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

bbc.co.uk

51–60 of 349 posts

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

#51

Not a surprise, since co2 is an oxide, and therefore very stable in the athmosphere. It would take a huge amount of energy to remove it, and we don't even stop putting it in there. Janvici had a nice way to put it: the 1.5C are already signed for, which means we won't ever see the climate of today again in the next 5000 years.

Yeah, that the key problem - all current "green" or "zero" tech is simply a trick, with shuffling emissions to other countries, selling-buying quotas, maybe reducing emissions a little in the best case. Until we have a working industrial scale CO2 sequestration factories we are essentially doing nothing, or close to nothing.

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

#52
post #45

1.5*C ? What kind of fictional reality are living in? We are way past 2.4*C projection and are actually on track for 2.9*C or so. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/09/cop26-se...

That's what the article says. We aren't doing enough to limit global warming to just 1.5c. we could do more a possibly limit warming to 1.5c but it becomes an ever greater challenge the longer we leave it.

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

#53

Not a surprise, since co2 is an oxide, and therefore very stable in the athmosphere. It would take a huge amount of energy to remove it, and we don't even stop putting it in there. Janvici had a nice way to put it: the 1.5C are already signed for, which means we won't ever see the climate of today again in the next 5000 years.

> Not a surprise, since co2 is an oxide, and therefore very stable in the athmosphere. It would take a huge amount of energy to remove it, There is an exothermic reaction that removes CO2 from the atmosphere, the formation of carbonates from weathering of silicate rocks. As this is naturally very slow, there is currently ongoing research into multiple different ways to speed it up.

That doesn't change anything. You need a huge amount of energy to remove CO2 from the atmosphere because CO2 is a tiny constituent part of Air (~400ppm) - that means one has to move a million molecules of air across a collector (whatever that is) to remove 400 molecules of CO2. You can't do that without huge amounts of energy and a huge surface area for your collector ... on any human timescale.

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

#54

> "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

No post body was provided.

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

#55
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Poor people care less for the environment than wealthier people, as a general rule. So if you push more people into poverty you get a population that will care about environmental concerns less. E.g. they will overharvest fish populations, or care less about other environmental pollution because their primary concern is getting food on their table and surviving. It's like maslow's heirarchy of needs. People generally…

> Poor people care less for the environment than wealthier people, as a general rule.

This is not true. "Higher and lower incomes make little difference to people's concern about the natural environment, according to new research from the University of Bristol." https://phys.org/news/2012-09-environmentalism-rich-poor.htm...

See also: "People Of Color And Poor Americans Are More Likely To Care About Climate Change, Study Says" https://www.livekindly.com/people-color-poor-likely-care-cli...

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

#56

Not a surprise, since co2 is an oxide, and therefore very stable in the athmosphere. It would take a huge amount of energy to remove it, and we don't even stop putting it in there. Janvici had a nice way to put it: the 1.5C are already signed for, which means we won't ever see the climate of today again in the next 5000 years.

The best way forward is to reject parts of the consensus Green approach. In particular, investment in nuclear, and a plan to augment wind+solar expansion with a large nuclear (and later fusion) buildout is the way to go. The rationale for this is that only by raising the living standard of the third world can the world’s population be stabilized without a major die-off (not to mention a reduced quality of life for ju…

other than the giant one staring at us 93 million miles away beaming massive amounts of energy directly at us all day, fusion reactors otherwise don't exist. Maybe not throw away all the other approaches until they do?

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

#58
post #36

Such pathways require global cooperation and will fail unless all major nations are on board. In particular, Russia is making no effort, and has no incentive or motivation to make any effort due to their vast tundra landscape. Step 1 is to get Russia on board by some means, without Russia any of these goals are senseless.

> without Russia any of these goals are senseless This is an absurd take... Russia emits 4.65% of world output and has been decreasing last year the most out of the top 10 [0]. Could you base your arguments? I'd like to understand where this is coming from. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...

Here is what I am basing my arguments on:

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russian-federatio...

More generally, if Russia (or any party) has incentive, means, motivation to create climate change, do not be surprised if they actively work to make it happen. Russia can literally light things on fire and come out way ahead.

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

#59
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 take…

Eight thousand years ago we didn’t need the Haber process to keep several billion people fed.

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

#60
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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