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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

#71

Post by kotlin2 »

Ninjak8051 wrote: post #58
ThalesX wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Ok, but what about the other 95% of emissions. We could just ignore what Russia does and still make a big impact.

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

#72

Post by themitigating »

canadiantim wrote: post #41
ntp85 wrote: 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 take public transit, drive small cars, ans buy less. Obviously not by choice but this tends to be much more environmentally friendly.

Middle class Americans drive lifted pickup trucks without using the main functionality. That harms the environment

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

#73

Post by wazoox »

benj111 wrote: post #65
Yizahi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

It's not replacing fossil fuels, merely freeing them for other uses. In fact it's even common now to build wind turbines around coal mines to produce power to extract coal...

We must reduce our fossil fuel consumption in absolute numbers. So far we're merely adding more energy resources; that way political and corporate PR representative can make triumphal announces about how we're reducing the part of fossil in our energy mix... But we need to reduce our fossil use overall, and REALLY REALLY FAST.

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

#74

Post by meany »

zzzeek wrote: post #56
ElectronCharge wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

From my read, the previous poster does mention investing in nuclear, wind and solar. With potentially moving to fusion if it becomes available.

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

#76

Post by cfhhgtyg »

canadiantim wrote: post #41
ntp85 wrote: 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…

I don't think that's true, even though it may seem like that, since poor people can't consume as much climate friendly marketed tech.

Study for attitude to climate policies and more for countries all around the world, rich and less rich: https://www.oecd.org/climate-change/international-attitudes-...

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

#77

Post by wing-_-nuts »

ericmay wrote: post #22
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 decisi…

Capitalism only responds to market prices, and right now the true cost of carbon is not priced in. This is where government can help.

We should have a large, painful, but revenue neutral carbon tax that replaces income tax. Then you sit back and watch as people cut their carbon emissions to 'dodge taxes', exactly as designed.

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

#78

Post by hacker_dude3 »

Ninjak8051 wrote: post #20

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#80

Post by benj111 »

ericmay wrote: post #22
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 decisi…

So what you're saying is that we should tax carbon so that it correctly reflects the externalities and let the market sort it out from there?

Because currently capitalism has no interest in emissions because they don't cost anything. But that is a failure of capitalism, or at least our current incarnation of it. And it needs fixing to be part of the solution. You could blame government for not fixing the flaw, but the flaw is in capitalism none the less.

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