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ArcticMelt2

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1850 on: December 15, 2019, 08:30:10 PM »
mostly true except one point, they are not disconnected or blind, they are

COWARDS

because as is rarely mentioned, the risk to not be re-elected, as a person but also as a party, is extremely high for those protagonists who first jump into the cold water as we say.

There are many enough example what happens to politicians, parties, masses of jobs in parliaments and otherwise connected to political business, if one of them finally DARES to to the right thing.

They are ousted or worse.

Look what happens in France after only moderate amendments were announced.

It's on purpose that i won't name more examples to avoid the discussion that would cause, because of course not all of you would consider the same thing as the right thing to do as i do ;) ;) )

There is another reason.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/10/tony-abbott-says-climate-change-is-probably-doing-good

Quote
Tony Abbott says climate change is 'probably doing good'

Former Australian PM delivers speech in London comparing global warming action to ‘killing goats to appease volcano gods’

Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has suggested climate change is “probably doing good” in a speech in London in which he likened policies to combat it to “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods” .

Abbott delivered the annual lecture to the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a climate sceptic thinktank on Monday evening. The Guardian and several other media outlets were blocked from attending the event but a copy of the speech was later circulated.

Abbott told the group the ostracisation of those who did not accept climate science was “the spirit of the Inquisition, the thought-police down the ages”. He also reprised his 2009 assertion that the “so-called settled science of climate change” was “absolute crap”.

Measures to deal with climate change, which Abbott said would damage the economy, were likened to “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods”.

“At least so far,” he said, “it’s climate change policy that’s doing harm. Climate change itself is probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm.”

“There’s the evidence that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide – which is a plant food after all – are actually greening the planet and helping to lift agricultural yields. In most countries, far more people die in cold snaps than in heatwaves, so a gradual lift in global temperatures, especially if it’s accompanied by more prosperity and more capacity to adapt to change, might even be beneficial.”

When he was prime minister, Abbott said he took the issue of climate change “very seriously”. But since he was deposed as prime minister by his Liberal party colleague and bête noire Malcolm Turnbull in 2015, Abbott has returned to many hardline views he had tempered as leader.

He told the GWPF Australia needed “evidence-based policy rather than policy-based evidence” and took aim at a 2013 study that showed that 97% of scientists agree humans are driving climate change, “as if scientific truth is determined by votes rather than facts”.

Climate change and energy policy has been a divisive issue in Australia for more than a decade, with Abbott consistently at the centre of the division. From the backbench, Abbott has pushed the Turnbull government to reject policies that would favour renewable energy.

In his speech, Abbott blamed Turnbull’s failure to campaign on energy prices during 2016 for the narrowing of the government’s majority at that year’s election.

“After a net gain of 25 seats at the previous two elections, when we had campaigned on power prices, we had a net loss of 14 when we didn’t. And subsequent events have made the politics of power once more the central battleground between and within the two main parties,” Abbott said.

On Monday the federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, indicated the government did not intend to follow its chief scientist’s recommendation that it should implement a clean energy target. Abbott welcomed that news in London, calling it “belated”.

“Even if reducing emissions really is necessary to save the planet, our effort, however Herculean, is barely better than futile; because Australia’s total annual emissions are exceeded by just the annual increase in China’s,” Abbott said.

Recent research from the Australia Institute found the country was the only wealthy nation still breaking energy emissions records.

The GWPF is chaired by Nigel Lawson, who served as Margaret Thatcher’s treasurer. Lawson has been an outspoken critic of climate science and recently incorrectly told the BBC the global temperature had slightly declined in the past decade. The BBC was heavily criticised for leaving his assertions unchallenged.

John Hewson, who led the Liberal party from 1990 to 1994, said Abbott’s speech to Lawson’s group “sees him in like-minded, if disturbingly deluded, company”.

“Tony Abbott has had a long history of playing short-term politics, for his own political benefit, with the existential threat posed by a rapidly changing climate,” Hewson said.

“Abbott was effective in opposition – a man of nope rather than hope. His basic thrust is that if you can’t understand it, don’t believe it, or accept it. When it comes to climate, and the magnitude and urgency of the challenge, Abbott is prepared to deny the undeniable, and to ignore the risks and costs if left to future generations. History will undoubtedly judge Abbott and Howard and their small band of deniers harshly. When they could have acted on climate and emissions they failed as leaders, miserably.”

 A clean energy target is not 'unconscionable', Tony Abbott. Wrecking climate policy is Abbott’s speech – titled Daring to Doubt – contained echoes of his mentor and prime ministerial predecessor John Howard, who gave the same annual lecture to the GWPF four years ago. In 2013 Howard said climate “zealots” had turned the issue into a “substitute religion”.

Abbott, who trained to be a Catholic priest, called climate change a “post-Christian theology” and said the decline of religion in society had left a hole in which other forms of “dogma” could take root.

A Lancet study in 2015 supports Abbott’s claim that more people die from cold weather than hot. But the World Health Organisation has found that by 2050, climate change will cause 250,000 extra people to die each year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.

Abbott went on to deny many of the central findings of the UN’s climate science body and claimed, without providing evidence, that climate records had been “adjusted” and data sets “slanted”.

“Contrary to the breathless assertions that climate change is behind every weather event, in Australia, the floods are not bigger, the bushfires are not worse, the droughts are not deeper or longer, and the cyclones are not more severe than they were in the 1800s,” Abbott said. “Sometimes, they do more damage but that’s because there’s more to destroy, not because their intensity has increased.

“More than 100 years of photography at Manly beach in my electorate does not suggest that sea levels have risen despite frequent reports from climate alarmists that this is imminent.”

Scientists often refrain from linking single weather events to climate change, saying only that they fit with what they expect to see more of because of climate change.

But as the Earth warms and scientist better understand climate change, weather extremes have been shown to have been made more likely due to greenhouse gas pollution. In Australia, the record hot winter just passed was made 60 times more likely by climate change. Researchers have also linked warming sea temperatures to the catastrophic rainfall and flooding that killed 35 people in Australia in 2011.

Sea level rise is one of the least controversial aspects of climate science. It is progressing at 3.4mm per year globally, according to the Australian government’s Ozcoasts website. Perhaps not enough to appear in photographs against other variables, such as daily tides, but over time scientists agree this will cause problems with coastal housing and infrastructure.

The Guardian asked repeatedly for an invitation to attend the event. Abbott’s spokesperson said the speech was “not considered a media event”. The Guardian understands the Times of London was invited to attend and excerpts of the speech were distributed to News Corp newspapers in Australia.

be cause

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1851 on: December 15, 2019, 08:53:00 PM »
 ^^ a speech probably welcomed by our new PM who enjoys being funded by his friend Nigel Lawson and the Global Warming Policy Foundation , professional climate change deniers .. b.c.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1852 on: December 18, 2019, 07:19:56 PM »
Climate change: Five things we've learned from Madrid talks
At the conclusion of UN climate talks in Madrid, our environment correspondent Matt McGrath considers the key lessons.
Quote
1. Leadership is REALLY important
COP25 in Madrid only happened because the Chilean government, faced with mounting civil disorder, decided to cancel the meeting in Santiago.  Spain stepped in and in three weeks organised a well-resourced and well-run event.  However, the fact that it was being run by one government, while hosted by another, gave rise to severe difficulties.

Delegates were highly critical of the fact that when it came to the key text about ambition, the Chileans presented the lowest common denominator language first, resulting in a huge number of objections from countries eager to see more ambition on carbon cuts.
Experienced COP watchers said they should have started with high ambition and negotiated down to a compromise.


Insiders say that agreement was only found because of the influence of Spanish minister Teresa Ribera who played a key role in bringing parties together during the long, last night of negotiations.

2. Disconnect is the key word
This was the word that was most widely used to describe COP25. There was a yawning gap between the demands of those outside the process and the actions of those within. ...
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/science-environment-50799903
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wdmn

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1853 on: January 30, 2020, 07:52:35 PM »
Not sure if this is the best place to post this...

For those who are unaware, there's been a schism in the climate community over RCP8.5, whether it represents BAU, and whether it should even be included as a pathway anymore.

Yesterday Glen Peters and Zeke Hausfather published a comment in Nature making their case as to why RCP8.5 is not BAU and why it is extremely unlikely that we will follow it:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3

While this reasonable dismissal of RCP8.5 is supposed to be a positive thing, another consequence of the discussion is that both Glen and Zeke have been very candid that currently the 1.5 and 2C targets are impossible.

They couch this by pointing out that 2.5C is actually quite doable. So they suggest that we refocus our efforts on that threshold, and try to be positive that not all is lost.

In a more subdued voice they also concede that there are uncertainties within the climate system (mostly frozen GHG feedbacks). But what must we extrapolate from this?

If we are unlucky and feedbacks kick in, it is not 2C that is currently impossible, it's 3C, and it's not 2.5 that's doable, it's 3.5C (see graph, with a hat tip to ASLR)

Oh, and to make the whole thing even more messy, the BBC ran the headline, "Climate Change: worst emissions scenario 'misleading'

Which was not what Zeke and Glen were arguing (but rather that calling it BAU is misleading), but which will nevertheless be food for the deniers at this critical juncture.

Yikes!

Sigmetnow

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1854 on: January 30, 2020, 08:09:37 PM »
Quote
Yesterday Glen Peters and Zeke Hausfather published a comment in Nature making their case as to why RCP8.5 is not BAU and why it is extremely unlikely that we will follow it:

Love this article.  Thanks for posting it.

Another excerpt:
Quote
Happily — and that’s a word we climatologists rarely get to use — the world imagined in RCP8.5 is one that, in our view, becomes increasingly implausible with every passing year5. Emission pathways to get to RCP8.5 generally require an unprecedented fivefold increase in coal use by the end of the century, an amount larger than some estimates of recoverable coal reserves6. It is thought that global coal use peaked in 2013, and although increases are still possible, many energy forecasts expect it to flatline over the next few decades7. Furthermore, the falling cost of clean energy sources is a trend that is unlikely to reverse, even in the absence of new climate policies7.

Assessment of current policies suggests that the world is on course for around 3 °C of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century — still a catastrophic outcome, but a long way from 5 °C7,8. We cannot settle for 3 °C; nor should we dismiss progress.
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rboyd

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1855 on: January 31, 2020, 05:22:51 AM »
RCP 8.5. may not be a believable anthropogenic emissions pathway, but it may be a realistic temperature pathway given the probable conservativeness of the climate models (although it seems that the forecasts are getting ratcheted upwards with the latest modifications), non-anthropogenic increased emissions (e.g. methane from permafrost, lakes etc.) and other feedbacks (e.g. Arctic albedo).

nanning

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1856 on: January 31, 2020, 07:36:33 AM »
From wdmn's post above:
Quote
They couch this by pointing out that 2.5C is actually quite doable. So they suggest that we refocus our efforts on that threshold

Moving the goalposts? Again?
First it was 1°C, then 1.5°C/2°C and now we should move that 'goal' again to 2.5°C because 'we' failed again and nothing has been done by our leaders?
I understand that this is not a text from the U.N. but I think it is very dangerous to keep moving the goals. What does "hope" mean in this context?

I propose the term "Leadership As Usual" or LAU.
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zufall

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1857 on: January 31, 2020, 09:47:06 AM »
Quote
I propose the term "Leadership As Usual" or LAU

 ;D ;D

"Lau" in German means "lukewarm", "tepid", "half-hearted", "without passion", "balmy", "mild" (dict.leo.org).

Quote
RCP 8.5. may not be a believable anthropogenic emissions pathway, but it may be a realistic temperature pathway given the probable conservativeness of the climate models (although it seems that the forecasts are getting ratcheted upwards with the latest modifications), non-anthropogenic increased emissions (e.g. methane from permafrost, lakes etc.) and other feedbacks (e.g. Arctic albedo).

These were also my thoughts when reading the article.

Sciguy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1858 on: January 31, 2020, 10:17:05 PM »
It seems some posters are deliberately misinterpreting the Nature Commentary linked to upthread in order to discredit it.  Here is a link again.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3

Here is what the authors say about the need to limit future temperature increases.

Quote
We must all — from physical scientists and climate-impact modellers to communicators and policymakers — stop presenting the worst-case scenario as the most likely one. Overstating the likelihood of extreme climate impacts can make mitigation seem harder than it actually is. This could lead to defeatism, because the problem is perceived as being out of control and unsolvable. Pressingly, it might result in poor planning, whereas a more realistic range of baseline scenarios will strengthen the assessment of climate risk.

This admission does not make climate action less urgent. The need to limit warming to 1.5 °C, as made clear in the IPCC’s 2018 special report13, does not depend on having a 5 °C counterpoint.

Quote
For those making real-life decisions, the choice of scenario becomes important14,16. Emphasizing ways of adapting to an extreme RCP8.5 scenario with around 5 °C warming in 2100 is out of step with the requirement to build resilience and reduce vulnerabilities in the near-term. Most users of climate scenarios care more about the world as it is now, rather than what might have been had global emissions not slowed over the past decade7. Users focused on mitigation are keen to capitalize on emerging opportunities such as cheap renewables, or to avoid overinvesting in stranded assets in dying industries. For example, they want to know whether the rapid cost declines in renewables might make investments in fossil fuels high risk. A RCP8.5 baseline renders these applications useless, because it implies that recent climate policies and technological progress are halted or even reversed.

For policymakers, mitigation policies that depend on the assumptions underlying high-emission baseline scenarios such as RCP8.5 will seem exorbitant, because they do not incorporate the plummeting costs of many low-carbon technologies over the past decade. The marginal investments required to move from 3 °C of warming to well below 2 °C (the main Paris goal) will be much less than moving from 5 °C to well below 2 °C. A narrative of progress and opportunity can make the Paris targets seem feasible, rather than seemingly impossible.

And they are clearly show how out of line with reality the RCP 8.5 (and its successor SSP5-8.5) are:


nanning

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1859 on: February 01, 2020, 06:49:06 AM »
The Nature journal has lost a bit of my respect and trust. Politicised?

I had already seen it in AbruptSLR's thread but refrained from commenting there to keep the thread 'clean'.
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wdmn

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1860 on: February 01, 2020, 07:48:39 AM »
I think we need to realize that all science is political. That the separation of these two realms was always an illusion.

The decision whether to emphasize RCP 8.5 or not has always been a political/social one as much as a scientific one.

nanning

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1861 on: February 01, 2020, 05:22:22 PM »
Sorry wdmn but I disagree your first sentence. Most natural sciences and also many other sciences are not politicised in my opinion. e.g. Physics?
Perhaps you mean that much research is starved of funding through governmental policies.
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"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
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Tom_Mazanec

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1862 on: February 01, 2020, 05:37:20 PM »
nanning:
Scientists are human.
Humans are political animals.

kassy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1863 on: February 01, 2020, 05:58:25 PM »
We are still over 2,5 C while we agreed to go for 1,5 C. This clearly means a lot more should be done.

Basically the idea always was to not lose the arctic ice or have the permafrost be source and not a sink. And Antarctica was a big lump of ice that would not really do much for centuries.

Long ago the target was 1 C but then there was some economic advice and the target was shifted.

There are a lot of reasons to suspect that even 1,5 C triggers all kind of reactions in the real world.
Survival of arctic ice looks troublesome.

The permafrost has probably already turned into a source.

And when looking closer at Antarctica we discover all kinds of really interesting ways in which it melts which we did not think of before, or at least had not worked out enough to include into models.

So there is not that much comfort in 8.5 dropping out.

As long as we keep overshooting 1,5...or 1... all these things will get worse.

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TerryM

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1864 on: February 01, 2020, 07:41:46 PM »
Ramen!!


The goals shift as economic realities are recognised and short term politics take precedence over long term plans that were to be executed by those not then in power.


This won't be the final iteration.
Terry




wdmn

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1865 on: February 02, 2020, 01:28:28 AM »
Sorry wdmn but I disagree your first sentence. Most natural sciences and also many other sciences are not politicised in my opinion. e.g. Physics?
Perhaps you mean that much research is starved of funding through governmental policies.

Nanning, I don't want to derail this thread too much, but I will offer up a response that I hope will be stimulating to some, while far from complete (though far too long).

Yes, not politicized means exactly that we don't think of them as political (and this is itself a political movement). We've depoliticized science for at least 4 centuries. It is a fundamental part of "modernity" that we think of economics, politics, science as separate spheres, just as we think of ourselves as both part of and separate from nature: at once subject to its laws, which we learn with science, while also free to organize ourselves as we deem fit (cultural animals), so long as we remember that the two realms must be kept distinct!

What is politics? Or, a more manageable question, "with what does politics concern itself?"

Isn't politics the way in which we organize society and the state (the polis)? The systems and methods we set up defining power relationships within the polis, which voices will be heard, who will have the right to make decisions (i.e. who is sovereign)?

When we think of science as being apolitical we usually mean that it is transcendent, absolutely sovereign, and so we want to grant it a voice that speaks with absolute authority that must be respected no matter your ideology. So then what political role do scientists have within the polis? Are they disinterested, neutral, dressed in beige, as inhuman as their facts, only concerned with Truth and nothing else? Are they priests of nature who speak for it wielding their instruments as the shaman wields a drum, and who must be obeyed; i.e. to which we are subject (political subjects)? Are they agents of the state, asked to unravel secrets of nature in order that the polis might achieve more power (as was done with the Manhattan project, for example)? Are they dangerous heretics threatening the democratic order by speaking with a voice that tramples the will of the people; are they -- as some climate deniers will insist -- corrupted agents, seeking power and money through the manipulation of data and instruments? Is RCP 8.5 just a scientific model, or is it a rhetorical device designed -- as all RCPs -- to be used as a tool of persuasion? Do scientists really not care, are they "neutral" sitting on the sidelines, with no skin in the game? Or do they hope that their work will wield power, that it will be taken seriously, as Fact?

No matter how we choose to answer these questions, the work of the scientists bears on the collective: from the way that we discuss things, to the way the our economy functions, to the way that we have sex, and so to the way that power is distributed.

I can think of no better example than the physics of greenhouse gasses to draw out this point. It turns out that there has been a great divide over whether our measurements of these gasses, and our understanding of the physics of how they work, should bear on the organization of our society. It turns out that in order to keep making the measurements and gaining insight into the physical responses of components within the climate system (such as ice sheets), the scientists need funding, that one can as easily smash the equipment by defunding the scientists as by storming their laboratories. The scientists, it turns out, are a branch of the government, and their efficacy depends on whether or not they recognize that their struggle for (the) power (of their work) is a political one. Even scientists could find their heads in the guillotine (figuratively or literally).

Does the non-human compound CO2 have a force, a political voice? Yes, but is it that of a backbencher, or that of a king? Or something else altogether?

I would suggest that right now many of our poleis have descended into a state of a cold civil war (that could warm up quite rapidly in some instances). Our social contracts are torn to pieces over a disagreement over what sort of political agents the scientists and their facts are, and to what extent the voice of the people is to be subject to them. Too much, it appears, was left out of our constitutions.

If anyone wants to read more on the subject, I recommend the book, "We Have Never Been Modern," by Bruno Latour, which is available here:
https://monoskop.org/images/e/e4/Latour_Bruno_We_Have_Never_Been_Modern.pdf

From that text:

"every ethnologist is capable of including within a single monograph the definition of the forces in play; the distribution of powers among human beings, gods, and nonhumans; the procedures for reaching agreements; the connections between religion and power; ancestors; cosmology; property rights; plant and animal taxonomies. The ethnologist will certainly not write three separate books: one dealing with knowledge, another with power, yet another
with practices. She will write a single book...

...

Native Americans were not mistaken when they accused the Whites of having forked tongues. By separating the relations of political power from the relations of scientific reasoning while continuing to shore up power with reason and reason with power, the moderns have always had two irons in the fire."
« Last Edit: February 02, 2020, 07:10:52 AM by wdmn »

Iain

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1866 on: February 02, 2020, 11:43:25 AM »

And when looking closer at Antarctica we discover all kinds of really interesting ways in which it melts which we did not think of before, or at least had not worked out enough to include into models.


Not least that it is now known the Antarctic is not a single landmass, but a series of islands, so the ice will be vulnerable to bottom melt in the future.

http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica-2/antarctic-datasets/#SECTION_1
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edmountain

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1867 on: February 02, 2020, 08:54:54 PM »
It seems some posters are deliberately misinterpreting the Nature Commentary linked to upthread in order to discredit it.  Here is a link again.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3

Here is what the authors say about the need to limit future temperature increases.

Quote
...

For those making real-life decisions, the choice of scenario becomes important14,16. Emphasizing ways of adapting to an extreme RCP8.5 scenario with around 5 °C warming in 2100 is out of step with the requirement to build resilience and reduce vulnerabilities in the near-term. Most users of climate scenarios care more about the world as it is now, rather than what might have been had global emissions not slowed over the past decade7. Users focused on mitigation are keen to capitalize on emerging opportunities such as cheap renewables, or to avoid overinvesting in stranded assets in dying industries. For example, they want to know whether the rapid cost declines in renewables might make investments in fossil fuels high risk. A RCP8.5 baseline renders these applications useless, because it implies that recent climate policies and technological progress are halted or even reversed.

...
If the Nature commentary were a Wikipedia article it would be flagged "Not in citation given": CO2 emissions have not slowed in the last decade. Indeed, one is hard pressed even to show that the growth rate has slowed (source).

In making this false claim not only do the authors damage their credibility, they divert attention away from the important distinction between stated policy and realized actions. As an illustration of this distinction consider the differences between the stated objectives of Kyoto and the actual outcomes over the same time period. It is thus completely fanciful to predict that the most likely outcome is the one in line with currently stated policies.

The outcome the authors deem to be most likely actually involves revolutionary changes to the global energy system that require an alignment between government, market, and technological forces of a scale that is hitherto without precedent in human history. Given the amount of entropy involved one could probably make an argument based on thermodynamics alone that their "most likely" outcome is, at best, equally likely.

kassy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1868 on: February 02, 2020, 09:49:58 PM »
Quote by ALSR on this with some bolding added by me:

To me the linked commentary in Nature indicates that some consensus climate scientists are increasingly, and openly, wading into politics   Currently, the IPCC does not assign probabilities to any of their radiative forcing scenarios such as SRES, RCP and SSP, but Hausfather and Peters believe that they are entitled to retroactively assume that such scenarios are comprehensive and accurate and thus can be fitted (by likeminded consensus climate scientists) into a probability density function, PDF, matching the real world; which I do not agree with. 

First, none of the IPCC radiative forcing scenarios (or models) consider ice-climate induced radiative forcing; and they do not adequately characterize such uncertainties as aerosol-cloud feedbacks, and potential future carbon emissions from soils and due to permafrost degradation.

Second, both the first attached image from the article and the second attached image from Scripps (comparing RCP8.5 vs the observed record) indicate that it is not clear what emissions pathway that we are following and that without a big effort our business as usual radiative forcing pathway (including ice-climate, and other underestimated, feedback mechanisms associated) radiative forcing) may follow RCP8.5 for many decades to come.

Title: "Emissions – the ‘business as usual’ story is misleading", January 29, 2020 comment by Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters, Nature 577, 618-620, doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-00177-3

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3

...

In the linked article Michael Mann supports, and elaborates on, my position about the Hausfather and Peters (2020) commentary; however, I note that Mann does mention risks from ice-climate feedback mechanisms:

Title: "The STORY about the ‘business as usual’ story is misleading", by Michael Mann, January 29, 2019

https://michaelmann.net/content/story-about-%E2%80%98business-usual%E2%80%99-story-misleading

Extract: "A new commentary in the journal Nature by Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters is making the rounds today.

The commentary is similar in content and outlook to a previous piece written by Hausfather on the website of the "Breakthrough Institute" a month ago, arguing that "business as usual" burning of fossil fuels will likely only lead to 3C warming, rather than the considerably higher range of 3-5C warming typically cited based on past IPCC projections. The latter piece was relied upon heavily in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Breakthrough Institute founder Ted Nordhaus that is highly dismissive of the need for rapid reduction in global carbon emissions. The new piece has predictably led to some distorted headlines, for example this one by the BBC: "Climate change: Worst emissions scenario 'misleading' " which, itself, is ironically rather misleading.

The most recent peer-reviewed article I’m familiar with that covers this ground is a 2016 article by Rogelj et al in Nature. However, it comes up with higher numbers than Hausfater and Peters for “current policies”, with a central estimate of 3.2C warming, and as much as a 17% chance of warming in excess of 4.1C taking into account both the physical uncertainties and the scenario uncertainties. But that study used a simple climate model (MAGICC) that doesn’t account for non-linearities and, most importantly of all, doesn't include so-called “carbon cycle feedbacks”, that is to say, the feedback mechanism by which global warming can actually release more CO2 (or e.g. methane), adding further to the warming. Indeed, this deficiency applies to all studies that are based on specifying CO2 concentrations rather than emissions, and it applies to the current commentary by Hausfather & Peters.

We have seen a sobering example of the importance of these feedback mechanisms here in Australia where I am currently on sabbatical. In the catastrophic fires that have engulfed the continent (which were exacerbated and amplified by unprecedented heat and drought made possibly by climate change), roughly twice as much carbon escaped into the atmosphere as was produced by all of fossil fuel burning in Australia over the last year.

These sorts of amplifying “carbon cycle” feedback mechanisms (and this is just one example--there are many others including, for example, the potential release of frozen methane in the Arctic with warming) are not accounted for in the simple sorts of projections that Hausfather and others are using here. It is very likely that these feedback mechanisms will add substantially to the warming over the next century.

Combine that with the fact that the most recent (“CMIP6”) IPCC climate models seem to be showing the potential for considerably greater warming than the previous generation ("CMIP5") of IPCC models, and in my view, it is very difficult to rule out warming in excess of 4C under "business-as-usual" climate policies. Only with very strong mitigation efforts and rapid reduction of carbon emissions can we avoid such a scenario with a high degree of confidence."
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kassy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1869 on: February 02, 2020, 10:05:01 PM »
Basically they should just use the following scenarios:

1 C Probably safe AIM FOR THIS oops

1,5 C Lets see if we can limit the damage (because we pledged this)

Anything beyond that is just plain bad as anyone can see by the current state of the planet.

Basically the IPCC scenarios are a report about how high you can stoke the fire in the living room while ignoring the fact that the curtains might catch fire.
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rboyd

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1870 on: February 03, 2020, 09:09:48 PM »
As AbruptSLR has covered very well, the UN IPCC scenarios are dangerously conservative in their assumptions and we can probably already kiss 2 degrees goodbye unless we cut emissions by 10% a year from today - we are already at 1.2 degrees in a non El-Nino year (2019).

When the next UN IPCC report comes out (2021?) the increase in atmospheric concentrations, anthropogenic emissions and somewhat less conservative scenarios can only be met with bigger assumptions of carbon capture and geo-engineering. I personally assume that by 2025 there will be a full-court propaganda campaign to normalize solar radiation management and even some of the bigger scale carbon capture schemes (e.g. crushing massive amounts of igneous rock and spreading the dust across humid/wet environments - great for the mining industry).

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1871 on: February 03, 2020, 09:28:10 PM »
The cumulative effects of 10%/an cuts get very difficult in as little as a lustrum, and in a decade they're damn near unimaginable.
BTW, those cuts are supposed to start this year.



Good luck!
Terry

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1872 on: February 03, 2020, 10:06:02 PM »
Thats why geo-engineering will be all the rage in a few years! The only way to square the circle in the short-term.

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1873 on: February 03, 2020, 10:25:14 PM »
Thats why geo-engineering will be all the rage in a few years! The only way to square the circle in the short-term.
But what about the long term?

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1874 on: February 03, 2020, 10:34:14 PM »
Thats why geo-engineering will be all the rage in a few years! The only way to square the circle in the short-term.
But what about the long term?
Don't worry, Tom. What could possibly go wrong?
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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1875 on: February 03, 2020, 11:24:58 PM »
Geo-engineering is simply another excuse for general business as usual / really slow decarbonization. There course could be lots and lots of complications, but the inertia around BAU is so strong I think that this will get done in some form.

Lets remember that in 2014 the UN IPCC assumed a massive amount of carbon capture and storage utilizing untested/unknown technologies to square the growth/FF lobbies/emission reduction circle. Before that they played around with the risk confidence intervals and ignored climate bifurcations to square the circle. This will just be their latest dose of hopium and then perhaps outright risk taking "lesser of two evils" emergency government actions.

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1876 on: February 05, 2020, 03:01:50 PM »
Isn't the so called "BAU" RCP 8.5 scenario more of an academic exercise than an actual real world scenario? Something to show us what would happen if we extrapolate historical emission growth in to the future.

In real world such rapid increase in temperature and consequential abrupt environmental change would mean a economical and societal collapse which would cause a decrease in emissions. GDP doesn't grow well in a madmaxian hellscape  :o

Lowest emission scenarios share the same characteristics. Something that would happen if emissions were that low, not so much something that may be expected to happen in the real world. Especially the Paris 1,5 degree scenario that needed imaginary "negative emissions" in order to get the math work.

gerontocrat

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1877 on: February 05, 2020, 03:51:32 PM »
Isn't the so called "BAU" RCP 8.5 scenario more of an academic exercise than an actual real world scenario? Something to show us what would happen if we extrapolate historical emission growth in to the future.

In real world such rapid increase in temperature and consequential abrupt environmental change would mean a economical and societal collapse which would cause a decrease in emissions. GDP doesn't grow well in a madmaxian hellscape  :o

Some of us believe that anthropogenic CO2 / CH4 et al emissions do not have to increase as in the RCP 8.5 scenario to produce the RCP 8.5 scenario RESULT.

Why:-
- the probability is that even if fossil fuel/cement CO2 emissions do decline it will be slow, i.e. 2-3 degree scenario,
to which one can add
- accelerating permafrost melt increasing CO2 & CH4 emissions,
- polar amplification reducing sea ice, albedo effect amplifying polar amplification,
- Abrupt Sea Level rise,
- degradation of environment reducing carbon captured by land and ocean sinks, and CO2 emissions from land-use change accelerating.
etc etc etc etc..

Societal Collapse? Look at the ever-increasing ripple effects of Coronavirus. The ripples are becoming waves. The financial and economic systems of the world are not as strong as we like to think.

"Just-in-time" means no slack, spare stocks. The world needs the goods that come from China. Many businesses will stop doing business by the end of this month if production and supply lines remain so badly disrupted as they are at the moment in and from China (and increasingly elsewhere).

It's a hairy, scary world.
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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1878 on: February 05, 2020, 04:01:18 PM »
Yes, and that’s why the Nature article claiming we’re avoiding 8.5 is misleading. RCP 8.5 anthropocenic emissions are likely to be physically impossible, but catastrophic climate change can happen without reaching the most extreme emission pathway.

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1879 on: February 05, 2020, 04:58:57 PM »
A great sum-up gerontocrat.

And bluice I agree with your conclusion and about the nature article but I don't think the anthropogenic extreme emissions pathway is physically impossible. I agree that it is very unlikely. There's still a lot of oil, coal and gas left to burn. Exploration for new FF resources is not slowing down I think.
Likely the emissions from living nature are going to overtake anthropogenic emissions quickly. They are already at several GT CO₂ per year. Those emissions will increase exponentially, i.e. with a doubling time. The doubling time will decrease because of the positive feedback relationship with other beginning and increasing feedbacks and continued accelleration of GMST. Geo-engineering, if possible on a global scale, if applied succesfully will only be a temporary 'solution'. A final grasp by human supremacy over nature and a fatal last offering to the false gods of high technology.
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"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1880 on: February 06, 2020, 12:18:20 AM »
Agreed nanning, a final last gasp of human ingenuity in a vain attempt to assert human preeminence over nature. Collapses (societal, financial etc.) tend to happen from the highest point reached, its why they come as such a surprise.

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1881 on: February 17, 2020, 02:58:20 PM »
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way" from A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.

The Future We Choose, a new book by the architects of the Paris climate accords, offers two contrasting visions for how the world might look in thirty years

the best of times
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/15/best-case-scenario-2050-climate-crisis-future-we-choose-christiana-figueres-tom-rivett-carnac
‘Air is cleaner than before the Industrial Revolution’: a best case scenario for the climate in 2050

the worst of times
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/15/worst-case-scenario-2050-climate-crisis-future-we-choose-christiana-figueres-tom-rivett-carnac
‘The only uncertainty is how long we’ll last’: a worst case scenario for the climate in 2050

Meanwhile, the IPCC clings to the 2100 scenario.
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rboyd

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1882 on: February 17, 2020, 08:38:10 PM »
2100 is irrelevant given the path that we are on. Also, the UN IPCC scenarios seriously underestimate the possible rate of CC. I see the 2030s (if not earlier) as the breakpoint when all the technology solutions will be attempted (solar radiation management etc.) in an attempt to continue economic growth. The trends in planetary temperature and atmospheric GHGs is already very disturbing It could also easily be a nasty surprise from all the other effects of continued exponential economic growth that catch humanity out.

Once economic growth ceases the economy will collapse very rapidly and uncontrollably - think 1930s depression. We may then have the worst of all worlds - rampant CC and a collapsing economy. I see the dome in Logan's Run as being another possibility if climate engineering fails.

All those North American retirees moving to Central America (Panama, Costa Rica etc.) may find it a bit too hot (in more than just temperature) and dry for their liking.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2020, 08:49:07 PM by rboyd »

TerryM

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1883 on: February 17, 2020, 10:23:46 PM »
If COVID-19 causes an economic collapse in 2020/2021, few North American retirees will be able to afford as much as a night out at the movies. :-\
Our Paris Targets may well be met, but temperatures, sea level and weird weather will continue to increase for many decades.


If an economic collapse due to AGW compounds a collapse caused by the disruption of manufacturing, transportation and trade that COVID-19 seems likely to produce, the 1930's may seem like a golden age of plenty.


Stay Happy! ::)
Terry

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1884 on: March 09, 2020, 10:12:50 AM »
We've Lost a Decade. Now We Must Work Four Times Harder to Avoid 1.5°C Warming

The world has wasted precious time, and now, after a decade of procrastination on climate change, we have our work cut out for us.

If nations around the globe still want to meet their Paris emission targets, a new synthesis of United Nations data suggests we will have to put in quadruple the work.

Just ten years ago, we had 30 years to halve our emissions. Now, we only have ten years - if we want to limit temperature rises to 1.5 °C warming above pre-industrial levels. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has outlined, beyond that limit conditions will get increasingly dire.

The new warning comes from two leading climatologists, and it's based on ten annual editions of the UN Emissions Gap Report, which looks at the discrepancy between what countries have pledged to emit and what they actually need to emit.

In a mere decade, the researchers say, that gap has widened by as much as four fold.

"Had serious climate action begun in 2010, the cuts required to meet the emissions levels for 2 °C would have been around 2 [percent] per year, on average, up to 2030," the authors write in a recent comment for Nature.

"Instead, emissions increased."

Between 2008 and 2018, global yearly emissions shot up by 14 percent, which means now, we must act even faster than before.

...

https://www.sciencealert.com/we-must-now-work-four-times-harder-to-meet-paris-emission-targets
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kassy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1885 on: March 23, 2020, 05:04:49 PM »
Why Africa Needs the World to Keep the Rise of Global Temperatures at 1.5°C

At the end of the century, if carbon emissions aren’t reduced faster, the global temperature is likely to be 2.6°C to 4.8°C higher than it was in 1986–2005. Africa could be even hotter than that, to the tune of between 3℃ and 6℃.

 
If the world doesn’t make a bigger effort to cut emissions than it does now, global warming might have a severe effect on sub-tropical Africa.

...

Our study projects that limiting global warming to 1.5℃ instead of 2℃ would have considerable paybacks for Africa. In particular, extreme heat events like the ones in 2015 and 2009/2010 might be reduced by 10% and 20% respectively under 1.5℃ of global warming level compared to under 2℃ level.

Temperatures as high as those in the December–February 1991/1992 southern African drought are estimated to be 25% less likely under 1.5℃ of global warming level compared to under 2℃ level.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-africa-needs-world-keep-rise-global-temperatures-15%C2%B0c-135582



 In the Community Earth System Model, limiting end-of-century warming to 1.5 °C is suggested to robustly reduce the frequency of heat extremes compared to 2 °C. In particular, the probability of events similar to the December–February 1991/1992 southern African and 2009/2010 North African heat waves is estimated to be reduced by 25 ± 5% and 20 ± 4%, respectively, if warming is limited to 1.5 °C instead of 2 °C. For hydrometeorological extremes (that is, drought and heavy precipitation), by contrast, signal differences are indistinguishable from the variation between ensemble members. Thus, according to this model, continued efforts to limit warming to 1.5 °C offer considerable benefits in terms of minimizing heat extremes and their associated socio-economic impacts across Africa.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-africa-needs-world-keep-rise-global-temperatures-15%C2%B0c-135582
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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1886 on: March 27, 2020, 04:23:05 PM »
EPA Indefinitely Suspends Environmental Rules

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/27/headlines/epa_indefinitely_suspends_enforcement_of_environmental_laws

Quote
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced a sweeping and indefinite suspension of environmental rules, telling companies they will effectively be allowed to regulate themselves during the coronavirus pandemic.

[...]

And it allows them an out on monitoring too, so we may never know how bad the violating pollution was.

kassy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1887 on: March 27, 2020, 04:31:36 PM »
This is so fucking retarded. While we are at it can we just legalize bank robbery too?
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Juan C. García

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1888 on: April 03, 2020, 03:04:00 PM »
Quote
Amid pandemic, U.N. cancels global climate conference

The United Nations has postponed a pivotal climate conference scheduled for November amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, delaying an international effort to head off the worst consequences of climate change.
...
The gathering, scheduled to be hosted by the United Kingdom in November in Glasgow, Scotland...

But the arena where the massive event was to take place, the SEC Centre, is being converted into a field hospital for patients infected by the virus that causes covid-19, the Scottish government said this week.

“Covid-19 is the most urgent threat facing humanity today, but we cannot forget that climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity over the long term," Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in announcing the postponement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/04/01/un-climate-coronavirus-cop26/
By Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney
April 1, 2020 at 2:22 p.m. CST

P.S.: I will love if the new conference is schedule on July or August 2021, instead of November or December. A lot of weather events happen on summer. The autumn in the Northern Hemisphere is boring and surely is the reason to have it on those months (November/December).
Which is the best answer to Sep-2012 ASI lost (compared to 1979-2000)?
50% [NSIDC Extent] or
73% [PIOMAS Volume]

Volume is harder to measure than extent, but 3-dimensional space is real, 2D's hide ~50% thickness gone.
-> IPCC/NSIDC trends [based on extent] underestimate the real speed of ASI lost.

kassy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1889 on: April 04, 2020, 02:28:03 AM »
Interesting take but i think that it does not really matter. Basically you have the oil junks working against it (SA, Russia, rest of them) and most other governments wanting to do usual stuff.

We cannot keep ICE cars around until 2050 (and we won´t but they are making laws for the future lobbyed by the players of today).

Also many involved are profesional  negotiaters. Looking for an advantage  for their own country. But you cannot cheat physics.

We miss a really stringent framework which we need. 
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kassy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1890 on: April 04, 2020, 12:37:13 PM »
United States No Longer Reducing Energy-Related Carbon Emissions


...

Regardless, there is no doubt that the United States has sharply reduced energy-related CO2 emissions—by roughly 14 percent between 2005 and 2019. Yet the most recent data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration for 2019 highlight a worrying reality: the United States is no longer reducing emissions. CO2 emissions fell in 2019, but they’re still higher than they were in 2017—and remain unchanged versus 2016. From 2016 to 2019, emissions have fallen by 0.6 percent, which is hardly a record to boast about (in the United Kingdom, the equivalent number was closer to 9 percent).
 
The problem in the United States is overall energy consumption. The carbon intensity of primary energy continues to fall as the country uses less coal, more gas, and more renewables. But overall energy use has risen. Some of that increase is due to weather: 2018 and 2019 were colder than 2016 and 2017, and this led to a 4.3 percent spike in energy use in buildings from 2017 to 2019. But there is also a structural dynamic. Industrial energy use rose by 5.2 percent between 2012 and 2019 (2012 being the low point for energy consumption). Energy use in transportation also jumped 8.3 percent versus 2012.

In other words, the primary mechanism that the United States has relied on to reduce emissions—coal to gas switching—is no longer sufficient. The growth in energy consumption is offsetting the gains that come from reducing the carbon intensity of primary energy. And so, even though the United States has an impressive track record in reducing CO2 emissions from energy consumption, that story is mostly in the past, and the trend line since 2016 shows that the United States is no longer on a pathway to reduce emissions.

https://www.csis.org/blogs/energy-headlines-versus-trendlines/united-states-no-longer-reducing-energy-related-carbon
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kassy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1891 on: April 17, 2020, 12:09:37 AM »
Nearly half UK carbon footprint is from overseas emissions

...

Products including clothing, processed foods and electronics imported into the UK are counted as the manufacturing country’s emissions, not the UK’s - although they would not have been produced were it not for UK demand.

These emissions account for 46% of the UK’s carbon footprint yet are not currently covered by national reporting or included in the UK’s net zero target.

much more on;
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4576/nearly_half_uk_carbon_footprint_is_from_overseas_emissions

Same applies to other western countries.

We really need to clean up our budgeting. Can´t cheat or bribe physics.
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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1892 on: April 27, 2020, 07:36:12 PM »
German companies call for COVID-19 aid to be tied to climate action
Quote
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German companies including ThyssenKrupp, Salzgitter, Bayer, Covestro, E.ON, HeidelbergCement, Puma, Allianz and Deutsche Telekom have called for coronavirus-related state aid to be tied to climate action, daily Handelsblatt reported.

“We appeal to the federal government to closely link economic policy measures to overcome both the climate crisis and the coronavirus crisis,” more than 60 companies said in letter, ahead of the Petersberg climate dialogue starting on Monday.

The companies are concerned that environmental issues will be put on the backburner during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Car makers are already lobbying to prevent the announced tightening of emissions limits on cars, airlines for a waiver on jet fuel taxes, and the plastics industry for an appeal of the ban on some plastics products.

“The pandemic highlights the vulnerability of our globalized economic system to threats that are not limited to regions or industries,” the appeal says. “Climate change is a comparable challenge.”

As part of the initiative, Bernhard Osburg, head of ThyssenKrupp’s steel unit, called for a climate economic stimulus programme, while Joerg Fuhrmann, Chief Executive at peer Salzgitter, said the state should encourage the replacement of coal with hydrogen in steelmaking.

Markus Steilemann, head of plastics maker Covestro said: “It is about making our economy more crisis-resistant and competitive with a view to a truly sustainable, climate-neutral future.” ...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-climatecha-idUSKCN2290LI
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Sigmetnow

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1893 on: December 15, 2020, 03:52:21 PM »
US to hold world climate summit early next year and seek to rejoin Paris accord
Mon 14 Dec 2020
Quote
The US will hold a climate summit of the world’s major economies early next year, within 100 days of Joe Biden taking office, and seek to rejoin the Paris agreement on the first day of his presidency, in a boost to international climate action.
...
When Biden’s pledge to bring the US to net zero emissions by 2050 is included, countries accounting for more than two-thirds of global emissions are subject to net zero targets around mid-century, including the EU, the UK, Japan and South Korea. China has pledged to meet net zero by 2060, and a large number of smaller developing countries have also embraced the goal. ... 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/14/us-to-hold-world-climate-summit-early-next-year-and-seek-to-rejoin-paris-accord
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

vox_mundi

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1894 on: December 17, 2020, 06:05:34 AM »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Sciguy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1895 on: January 21, 2021, 12:43:34 AM »
The US is back in.

https://www.npr.org/sections/inauguration-day-live-updates/2021/01/20/958923821/biden-moves-to-have-u-s-rejoin-climate-accord

Quote
Biden Moves To Have U.S. Rejoin Climate Accord

January 20, 2021

In one of his first acts in the Oval Office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to have the United States rejoin the Paris climate agreement, the largest international effort to curb global warming.

Quote
It will take 30 days for the U.S. to officially rejoin the agreement, but meeting its targets is going to be a taller order. The U.S. is the second-largest producer of carbon emissions, behind China, and has contributed more to global climate change over time than any other country.

As a candidate, Biden made a bold pledge to cut all greenhouse gas emissions from the nation's electric sector by 2035 and to make the country carbon-neutral by 2050. Carbon emissions have been decreasing from the country's electricity sector as coal plants have been retired over the last decade and utilities ramp up their reliance on renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

gerontocrat

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1896 on: February 04, 2021, 11:01:13 AM »
James Hansen gives Boris Johnson a choice between earning "accolades" or " ignominy and humiliation". https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2021/02/03/HANSEN-JOHNSON_Letter_2021.02.03.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/04/top-climate-scientist-warns-pm-over-contemptuous-cumbria-coalmine-plan
Top climate scientist warns PM over 'contemptuous' Cumbria coalmine plan

Exclusive: James Hansen calls on Johnson to stop support for fossil fuels in letter ahead of UN climate summit

Quote
Boris Johnson’s decision to press ahead with a new coalmine in Cumbria shows “contemptuous disregard for the future of young people” and will lead to “ignominy and humiliation”, one of the world’s foremost climate voices has warned, in a stark message to the prime minister ahead of the UN Cop26 climate summit later this year in Glasgow.

He wrote: “In leading the UK, as host to the Cop, you have a chance to change the course of our climate trajectory – or you can stick with business-almost-as-usual and be vilified in the streets of Glasgow, London and around the world.”

Pointing to the recent decision to allow the UK’s first new deep coalmine for three decades, Hansen went on: “It would be easy to achieve this latter ignominy and humiliation. Just continue with the plan to open a new coalmine in Cumbria and continue to invest funds of the British public in fossil fuel projects overseas, in contemptuous disregard of the future of young people and nature.”

Hansen’s letter to Johnson is copied to Kerry, now special climate envoy to Biden, who has made climate action a top priority for his presidency, and who will hold a global climate summit on 22 April as a precursor to Cop26, scheduled for November.

Hansen is concerned that going ahead with the Cumbrian mine will be seized on by supporters of fossil fuels around the world, as the UK prepares to host the Cop26 summit in Glasgow this November.

“It shows they [the government] are really not serious,” Hansen told the Guardian in an interview. “We don’t need new mines. This shows that leaders will say the right words but in fact fossil fuels are still winning.”


Artist’s impression of UK’s first deep mine in 30 years despite objections from climate change activists in West Cumbria near Whitehaven. Photograph: West Cumbria Mining Company

Quote from footnote in letter...
Quote
[size=pt]2 Note that some of the apparent progress in the UK and the US is illusory; emissions from production in China are counted as China’s emissions, though the products are consumed in our countries.[/size]


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kassy

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1897 on: February 05, 2021, 01:30:23 PM »
EU climate neutrality by 2050 is not Paris-compatible

The EU’s aim for net zero by 2050 is insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement and limit warming to 1.5°C. To avoid climate catastrophe, Europe needs to rethink auctions for renewable energy and reintroducing support for small scale supply, argue Hans-Josef Fell and Dr Thure Traber.

...

The Paris Climate Agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015. In it, the signatory states pledged to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, if possible.

Five years later, climate change has turned into a climate crisis, and despite increasing protests for more climate protection, politics remains far behind the necessities of adequate climate policy.

Climate neutrality (net zero) by 2050 is the current EU climate policy mantra and it comes with the claim that this plan is sufficient to meet the Paris targets. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, not much remains of this assumption, casting doubts on the adequacy of European climate policy as a whole

It does not sound far away, however, reaching climate neutrality in 30 years will prove to be largely insufficient to limit global warming to 1.5°C. The scientific evidence for that is overwhelming, as shown by the Energy Watch Group’s recent policy paper.

The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service finds that the atmospheric temperature in 2020 was already 1.25°C above the pre-industrial period. And calculations by the experts contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show that global warming of 1.5°C can be expected as early as 2030.

Instead, the IPCC officially suggests to policymakers that only 1.3°C would be reached in 2030. This contradicts the model calculations of the IPCC’s own experts and misleads the public.

Based on the official IPCC statements, however, the political goal of climate neutrality by 2050 still foresees the use of fossil resources in Europe and elsewhere and thus further greenhouse gas emissions from 2030 onwards – i.e. after 1.5°C has been exceeded.

Such scenarios do not question the effectiveness of the target and lead to the erroneous assumption: effective climate protection can be achieved by pathways leading to climate neutrality by 2050.

Largely neglecting the necessity of climate protection, the European targets of 55% emission reduction compared to 1990 and of 32% renewable energy by 2030 only reflects this wrong narrative.

The example of Germany clearly shows that even if emissions were to be continuously reduced to zero from 2021 to 2050, almost another ten billion tons of German CO2 emissions would be emitted during this period alone.

This corresponds to about three times (factor 2.84) the amount indicated by the German Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU) on the basis of IPCC’s scientific – but not officially communicated – data as the upper German limit for achieving the 1.5°C target.

So, what would really be in store for Europe, if we adhere to the goal of climate neutrality by 2050? Not unlikely a climate catastrophe beyond 3°C, a Hothouse Earth scenario in which human civilisation as we know it today, may no longer be able to exist.

The proximity to such a (climate) catastrophic point of no return and the speed with which we are heading toward such point is widely not yet perceived or simply ignored on the political level, from the national parliaments to the European institutions, the media and to some extend even scientifically.

Those who claim, like the Commission, that the Paris Agreement could be met with the goal of climate neutrality by 2050 are knowingly or unknowingly deceiving the public.

Converting the economy by 2030 is possible but requires strong political will. It is technically and economically feasible, albeit with the greatest effort, to build a global zero-emissions economy combined with large natural carbon sinks by 2030. If the EU wants to stay at the forefront against the climate crisis, this is the required level of ambition and political leadership.

... more details on policies ...

Accelerating the roll-out of renewables, as is necessary to comply with Paris, requires the (re-)introduction of support for small and medium-scale renewable energy supply (up to 60 MW) by feed-in tariffs or feed-in premiums, in addition to given auctioning schemes for utility-scale renewable energy projects.

This could trigger an unprecedented rollout of renewable energy, as currently observable in Vietnam where rooftop PV installations increased by 9GW in 2020 due to the implementation of a simple feed-in support scheme without auctioning.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/opinion/eu-climate-neutrality-by-2050-is-not-paris-compatible/
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gerontocrat

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1898 on: February 27, 2021, 04:31:02 AM »

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/26/co2-emissions-nations-pledges-far-away-from-paris-target-says-un
CO2 emissions: nations' pledges 'far away' from Paris target, says UN

Secretary general António Guterres says first assessment of promises amounts to ‘red alert for our planet’

Quote
The first assessment of countries’ pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, a vital component of the Paris climate agreement, has found they are only a fraction of the effort needed to avoid climate breakdown.

If all of the national pledges submitted so far were fulfilled, global emissions would be reduced by only 1% by 2030, compared with 2010 levels. Scientists have said a 45% reduction is needed in the next 10 years to keep global heating to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the Paris agreement.
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Isaac Webb

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Re: UN Climate Agreement - Paris 2015 and beyond
« Reply #1899 on: March 05, 2021, 08:45:26 AM »
Global warming has been talked about in the scientific community for a long, long time. But it wasn't until 2015 that representatives from 195 countries signed the Paris Agreement, which calls for keeping global warming to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial times. According to scientists, this is the only way to prevent climate catastrophe.

However, in late 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report stating that tackling climate change cannot be delayed. The main conclusion is that irreparable damage to the planet could be done as early as 2030. The participants in the Paris Agreement promised not to let the atmosphere warm by more than 2°C by 2100, but mankind is now moving towards the 3°C mark. Experts believe people have reached a tipping point in their influence on the planet, so immediate global changes are needed in all spheres of society.