Climate scientists are inordinately excited by the release of a new IPCC report (truth be told, that’s a bit odd – It’s a bit like bringing your end-of-(seven)-year project home and waiting anxiously to see how well it will be received). So, in an uncharacteristically enthusiastic burst of effort, we have a whole suite of posts on the report for you to read.
- AR6 of the Best. Half a dozen takeaways from the report from Gavin
- New (8/13): Sea Level Rise in AR6 from Stefan
- A Tale of Two Hockey Sticks by Mike
- #NotAllModels discusses the use (and mis-use) of the CMIP6 ensemble by Gavin
- We are not reaching 1.5ºC earlier than previously thought from guest authors Malte Meinshausen, Zebedee Nicholls and Piers Forster
- New (8/12): Deciphering the SPM AR6 WG1 Code by Rasmus
- New (8/12): A deep dive into the IPCC’s updated carbon budget numbers from guest author Joeri Rogelj
If/when we add some more commentary as we digest the details and we see how the report is being discussed, we’ll link it from here. Feel free to discuss general issues with the report in the comments here, and feel free to suggest further deep dives we might pursue.
Whilst the IPCC report seems to be a good if late comment on what’s happening now it doesn’t mention (I don’t think) a solution to the actual cause – population growth out of control. More time and moneyMUST be spent halting/reducing the earths population. Also the populations of Africa,South American etc will eventually demand, and achieve a standard of living currently experienced by the Western world which will exasperated the problem
The report makes clear the short timeframe to act so birth control is not an answer. Shifting the blame onto future generations may bring you comfort but it does not reflect reality.
Barton and Jane are quite right but defining a problem does not necessarily suggest a solution.Unfortunately, business as usual is not going to be very beneficial to future generation either.As Einstein so elegantly stated-“One can not solve a problem using the very same thinking that created it !”.
Thank you, BK Higham…..someone finally said what needed to be told !. I believe that if one is truly honest about the ills that face mankind today they will find that overpopulation is at the root of it all.Any piece of land whether it is an acre or a planet can only support a given population before the ecosystem collapses due to the competition for a finite amount of resources.
Population reduction, however important, will be a very slow process unless we resort to unethical means like genocide. We can take steps to reverse global warming right away, mostly having to do with switching away from fossil fuels and preserving forests from being cut down.
Unless “we” resort to unethical means like “genocide”…??
Even people who should know better slip into this kind of unconscious framing.
wiki:
So if “we” killed off some number of randomly chosen humans, not excluding the subset “we” , “we” would not be committing genocide.
And even “ethical” has its issues… what about “the needs of the many v the needs of the few”?
Anyway, I don’t suggest any of the sci-fi types of stuff like creating a virus, but action on population should be at least as assertive as action on reducing fossil fuel use. It is delusional to think that getting Russia (et al) to stop burning FF is going to be easier than getting the Taliban (et al) to stop using women as baby factories.
z: So if “we” killed off some number of randomly chosen humans, not excluding the subset “we” , “we” would not be committing genocide.
BPL: And that would make it okay? Are you literally insane?
I realize you were embarrassed when I pointed out your no-doubt unconscious racist framing, but why not respond like a grownup to the substance of my comment?
This is only partially correct and something people need to understand ASAP because it leads to biased, even racist, “solutions.” Given most “developed” nations are already slowing significantly or are already below replacement, this issue can fairly be stated as, all those darn brown and black people need to stop having babies!
And that is racism.
Fact is, our problems were created by rich “White” countries, the US by far the worst of all. The immediate problem is the level of consumption in countries like the G20. Or G whatever it is now. By my calculation we can feed 12 billion if we grow food locally and regeneratively, so population is not the issue. The issue is CO2/GHGs, and the global poor produce a very small fraction of those per capita.
We do need to manage population long-term, but we can’t stabilize population till around 2050, and that is long after we must act on climate. To be clear, anything we do regarding population will have little or no effect on climate.
You want less people? There are two things that achieve this: Equality for women (particularly education) and access to reproductive services.
K: By my calculation we can feed 12 billion if we grow food locally and regeneratively
BPL: By my calculation, 80% of the world is now urban, so your calculation doesn’t make any sense.
Because there are no farms around cities? No land that could be farms? No vehicles of any kind to move food? People in cities and suburbs now grow all their own food?
Stop trolling. After 6 years of your bullshit trolling, really goddamned tired of it.
Add: I have long said, and repeated too many times for you to claim ignorance, that we need to significantly depopulate cities as they are completely unsustainable. We can’t support 10 billion city dwellers.
“And that is racism.”
It’s not racism if the developed nations enable them with better economies, education and the means for family planning — as you suggest — and they freely choose to have smaller families.
Wow. Enable.
Not racism,..
It does come across as elitism.
Indeed it does. LDCs have been quite clear at decades worth of COPs what they need. Certainly, money is part of it, but so is good faith mitigatory action on “our” part.
Here, we are pretty much in agreement. The reason I believe that promotion of women’s rights and education lead to smaller families is because I have talked to people in developing countries. They all say pretty much the same thing–they want security. They’d pretty much all prefer to have smaller families if they could be assured that the children they did have would survive and prosper. They want to learn more. They want things to become more efficient and less corrupt. They want things to be more fair.
I believe it’s true because I’ve seen it happening–as people gain a handhold in the middle class, they have fewer children. They send those kids to school. And yes urbanization is increasing rapidly, but urban areas don’t have to be deserts. One of the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen was on a postage-stamp-sized lot in Southern California. On a tenth of an acre, our friends grew tomatoes, lemons, lots of vegetables… Community gardens are springing up on vacant lots all over Detroit, not only removing eyesores, but providing much needed produce to farmers’ markets and income to urban farmers.
We all know we can do urbanization wrong. We also know how to get it right.
I was part of the Detroit urban ag community for 3 years. They aren’t doing it “right” in the sense that there is very little cohesiveness to it, almost no sense of a climate-related component and no long-term plan attached to it. But, in the sense of localizing food supply, that is happening.
First steps.
You might be interested in checking out my friend’s and former neighbors’ initiative on the East Side of Detroit, the GSCC – Georgia Street Community Collective. It started with one guy, Mark Covington, cleaning lots and starting a garden.
The Power of One
http://www.georgiastreetcc.com/
Population growth is NOT the cause for climate change. Especially is FUTURE population growth in the global south not the cause for climate change. And „reducing“ population is not a solution. It’s either a bullshit proposal or quasi fascist or conspiracy agent provocateur trolling.
Scientists, help!
David, it is often the case that comments about population are concern-trolling and intended as a way of poison-pill, “owning the liberals”, because of the racist innuendo.
However, it is in fact the fascists and fossil fuel interests who most want to keep the population growing as much as possible. So you should perhaps try doing some objective analysis of the question rather than being manipulated exactly as that group intends.
Do you really think life would not be better for everyone if global population had stabilized at, say, 1 billion, back when modern industrial/technological/scientific progress was beginning?
Do you think that if the population were declining now, instead of still growing, people would still be investing in hard-to-extract fossil fuel leases instead of wind and solar?
A well-educated, egalitarian population, with abundant natural resources per capita, and advanced technology, is the best possible defense against dictatorships and fascism. Think about it.
You are arguing a Straw Man. He didn’t say population will never be a problem, nor did he say it isn’t an issue today. What he said was, rather clearly, it is not the CAUSE of Climate Change and it cannot SOLVE Climate Change.
Both statements are unequivocally true.
1 billion? Well, hell, wouldn’t life be better if we all had magical fairy godmothers? Moot.
We have 7.894 billion and counting and must address that, not Straw Man arguments and pointless what ifs.
David as I recall the Fascists, or National Socialism in Germany, was actually very concerned about the environment, at least in it’s early stages, so your argument is not only a cliché, it’s a false equivalency. Are you going to suggest Antifa should be leading the charge against climate change next?
Mitigation report will come next year. There are already things on mitigation in the previous IPCC reports and all over scientific literature. Population mass killing or genocide (even if you argue that it’s not genocide) is not a solution. In the developed world, it’s already decreasing, and in the less developed world, their average climate forcing is negligible. It’s more an issue of lifestyle than number of people. Specially when there are more ethical, cheap and easy solutions as switching to renewables, implementing carbon pricing, and reforesting the world
China produces far more CO2 than the US.
@carl China produces far more CO2 than the US.
Yes, but so what? Is there a meaning to this you wanted to emphasise? China has 4.2 times the population of the US. With significantly lower per capita emission rates – the USA is among the highest in the world. That matters.
Recently China has produced a tiny fraction more CO2 emissions than the whole OECD did (at least the reports say this) – yet their per capita emissions are still lower. The OECD as a Bloc have not reduced their emissions at all these last 3 decades.
Hansen says some useful things here that may be related on page 17 : http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2021/20210614_ForewordHansen.pdf
The United States and China must cooperate
There is no point in casting blame, but quantitative understanding of the cause of climate change is informative. China has the largest fossil fuel emissions now and China’s energy future will have the greatest impact on climate. However, global warming is proportional to cumulative emissions, for which the U.S. is most responsible.
On a per capita basis, the nations that industrialized early – such as the U.K., Germany and the U.S. – will always be far more responsible for climate change than China.
Nations of the West burned fossil fuels to raise their standards of living. There is plenty of fossil fuel in the ground for China, India, Indonesia and the rest of the world to rely on for that same purpose, but such a course would assure mutual destruction. We must find a better way.
Pg 18: The importance and urgency of the need for inexpensive, carbon-free, baseload electric power cannot be overstated. China and India obtain most of their energy from coal. They will not agree to an equivalent carbon fee until they have a viable alternative to coal, nor should we expect otherwise – all nations will strive to raise their living standards, as the West has done.
(It’s his opinion, and it’s ok to see things differently. each to their own, but still food for thought I think – he is pro-nuclear, and even using aerosols now to drive extra cooling. That’s radical. And he is still very worried about where we are heading especially about SLR etc. His track record speaks for itself. )
Yes, so we need to put a carbon tariff on imports from China. At the same time, we need to reduce our own CO2 emissions.
@carl @guille as mentioned in my comment above:
Per Capita CO2e Emissions in 2019
China = 10.1 tons/capita
OECD = 10.5 tons/capita
USA = 17.6 tons/capita
ref https://rhg.com/research/chinas-emissions-surpass-developed-countries/
If a Carbon Tariff on imports from China was applied the outcome would likely be a Carbon Tariff on Imports from the USA by China of at least 1.76 times higher.
Leading to equally higher Carbon Tariffs being placed on USA imports and services by the OECD, the EU especially, and eventually the rest of the world. A very good and fair equitable thing to happen in my view.
See my recent comment 5 Aug: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/forced-responses-july-2021/comment-page-10/#comment-793803
It’s really easy to point fingers at others while ignoring one’s own nation’s culpability and the global reality.
For example, James Hansen et al emphasize in their work, the CO2e Emissions problem is all about the Cumulative amount. It is not about what happened in one nation last week.
Since 1750, the 38 members of the OECD bloc have emitted four times more CO2 on a cumulative basis than China (Figure 4) GRAPH https://rhg.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Figure-4.png
Since 1800, the less populated USA has emitted more total CO2e on a cumulative basis than China despite a huge population difference – see documented scientific evidence: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/1/014010/meta
Therefore, were Total Cumulative CO2e data used to determine Carbon Tariffs the impost upon USA exports would be far greater than every other nation on Earth.
Which, in fact, is precisely the kind of Equity Action which needs to be done to help drive the world’s economic system toward Sustainability as per the stated UN goals.
The mega-wealthy nations today have accumulated their riches by never having to pay for their Cumulative GHG Emissions or the damage they caused and continue to cause.
Therefore, it is only natural justice the American people today are forced to pay Reparations for the cumulative environmental damage their country’s CO2e GHG emissions have done and is still doing to the world.
Behind today’s extreme weather events is the massive multi-century Cumulative Emissions of a very small number of nations – the largest contributor being the USA. The UK is the highest Per Capita cumulative contributor of all.
Germany and Japan paid Reparations for WW2 for obvious reasons. Starting with the USA the worst polluters (less than 20 nations including China) need to pay Reparations to other countries for the global damages and deaths they have caused by their nations GHG Emissions contribution.
It appears to me the UNFCCC, the COP system and the IPCC have all been designed, setup, and continue to operate by the most powerful wealthiest nations in the world to distract away from this level of direct accountability for past actions being placed upon those countries who have contributed most to the current Climate, Environmental, and Economic crises.
And yet it is their privileged citizens today, everyone on this forum, who have benefited the most as a direct result of the last two centuries’ accumulated wealth and power on back of Fossil Fuels use, Land clearing, ecological destruction resulting in global pollution, environmental damages and now the more serious deadly impacts of climate change this century.
Especially the colonialists! It is way past time to pay the Piper, isn’t it?
Simply pointing fingers at China because the 1.4 billion people there have built an economic miracle the last 2 decades is short-sighted, illogical, irrational, and fundamentally anti-science.
People who hate those darned Commies pretty much always forget to account China’s emissions to the people who actually use the products they are making. Account China’s emissions to the end users – mostly us – and their per capita emissions are even lower.
When discussing climate and population, the more relevant number is not gross population, it’s number of people living a modern lifestyle. It’s a cliché to see to photo of a malnourished African child atop an article about overpopulation, but that child is not the problem. If he lives in Chad, he will use 13 kWh per day. In Canada, he would use 14,162 kWh per year, about as much in one day as somebody in Chad uses in 3 years.
China has raised the equivalent of the population of the US from abject poverty to a lifestyle where, although not equivalent to a Western lifestyle, they have access to electricity, central heating and transportation. It’s hard to tell them “It’s too late, you will never have a fraction of a western lifestyle, the earth can’t support it.” So the climate remediation challenge is to find how many people can live a decent, comfortable lifestyle worldwide without exceeding the capacity of the earth, and that means efficiency, reduction of excess and renewables.
“If he lives in Chad, he will use 13 kWh per day. In Canada, he would use 14,162 kWh per year, about as much in one day as somebody in Chad uses in 3 years.”
Arithmetic check please.
In de Gaulle’s day, the Quai d’Orsay ministry dealing with Chad featured a map on which it was divided into three parts:
Tchad Utile
Tchad Inutile
Tchad Futile
Why is overpopulation the problem? Population growth is slowing down and 50% of the human population has nothing to spend – they have no wealth whatsoever, So, why is this the problem?
This nonsense been bothering me for decades. Climate scientists study the climate, but oh my god run if they open their mouth about macroeconomics (calling it ‘economics’) or really basic social science. In my view, this is a much bigger problem than “overpopulation”.
Curtailing population growth is important longterm, but it would accomplish nothing without actual emissions reductions.
Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Stats – BBC Four
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo&t=96s
Instead of “overpopulation” (of who exactly?), let’s talk about the fact that 20 multinationals and the pentagon are responsible for more than 35 percent (480 billion tonnes) of total global carbon emissions since 1965:
Saudi Aramco 59.26 (billion tonnes of carbon dioxide)
Chevron 43.35
Gasprom 43.23
Exxon-Mobil 41.90
National Iranian Oil Co. 35.66
BP 34.02
Royal Dutch Shell 31.95
Coal India 23.12
Pemex 22.65
Petro Venezuela 15.75
Petro China 15.63
Peabody Energy 15.39
Conoco-Philips 15.23
Abu Dhabi National Oil 13.84
Kuwait National Oil 13.84
Kuwait National Petroleum 13.84
Iraq National Oil 13.48
Total SA 12.35
SonaTrach 12.30
BHP Billiton 9.80
Petrobas 8.68
It is crystal clear what we need to do. Market solutions do not work, they will never work. There is no way to solve this. What do you think about the fate of humanity by, say, 2500? Does anyone serious seriously think that these generations will inhabited a barely livable world?
“Market solutions do not work, they will never work.”
Depends on what you mean by “[m]arket solutions.” Cap and trade worked nicely to reduce acid rain in the US. A carbon tax would also work.
The solution is rapid decarbonisation and degrowth in advanced economies. As developing countries industrialise (preferably with green technologies) population growth will continue to decline.
Why would we want them to industrialize when we are trying to deindustrialize? Climate is actually a resource abuse problem. We must mostly reduce our lifestyles to closer to the global poor and, where appropriate, assist them in regaining some of the wonderful localized economies they used to have – and copy them.
Not necessary to deindustrialize. The use of renewable energy and sustainable practices can decouple “growth” from climate forcing. For sure there are some planetary boundaries to our economic activity, but we aren’t close yet if we use the right technologies. There is also the issue of distributing our resources (or that GDP) more fairly, specially in the less developed regions.
Stop listening to economists. This is so much more than that. This is about habitability and sustainability. Sure, you can build out a bunch of solar and wind for the the top 10% globally, but you will soon run out of enough resources – and time- to do the same for the other 90%.
Time: We don’t have the decades a global build-out would require. Tipping points are already in play. Greenland may have already tipped, e.g.
And so much more. Talking about climate mitigation and adaptation in terms of Economics is absurd, to put it politely.
K: Why would we want them to industrialize when we are trying to deindustrialize?
BPL: We’re not trying to deindustrialize.
K: We must mostly reduce our lifestyles to closer to the global poor
BPL: The global poor don’t want to be poor.
It was not wind mills, solar panels or foaming at the mouth climate alarmist that lifted these people out of poverty.
June, 19 2013 “One of the most remarkable feats in the world has been the lifting of about a billion people out of abject poverty in the past couple of decades. If the industrialisation trend continues, then this century could witness some of the rapid improvements in living standards seen in the West during the 19th Century. […] The prize, which many will hope is in reach, is that global poverty is eliminated entirely within another couple of decades. It is the reason why the Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas said that once you start thinking about economic growth and the improvements in standards of living, it is hard to stop.” http://www.bbc.com/news/business-22956470
“It was not wind mills, solar panels or foaming at the mouth climate alarmist that lifted these people out of poverty.”
Nobody said they did, you complete twit. A warming world will drive people INTO poverty and we can help stop that with wind and solar power etc ,etc,
‘This’ ‘Nobel Laureate’?
In the 2003 presidential address to the American Economic Association, Robert E. Lucas, Jnr of the University of Chicago said:
“My thesis in this lecture is that macroeconomics in this original sense has succeeded: Its central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades.”
K: Why would we want them to industrialize when we are trying to deindustrialize?
BPL: We’re not trying to deindustrialize.
Ignorance is not bliss. There is no analysis with which you can support the absurdity of not simplifying. Let’s see you justify a non-simpified future with real numbers.
You know you cannot, and so you will not. Please do try. I need the entertainment. It’s been a busy week.
K: We must mostly reduce our lifestyles to closer to the global poor
Absurd Straw Man. Your post is dishonest, as they ever are.
Tell us, though, what makes you flout your stated beliefs and values so readily to pick at people with false testimony for years on end? No glass house for you, but plenty of rocks, eh?
These are serious times for serious people.
Act like it.
We need to now put the emphasis on adaptation, not mitigation. Positive feedbacks are now the major threat. They will become even greater as the carbon in the top three meters of the continuous permafrost thaws at an increasing rate, adding a large volumn of methane to enter the atmosphere. That methane is 100 times the effect of CO2 over a ten-year period,
That is the opposite of what is sensible: We cannot adapt to +2C and keep society functioning well, and if we choose to adapt and give up on mitigation, we will roll right past +2 and straight on to +3 and +4.
Mitigation is the only sane response.
Research supports that “100 times” worse than CO2 figure. It has “only” taken several decades for this truth to surface in contemporary journalism. It might be one of the more subversive figures against today’s hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling industry, made possible through the “Haliburton Loophole.” For example, if the current fossil based economies release at least 0.5 billion tons per year and we apply that 100 figure, then Radiative Forcing due to methane emissions would exceed all present CO2 emissions combined. This might partially account for the recent ramp-up of climate impacts.
As Barton says, we have no acceptable leverage to reduce population quickly. We need to reduce carbon emissions ASAP, by any generally acceptable means–which will in practice principally be the substitution of modern wind, solar, and storage for legacy power generation, coupled with the electrification of most transportation.
And yes, as Killian and others have said, continue to ensure and promote the empowerment and education of women. This has lowered birth rates dramatically just about everywhere except some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and promises to do more going forward. Going hand in hand with that is access to good healthcare, including, of course, the reproductive subset.
I am undoubtedly flabbergasted by some of the comments posted here…..perhaps I have misunderstood previous IPCC Reports and authorities such as David Archer,James Hansen and Michael Mann concerning the topic of Anthropocentric Climate Forcing….oh well .
Population growth is already slowing down. Refer:
https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/97-billion-earth-2050-growth-rate-slowing-says-new-un-population-report
Hi,Nigel I have in fact read the U.N. article on population slowdown but I understood it with certain reservations.I believed the term slowing was referring to the rate of population acceleration rather that a concrete leveling off of actual numbers.Eleven billion by 2050 does not sound like a lonely planet to me. Of course, those estimates are based on specific criterion without any forward looking projections build in.For instance,I do not believe they factored in the eventual resources collapse due by the late 2030’s or a planet gradually turning inhospitable to life.You might be interested in reading- “Empty Planet:The Shock of Global Population Decline” by Bricker and Ibbitson
Sam, yes the study is just talking about the rate of population growth already slowing. At least that is a useful trend. The study said 9.7 billion by 2050 not 11 billion people.
Its not clear what you are saying about the other population issues. You appear to be suggesting a resource collapse by 2030 could cause a significant fall in absolute population numbers or a big fall in the rate of population growth. This sounds unlikely to me either way. Most hard evidence I’ve seen evidence suggests its unlikely there would be enough shortages of food or other resources nearly as early as 2030. It looks like such a thing would develop much later this century. I scanned a summary of the Empty Planet book.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545397/empty-planet-by-darrell-bricker-and-john-ibbitson/
It says “For half a century, statisticians, pundits, and politicians have warned that a burgeoning population will soon overwhelm the earth’s resources. But a growing number of experts are sounding a different alarm. Rather than continuing to increase exponentially, they argue, the global population is headed for a steep decline—and in many countries, that decline has already begun. In Empty Planet, John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker find that a smaller global population will bring with it many benefits…. But enormous disruption lies ahead, too. We can already see the effects in Europe and parts of Asia, as aging populations…
The median estimates I’ve seen elsewhere are that global population will peak at about 11 billion in 2100 with a reasonable chance of falling slowly in absolute numbers after that date. Personally I think this sounds plausible, and would help reduce all sorts of environmental issues and is to be encouraged. It obviously wont impact on meeting the Paris climate target, but it may still impact things if we miss that target which is why I mention it. But lets not get too far away from the IPCC discussion.
The rate of growth is indeed decreasing, but that doesn’t mean total numbers are. Global population is still going to increase to 10-12 billion over this century. Anyway, this isn’t about people but lifestyles. Even one billion people living like an average American would be too much. Unfortunately we are probably now at a point that even the minimum acceptable standards for a Westerner are not achievable by the majority of the world’s population.
It’s about people and lifestyle. People living in poverty are still going to be deforesting large areas to survive.
Only if they have no choice. Poor people may be acutely aware of the benefits of trees in their communities.
http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/
https://wangarimaathai.org/wangaris-story/
@Barton Paul Levenson,
I won’t address the other thing, except that the mere suggestion is repugnant, but forests, even new forests, won’t and can’t do as much as we might like:
Nave, Lucas E., Grant M. Domke, Kathryn L. Hofmeister, Umakant Mishra, Charles H. Perry, Brian F. Walters, and Christopher W. Swanston. “Reforestation can sequester two petagrams of carbon in US topsoils in a century.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 11 (2018): 2776-2781.
That’s not a lot. 2 PgC is 2 GtC (10^15 x 10^(-3) kg = 10^12 kg = 10^9 tonnes). People emit about 10 GtC per year. And note the sequestration there takes a century.
Barton’s fanciful belief “switching away from fossil fuels and preserving forests from being cut down” is an even slower process than slowing down population growth could be.
GHG emissions from fossil fuels and land use (agriculture, forest destruction vegetation clearing etc) has never been higher than today, and still increasing rapidly.
Good study Jan, unfortunately far too many people are living in an unrealistic make believe fantasy world. In relation to rational actions to resolve climate change and global warming they speak a lot, but have no clue what they are talking about.
To avoid catastrophic climate change warming needs to be kept below +1.5C this century.
The AR6 tells us specifically that barrier will be broken circa 2030-2035 on the lowest emissions scenario – in a decade or so.
Currently emissions are increasing, running at the highest rate in history per year, and according to the highest scenario SSP5-8.5.
Meaning +2.4C arrives around 2050 or sometime after.
Let’s plant a few trees. Stop destroying the Amazon. Build a new wind farm off New York. These things will not be fixing anything while fossil fuel use remains near 80% of all energy use and which cannot viably be replaced by renewables without severely impacting the global economy as we know it and crashing GDP Growth going forward.
The entire global system rests upon ongoing GDP Economic Growth – or it collapses into a mountain of unsustainable Debt and the loss of economically viable access to material Resources. Without cheap irreplaceable fossil fuel energy the current system quickly falls apart.
The Paris goals of +1.5C and under 2C this century are presently unachievable.
Commitments made at COP26 are a joke. They are lying to you.
The Greenwashers and Inactivists here telling others these things are fixable via the current UNFCCC system and Government approaches (like replacing FF with renewables and batteries etc) while modern society and economic activity carries on regardless are also lying to you. It’s not going to happen. It is impossible.
A systems collapse coupled with simultaneous extreme climate responses as the world keeps on warming is inevitable.
It is as inevitable as the 1929 crash. As inevitable as the world war 2. As inevitable as the 2008 GFC. As inevitable as the current wild fires across the nth hemisphere. As inevitable as the Titantic sinking once it hit the iceberg.
After the inevitable, only then might genuine workable solutions for maintaining human civilization be able to be offered up, discussed maturely and rationally, and eventually implemented. Those solutions will necessitate deep systemic structural change across societies, likely never before contemplated or imagined.
But today’s status quo expectations and BAU is unsustainable. It’s going to collapse. Bit by bit, here and there, slowly at first, then incredibly fast – it is going to fall apart sooner or later. It has already started.
In the meantime best to ignore the know-nothing lightweights living in fantasyland and all their foolish impossible promises chasing rainbows.
As Dr Michael Mann correctly states commenting on the IPCC AR6 WG1 report: “We have ZERO years left to avoid climate change, it’s here.”
It is not ever going away.
RC, to me the point is we could build out a new energy grid quite rapidly if we wanted. Think about the massive increases in production during WW2. In comparison you cant get population growth to slow much quicker than it is already because it would require totally unacceptable and inhumane practices. And even if we did do that it, it won’t do that much to fix the climate problem because of the demographics. BPL is essentially right.
Of course there are many good reasons to still encourage zero population growth. It may be possible to get growth to slow a little bit faster.
“Let’s plant a few trees. Stop destroying the Amazon. Build a new wind farm off New York. These things will not be fixing anything while fossil fuel use remains near 80% of all energy use and which cannot viably be replaced by renewables without severely impacting the global economy as we know it and crashing GDP Growth going forward.”
I disagree. Phase out fossil fuels over the next 30 years while also phasing in renewables at the same time could work. Of course it will be difficult without destabilising the overall economy, but not impossible. I’ve pondered the numbers. Doing it in less than 30 years looks virtually impossible to me for all sorts of reasons so the window of opportunity is closing fast..
“. . . The reason I am so annoyed with the attention to Climate Change is that it became THE PROBLEM and THE SOLUTION was to generate electricity with wind and solar power to lower emissions. But as we all know, there have been no closures of fossil fuel plants (coal plants were replaced with natural gas plants double their size) because of lack of energy storage for renewables, the inability of wind and solar to scale up, and because fossil plants still supply two-thirds of generation and peak power. Since rebuildables require fossils every single step of their life cycle, they were never were a solution. They were simply a distraction from reality.”
https://energyskeptic.com/2020/climate-change-dominates-news-coverage-at-expense-of-more-important-existential-issues/
No issue is more important than climate change at the moment. Unless you’re a Christian and you value the salvation of souls. But for physical problems in nature, climate change is it. That you are annoyed by it is nothing to the point.
“No issue is more important than climate change at the moment.”
ex cathedra statement not allowed.
A bizarre comment, to me: wind and solar are precisely the things that have demonstrated the ability to scale up, and continue to do so.
Coal development has crashed on a global scale, and accelerated retirements have become common across the ‘developed world.’ Gas growth has evidently peaked–no pun intended!–and isn’t close to keeping up with RE.
And no, RE does not “require” FF at any step in the life cycle: current practice is not a “requirement.”
And no, RE does not ”require” FF at any step in the life cycle: current practice is not a ”requirement.”
This is beyond pedantic. Of course RE requires FFs. Just try eliminating them tomorrow at 9 am and see how that goes.
That RE perhaps *can* be built without FFs is not the same thing as can be built w/o them tomorrow.
Yes, it’s a requirement. Along with about 95% of everything else around us.
I’m surprised; you’re typically far more germane with your posts.
Fossil fuel generation is visibly being replaced by modern RE before our eyes. And no, it’s not going to ‘crash GDP growth’–though something needs to do so in the longer term, to be sure; as we all know, it’s a totally unsustainable paradigm.
“We have ZERO years left to avoid climate change, it’s here.”
O?
A negative number in the low three digits might be more realistic.
Columbus lived long enough to complain about microclimate change in he Greater Antilles from coastal deforestation by the first colonists.
Ban coal. Make electric vehicles in the Henry Ford original model and thus affordable. Do it now.
Is this a joke? Even if you banned all fossil fuelse and replaced all cars with electrified mass transit you wouldn’t get down to zero emissions.
The climate change problem is not primarily a population problem. Humans breathing out C02 is carbon neutral. Important to point his out because many in the general public dont get this. Refer:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/how-much-does-human-breathing-contribute-to-climate-change/
The climate problem is primarily a result of burning fossil fuels and land use issues which pumps CO2 into the atmosphere. Its an energy use and land use issue (as BPL pointed out). So obviously the first thing you do is try to find a substitute energy, and we have options with renewables and nuclear power although the former looks like it is going to be the main player. Because all this is not an easy fix, you also want to look at encouraging slower population growth and so get less energy use , and encourage reductions in consumption of energy.
All these things face various practical, political, personal and psychological hurdles. But thats what we have to work with.
The population issue is mostly a red herring argument. Population growth is slowing anyway. Lets get back to the actual IPCC report.
Thanks as always to the realclimate group for coming up with timely commentary on the latest big development in climate science.
I only have a small contribution to make on the debate about population vs climate change. Re: Killian and Zebra. I particularly acknowledge the danger of racism polluting the issue.
In a Brisbane ‘salon’ a couple of years ago an expert demographer came down on me like a ton of bricks for daring to suggest climate change was a far more important driver of sub Saharan migration to Europe than population growth. According to s/he, population growth was the only factor. S/he also argued programs to persuade Africans to reduce the size of their families were working.
Concerning the latter point I quoted from an August 2018 article by FT’s African correspondent David Pilling that in Africa “attachments to large families … are deep-seated.”
Pilling’s general point (paywalled):
“Populations in Europe and the Americas have stopped growing. The population of Asia will peak at around 5bn by 2050. For the next century, most of the increase in the world’s population will happen in Africa. … The UN’s base case is that the number of Africans will double in 30 years to 2bn and at least double again, to 4bn, by the end of the century. If all those new people can find jobs and opportunity, global growth will gradually shift to Africa. If, as seems equally plausible, they cannot, Africa could become a focus of instability and desperation. Food shortages could worsen, exacerbated by climate change.” https://www.ft.com/content/dc49d2f8-9fe3-11e8-85da-eeb7a9ce36e4
Given Pilling’s January 2018 book ‘The Growth Delusion’, it seems likely he leans towards Africa becoming a focus on instability and desperation: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36130581-the-growth-delusion
In Australia a succession of neoliberal governments used high levels of immigration to generate growth (and suppress wages) until the policy was exploded by Covid-19.
In his December 2020 newsletter Adam Tooze endorses Pilling’s 2018 article, writing: “The demography of sub-Saharan Africa is one of the megatrends of the 21st century.” Tooze concludes: “If we are to grasp the 21st century, we simply HAVE to integrate sub-Saharan Africa, and Nigeria, in particular, into our understanding of global affairs.”
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-newsletter-10
Excellent stuff.
War is a well-established population reduction technique in which we humans seem to naturally engage. It is wasteful and pollutive and burns plenty of fossil fuels. What is the ecological balance point here? We shouldn’t ignore this process in discussions of global warming and population.
Well, except that it doesn’t reduce populations in the long term. People who survive the war screw like rabbits and you get a baby boom. Another thing people don’t consider–the greatest advances in trauma surgery are products of battlefield medicine, and these have saved countless individuals. Fewer and fewer soldiers are dying on the battlefield. More and more civilians are dying in war zones, but then, they are poor, so in the calculus of rich nations making war, they don’t count. The politicians who start wars are not suffering any adverse consequences. And since most of them have never worn a uniform, they can commit their crimes against humanity without even understanding what they are doing.
I mean, I shouldn’t even have to point this out, but I will. This is the Working Group 1 Report – Physical Science.
If you want solutions, you have to wait for WG3. Early next year.
“ bringing your end-of-(seven)-year project home and waiting anxiously to see how well it will be received” — wha? Huh? Bringing it home as opposed to sending it somewhere else? As if copies were limited? Totally can’t parse the inside-baseball tone of this sentence, FWIW.
CONSUMPTION not population is the problem. Fly less, drive less, consume less, grow more and use nature (which has sustained life on Earth for 4 billion years by recycling everything) as our guide and role model – problem solved.
Easy, eh!
If it were easy it would have be done by now. I do fly less, drive less, consume less, and grow my own veg but it is not easy compared to letting a combustion engine do the work of moving me around, or buying food from the local supermarket.
You are right that it is consumption that is the problem but population is loosely correlated with consumption. If the world was populated with 100 people those 100 people could live how they liked and it would have negligable effect on the climate and other life on Earth. The problems are that a significant minority are consuming so much that it exceeds replacement which is unsuatainable by definition, and that excess consumption is related to comfort and convenience (i.e. quality of life), and that significant minority is unlikely to give up that comfort and convenience voluntarily outside some fringe groups. Another potential issue is those who consume little may want to better their life which means ultimately bringing their lifestyle up to Western standards. Once they do that (either through their country becoming industrialised or through migration), they will consume at Western levels which will exasperate the climate and sustainability problems. It is very difficult to tell them they cannot do this, as they can just point out that you enjoy that lifestyle so why shouldn’t they (aka appeal to hypocrisy). One solution is for the wealthy nations to assist the poorer nations into leapfrogging the dirty energy generation technologies and bring their lives up to a comfortable level using fossil fuel free technology.
If it were easy it would have be done by now.
Getting your tooth pulled is easy. You have to do nothing but lie there. Nobody wants to have it done, though. That changes are easy is not the most germane point, or close to it. What matters is that people see the need to give up their comforts, not that it is easy to do so.
The comments preview panel seems to have disappeared. Sorry but this whole new website format seems like a big step backwards.
Sadly, seconded.
IPCC / 1988-2021 a good 3 decades to pool global climate science and convey it to a world public. Personally, I appreciate the international experts’ future-oriented, international thirst for knowledge.
But is this IPCC AR6 (or earlier work reports) readable for normal people?
– No – too long, too scientific, too few specific guidelines for political decision-makers who have to convert the knowledge they have gathered into specific local climate protection hardware.
33 years of analysis, diagnosis without any tangible, working therapy.
Less CO² emissions, urgently less CO² emissions, less CO² emissions – or you will die ……
Is this the last word of wisdom to get a grip on the root causes of global warming? – I hope not.
After decades of research and analysis, it is high time to define new approaches to solving increasing global warming.
Anyone who has even the slightest idea of weather, climate and global radiation balances must at some point of emergency ask themselves the question:
What is the best, strongest, most reliable and possibly even the most natural climate protection against excessively absorbed radiation energy from the sun ??? I hope I’m not the only one who says:
— It’s the CLOUDS
— It’s the CLOUDS
— It is the CLOUDS with a net CRE = -19W / m²
— far more than snow, glaciers & polar ice caps and about 5 times as much as the radiative forcing of ~ +3.7 W / m², that will be accumulated since 1750-2050.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-018-4413-y
* The cloud-free global energy balance and derived cloud radiation effects: an assessment based on direct observations and climate models *
Martin Wild, Maria Z. Hakuba, Doris Folini, Patricia Dörig-Ott, Christoph Schär, Seiji Kato & Charles N. Long
Ordinary, evaporated water. Every firefighter knows it, everyone knows it.
Sea level rise, drought, floods, heat records, and even biodiversity are all issues that are clearly related to the presence or absence of water.
Could humanity please be so clever and put an end to the rapidly advancing desertification, the draining of the continents and the wrong water management?
Everyone understands the idea of artificial irrigation – but artificial clouds seem to be an alien concept and idea. !!! Artificial irrigation = artificial clouds !!!
As if humanity were too stupid to pee a hole in the snow or put a bucket into the rain.
Smart is the one who creates water reserves in the event of impending or already existing water scarcity.
In the driest desert worldwide (Atacama) there were peoples already 1500 years ago who were far superior to our culture in dealing with water – without electricity, digital support and water pumps – only with hands, pickaxes and shovels. They sowed water to harvest it later.
https://hidraulicainca.com/lima/sistema-hidraulico-amunas/
The annual actual volume of the SLR (3.7 mm = 1335 km³) can be kept away from the rivers (global runoff = 49500 km³) with very simple !GLOBAL! measures such as rain barrels, rain retention in cities and, above all, the large-scale consumer agriculture with a switch from groundwater use to flowing river water and then bring this volume to evaporation. Almost any river or creek, even far away from agriculture and cities, has a potential to rewet forests, moors and wetlands.
The mighty volume of 1335km³ loses its horror over the land areas with ~ 9L / m² per year.
27L / m² on 50 million km² of global agriculture is rather a poor supply for a pronounced drought.
I claim that this extra global amount of evaporation and cloud cover has enough negative radiative forcing to even compensate for further increases in earth temperature.
All of the main problems mentioned above (SLR, drought, floods, …) would be solved or reduced by changing the use of water and understanding of the “amunas”, – of course without neglecting a quick conversion of the fossil-fuel machine park to a renewable one. —
Water(vapor) is the strongest greenhouse gas and has a strong NEGATIVE net radiativ forcing.
So I miss that again in the IPCC AR6 – a more holistic climate therapy.
Take out CO² – AND – bring H²O into the atmosphere, should be the motto of future climate conferences, ARs and a newly defined climate protection.
Well, the IPCC Sixth Assessment is IN. And, yes, my prediction was wrong. Instead of finally admitting there was NO meaningful correlation between global temps. and CO2 levels, they chose to ignore my analysis and continue to operate under the assumption that a meaningful correlation actually exists.
They similarly ignored my analyses of sea level rise, droughts, hurricanes and heatwaves. Why am I not surprised? If they decided I was right, they’d be forced to retreat and retract with their tails between their legs. The world would not be coming to an end after all. How embarrassing!
Hold that thought. I’ve felt for some time the need to comment on the very deep – and distressing – reports pouring in endlessly from so many different sources – the media, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, so many blogs (such as this one), and indeed just about any venue you might want to mention. What’s particularly disturbing is that they all repeat just about the same message: “Yes, climate change is real. We see it all around us. The world is burning down, flooding, overheating, storming, etc. etc. And no, we must not continue to ignore it. We must roll up our sleeves and fight this thing, beginning NOW.
It’s as though “climate change” were some sort of cause that required our attention and support. Only it isn’t. This is what makes all these dire warnings so uncanny. I lived through the period of near hysteria where everyone was terrified of nuclear war. I marched along with many thousands of others in the hope that our protests might be heard in Washington and our leaders would be willing to pause at the brink. Whether our efforts had any effect on those leaders I have no idea. But there was in fact real cause for hope, and thankfully our hope was justified. At least so far (crossing my fingers).
Some years ago tobacco became a cause and the many revelations about its dangers finally did prompt some important decisions that led to reforms.
But “climate change” is different. As should be obvious. Deciding not to inaugurate a nuclear war or even to quit smoking is a relatively simple matter compared with deciding to “roll up our sleeves” to “fight” climate change. Everyone seems to agree that something should be done. But what? These warnings have been pumped out year after year, ranging from Ted talks to IPCC reports, each one more convincing, each one more dire. If we take these warnings seriously it seems clear there can be no hope. Not only are things really really bad, but with every report we learn of new dangers that make things much worse than anyone expected. Nevertheless, at the end of every lecture – wait for it – we are urged not to give up hope. Why? Well because. After all, we can always persuade the governments of the world to act. Really? Act how? Do you really expect them to destroy their economy in the hope that some vaguely defined, but inevitable, disaster can be delayed? And for how long?
A price on carbon? Really? So how much of a price? If the price goes too high you risk a complete breakdown of the world economy. And if it’s too low than it won’t make a difference anyhow. But what about all those electric cars? People won’t need to buy gas anymore. Well, maybe. But manufacturing millions of electric cars, not to mention all those batteries, will require huge amounts of energy to the point that CO2 levels can be expected to surge for many years before any benefit will result. And how will those batteries be recharged? Via recyclables? Really? Once again, the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines in the necessary amounts requires huge amounts of energy, which will come from what sources? Will it be possible for us to lift ourselves by our bootstraps? Well you never know. Hope is a wonderful thing.
As a long time socialist I’d love to see all those fossil fuel companies nationalized. That way all extraction would be controlled by the government. And if it were deemed necessary, the government could close it all down. That’ll show ‘em. Then what, I wonder? Can you imagine?
It doesn’t take much thought to realize that – assuming the alarmists are right, and “the science” is sound – there is no hope. None. Realistically there can be no hope. So what are all of us to think? What is expected of us other than to bend down on our knees to “the science” and accept the inevitable.
As I see it, “climate change” as so widely understood and universally accepted, is not a cause that one could promote in the hope that change is possible – because the sort of change continually being demanded would involve universal suicide. No. Accept it. “Climate change” is not a cause. It is a death cult.
Victor say: “As I see it, “climate change” as so widely understood and universally accepted, is not a cause that one could promote in the hope that change is possible – because the sort of change continually being demanded would involve universal suicide. ”
No. The sorts of changes asked for (climate change mitigation) don’t require universal suicide, or mass collapse of the economy, or poverty. The two main tasks include replacing fossil fuel electricity generation and transport systems. Much of this is near the end of its life anyway. Its already being replaced with things like wind and solar power and these sorts of energy are now very cost effective. The economic studies cost mitigation each year at about 5% of a countries economic output per year. This is not mass suicide. Energy costs:
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/
Sure it wont be easy because there are many hurdles in the way of change, and some unknowns, and we may not reach net zero emissions by 2050, but we can make enough difference to stop climate disaster scenarios.
“Victor says… as a long time socialist, I would like to see…”
He is hardly grown up with and aquainted to see what that is about and what it does entail in society.
“socialism” mostly comes out as the dictatorship of corporative, arrogant even militant dilettantism. ,
Thus stay constitutional as long as that remains possible, where you are able to vote it away again.
King Donald Grozny, who came up with other ideas rooting in an alternative Paradigma, was a very typical, very traditional omnipotent King. in all his display and behaviours.
But he failed to have grasped constitutional monarchy.
The clue to the rather constitutional monarchy is that the University given by its 4 and only 4 autentic faculties Theology Medicine Philosophy and Justice, is having the upper hand also on possible Kings. in order for them to become crowned.
They are then to obey and , to worship, and perform under the faculties of Divinity, Medicine, proper thinkables and observeables, and Justice!
The Alternatives are
1, The Emperor, the C- zar, wherever he shows up, claims to be the Son of God.
2, the Pope, wherever he also shows up in history and in the landscapes, claims that he is Gods Deputy.
Thus to our updated and enlighted opinions, neither of theese two ought to be in charge, as they are committing sheere paracitism on our individual duties and possible identities and dignities..
V: Instead of finally admitting there was NO meaningful correlation between global temps. and CO2 levels, they chose to ignore my analysis
BPL: What a SHOCKER! The IPCC ignored an analysis by Victor!
Boy, I sure didn’t see that one coming.
Yeah, who’ da thunk?
Victor says: “Instead of finally admitting there was NO meaningful correlation between global temps. and CO2 levels, they chose to ignore my analysis and continue to operate under the assumption that a meaningful correlation actually exists.”
Actually, the authors that have seen your analysis (if any) probably didn’t ignore you. Instead, they concluded that you’re friggin’ blind. As in – literally – can’t – see.
Actually, Weaktor’s motivation may be that if he ever admitted the validity of statistical reasoning, he’d have to admit that tobacco products cause cancer, and that might decrease his enjoyment of the cigars of which he is so fond.
His motivation doesn’t really matter. His adherence to motivated reasoning makes him an idiot.
The real question is this: Should a person who can’t see the correlation between 2 obviously correlated plots (and to boot refuses to accept the correlation coefficient as evidence) be lighting a cigar – with fire?
Personally, I’ve always hoped that the person responsible for dressing and feeding him takes care of that.
The graphs of warming and sea level rise in the Summary for Policymakers all appear to stop at the year 2100, but warming and sea level rise wont stop then, assuming business as usual or insufficient cuts to emissions. To me the graphs stopping at 2100 has the effect of downplaying the risk. Its not giving people the full long term picture. The body of the report gives longer term projections, but policy makers probably wont be reading this.
Actually, though the focus remains 2100, there are now some projections for 2300 as well.
Anything beyond 2100 is moot for anyone beyond the current and next two generations (considering 40 yrs a generation) because 1. if we haven’t solved climate, at least in terms of the short-and long-term planning, in the next 20 years, we will very likely be continuing the current collapse, irrevocably. Anything that happens past that is sheer luck and happenstance. 2. If we do solve for climate over the next 20 years, whihc to me means not only net zero but reducing the atmospheric load significantly, SL will follow suit within a few decades. There need not be continued SLR past 2100, let alone 2300. If we fail, it could be hundreds of feet of SLR, and there isn’t jack shit we’re going to be able to do about that except get out of the way.
While you know I take primarly a risk perspective WRT climate (and all the rest of The Perfect Storm), in this case the risk out to 2300 is not germane.
Financing world action on climate change won’t be funded by our children, grandchildren or Kim Stanley Robinson’s fictional Ministry of the Future. Australia’s premier financial/business commentator Alan Kohler regularly uses his columns to berate the Australian government for its failure to take action on climate change. In his 12Aug21 column he marries his two of hi major commentary themes—finance and climate change. From a quick scan of realclimate’s series of 6th IPCC-related posts it seems to be a novel POV so I am posting a short 525 word extract.
“The sixth IPCC assessment report makes it clear that dealing properly with climate change will require a whole new approach to government deficits and debt.
Not only do we have to get emissions down to net zero before 2050, we will also have to extract a lot of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, using technology that doesn’t really exist. That’s going to be enormously expensive, and governments in advanced nations will have to do most of it.
And they start with about $US60 trillion in debt because of the pandemic, which has cost about $US17 trillion in less than 18 months.
The good news is that the new approach needed has been well tested in the laboratory of the pandemic: The cost of it has been funded by central banks printing money and buying second-hand government debt, including in Australia.
… Call it what you like – quantitative easing, Modern Monetary Theory, debt monetisation or just monetary policy – without it, the money to fund the pandemic response would have been harder to raise and more expensive.
Global warming will cost many times the cost of the pandemic, whether we’re talking about preventing it or paying the price of not preventing it.
Given the need for quantitative easing to fund the cheaper pandemic, it’s obvious that confronting climate change, and paying developing countries to join the effort, can only be funded if central banks stand behind governments to an even greater extent.
So the RBA and other central banks have a central role in the lead up to the Glasgow climate change conference in November. They should now make a public commitment of their own to keep quantitative easing going indefinitely, so governments can raise the money to save the planet at bearable interest rates. Yes, it might be inflationary but reading the latest IPCC assessment report, it’s pretty clear that inflation will be the least of our problems.
This week, (Australian) Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce expressed the reason central banks need to do this now: “What is the cost? Tell me the cost.” This has long been the key blockage to emissions reduction.
It’s true that opposing action on climate change has been a rewarding crusade for conservatives, both in politics and the media, for three decades: They successfully turned scientific consensus into a political debate, paralysing policy.
But apart from cynical greed and ambition, of which there has been plenty, the genuine problem has been the demonising of government debt and distrust of government that has been the maypoles around which conservatives have danced for decades.
A massive expansion of the public sector is now inevitable and there will be very large budget deficits and an even bigger rise in government debt than we’ve ever seen, including in wartime. The private sector simply can’t do the bulk of it, despite the rapidly growing voluntary carbon market and plenty of solid ESG (environment, social, governance) effort by companies and large investors, not to mention household rooftop solar.
If a serious effort to keep warming to 1.5 degrees results from the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, it will have to be led by government regulation and spending.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2021/08/12/climate-change-money-printing/
And here is recent article by Kohler devoted solely to climate change:
The climate change panic button is coming: Alan Kohler 19July21
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2021/07/19/climate-change-panic-alan-kohler/
John, I agree overall. The money creation mechanism used during covid 19 was in fact QE (quantitative easing). Governments and central banks did this because they were rightly concerned that the world could spiral down into an economic depression and they just needed a tool that could be used fast and would get support. It certainly looks like it helped, but the trouble is an awful lot of the money ended up boosting asset price inflation such as house prices and this causes various problems. New Zealand has experienced this with a 30% growth in house prices in about one year.
QE is useful, but was never intended as a permanent or longer term strategy. If the government uses money printing for climate change mitigation they might need to look at some more focused method. Maybe a dedicated, targeted infrastructure fund somehow. I’m not 100% sure of how you would do it, but I’m convinced a way could be found that avoids the issues QE can create. Although QE would be better than nothing.
RE: Kohler’s “climate panic button” (replying to John)
Yes, risk analysis rather than now useless “scientific” temperature scenarios that have existed for decades while emissions have continued to rise.
Perhaps the western world finance community will begin to panic when they realize that fossil carbon (and uranium) are not “forms of energy” at all. Of course, they are instead forms of matter from the Lithosphere, that when oxidized (or fissioned) create various aspects of universal poisons. Yet, one must admit that they are key for nation-states to use as Fuels of War in a mechanized world.
Yes, Risk. I have encouraged the scientists here – and everywhere – to shift to a risk-based presentation to policymakers and the public for a decade or more. Risk + viable solutions (a greenwashed now shifted 50 years is not it) – is the conversation we need to be having.
I’m having it. I hope more will join me.
@Jim useless “scientific” temperature scenarios
So another also sees it like this.
I actually think all the IPCC future scenarios of ‘maybes’ need to be dumped, not only the temps. The time, energy, and resources spent on doing scenarios is a complete waste of time. They are unnecessary. They change nothing for the better. They have not led to better effective decisions being made by Governments. Instead the opposite is more likely.
Producing multiple Scenarios does nothing to achieve the UNFCCC objectives nor the Paris Goal of remaining under +1.5C
The stated objective of the (UNFCCC) is “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
Such a level should be achieved within a timeframe sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner” (United Nations, 1992).
Yet even three decades later, the Framework Convention has had almost no effect in stemming the growth of atmospheric greenhouse gases.
The Truth is, the Facts are, the UNFCCC ‘Framework Convention’ has failed to meet any of it’s objectives.
The COP system has also failed to meet any of it’s objectives or goals.
The IPCC Reports has also failed to effectively communicate the scope and urgency of dangerous climate change. Failed to advise the UNFCCC to make sound science based decisions.
I say that is provably true because that was their assigned responsibility:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change.
Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the objective of the IPCC is to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. https://www.ipcc.ch/about/
The IPCC has repeatedly failed to do meet these objectives. Provably so.
When all three key parts of the UNFCCC ‘Framework Convention’ have repeatedly failed over 30 years is it not wise and rational to at least acknowledge this Reality?
To then undertake an Urgent Investigation and to either Structurally Reform the System to make it work, or replace it with something new – hopefully significantly more Effective and Fit for Purpose?
To continue like this, onto to COP26 and beyond, is collective insanity. Surely? If scientists do not speak up, policies will continue on the disastrous course defined by special interests instead.
No, I completely disagree. We need the science to continue to get better, more accurate – as much as it can in a Rapid Climate Change scenario – particularly the regional and smaller scale stuff, it that ever becomes really useful.
What we need for climate scientists to do is focusing on risks/extremes. What we need them to stop doing is getting in on mitigation and adaptation. It’s not their wheelhouse and they are, by and large, making a mess of it. Those PhD’s give them gravitas in that arena despite typically having zero training and background in it causing the experts in ecosystem design to be washed out of the conversation almost completely. (This is not *only* because of climate scientists, but their impact is significant.)
The emphasis on the IPCC Objectives must be placed upon the critical concept to provide information “they can use”, they being all governments and politicians.
Producing something that is not fit for purpose and/or is unusable is completely unsatisfactory. That is a clear failure to meet the objectives and purpose of being.
From the IPCC AR6 press release.
(The IPCC was established) in 1988 to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies (that can reduce those risks)
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2021/08/IPCC_WGI-AR6-Press-Release_en.pdf
Again, doesn’t this show what the key criteria are? Yes. Doesn’t it naturally follow, given the last 30 years, the IPCC has failed to meet those objectives? Yes. I believe it does.
Saying
“Stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions, and reaching net zero CO2 emissions.”
and saying
“and finds that unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions” – are not mitigation strategies.
Saying
“The report provides new estimates of the chances of crossing the global warming level of 1.5°C in
the next decades” – is not defining or addressing implications and risks.
They are meaningless undefined inconsequential Motherhood Statements. The SPM and the TS are no better at clarifying any of the above objectives.
Look here. Lost in translation: confidence and certainty; No where does the word “Risk” appear.
https://theconversation.com/lost-in-translation-confidence-and-certainty-in-climate-science-17181
Confidence or Likelihood terminology does not define the level risk nor the implications of xyz occurring or taking xyz action or not taking it.
Look at the IPCC Guidance itself: Consistent Treatment of Uncertainties
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2017/08/AR5_Uncertainty_Guidance_Note.pdf
The word Risk appears 3 times – “Sound decision-making that anticipates, prepares for, and responds to climate change depends on information about the full range of possible consequences and associated probabilities. Such decisions often include a risk management perspective. Because risk is a function of probability and consequence, information on the tails of the distribution of outcomes can be especially important.”
IPCC functions of uncertainty, probability, confidence, and likelihood, plus the very rare mention of risks and implications, is in almost every time only about how accurate or likely the statement being made by the IPCC is correct – it is not about the actual real world risk of something happening – or doing something – nor how dangerous that might be or will cost – nor the implications of that thing happening and the damage such an happenstance might cause in the real world where humans live.
These issues are predominantly only about the efficacy/accuracy of the contents of the Reports themselves ….. the IPCC process enables a kind of Face Saving INSURANCE POLICY for contributors lest their CLAIMS and ASSERTIONS be misconstrued or later shown to be INACCURATE in some way.
The IPCC process does not facilitate contributors addressing real world Risk Assessments or the inherent Implications and potential Costs involved.
The IPCC process instead rewards, encourages and facilitates Prevarication and Reticience.
The IPCC process STOPS contributors from advising Policy Makers and Governments WHAT TO DO based upon the Scientific evidence – WHAT ACTION PLAN / STRATEGIES entail the least amount of RISK, the maximum ROI (Return on Investment) or the probability of SUCCESS (based upon the known facts and realistic projections of what will happen in the near future if nothing were done.)
Nothing provided by the IPCC informs Policymakers HOW TO MAKE RATIONAL, RISK BASED DECISIONS.
The IPCC does not advise anyone what the Risks are for doing something or not doing anything.
The IPCC never defines specifically what if any action must be taken quantitatively, qualitatively or practically or in terms of timeliness.
The IPCC never does a Cost Benefit Analysis for any possible action or inaction.
The IPCC never does a Risk Analysis on any aspect of Climate or Emissions or Mitigation or Adaption potentialities.
Nothing provided by the IPCC informs Policymakers WHAT ARE THE GLOBAL RISKS or what the DIRECT IMPLICATIONS will be in the real world IF NO ACTION IS TAKEN – or what that will cost in Financial, Economic, Societal, Environmental, Ecological, Biophysical or in loss of Human Life terms.
The IPCC does not provide Governments or Politicians with the kind of scientific based information they can use to make appropriate well-informed effective and self-evident Decisions about anything.
I do not think anything I have said here is radical or shocking. I think it is obvious. I think these facts, these truths, these conclusions have been staring almost everyone in the face for a very long time.
RC. The IPCC reports probably don’t do that detailed prioritising of solutions, economic and time frame analysis, because member countries probably don’t want them to, because its very contentious. Its hard enough getting member countries to sign off on the science. There is nothing stopping governments working those things out. There are plenty of expert resources available.
I hadn’t read this bc I assumed I’d agree with everything, but I have some feedback. I’m really right now, but will try to remember to address this maybe early next week.
Did we got an estimate of when the Technical Summary, the full Report Chapters, is going to be finished being edited?
[Response: It’s usually a couple months. The corrections aren’t many, but it does need to be typset and copy-edited. – gavin]
“When we had Earth Day in 1970 we lived in a less divided nation.”
I must have missed the unity that settled over the U.S. regarding the Vietnam War.
“When we had Earth Day in 1970 we lived in a less divided nation”
Yeah sure.
What you mean is that the divisions and inequities were better hidden then, and people “knew their place”… minorities, women, gays, and so on.
And according to your reasoning, that “prime example” Afghan culture is the result of the Afghan genome, right? And so those Afghans who do immigrate here aren’t going to assimilate, and their daughters will not go to school because it’s not in their “nature”, right?
Sigh…
“Woke environmentalism.”
“What is “racist” is assuming one shoe fits all of humanity and all people and ethnic groups are somehow identical and going to act the same to the social engineering we are currently implementing.”
But not racist… sure. Whatever you say. Just keep all those nasty people with their nasty cultures away from you, eh?
Simple reality: Climate-caused migrations are already starting and will continue for decades, if not hundreds of years. Nations/nation-states are a Dead Man Walking. Bioregionalism is not only prudent, it is absolutely necessary for a regenerative society.
You nasty little ideologies are what no longer matter.
Social justice is imperative if we are to solve the climate crisis, not least because it is disadvantaged folks who primarily pay the price. That means they are the ones who will fight the hardest–but they need the support of folks with resources, too.
Which means social solidarity across class and racial divides. Otherwise, the elites will play divide and conquer as they have always done.
And, not to be harsh here, but you are playing right into that strategy of theirs, IMO.