Guest post by Willis Eschenbach
The upcoming Copenhagen climate summit, officially and ponderously named “COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009”, is aimed at reducing the emissions of the developed world. The main players, of course, are the US and Western Europe. There is a widespread perception that if the US and Western Europe could only get our CO2 emissions under control, the problem would be solved. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To see the gaping hole in this idea, it is only necessary to look at the historical record of carbon emissions. Here is that graph:
While in 1970 the US and Western Europe combined to contribute about half of all CO2 emissions, at present this is far from true. In the past 35 years, the combined emissions of the US and Western Europe have risen only slightly. Globally, however, CO2 emissions have risen steeply, with no end in sight.
So it doesn’t matter if Europe signs on to a new Kyoto. It doesn’t matter if the US adopts Cap and Trade. Both of them together will make no significant difference. Even if both areas could roll their CO2 emissions back to 1970 levels, it would not affect the situation in the slightest.
These are meaningless attempts to hold back a rising tide of emissions. Me, I don’t think rising CO2 levels are a problem. But if you think it will be a problem, then you should definitely concentrate on adaptation strategies .. because mitigation simply isn’t going to work.
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Increasing the amount of plant nutrients is a good thing. Healthy plants, well fed people.
Oh but you forgot Australia… our PM is determined to push through legislation on the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” and we emit around 1.5% of the world’s Co2… There, you see?
Once again the Aussies come to the rescue…
Very interesting. Assuming the graph is accurate, this is a real eye opener.
What am I bid for my share of Antarctica?
You don’t have to be a climate scientist.
Common sense is sufficient to see how bizarre things can turn out, once they have reached religion status, in the worst sense.
Thanks for this piece … and yes, WUWT is my science blog favorite.
A bit off-topic, but I honestly don’t get the units. Is a “tonne” of carbon a mass of CO2 gas? Does it relate to standard cubic feet or normative liters?
Per capita carbon for the USA
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/graphics/usapc.gif
How long is it going to take before people understand that the real objective is neither the Climate or CO2 emission reductions but an international power grab, taxation, resources and population control.
In Copenhagen is nobody will be present who believes we have a climate problem.
Gene, if I am reading that correctly we have not changed out output much since around 1980
the size of the total US emissions just equals the global increase between 2000-2005.
ruining the US and european economies makes abolutely no sense.
it would be hard to detect in a CO2 chart and undetectable in a temperature graph, even if the agw scam would be true.
Skeptic Tank (19:32:47) :
Tonne as in metric tonne as in 1,000kg or 1,000,000g and approximately 2,205lbs.
Here’s another way of looking at it… note the graph at the bottom where developing countries overtake developed ones in GHG emissions by 2015:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/globalghg.html
Skeptic Tank (19:32:47) : “A bit off-topic, but I honestly don’t get the units. Is a “tonne” of carbon a mass of CO2 gas? Does it relate to standard cubic feet or normative liters?”
From Wikipedia, a “tonne” is a measure of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms or approximately a cubic meter of water. To get “tonnes of carbon” emitted, I assume they estimate the mass of carbon dioxide emitted, but count only the mass of the carbon in the emitted gas, ignoring the oxygen.
Nostalgia: As a kid first learning about chemistry I was confused by the concept of mass with regard to gasses (how can something so ephemeral have mass?), until my teacher asked which had more mass, a kilogram of ice, a kilogram of water, or a kilogram of water vapor. Nowadays I still visualize “tonnes of carbon dioxide” as dry ice, and “tonnes of carbon equivalent” as a pile of coal. 🙂
How can the US circa 1970 (pop. 200 m) be producing similar levels of C to todays US (pop. 300m)?
According to the graph the US, Euro and China (same as US) combined account for 4 Gtonne, where is the other 4 Gtonne coming from? considering Africa produces 3.5% of US output.
Ron de Haan is correct, to prove it how many deligates at Copenhagen will be asking people to boycott Chinese and Indian goods and services, the answer is only the ones who believe in CO2 driven AGW, read Rons comment for the answer.
In Copenhagen we Trust, nobody can hear you scream.
4 billion, the reason we are not emitting that much more now that in 1970 is energy effiencies have improved over that time, so even though there are more people, they use less energy per person, some sources would for that increase in effiency for example, more use of flourescent (sp) over incandenscent, and more efficient flourescents at that, better mileage vehicles, more effiecient power plants, ect.. bascially, the more we prosper.
p.s. forgive my spelling been a long day, not thinking clearly now.
so is Copenhagen on or off for now?.
Don’t expect logic; don’t expect science; don’t expect common sense. Expect this: “38. The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three basic pillars:government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism, and the basic organization of which will include the following: (a) The government will be ruled by the COP with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies.”
For “related facilitative bodies,” read: UN armed force.
I continue to be more optomistic as time goes by; that the dogmatic and intolerant religion AGW has become will indeed in the end finally be overcome by the rising tide of objective science and factual data (facts are still stubbon things).
The danger is that AGW ”believers” in Congress and the White House will by a final desperate effort manage to buy off enough wavering MOCs to slip something close to the Waxman-Markey ”Cap and Tax” travesty thru in the dead of a dark night.
OTOH, if passage can delayed for just a few more months; and given the wake-up call for Blue Dog (D)s provided by the races for Gov in VA and NJ; the further we get into the 2010 election year the safer we will be.
Right now if I had to bet, I would say that Waxman-Markey (at least in anything like its original form) is sinking fast. Oh, Congress might end up passing something later on in 2010. But if we get into the thick of the 2010 primary election season, whatever can be passed then will (I sure hope) be a VERY pale shadow of the original Waxman-Markey idiocy.
And it’s clear things are starting to look up for objective science around the world too: Hopefully our saner friends Down Under will manage to sidetrack their PM’s version of Waxman-Markey, before Australia jumps off the AGW cliff.
and look at what they are doing now.
UNICEF and the NZ youth delegation attending the Children’s Climate Forum in Copenhagen need your help to fundraise $5,000 to send a Kiribati youth delegation to this important event.
Indeed which weighs more a ton of feathers or a ton of lead?
I think I learned that at about age five.
I found the idea that plants grow by turning CO2 gas into a solid, themselves as it were, much more puzzling because I sort of thought it was the land they were taking up. Age 7 or so I think.
And I am still amazed to hear people, and well educated people too, cling to the fallacy that the earth, its oceans and its atmosphere are in some kind of static and ideal equilibrium.
So that if you put some kind of supposedly non natural pollutant into the atmosphere or the ocean you will permanently disturb this perfect balance: and endanger us all which naturally must be a Bad Thing.
Nothing could be further from the truth yet it is this very infantile fallacy on which so much of so called Green ideology depends. From ideas that vast amounts of CO2 from burning fossil fuel will persist in the atmosphere for a thousand years, it won’t, [ bar, for pedants only, perhaps one molecule, but how do you tell it from another one?] to the concept that there is such a thing as a healthy planet.
Really? a healthy planet? and how do you know what makes for a healthly planet? have you asked the patient? Remember having a healthy planet is very popular these days. But who is the doctor around here? I mean most of the planets in the solar system look pretty healthy to me, but do you think Mars is looking a little bit peaky at the moment? or maybe Saturn could do with a bit more time in the sunshine.
Must get the Tarot cards out and chart their stars. For a smallish largish fee of course.
You couldn’t make it up, you really couldn’t. Oh they just did.
Kindest Regards
http://uniteforclimate.org/
” 4 billion (20:12:10) :
How can the US circa 1970 (pop. 200 m) be producing similar levels of C to todays US (pop. 300m)?
According to the graph the US, Euro and China (same as US) combined account for 4 Gtonne, where is the other 4 Gtonne coming from? considering Africa produces 3.5% of US output.
”
IMHO-
The US emissions have remained static despite increased population due to increased energy use efficiencies since 1970.
Euro as quoted above only means the EU. The rest of the emissions must come from the rest of the world- non EU european countries Russua etc, the rest of Asia and the oil rich Middle East.
For all those who missed out on the message from Lord Monckton why CO2 emission reduction will not work:
“Global CO2 emissions at present are 30 billion tons/year (EIA), causing atmospheric concentration to rise by 2 ppmv/year (NOAA). So 15 billion tons emitted will increase atmospheric concentration by 1 ppmv/year. The UN (IPCC, 2007; see also BERN climate model), on scenario A2, which comes closest to the pattern of actual emissions today, says its central estimate of CO2 concentration in 2100 will be 836 ppmv. So the UN thinks we’ll add (836-368) = 468 ppmv to the atmosphere during the 21st century. Multiply that by 15 billion tons/ppmv and the UN is implicitly projecting that, in the absence of any mitigation, the world will emit (468 x 15 bn) = 7 trillion tons CO2 this century. It also projects (IPCC, 2007) that this extra CO2 will raise global temperature by around 7° F. So we need to forego 1 trillion tons of CO2 emission per 1° F warming forestalled. Divide 1 trillion by 30 billion and one concludes that we’d have to close down the entire world carbon economy for 33 years just to forestall a single Fahrenheit degree of warming. Since the UN has exaggerated the warming effect of CO2 sixfold (Lindzen & Choi, 2009), make that 200 years. Therefore, there’s no point in mitigation because the cost is extravagantly disproportionate to the benefit.”
The effort equals the emptying of the Pacific Ocean with a tea spoon.
It won’t influence our climate in any form whatsoever.
Global Warming is a NON ITEM, a NON EXISTING PROBLEM.
Those who state otherwise are criminals, idiots or politicians with an agenda.
The presentation of the figures based on the Mockton calculation tells you how pathetic those people are who tell you to switch your light bulbs, turn down the themostat of your heating system by one degree, organize a warm sweater day, tell you to buy a “green” car, use “green” energy, windmills, solar energy, bio fuels and sequester CO2 and store under ground.
What’s more serious, it tells you how stupid our politicians are who claim they are going to control the temperature of the planet by 2 degree Fahrenheit!
As the Communists stated during the cold war;
“The Capitalist West will sell us the rope we are going to hang them with”.
Well, the AGW Hoax will be that rope if we sign up to Copenhagen.
Read about some more references and arguments at this response from Climate Depot at allegations from PM Kevin Rudd who stated that skeptics are too dangerous to ignore and that we are holding the world to ransom.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3689/Australian-PM-warns-skeptics-are-too-dangerous-to-ignore-and-are-holding-the-world-to-ransom–Climate-Depot-Responds
Why Copenhagen will achieve nothing:
Folks, it’s like getting offered 10% of the stock in a fake business.
10% of nothing is still nothing.
You cannot solve a problem that does not exist.
You can, however, become a victim by accepting the transaction at face value.
If you knew your oil & filter had just been changed, would you let an eyeball-dodging salesman fast-talk you into changing your whole car to match the new oil & filter?
Doesn’t make any sense to me, either.
Copenhagen… where the Ghost of Climates Past meet Dr. FrankenGreen Scrooge.