and “conservative” ring any bells for you?
Mr. KIA: “It can be done…”
Serious question, dude. Have you ever undertaken a project more complicated than, say, a crossword puzzle, because you blithe assertions that everything can be accomplished by individual actions or the magic of the marketplace sort of make me think you might not even be up to that.
Take your ginko.
81 – Hank
I think the solution has to be “all of the above”. A many-pronged approach would be good, including conservation and CO2 removal from the atmosphere if that can be done on large scale for a reasonable cost; if it can’t we’ll try something else.
82 – Ray
Renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
And FYI, I’ve worked on several projects that every person on earth (except perhaps for some aboriginee types) has seen. How ’bout them apples?
Reply to Kevin McKinney: objectively it is of course in any human beings interest to stop the climate gas emissions from the use of fossil fuels. But what shapes politics of states is not the objective interests of mankind but the perceived interests (the subjective interests) of CEOs and leading bureaucrats etc. And they are all only in it for the money. Less than 25 hyperrich dictate what is going to happen and what is happening in the economy and in “politics” = the public sphere of lies that cover up their economic greed and its consequences. They blabber something about climate change but they do not bother what goes on in the climate system because they do not want to understand. They only want to “understand” what makes them feel on top of the world, flying around in their jets with their jet-sets who “think” just as they do. They will do anything, lie about anything that they feel makes money for them. Fx. cover up for their murderous friends in the saudi royal family. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/19/world-leading-eco-vandal-angela-merkel-german-environmental . As James Hansen said nov. 2015: it is all pure bullshit.
I’ll try again.
Anyone know what happened to Table ES1: Overview of pathway characteristics for the two global temperature targets (2016 page XV in Executive summary) from the 2015 & 2016 Gap Reports?
Why were the 2°C carbon budgets 1/3 lower than the 1000 Gts CO2 always quoted?
I’ve put together the current preliminary version of the Report into a single file:
http://amper.ped.muni.cz/gw/ipcc_cz/SR1.5_K_2018-10-08.pdf
It is handy if you search for some string, like “pricing” (it appears in Chap. 2 at first…).
yours, Jenik
https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/climate-coverage/10377090
Oct. 10, 2018
UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That.
By David Wallace-Wells
The real meaning is, “you now have permission to freak out.”
Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, the report declares, should the world warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which it will do as soon as 2040 , if current trends continue.
Nearly all coral reefs would die out, wildfires and heat waves would sweep across the planet annually, and the interplay between drought and flooding and temperature would mean that the world’s food supply would become dramatically less secure.
Avoiding that scale of suffering, the report says, requires such a thorough transformation of the world’s economy, agriculture, and culture that “there is no documented historical precedent.”
In Grist, Eric Holthaus wrote that “civilization is at stake.”
If you are alarmed by those sentences, you should be — they are horrifying. But it is, actually, worse than that — considerably worse. That is because the new report’s worst-case scenario is, actually, a best case. In fact, it is a beyond-best-case scenario. What has been called a genocidal level of warming is already our inevitable future.
As recently as a year ago, when I published a magazine cover story exploring worst-case scenarios for climate change, alarmism of this kind was considered anathema to many scientists, who believed that storytelling that focused on the scary possibilities was just as damaging to public engagement as denial.
There have been a few scary developments in climate research over the past year — more methane from Arctic lakes and permafrost than expected, which could accelerate warming; an unprecedented nth hemisphere heat wave with Arctic – European – Nth American – African wildfires, SUMMER-AUTUMN CYCLONES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, multiple droughts, and hurricanes rolling through both of the world’s major oceans this past summer.
But by and large the consensus is the same: We are on track for four degrees of warming, more than twice as much as most scientists believe is possible to endure without inflicting climate suffering on hundreds of millions or threatening at least parts of the social and political infrastructure we call, grandly, “civilization.”
The only thing that changed, this week, is that the scientists, finally, have hit the panic button.
At two degrees, the melting of ice sheets will pass a tipping point of collapse, flooding dozens of the world’s major cities this century. At that amount of warming, it is estimated, global GDP, per capita, will be cut by 13 percent.
Four hundred million more people will suffer from water scarcity, and even in the northern latitudes heat waves will kill thousands each summer.
It will be worse in the planet’s equatorial band. In India, where many cities now numbering in the many millions would become unliveably hot,
– there would be 32 times as many extreme heat waves,
– each lasting 5 times as long and
– exposing, in total, 93 times more people.
This is two degrees — practically speaking, our absolute best-case climate scenario.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.html
That’s what the evidence of the science matched with energy use forecasts says.
Current actions being taken by rich western nations to avoid +1.5C? None.
Current actions being taken by rich western nations and developing nations to specifically avoid +2.0? None.
However, there has not yet been published any scientific treatise, empirically based, that states that there will be a large increase in atmospheric temperature caused by an increased atmospheric CO2 concentration. None
So, how would we able to limit atmospheric temperature rise by manipulating atmospheric CO2 concentration? Computer programs, no matter how complex, will not help.
Has anyone tried cloud formation?
JEG 89: there has not yet been published any scientific treatise, empirically based, that states that there will be a large increase in atmospheric temperature caused by an increased atmospheric CO2 concentration. None
BPL: That is simply false. The first one was published in 1896. If you want a more recent one, look up Wally Broecker’s piece in Science in 1975.
Don’t talk about a subject you’re not familiar with until you’ve familiarized yourself with it. Then you won’t be shoving your ignorance in other people’s faces.
An article published on Nov 2, 2018 on The Nation website:
https://www.thenation.com/article/mainstream-media-un-climate-report-analysis/
Article title: Apocalyptic Climate Reporting Completely Misses the Point
Recent news commentary ignored the UN climate report’s cautiously optimistic findings.
By Daniel Aldana Cohen, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2.
I had not looked into the socio-economic parts of the report. This author summarizes them and provides optimism, that we can combine climate change mitigation with sustainability and economic opportunity.
This is the first summary/review of the SR15 that gives me hope!
“This author summarizes them and provides optimism, that we can combine climate change mitigation with sustainability and economic opportunity.”
“The IPCC report makes it clear that if we make the political choice of bankrupting the fossil-fuel industry and sharing the burden of transition fairly, most humans can live in a world better than the one we have now.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/mainstream-media-un-climate-report-analysis/
“The basic issue is that the effort to reduce emissions sufficiently to never get past 1.5ºC would require a global effort to decarbonize starting immediately that would dwarf current efforts or pledges. This seems unlikely (IMO).”
JEG, #89–
Sorry to be so blunt, but that’s just spectacularly stupid.
In addition to the previously-noted untruth about a supposed lack of “treatises” showing the connection between CO2 and global temperature, there was this:
Let’s how that plays out in other areas of life, shall we?
Idiocy–computer programs, no matter how complex, will not help.
Actual thought before writing would, however. I suspect JEG is quite capable of it, but needs to get in the habit.
This is worth repeating.
By Gavin S. in this RC article:
There are many issues related to the feasibility question of which physical climate-related issues are only one. The basic issue is that the effort to reduce emissions sufficiently to never get past 1.5ºC would require a global effort to decarbonize starting immediately that would dwarf current efforts or pledges. This seems unlikely (IMO).
There are a few ‘get-out-of-jail’ cards that are considered. First, we can overshoot 1.5ºC, and then come back down after heroic efforts to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere though so-called ‘negative emissions’. This makes the immediate task less daunting, but at the expense of relying on global scale efforts with carbon sequestration, or BECCS, or direct air capture, which are extremely speculative.
Second, we could start direct geo-engineering efforts to reduce temperatures and (most optimistically) buy time for carbon emissions to come down a little more slowly.
Both of these scenarios come with dramatic and under explored geo-political consequences (are there any stable governance regimes for geo-engineering? is there sufficient land for large scale BECCS?), as well as substantial moral hazard.
So my answer is… no.
I get that there is reluctance to say this publicly – it sounds as if one is complicit in the impacts that will occur above 1.5ºC, but it seems to me that tractable challenges are more motivating than impossible (or extremely unfeasible) ones.
———-
Which led me to immediately back track to the beginning of this quotation where Gavin said this:
“The basic issue is that the effort to reduce emissions sufficiently to never get past 1.5ºC would require a global effort to decarbonize starting immediately that would dwarf current efforts or pledges.
This seems unlikely (IMO).”
— —
So going back to something Gavin explained about the 1.5C report in the beginning above:
“At current rates, we’ll hit 1.5ºC on a decadal-average basis by ~2040. The first year above 1.5ºC will occur substantially earlier, likely associated with a big El Niño event in the late 2020s/early 2030s.
Or in about 12 years from now.
So now, putting all that together in a contextual whole, what does it mean?
What is Gavin really saying here?