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IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

theguardian.com

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Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#41

Post by algoatecorn »

NhanH wrote: post #25

Let’s say if there is a magical wand that can will any policy the user wants to happen — so the magic can’t remove carbon, but it allows the bearer to pursue any mean within humanity technological abilities — what are the actual actions that could be taken to fight climate change? My impression is that even the big polluter like China (as an example) is already on full speed to build more nuclear plant or solar power…

80% of the global population lives in a developing nation, keen on quick and dirty energy sources and a growing appetite for hyper consumerism and meat consumption.

The West is living in lala land with some of the proposed policy measures.

A popular one is implenting a carbon tax at the border which forces buyer and seller to internalize societal cost.

But this would result in redefined trading blocs, particularly with united developing nations. The other bloc (paying the border carbon tax) will enter a post-growth period due to slow and expensive trade

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#43

Post by Extasia785 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #12

To start, yes, I agree with all the rest of the comments. Of course if you look at the action needed to start within the 1.5 degree carbon budget, it's simply impossible. It's kind of like saying how much better humanity would be if there were no wars - a nice thought, but also not going to happen. I'm curious, though, and I admit I haven't read the report, but what is it about 1.5 degrees that the scientific communi…

1.5 degrees is commonly talked about because almost every country on earth pledged to "pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels" [0] in the Paris agreement. We won't hit that anymore, but it makes sense for scientists to compare the taken measures with the original goal. Every degree matters and aiming for 1.5 and missing by 0.5 degrees is better than aiming for a "realistic" 2.5 degrees and missing by 0.2 degrees.

[0] https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#44

Post by cagenut »

NhanH wrote: post #25

Let’s say if there is a magical wand that can will any policy the user wants to happen — so the magic can’t remove carbon, but it allows the bearer to pursue any mean within humanity technological abilities — what are the actual actions that could be taken to fight climate change? My impression is that even the big polluter like China (as an example) is already on full speed to build more nuclear plant or solar power…

this inevitably turns into an argument over the definition of "realistic" that then in turn becomes an argument over hope/positivity-vs-doomer that then inevitably turns into an argument over values.

with that caveat out of the way, here are some examples from other people you can mull around as you ponder the scope and scale.

#1 the IPCC themselves. As part of AR6 one of its reports is on mitigation options: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-g...

#2 - Bernie, if elected, wanted to start a 'green new deal' jobs program that would re-direct most of the military budget as well as greatly increase federal spending such that somewhere in the vicinity of 1.5T/year would be spent on the transition. The hope was that in de-escalating our global military presence he could also entice china into a grand bargain that involved them putting more of their military budget into it as well. Again regardless of your opinion on the realisticness of it, its worth recognizing as one of the only people and plans that got the scope and scale correct.

#3 - https://drawdown.org/ Drawdown isn't a policy so much as a menu of options that have been explored, studied, modeled, quantified and ranked.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#45

Post by jf22 »

swader999 wrote: post #42

It was refreshing to see Greta delete her "were all doomed in five years tweet from 2018" last week. They also took down the signs in Glacier Park that predicted the glaciers would be gone by now near where I live.

Is your point that sometimes people get predictions wrong?

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#46

Post by ch4s3 »

swader999 wrote: post #42

It was refreshing to see Greta delete her "were all doomed in five years tweet from 2018" last week. They also took down the signs in Glacier Park that predicted the glaciers would be gone by now near where I live.

Should they take down those signs? I would personally prefer for things like that to stay up with contextualization about how scientific understanding has changed and why the prediction was wrong.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#48

Post by avaldez_ »

toxik wrote: post #24
Rygian wrote: post #8

For anyone interested in what 1.5C represents, I can't recommend enough the Climate Fresk [1] exercise. It's not just the droughts and floods, the heatwaves, the changes in birds, insects, crop yields, … Include permafrost melting and releasing greenhouse gasses, civil unrest in populated areas that won't be livable anymore, unstable food production, and quite a few other causes and consequences. It's a feedback loop…

What I always find so hard to believe is that, knowing how well we can predict weather and other complicated systems, climate change science somehow is able to make 1/10 centigrade precision predictions on time horizons of decades and centuries.

for starters, weather and climate and different concepts. it's easier to predict the long term probability distribution of a coin toss than a single event result.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#49

Post by PurpleRamen »

NhanH wrote: post #25

Let’s say if there is a magical wand that can will any policy the user wants to happen — so the magic can’t remove carbon, but it allows the bearer to pursue any mean within humanity technological abilities — what are the actual actions that could be taken to fight climate change? My impression is that even the big polluter like China (as an example) is already on full speed to build more nuclear plant or solar power…

But removing carbon is within humanities technological abilities. I mean, just plant enough trees, and it's mostly done. This is not even a matter of technology. Removing sources of pollution, like certain animals we use for food and other things is another simple solution, which demands not technology at all.

This problem is not a matter of technology, it's yet another problem of society and people.

Re: IPCC climate crisis report delivers ‘final warning on 1.5C’

#50

Post by Retric »

vkou wrote: post #23
Retric wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overstating impact is detrimental to the cause. > decimated 1.5C will be bad, but it won’t directly kill 800+ million people in a short timeframe. People simply don’t respond to harm spread across 100 years the way they react to harm concentrated into a few large events.

And underestimating what's actually going to happen, and how difficult it's going to be to reverse, or even put brakes on it is intellectually criminal, but the pro-AGW group hasn't ever cared about that. Why would they, the track record of 'Let industry self-regulate' has worked out great for them in the past. We're going to blow right past 1.5C, 2C, 2.5C...

Longer term projections on 2.5C look more hopeful.

Globally electricity production has gotten significantly more green, though offset by increased demand. But, new coal power plants for example were down 66% globally in 2020 vs 2016 and existing infrastructure only lasts so long. Project things forward to 2040 and emissions should be noticeably below current levels even with increasing demand simple because of economic forces.

In 2022 10% of all new cars globally were EV’s and that number keeps rising. Combined with an even cleaner grid and things could look quite different in 2040 again even with increasing demand for cars.

Now I don’t want to project those trends over the following 60 years, but lower emissions give even more time to lower them further. 2.5C could easily hit in 2200 rather than 2100, or even be avoided entirely.

Thus we might be able to shift 1.5C by a few years, 2C by decades, and 2.5C by literal centuries.

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