Ed Hoskins submits this essay
In November 2014, to much fanfare, President Obama concluded an agreement with China on Climate. This was as a precursor to the major Paris climate conference in December 2015, where it is anticipated that a definitive and binding Climate agreement should be reached. These notes follow through that 2014 agreement as far as it concerns future likely CO2 emissions up until the year 2030.
Essentially the agreement said that whilst Western Nations would be expected to reduce CO2 emissions substantially, China, India and the rest of the developing world would continue its CO2 emissions growth until at least 2030 to ensure that continuing enhancement of the living standards of their populations, and that only then China would limit further growth of its CO2 emissions.
The Obama – China agreement on climate will do nothing to stop the escalation of CO2 emissions from the developing world, especially from China. But continuing at current rates of growth will have little impact on improved development in most of the underdeveloped world, ~55% of the then world population.
The impact of growing CO2 emissions from the developing world was acknowledged by Professor Richard Muller in his October 2010 presentation here:
These notes simply take known data about world CO2 emissions and population as at the end of 2013 and carry out a straight-line extrapolation of that data forward to 2030 using the period from 2000 to 2013 as the indicator of rate of change. The source CO2 emissions data up to the end of 2013 is at:
This presentation refers to earlier analyses of the growth of CO2 emissions at:
The overall impact on the developed and developing worlds in terms of both total CO2 emissions and resulting likely emissions / head of population is shown below:
Both this and the former analyses divide the world’s nations into seven logical groups with distinct attitudes to CO2 control:
developed nations:
- United States of America, attempting CO2 emissions control under Obama’s EPA and already achieving marked CO2 emissions reduction because of the growing use of shale gas for electricity generation.
- The European Union and EFTA , (including the UK), currently believers in action to combat Global Warming and where environmental action groups are resisting the exploration for shale gas and the use of Nuclear energy.
- Japan, the former Soviet Union, Canada and Australia are developed nations, currently rejecting controls on CO2 emissions.
developing nations:
- advanced developing nations, still developing rapidly including:
South Korea, Iran, South Africa, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Indonesia and Taiwan: (KR IR ZA MX SA BR ID TW).
- China and Hong Kong: developing very rapidly.
- India: developing rapidly from a low base.
- Rest of World (~160 Nations): developing quite rapidly but from a low base.
The extension of the trends between 2000 and 2013 to 2030 is shown below:
The straightforward basis for the extrapolation of data that could well result from the Obama – China climate deal. In particular it shows the scale of the radical change 2000 – 2013 – 2030, with China moving from ~14% to 37% of all global emissions over the 30 year period. The EU(27)+EFTA moving from ~17% to 7% over the same period. The position of the USA is also diminished from ~25% to ~11% over the same period.
Commentary
This article predicts the likely CO2 emissions picture by 2030 the possible end point of the Obama – China climate deal in 2030. it uses the CO2 emissions development from 2000 to 2013 as the predictor to further CO2 emissions growth.
According to these straightforward calculations overall world CO2 emissions could grow by ~36% up to ~48,000,000,000 tonnes. The Developed world, if it continues on its current track would see a reduction overall of ~711,000,000 tonnes over the 16 year period, whereas the developing world would see the substantial increase of 13,400,000,000 tonnes at the same time. Only the developed grouping, JP RU CA AU, would see a marginal increase of CO2 emissions.
By 2030 the CO2 emissions of developing Nations could well exceed the developed Nations by some 2 1/2 times.
The largest contributor to the growth in emissions is inevitably China at an additional ~8,020,000,000 tonnes, followed at a quarter of that level by the other rapidly developing economies, KR IR ZA MX SA BR ID TW. India and the other 160 underdeveloped nations would grow significantly percentage wise but only modestly in absolute terms. India will have grown to about 1/6 the rate of China and the other 160 Nations grouped together at about 1/4 of the China emissions.
China by 2030 will then be responsible for about 37% of CO2 emissions worldwide and even if China were by that time to limit its emission growth it would be likely to remain with that share of worldwide CO2 emissions whilst other developing nations increased their CO2 outputs to improve the development level of their own populations.
However more important will be the likely resulting CO2 emissions / head which give a significant guide to the level of National development. The consumption figures for the USA and Europe will diminish by about 20% each whereas the other developed group, JP RU CA AU, may well advance marginally by ~+6%. The JP RU CA AU group could well exceed the emissions/head level of the USA. China by 2030 would exceed the four other groups and could begin to approach similar levels of emission / head as the USA.
It appears that with growing populations in India and the developing world their overall CO2 emissions / head will remain fairly constant. On the other hand some of the developing Nations will advance their CO2 emissions / head substantially with China approaching ~11.6 tonnes / head for its whole population by then of some 1.5 billion. By 2030 this will be almost twice the value in Europe at 6.2 tonnes / head and is approaching the then 14.6 tonnes / head level in the USA, The European level will level will be close to the other rapidly developing Nations, KR IR ZA MX SA BR ID TW.
Europe is likely to diminish its CO2 emissions / head to as little as ~ 6.4 tonnes / head. This will then be close to the worldwide average and could even be overtaken by the rapidly developing nations, KR IR ZA MX SA BR ID TW.
It is not clear how much reduction of industrial capability will result from these reduced European emissions but it could continue to cause detrimental economic damage to European competitiveness when compared to other markets in the developing world, which are less concerned about CO2 reduction to control “Climate Change”. It should also be noted that Germany, the major CO2 emitter in Europe, is currently adding to its CO2 output by increasing it’s use of coal for base load electrical energy production, so eventually European emissions reduction may not be achieved to the extent anticipated here over the coming 16 years.
Although the developing Nations of India and the Rest of World (160 nations) should see substantial growth (about +50%), but that will only be growing from their present very low base. As a result resulting from their population growth they will not significantly add to their emissions / head and thus an increase to their level of development. They will remain at only ~2 tonnes / head, which would mean the provision of electricity for these 4.8 billion people by then about 56% of the world population will still remain severely restricted.
So there will continue to be substantial continuing demand from both India and the other 160 underdeveloped nations for more access to reliable electricity supply. This demand could well increase CO2 emissions for these 4.8 billion people and thus the estimate for 2030 of ~48,000,000,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions overall may well be a significant underestimate. This is particularly so as these developing nations all will have access to indigenous available coal reserves. Just doubling of the CO2 / head for this underdeveloped population level to the modest level of 4 tonnes /head would increase world CO2 emissions from ~ 48,000,000,000 tonnes by a further ~10,000,000,000 tonnes to the region of 60,000,000,000 tonnes.
Temperature Consequences
At a total of ~48,000,000,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum by 2030 when compared to the total of CO2 in the atmosphere it amounts to about I/600 by weight. But about half of that increased amount is quickly re-absorbed by the oceans and sequestered by improving the fertility of all plant life on the planet.
Current CO2 levels are ~400 ppmv but an apparent optimum for plant fertility, for example as used in greenhouses, is in excess of 1000 ppmv. And past history shows that concentrations of CO2 can be at many thousands of parts per million with no ill effects on climate except for luxuriant plant life.
So at the rate of emissions at ~48,000,000,000 tonnes per annum, this would be equivalent to ~5 ppmv rate / annum, but with 50% absorption, it would take more than 200 years to add that extra amount of CO2 to the atmosphere to 1000 ppmv, if that were at all possible by burning fossil fuels. In the 16 year period to 2030 a further 20-30 ppmv could be added to the world’s CO2 concentration.
According to the calculations of the logarithmic diminution of the effectiveness of CO2 as greenhouse gas, using IPCC figures, shown in:
and
This additional CO2 up to as much as 1000 ppmv could only add something between 0.4°C and 0.9°C to world temperatures in total, (this range assumes that water vapour and clouds are responsible for between 90% and 80% of the 33°C greenhouse effect). And beyond 1000 ppmv any further CO2 additions to the atmosphere will have very little effect indeed on temperature because of the effect of logarithmically diminishing returns in terms of added temperature with further increases of CO2 concentrations.
With increased plant productivity, a slightly warmer climate and with greater areas available for agriculture this can hardly be seen as a world-wide catastrophe or an immediate global emergency.
Conclusion
All attempts to reduce CO2 emissions assume that any man-made warming of the climate is dangerous and that it could be controlled by reducing Man-made CO2 emissions mainly by the developed western Nations. But by 2030 those developed Nations would only be responsible for some 30% of global CO2 emissions. And their likely reduction in emissions would be marginal because it could only amount to ~1/20 of the increased of emissions from the developing world.
In addition it is clear that even the continuation of current CO2 emissions growth associated with population growth in the rest of the underdeveloped world will do little to enhance the level of development for the larger part (~55%) of the then global population.
Western world opinion has conflated CO2 from burning fossil fuels, as a pollutant, with other real pollutants that can arise from burning fossil fuels (SO2, N2O, particulate matter, etc.). World opinion has failed to understand that CO2 is currently close to an historically low level in the atmosphere and any real reduction of CO2 levels would jeopardise all life on earth by damaging the Carbon cycle by means of which all plants survive.
So it is clear that CO2 emissions will continue to escalate, no substantial temperature reduction or control of Climate Change can occur as a result of the Obama – China climate deal. And in addition any escalation of CO2 levels would be beneficial to life on earth.
And any CO2 emissions reduction is unlikely to be useful to control climate.
From ice core records for our current benign Holocene interglacial it is clear that the previous millennium 1000 – 2000 AD was the coldest in the last 10,000 years, some 3.0°C lower than the Holocene climate optimum, ~9000 years ago. At 10,000 years old our current benign holocene interglacial is now long in the tooth. That would seem to point to a coming real glaciation either this century, next century or in this millennium. That in combination with the current Dalton minimum solar characteristics means that real cooling as opposed to warming is more than likely to be imminent.
Any future cooling is likely to make any warming, whether man-made or not, that occurred in the late 20th century look wholly beneficial but trivial and entirely irrelevant.
Sooo, where does natural C02 fit in? Is the ratio between anthropogenic and natural C02 changing?
I’m not sure of your definition of natural. Regardless of that and whether there are isotope differences in the carbon and oxygen atoms. It probably makes no difference to the overall picture.
Its not as if you are dealing with levo-rotatory and dextro-rotatory proteins and various organic compounds.
Our bodies use levo things. If we ingest dextro instead; because the human body can’t use it , we would starve to death even though we were eating.
nc, human emissions increased a fourfold over the past 55 years. So did the increase in the atmosphere and the sink rate. That there are temporarily ups and downs in human emissions doesn’t matter much, as the average increase in the atmosphere is between 50-55% and averaged per year it is between 10% and 90% of the human emissions… The difference does sink somewhere in nature (mainly the deep oceans, the rest in vegetation and the ocean’s surface).
The world’s economy has become interdependent. Limiting the emission of CO2 in the developed world will slow economic growth worldwide.
The US and EU cannot escape the fact that if limiting emissions were economically productive, their leading firms would have done it already.
The leaders of these countries are now making the mistake that the USSR made when it used central government commands to direct its economy.
The only ray of hope is that natural gas will be cheaper than coal and that the amount of gas is enough to drive the economies of the US and the EU.
This is conditional upon governments having the political will to permit fracking and coal mining.The EU seems on the verge of seeing the light, but the Greens may yet succeed in disrupting the EU economy.
The economies of the developed world will stagnate without cheap energy, coal or gas or both as production is transferred to the developing world.
Stagnation in the developed world will reduce the ability of rich developed-world people to import from the developing world. This will cause developing world economies to stagnate because we are now all inter-linked into a world economic system.
I put my money where my mouth is, as I have semi-retired in an Asian country that is keen on improving the living conditions of its people.
China will do what is in its best interests. The USA used to do that before 2008. Now it doesn’t.
In short the Obama-China agreement’ is a charade and nothing more. It is meaningless.
When can I expect this imminent cooling to begin?
It has started now. It is dropping at the rate of 1deg per hour. I anticipate we will be at absolute zero in about 3 weeks.
Bingo, the wait is over. The ocean cooling has started. Solar activity continues to drop. From the solar end what we were waiting for is coronal holes to dissipate and/or to move to high latitude solar regions where the wind bursts they create no longer affect the distribution of ions in the earth’s atmosphere. The coronal holes have started to dissipated and move to high latitude regions. The coronal hole are the primary cause of cyclic solar wind bursts. The wind bursts create a charge differential in the ionosphere which in turns causes a movement of charge from high latitude regions to the tropical regions which affect cloud cover.
http://gacc.nifc.gov/sacc/predictive/SOLAR_WEATHER-CLIMATE_STUDIES/GEC-Solar%20Effects%20on%20Global%20Electric%20Circuit%20on%20clouds%20and%20climate%20Tinsley%202007.pdf
Ocean temperature anomaly January 1, 2015
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomnight.1.1.2015.gif
Current ocean temperature anomaly March 12, 2015
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomnight.3.12.2015.gif
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
Wow William! You answered that question as if the person was genuinely interested in your answer.
“Current CO2 levels are extremely low in the history of global biology. Plants are evolving more efficient processes (C4) to extract atmospheric CO2, causing even lower CO2.”
I certainly agree with that assessment. We need two to three times as much CO2 in the atmosphere as we have now. I remain unconvinced that man’s activities really puts very much CO2 into raising the ppm figure. I am afraid that mother nature handles it all and temperature leads CO2 concentration: but I am glad China is trying to put as much CO2 in the atmosphere as they can.
Upon looking at all the data and arguments for these past 30 years, I am convinced that CO2 has a net cooling effect and that effect may be so tiny that we can not measure it. (if it even exists)
This whole “CO2 will fry us” meme is crazy. It is just totalitarian politics coming from those that want to enslave you even more than you are now. I hope someday we will take an honest look at the physics of the atmosphere. (some day in the far future apparently)
It is conclusively proven that an increase in CO2 causes, because of numerous negative feedbacks, a net negative response, do you think for a moment the fanatics would give up the anti-fossil fuel fight? Is it really about temperature? The Great Fear of the movement is someone will invent a cheap, infinite source of clean nuclear power. It is like fearing most of all, that the people around the world will wake up one morning and realise we all have to share this planet. A happy human family is very scary to nationalistic elites. Populations would refuse to be played against each other. An international currency would be agreed within days. The banks would be apoplectic.
Hullo King Athelstan – another Brit king here. I’ve passed ‘complaints’ to the BBC about their recent warmist horror stories ‘Climate by Numbers’ and ‘Horizon’. Got a polite reply which inter alia said that warmist scientists outnumbered sceptics – I pointed the Beeb towards Global Climate Petition Project website with it’s 31,000 named American sceptic scientists and asked them to better that. Waste of rations?
The head posting is an important and first-class analysis that shows quite plainly the supreme irrelevance of any Western efforts to mitigate supposed future “global warming”, now that Mr Obama has unilaterally decided not to include China, India and other major developing nations in the new, dismal Treaty of Paris.
Obama is not open for discussion. He has placed himself on a particular path and he will never, ever back down. He can be enclosed in a glacier and he will never change. Politics and human nature. I can never have a reasonable , logical discussion with a fanatic. My only weapon is my wit and an acid tongue. These people are beyond redemption and leave me the singular option of ridicule. I, frankly, don’t like to do it, but they give me no choice.
It is very strange how this agreement was promoted, as if it meant anything. The only possible meaning is if the US actually followed Obama’s reduction plans. I do not think we will, nor do I think the US is bound to any such unilateral Presidential action.
Yet with oil at about $45 a barrel, the natural gas producers are struggling.
The amusing thing is that Obama was serious about it. He ‘forced’ a deal on the Chinese. The Chinese looked at him in a bemused fashion and agreed with his ‘harsh terms’. After Obama left they were rolling around the floor in fits of laughter.
Obama left the meeting proud and tall , waving a piece of paper.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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In other words, it is impossible for the United States to do anything about it no matter how hard we try, no matter the politics, no matter the science. The fact is all of humanity will continue to burn everything that will burn until they all have ready access to inexpensive (for them) electricity for all their needs. (And the electric power must come from nuclear, or we are still burning fuel to make the electricity.)
Simple. Nuclear or burn. Global warming or not.
I must admit that I hoped that the China deal would become a precedent that would be adopted . If all countries globally do what China has committed to ie keep increasing CO2 levels as fast as ever maybe in those 15 years we might finally have exposed the scam for what it is and not suffered from AGW inspired lunatic policies which threaten to take us back to the Dark Ages.
My favorite comment on the Obama/China
Climate Agreement is:
Messed up the link for the embedded image.
See here: http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?&id=HN.608024553363341492&w=300&h=300&c=0&pid=1.9&rs=0&p=0
Found a better image link:
http://www.gocomics.com/drewsheneman/2014/11/12
Ed, the CO2 emissions scenarios should be constrained by fossil fuel resources. It’s also important to keep in mind that US, international, and media misrepresent oil production figures. The typical approach they use is to use the term “liquids”. These “liquids” include biofuels, ethane (mostly used as a chemical feedstock), and other natural gas liquids.
Whatever source one uses to constrain the peak CO2 concentration should be documented, or the ultimate resource mentioned so it can be compared with other estimates. For example, if we use the BP Energy book figures as a starting base (they require some breakdowns bp doesn’t provide), the peak CO2 is about 630 ppm.
One key factor which seems to get masked, by the way these production figures are publicized, is the fact that crude and condensate production outside the USA and Canada has been on a near plateau for many years.
Thus we can deduce that, in spite of high prices, the rest of the world hasn’t been able to increase oil (crude and condensate) production. The gap between demand and supply has been covered by Canadian heavy, and USA light crudes from the so called “shales”. But both these sources require a high price, and the light oils lack components the refineries need. I suspect we are headed into an era of oil scarcity and this CO2 issue will mostly sort itself out because fossil fuel prices are going to increase beyond the reach of many.
My understanding has always been that the higher prices were required in order to develop the technology. Those technologies have been developed, or mostly. Since those technologies are now in place, should lower oil prices matter?
There are unintentional consequences of the developed countries volunteering for mutual assured CAGW economic destruction: Mandating the spending of trillions and trillions of dollars which they do not have (they are all running deficits) on green scams that do not work (do not significantly reduce CO2 emissions, do triple the cost of electricity, see German for proof of this assertion), to address CAGW which is not a problem as the planet has started to cool.
The real problem that the developing countries need to address is structural problems (say in addition to the mandated policies to waste trillions of dollars on green scams that do not work and economic destruction by stealth, the more than 3000 new EPA regulation created in 2014 to indirectly increase the cost of energy and stop/block development, the bureaucrats are true believers) which is one of the primary reason for the loss of jobs to Asia, which is the reason for the unsustainable deficits (less GDP to tax and more and more things to spend money on).
Rather than investing in green scams that do not work and that are an astonishing waste of money, China is planning to invest in 800 gigawatts of nuclear power which does reduce CO2 emissions.
We are losing the economic competition/battle with China. The Chinese GDP will exceed the US GDP by 2018. They have a plan, we have madness. Interesting the political/economic/military/rhetoric situation in Asia is similar to the situation before the start of the first world war.
.
http://akarlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/china-usa-gdp-11.jpg
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/03/14/china-lashes-out-at-us-pirate-style-sense-insecurity/
“Current CO2 levels are ~400 ppmv but an apparent optimum for plant fertility, for example as used in greenhouses, is in excess of 1000 ppmv. And past history shows that concentrations of CO2 can be at many thousands of parts per million with no ill effects on climate except for luxuriant plant life.”
If we terraformed a planet we would likely want it to have a greater average temp and higher atmospheric CO2 concentration than our earth does today.
Well the idiotic Obama “deal” expires with Obama (let’s hope for a competent successor). So this charting may need some major revision.
Good analysis, Steven Goddard came to a similar conclusion immediately after this “deal” was announced.
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/obama-climate-deal-to-triple-co2-emissions-by-2030/
Using CO2 emissions from 2000-2013 trajectory ignores the massive elephant in the room.
CO2 emissions did not rise in 2014.
A 1980’s standard air conditioner had a seer rating of around 6…the current US minimum standard is SEER 13…commercially available in the US is SEER 28.
https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=most_efficient.me_cac_ashp
Developing countries are not gong to be installing SEER 6 air conditioners so their energy consumption profiles are going to be different then what was the case in the US to achieve the same level of comfort.
The impact of the Obama deal with China is exactly nothing but making some climate advocates happy. The Chinese aready know that if they do absolutely nothing their emissions will drop in 2030 because their population will begin to drop in 2025. The biggest consumer of energy in China is the building boom and you can’t have a building boom and a declining population at the same time.