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UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#21

Post by fulafel »

netsharc wrote: post #17
fulafel wrote: post #12

The title is somewhat out of context, the abstract says "the international community is falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place". So it's not saying we can't do it, it's saying we're failing and take action. (Not to downplay it at all, we really need to get things happening right now on the policy decisions level)

The HN title is a summary of the subtitle (the first text after the picture and the byline)... It's a better title than the article, as far as attention grabbing is concerned.

BBC did the mistake in summarizing the abstract of the UN report, HN title repeated it. At least BBC linked to it ( https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022)

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#22

Post by ericmay »

zb1plus wrote: post #8

I wish humanity could discard narrow-minded nationalist/short-sighted capitalist tendencies and unite against this threat. Imagine a climate pact between the US, EU, China and India where each society placed a similar focus on pivoting to renewables and developing reliable fusion energy as the Allies devoted to winning ww2 and developing atomic weaponry. Amusingly, the end of our dependency would also resolve many ge…

> focus on pivoting to renewables and developing reliable fusion energy...

You know that this would be accomplished through capitalism right?

The more we rail against capitalism and free markets (which every successful country from Denmark to Australia uses) the less likely we'll ever be to solve any problems.

The market is an unwieldy force that can be generally shaped in a direction by the people (purchasing decisions, sacrificing convenience) and the government (regulation, law, market fairness) to massively solve problems through innovation, technology, and other means. Ignoring the market, or restricting its capabilities leaves us with little to no tools to combat problems.

The much greater problem than "capitalist tendencies" is solving for people who absolutely refuse to modify their lifestyles (I must have my SUV and drive it comfortably and quickly to Costco on the 5 lane highway) to which market forces simply respond to, and who deny that humans are having a substantial effect on the global climate and would rather elect charlatans than people of substance.

On the other hand, we're trapped in a prisoner's dilemma with the very countries you mention.

It's a very bad situation we face, but I find that blaming capitalism or markets for failures of government to be counter-productive and in some ways actively hostile to working on addressing climate change.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#23

Post by jamescostian »

rob74 wrote: post #11
canadiantim wrote: post #6

Maybe then we should consider not kneecapping our economy and driving people into poverty? The worst thing for the environment is poverty. I'm convinced most of the measures put in place to fight climate change have been a net negative to the environment, when you consider how much they are impoverishing people and thus driving more people to disregard environmental concerns for survival.

Hm, then I wonder why rich nations have much higher per capita CO2 emissions than poor nations ( https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/climate-action/what-we-d... )?

You're not replying to a comment saying "poor people are the biggest contributors of CO2 emissions", you're replying to a comment saying "driving people into poverty is the biggest contributor of CO2"

So the thing to look at isn't poor people's emissions, it's rich people's emissions, given that (relatively speaking, bc increasing money supply just decreases its worth) the richer rich people are, the more poor people there are (or the poorer the poor people are). This is well-known, you can google and find tons of articles, but here's one from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211025-climate-how-to-m...

The poorer you are, the less you can individually consume, and the more you must go for things that are cheap at the expense of other things (e.g. buying single-use goods over and over is cheaper short-term than buying something made to last). I think the idea is that if more people were middle-class, we'd see consumers make better choices (personally, I don't see that happening without government intervention of some kind, but that could hurt poor people even more if it happened before poor people got more money to afford more eco-friendly choices). And on the opposite side of the spectrum, if rich people weren't quite as rich, they wouldn't consume quite as much in excess, and would lead to less emissions.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#25

Post by radford-neal »

pier25 wrote: post #5

No surprises here. We've known for years we're going to shoot beyond 2C with very high certainty. Even if a miracle happened and we reached zero emissions today, the climate will keep warming at least for some more decades due to climate lag and feedbacks.

No, this is not known with "very high certainty".

The most recent IPCC report (AR6) gives the "very likely" (90% probability) range for "equilibrium climate sensitivity" - the eventual effect on temperature of doubling CO2 - as between 2C and 5C. Current CO2 levels are less than double pre-industrial levels, so the "baked in" warming could well be less than 2C. Also note that reaching the equilibrium temperature takes more like centuries than decades, making the concept somewhat academic, since lots of other things will change over that time period.

Also note that 2C warming over pre-industrial temperatures would just take us back to about what the temperature was 8000 years ago, when conditions were good enough for agriculture and civilization to start.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#26

Post by newswasboring »

> "Into the classrooms, into the boardrooms, into the voting booth, over the dinner table. We cannot let go of climate change."

I wonder if this is the right approach. It certainly is the approach we have been following for years. But I think that has just lead to empathy fatigue.

Edit: added empathy

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#27

Post by a_shovel »

jcbrand wrote: post #15
zb1plus wrote: post #8

I wish humanity could discard narrow-minded nationalist/short-sighted capitalist tendencies and unite against this threat. Imagine a climate pact between the US, EU, China and India where each society placed a similar focus on pivoting to renewables and developing reliable fusion energy as the Allies devoted to winning ww2 and developing atomic weaponry. Amusingly, the end of our dependency would also resolve many ge…

However, governments across the globe are run by people who lack the proper morals or intelligence to see what needs to be done. So we should just put you in charge and then you'll sort it out? Have you considered the possibility that it's not about morals or intelligence but that it's actually an intractable problem?

> So we should just put you in charge and then you'll sort it out?

Have you considered this is exactly the kind of narrow-mindedness they're probably talking about? If I had written the parent post, that's what I would mean by that. This simple-minded paranoia that any proposal from anyone else is secretly an evil plot to take over the world is ridiculous.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#28

Post by ntp85 »

canadiantim wrote: post #6

Maybe then we should consider not kneecapping our economy and driving people into poverty? The worst thing for the environment is poverty. I'm convinced most of the measures put in place to fight climate change have been a net negative to the environment, when you consider how much they are impoverishing people and thus driving more people to disregard environmental concerns for survival.

Isn't it common sense that the wealthy are the ones who produce / emit the most CO2? Maybe I'm missing the point here, but I can't understand how poverty is the worst thing for the environment seeing that it restricts consumption.

Re: UN says “No credible pathway” and “woefully inadequate” to stop global 1.5C

#30

Post by guerrilla »

zb1plus wrote: post #8

I wish humanity could discard narrow-minded nationalist/short-sighted capitalist tendencies and unite against this threat. Imagine a climate pact between the US, EU, China and India where each society placed a similar focus on pivoting to renewables and developing reliable fusion energy as the Allies devoted to winning ww2 and developing atomic weaponry. Amusingly, the end of our dependency would also resolve many ge…

Everyone, even bitter permanent enemies and polar opposites, came together to fight ISIS, so I think there's a chance, even if it's tiny.
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