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Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

unenvironment.org

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Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#61
post #44
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what you get some days with solar and wind: https://i.imgur.com/m2snJgg.png . Germany using a lot of standard gas and coal generators.

That doesn't really answer the point, which was that new solar and wind tend to be cheaper than new nuclear as of 2019.

It doesn't matter how cheap it is. No sun and no wind means no power, which means using coal and other fossil fuels. Increasing use of natural gas has reduced emissions more than switching to renewables.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#62
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power seems to be considered too powerful to trust in the hands of many nations, making it kind of a non starter globally. My understanding is that with any type of nuclear plant, in a non trustworthy country, it would still be dependent on importing the fuel from a nuclear state, making it quite unappealing and a security risk for the purchasing state.

I kinda wish there was a NASA equivalent for nuclear that would be given 10s of billions of dollars per year to R&D safer, next gen nuclear power plants. The organization could build/run those plants around the world in order to provide less developed countries with power while preventing proliferation.

An international version of this was Oppenheimer's vision (both for peaceful nuclear applications and weapons) which he expressed in his personal writings and in the Acheson–Lilienthal report. It was not looked favorably on by most of the US government and was the first step to the eventual revocation of his security clearance and removal from any position of influence.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#63
post #2

Or create sequestration systems so the net is that? Or would the numbers change?

Trees. You're talking about trees.

Trees used to cover the earth, and fossil fuels used to be sequestered underground.

We cut down trees and burned fuels. Planting trees only undoes one of those two.

This kind of facile response radically underestimates the magnitude of what we have to reverse.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#64

I searched for 'nuclear' on that page, and found no mention of the word at all. Whatever you might think of nuclear energy, I don't think such a drastic energy cut is even possible to implement without it. (After all, I see little point in cutting CO2 emissions in the US if people in other countries emit an amount equivalent to whatever gets cut here.)

Just to add to the two very insightful replies you've already got, yes, nuclear power could have been a great contributor on the fight against Global Warming, 30 years ago. And yes, it is a shame that "environmentalist" movements made so much noise that they ensured we took the most harmful possible path. Those movements should be shamed, and very loudly so because they still didn't give up on fighting improvements a…

>So, today pushing for nuclear does more harm than good.

You made the case for why you don't think nuclear can do any good (because it's too late), but what's the case for harm?

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#65

I think it should be somewhat obvious that it will be impossible for us to avoid the absolute worst of global warming. Humans simply don't have the capability to act in the coordinated, political way that is necessary. Somehow holding out hope that we'll all come to our senses and things will change is like holding out hope that we'll never have any wars again. It is just not compatible with human nature. I'd love it…

So how should an investor prepare today to the inevitable consequences of climate change?

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#66
post #53

I don't understand why globalism rarely, if ever, factors into the debate. It boggles my mind that if I walk down to the drug store to buy a toothbrush that toothbrush was likely made in a Chinese factory, shipped across the Pacific ocean in a diesel-spewing container ship, and then driven a good thousand miles in an 18-wheeler. It seems like a tremendous waste of energy for something that could be made locally for c…

Here you seem to be blaming globalism for failing to account for the true price of a product. The product should be cheaper if made locally because transport costs are reduced. At the moment transport is extremely cheap because there is no significant cost to producing emissions. If appropriate carbon taxes were added you would see such products being made more locally.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#67
I know change is slow but I can't help but feeling this goal is unattainable. In my own very environmentally concious state two versions of a carbon tax failed (one libertarianish leaning the other more green new deal like). France utterly rejected a climate focused gas tax. With fairly liberal populaces rejecting the economic commitment to addressing climate change It's become very hard to imagine how we'll ever get sufficient numbers of international polities with more conservative leaning voters to ever agree to do something.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#68
post #53

I don't understand why globalism rarely, if ever, factors into the debate. It boggles my mind that if I walk down to the drug store to buy a toothbrush that toothbrush was likely made in a Chinese factory, shipped across the Pacific ocean in a diesel-spewing container ship, and then driven a good thousand miles in an 18-wheeler. It seems like a tremendous waste of energy for something that could be made locally for c…

To be completely fair, it's not like they ran a ship from China just to bring your toothbrush. It's of course with thousands of other items, lowering the total cost per item for shipping. And these costs are still cheaper than making it locally, someone deemed. Though you do bring up the real overall solution, making gas/fossil fuels much much more expensive. Not as a trade measure, though that may be a side effect, but to keep people from burning it so freely.

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#69
post #53

I don't understand why globalism rarely, if ever, factors into the debate. It boggles my mind that if I walk down to the drug store to buy a toothbrush that toothbrush was likely made in a Chinese factory, shipped across the Pacific ocean in a diesel-spewing container ship, and then driven a good thousand miles in an 18-wheeler. It seems like a tremendous waste of energy for something that could be made locally for c…

[deleted]

Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target

#70

I think it should be somewhat obvious that it will be impossible for us to avoid the absolute worst of global warming. Humans simply don't have the capability to act in the coordinated, political way that is necessary. Somehow holding out hope that we'll all come to our senses and things will change is like holding out hope that we'll never have any wars again. It is just not compatible with human nature. I'd love it…

So how should an investor prepare today to the inevitable consequences of climate change?

Buying waterfront property in the great lakes region of the U.S. seems like a good bet.
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