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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

#61

Post by skrebbel »

Yizahi wrote: post #51
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #9

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.

How are solar panels or windmills a trick?

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

#62

Post by Zigurd »

ElectronCharge wrote: post #49
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #9

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…

Even when nuclear power was enthusiastically embraced as the future it suffered from cost overruns, hidden and underestimated lifecycle costs, security problems such the possibility of a worse Chernobyl event as a result of an ongoing war, nuclear proliferation enablement, etc.

Blaming the resulting skepticism about nuclear on the "Green approach" is backwards: Fix the things that made nuclear expensive first. Demonstrate that the lifecycle works, from mining to waste handling. Show it costs less than putting the same capital into renewables and can come online in time to be relevant.

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

#63

Post by wing-_-nuts »

the__alchemist wrote: post #14

Neal Stephenson's most recent novel, Termination shock describes a near-future world where climate change's effects are becoming more visible and obvious. Without spoiling too much, it explores the politics of aerosol (sulpher) injection into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from the planet.

I'm going to have to read that book, because that's exactly the path we're going down. Without geoengineering, we're looking at a world probably ~ 4c warmer by 2100, and when developed nations start feeling real pain, I guarantee you this will be tried.

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

#64

Post by taylodl »

radford-neal wrote: post #25
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 take…

Ah, the ol' earth has been as warm or warmer before claim. This is true - absolutely true, but it misses one critical, I daresay crucial, point: earth's climate has never changed this rapidly in the past few million years. It's the rate of temperature change that's the problem, not necessarily the actual temperature itself since, as you've pointed out, earth has had these temperatures before. Given time, the biosphere will respond positively. If not given sufficient time, as measured in geological time units, the biosphere responds poorly. That fact is the crux of the problem. Also, with regards to your claim that earth was warmer 8,000 ago, that's a bit nuanced. You should check out this article for more details. https://reason.com/2013/03/07/earths-average-temperature-low...

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

#65

Post by benj111 »

Yizahi wrote: post #51
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #9

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.

How is it a 'trick'?

Building a wind turbine isn't shuffling emissions anywhere.

Neither is solar. Or a more efficient boiler, or....

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

#66

Post by [deleted] »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #9

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.

[deleted]

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

#67

Post by zosima »

Seems that we are already 1C degree above preindustrial levels.

https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-pre-industrial-climate...

Doesn't seem unlikely that temperature will increase 1C more. Wonder if it's going to be just as destructive as the first 1C of warming holocaust?

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

#68

Post by Yizahi »

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…

The problem is not capitalists or communists or whateverists. The problem is sociopaths in power. Until we, collectively as a humanity, won't start regularly vetting people in power for the mental disorders, of all types - genetic, old age, chemically induced, regular mental illnesses etc. we will continue to suffer. And political compass of they day won't matter at all.

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

#69

Post by woodruffw »

Yizahi wrote: post #51
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #9

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.

I admittedly haven't looked very hard, but the current push towards overall reduction and renewable sources (solar, wind) and long-timescale sources (nuclear) feels like much less of a trick than CO2 sequestration. Last time I checked, most sequestration efforts involve some kind of logistical sleight of hand (like ignoring the energy required to crush and spread out rocks, or the fact that most seedlings don't grow into mature trees).

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

#70

Post by macspoofing »

There is no chance of removing existing CO2 from Air to make any sort of difference.

There is no chance of meaningfully reducing CO2 emissions, because outside of Nuclear (and hydro/geothermal but only if you have the geography for it) there is no alternative to replacing fossil fuels. At some point the public will realize the lie of solar/wind as a replacement. We lost 50 years of greatly reduced emissions had nuclear power continued to be rolled out at the same rate as it did in the 60s/70s.

There is possibility of geoengineering (e.g. emitting some sort of sun-light reflecting gas into the atmosphere to cool the climate) but that suffers from a potential "law of unintended consequences".

It seems like we're going to have to deal with it.

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