From the you’re too late department,
Paris emissions reduction pledges reduce risks of severe warming, study shows
From DOE/PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – More than 190 countries are meeting in Paris next week to create a durable framework for addressing climate change and to implement a process to reduce greenhouse gases over time. A key part of this agreement would be the pledges made by individual countries to reduce their emissions.
A study published in Science (November 26) shows that if implemented and followed by measures of equal or greater ambition, the Paris pledges have the potential to reduce the probability of the highest levels of warming, and increase the probability of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
In the lead up to the Paris meetings, countries have announced the contributions that they are willing to make to combat global climate change, based on their own national circumstances. These Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs, take many different forms and extend through 2025 or 2030.
Examples of these commitments include the United States’ vow to reduce emissions in 2025 by 26-28 percent of 2005 levels and China’s pledge to peak emissions by 2030 and increase its share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent. In the study, the scientists tallied up these INDCs and simulated the range of temperature outcomes the resulting emissions would bring in 2100 under different assumptions about possible emissions reductions beyond 2030.
“We wanted to know how the commitments would play out from a risk management perspective,” said economist Allen Fawcett of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the lead author of the study. “We analyzed not only what the commitments would achieve over the next ten to fifteen years, but also how they might lay a foundation for the future.”
Although many researchers have focused on the importance of the 2 degree limit, Fawcett and colleagues assessed uncertainty in the climate change system from an overall risk management perspective. They analyzed the full range of temperatures the INDCs might attain, and determined the odds for achieving each of those temperatures. To determine odds, they modeled the future climate hundreds of times to find the range of temperatures these various conditions produce.
“It’s not just about 2 degrees,” said Gokul Iyer, the study’s lead scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a collaboration between the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland. “It is also important to understand what the INDCs imply for the worst levels of climate change.”
In the study, the scientists compare the Paris commitments to a world in which countries don’t act at all or start reducing greenhouse gas emissions only in 2030.
The team found that if countries do nothing to reduce emissions, the earth has almost no chance of staying under the 2 degree limit, and it is likely that the temperature increase would exceed 4 degrees. They went on to show that the INDCs and the future abatement enabled by Paris introduce a chance of meeting the 2 degree target, and greatly reduce the chance that warming exceeds 4 degrees. The extent to which the odds are improved depends on how much emissions limits are tightened in future pledges after 2030.
“Long-term temperature outcomes critically hinge on emissions reduction efforts beyond 2030,” said Iyer. “If countries implement their INDCs through 2030 and ramp up efforts beyond 2030, we’ll have a much better chance of avoiding extreme warming and keeping temperature change below 2 degrees Celsius. It’s important to know that the INDCs are a stepping stone to what we can do in the future.”
To perform the analysis, the team incorporated the INDCs along with assumptions about future emissions reductions into a global, technologically detailed model of the world called the Global Change Assessment Model or GCAM that includes energy, economy, agriculture and other systems. The GCAM model produced numbers for global greenhouse gas emissions, which the team then fed into a climate model called Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change or MAGICC. Running the simulations for each scenario 600 times resulted in a range of temperatures for the year 2100, which the team converted into probabilities.
Iyer said the next thing to look at was the question of the kinds of policies and institutional frameworks that could pave the way for a robust process that enables emissions reduction efforts to progressively increase over time.
###
This work was supported by the Global Technology Strategy Program, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Department of State, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Reference: Allen A. Fawcett, Gokul Iyer, Leon E. Clarke, James A. Edmonds, Nathan E. Hultman, Haewon C. McJeon, Joeri Rogelj, Reed Schuler, Jameel Alsalam, Ghassem R. Asrar, Jared Creason, Minji Jeong, James McFarland, Anupriya Mundra, Wenjing Shi. Can Paris Pledges Avert Severe Climate Change, Science, November 26, 2015, doi: 10.1126/science.aad5761
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
More than 190 countries are meeting in Paris next week….
…and 185 of them stand to get paid
“….the team incorporated the INDCs along with assumptions about future emissions reductions into …. the Global Change Assessment Model or GCAM…. The GCAM model produced numbers for global greenhouse gas emissions, which the team then fed into a climate model called ….MAGICC. Running the simulations for each scenario 600 times resulted in a range of temperatures for the year 2100, which the team converted into probabilities.”
They took assumptions of promises (INDC), combined them with more assumptions and used those as inputs into one computer model (GCAM) and the outputs as inputs into another computer model (MAGICC).
They then ran the models 600 times to get a range of temperatures and then created probabilities. The results are the probabilities of the reproducibilities of 2 non-verifiable massively complex computer programs run in series. There is no indication that they considered the errors in their original data or their assumptions.
Had the authors taken all errors into account, I am confident that the standard deviations would show their results to have no statistical significant.
[Comment deleted. “Jankowski” has been stolen by the identity thief pest. All Jankowski comments saved and deleted from public view. You wasted your time, sockpuppet. -mod]
Latest News !!!
It has just been announced that the next “beanfeast” will be in Bangladesh!!
As of yet, none of this years 190 countries have volunteered to attend..
Isn’t Bangladesh supposed to be completely underwater by then?
I heard there will be a concert there.
If you believe the RCP8.5 scenario, or at least the ClimateInteractive version, the per capita emissions will
?w=780&h=548
– take off in the OECD countries, despite have stalled decades ago
– continue growing in China and Russia, even though both are virtually fully industrialized
– rapidly slow down in India, despite it currently booming
– in Africa will stagnate and never develop
The whole effect is to grossly exaggerate the impact of policy in the USA and the EU, whilst virtually eliminating the impact of India and other poor, but growing economies (Bangladesh, Vietnam etc.)
Compare with the trends from the post a couple of days ago, using virtually the same measure of emissions from fossil fuels.
It is this biased data that enable ClimateInteractive (and repeated by Joe Romm) to claim that the INDCs will mean global emissions are 40% lower in 2100 than without policy. It is nearly all due to the RCP8.5 being a very unrealistic forecast.
http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/03095051/graphical-summary-1024×785.jpg
Let’s apply a smoke test to the 4.5C claim in 2100. Starting from the average 286K at the start of the IR, the BB emissions of the surface were 379 W/m^2. If the temperature increases by 4.5C to an average of 290.5K, the emissions will be 403.8 W/m^2, or a 24.8 W/m^2 increase. Why isn’t it evident to anyone with a brain that this is impossible? How can anyone, especially a scientist, be so incredibly gullible?
Given that the current post albedo input is 239 W/m^2, it takes about 140 W/m^2 of ‘feedback’ to replace emissions at the current temperature, where only about 45 W/m^2 of this can be attributed to CO2. Even if CO2 concentrations increased to 0.4% (a thousand fold increase), the return to the surface attributed to CO2 still wouldn’t come close to the 24.8 W/m^2 claimed for a far smaller increase.
It looks (mark 1 eyeball) that the US emissions in 2005 were about 18 tonnes per capita.
Now then if the US is to reduce its emissions by about 25 to 26% percent, below the emissions of 2005 as per its pledge, ignoring population growth, this would mean that the per capita emissions need to be reduce to around 13.4 tonnes.
The population in the US was around 292 million in 2005. The estimated population in 2015 is estimated to be a little under 322 million. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
It appears that the US is growing in population very rapidly and if the same population growth continues then by 2025 will be a little under 350 million.
So with this anticipated population growth, we are talking about reducing CO2 per capita down to around 11 tonnes.
So I would like to know in which year did the US emit CO2 of around 11 tonnes per capita and what was life like back in those day?
Am I the only one who considers the figures for Russia look strange. I agree that the figures for India look way too low, and so too China. At least the 2050/60 figures do. It is difficult to predict further than that since new technologies will probably be available that will render the discussions regarding CO2 an irrelevance (or the science my show that Climate sensitivity to CO2, if any at all, is extremely modest and everyone might be welcoming a warmer world).
“… the Paris pledges have the potential to reduce the probability of the highest levels of warming, …”
Potential to reduce a probability, Hmmm, as my dear mother more than once told me, “There is so much wasted potential.”
“A study published in Science (November 26) shows that if implemented and followed by measures of equal or greater ambition, the Paris pledges have the potential to reduce the probability of the highest levels of warming, and increase the probability of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.”
Of course it will. So will doing nothing.
I would hazard a more meaningful outcome of COP21 would be the Obama regime shutting down the Turkey Government’s support of ISIS by transfers of NATO armaments and cash (including gold). This is likely the reason for the shoot down of the Russian SU-24.
That is not likely to happen as Obama is a supporter of the Turkey Government and by that a supporter of ISIS.
This is kind of like saying if the whole developed world gave it’s entire GDP to the undeveloped nations would the earth be cooler?
“The team found that if countries do nothing to reduce emissions, the earth has almost no chance of staying under the 2 degree limit, and it is likely that the temperature increase would exceed 4 degrees …”.
=====================================
My math may be a bit shaky but by my calculation for the GAT to reach 2C above the current average (around 14C) through CO2 emissions the atmospheric concentration must quadruple to 1600 ppm which at the current rate would take around 550 years, to rise by 4C around 3000 years.
The Paris meeting may not achieve anything to reduce the effects of climate change BUT if they succeed in getting an overall agreement that ‘something must be done’ then they will want a *single authority to act in the collective name*.
This could take the form of a worldwide-recognised and accepted authority taking control of any monies pledged to direct in the best interests of the ‘group’.
This authority would therefore be seen as a ‘global governening body’ with (effectively) unlimited financial resources that could, in time, demand mandatory payments (i.e. a tax) towards the cause.
The fears of a One World Government will have been realised.
Can Paris pledges avert severe climate change?
No, but apparently it can end terrorism:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/climate-change-talks-paris-ban-ki-moon-1.3341598
In related Canadian climate news, Mo Strong death; could there be a climate link?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/maurice-strong-climate-and-development-pioneer-dead-at-86-1.3341829
Explanation: The Warmistas suggest the deaths of thousands is due to climate change; I am simply doing the same over one death.
What pleasant news…
Climate change deal ” More likekly after terror attacks”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34950442
Is it not just f..ing wonderful what these perverts will do ( sorry mods it 235 am on the “wet coast and this one really po’d me)
Here’s my primer for those on their way to the “Parisite conflation on climate change”:
(Maybe educators will make use of it in the future)
Mother Goose on Climate Prediction
As record winds blow
Unprecedented snow,
Oh, where is our globe a’ warming?
That depends on the sun
And the ways oceans run,
Plus clouds (with complexity) forming!
Now, and for quite long,
Climate models are wrong.
So, what caused the pause in the warming?
Yes, look to the sun,
The ways oceans run,
And the clouds, in complexity forming.
CO2 is “too small”
To stop temperature’s fall
When the sun, clouds and oceans together,
Begin to cause cold
in a cycle so old…
That no one alive can remember!
So if I do some harm
By just keeping warm,
You’ll have to kindly forgive me!
I find my solution
Is carbon pollution…
Ere this planet will quickly outlive me!
WUWT is trying to smash all other blogs !!! 253,206,748 views….CNN says ” It’s not fair ” !!
The latest research on CO2 temperature sensitivity shows that even if we did nothing, we would be unlikely to achieve a one C.degree temperature increase across the World. Satellites show no increase for 18 years which is a good start. The plants are all shouting for more CO2 though, and people in cold countries are still taking their holidays in warm ones.
Let me guess as to how the policies will be implemented. First that pesky thing called individual freedom really needs to be severely curtailed. Just ask Bill Gates representative democracy bogs down blind alarmism.
it’s all smoke and mirrors:
27 Nov: Reuters: David Ljunggren: Canada backs U.S.: climate deal should not be legally binding
Canada on Friday backed the U.S. approach to major climate change talks in Paris, saying any carbon reduction targets agreed at the negotiations should not be legally binding.
The announcement by Environment Minister Catherine McKenna could irritate host nation France, which wants any deal to be enforceable.
That would be politically impossible for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, however, since it is clear the Republican-dominated Congress would not ratify any treaty imposing legally binding cuts on the United States.
“Everyone wants to see the United States be part of this treaty,” McKenna told reporters on a conference call before flying to Paris.
“There are political realities in the United States … they cannot have legally binding targets. We don’t expect that the targets will be internationally legally binding,” she said…
While Trudeau will not provide a new greenhouse emissions target in Paris, he has committed to coming up with a goal with Canada’s 10 provinces within 90 days of returning from the talks.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/27/us-climatechange-canada-idUSKBN0TG1YF20151127#BTfkzSyTTSIvcTOP.97
Tranfer of $ $ Billions per year to UN control will do nothing to fix anything, and even less for the climate. There will continue to be no climate change in human life spans.
Ancient cultures made votive offerings to the gods by tossing valuable items into bogs and the like without retrieval in the hope of forestalling disasters, the UN is simply the latter-day bog.
Ignoring the fact that global climate models fail because of complexity and simplistic assumptions; these loons also include energy, economy, agriculture and mysterious ‘other systems’.
To completely fudge it up, they run the model 600 times and then treat the output as real data that ‘probabilities’ can be drawn from.
These are loons, pure and simple. Rather amusing to see EPA researchers don’t mind dragging the EPA deeper into the lunatic world.
ATheoK
But it is then outputting future predictions … by “MAGIC” “mysterious ‘other systems” …
Yet “they” claim “they” are using 97% of scientific consensus.
Agreed. These people simply have no idea what they are talking about.
Canada has changed its mind!
29 Nov: Australian: Dennis Shanahan: Commonwealth wants legally-binding COP21 result
THE Commonwealth has pledged itself towards an “ambitious” and legally-binding outcome from the world climate change summit, saying it was “deeply concerned” about the disproportionate threat to its most vulnerable members.
LEADERS from the 53-country family, which represents around a third of the world’s population, on Saturday came up with a “message of Commonwealth ambition and determination” for the COP21 talks in Paris, which kick off on Monday.
“We are committed to working towards an ambitious, equitable, inclusive, balanced, rules-based and durable outcome of COP21 that includes a legally-binding agreement,” they said in a Statement on Climate Action…
Because its membership includes industrialised G7 powers like Britain and Canada, emerging giants like India and tiny island microstates such as the Maldives, agreement in the Commonwealth has historically boded well for deals being struck beyond its bounds.
Among the few things concluded at the flop 2009 Copenhagen global climate change summit were things agreed beforehand by the Commonwealth.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/chogm-urges-strong-climate-action/story-fn3dxix6-1227626950970
CONFUSED? there’s more…
28 Nov: CNBC: Financial Times: France bows to Obama and backs down on climate ‘treaty’
by Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Paris and Pilita Clark in London
France has offered a key concession to the US on the eve of historic climate talks in Paris, saying a new global climate accord will not be called a “treaty” and might not contain legally binding emissions reduction targets.
In a significant climbdown, Laurent Fabius, French foreign minister, said signatories to the planned deal would still be legally required to meet many of its terms but most likely not the carbon-cutting goals underpinning the agreement…
“The accord needs to be legally binding. It’s not just literature,” Mr Fabius told the Financial Times. “But it will probably have a dual nature. Some of the clauses will be legally binding.”
Mr Fabius, who is to chair the UN climate conference, added: “Another question is whether the Paris accord as a whole will be called a treaty. If that’s the case, then it poses a big problem for President Barack Obama because a treaty has to pass through Congress.”
The comments are among the first by a senior official to signal a willingness to accommodate the world’s second largest carbon emitter to achieve a successful deal…
But Mr Fabius said: “It would be pointless to come up with an accord that would be eventually rejected by either China or the US.” …
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/28/france-bows-to-obama-and-backs-down-on-climate-treaty.html
Perhaps more important than the content is its demonstation of just how scientifically meaningless has become the so called publication “Science”.
Those with oversight of its funding should shut the valve.
It is easy for Politicians to band around such commitments, they are vague and no one stops to think about how one can achieve the reduction.
For example, how much CO2 did the US emit in 2005?, What is a 25 to 26% reduction of that figure? In which year did the US emit some 25% less CO2 than it emitted in 2005? What was its population, and GDP when it emitted 25% less CO2 than it did in 2005? What is the cost involved in capping future emissions to this figure, what impact will it have on energy prices, industrial competitiveness and GDP etc?
Now it is often thought that switching from coal to gas will reduce so called GHG emissions since gas has a higher calorific value, and hence less gas is used per unit of energy produced with the result that less CO2 is produced. Indeed, this is why out of all the developed West, the US, whilst not signing up to Kyoto, has achieved the greatest reduction in CO2 emissions this past decade.
However, no one stops to thing about the consequences of switching from burning coal to burning gas. burning coal only produces CO2 (save for cooling purposes) whereas burning gas produces CO2 and water in the form of water vapour. The amount of water vapour depends upon the chemical composition of the gas. but is approximately similar to the amount of CO2 produced.
Now water vapour is a much more potent GHG, and therefore the switch from coal to gas not reduce GHG emissions, but rather makes GHG emissions even worse.
The IPCC seeks to play down the role of water vapour. This is apparently because it does not have a long residency time in the atmosphere; some 7 to 9 days. But what is the relevance of a short residency time when we switch to a process that will emit on an hourly basis water vapour. There will be an ongoing replenishment of the water vapour day by day. As more gas is used to replace coal, more and more water vapour will be emitted. And since not only will the switch be an ongoing process, the amount of water vapour each new gas plant will emit will also be an ongoing daily occurrence such that despite having a short residency time (of about 7 to 9 days) water vapour levels will begin to rise.
Hence there will be a switch from one GHG to another GHG, and that other is a more potent GHG.
So how will the switch from coal to gas achieve anything? How will it curb future temperature rise?
It seems to me that no one thinks through the implications of any of these commitments. No doubt this is because it is a bunch of politicians merely talking hot air with each politician wishing to appear to be morally superior to the next man. If only thee were some engineers involved who could inject some reason.
Whilst I have major concerns about the science, my biggest gripe is at the policy response. This is because not one single policy response would result in the meaningful reduction, on global basis, of so called GHGs. At most, there may be a switch of where CO2 is emitted, ie from the developed West to developing Asia. IF global warming is truly a problem (which I do not think that it is), and if this is due to manmade emissions of GHGs (and I see no strong evidence that in the real world Climate Sensitivity to CO2 is substantial), not one policy response being discussed will reduce GHGs in any meaningful manner, let alone to a figure substantially below 1990s figures. Renewables cannot achieve any reduction since they are not despatchable and require 100% back up by fossil fuel generation.
All this money is being wasted, not simply on the basis of unsound science, but also because the policy responses being discussed do not achieve the goal. The science may be complex, but assessing whether the policy response results in any meaningful reduction of GHGs (on global basis) is not complex. This is schoolboy stuff (or school girl stuff). Any 14 year old ought to be able to consider the mooted policy response and ascertain whether this results in the meaningful reduction of GHGs.
And the elephant in the room for Europe which no one wants to discuss is mass migration. It is likely that over the next 20 years Europe (unless it does an about face) will take perhaps 10 million people from the Middle East and Africa, and will allow Turkey to join the EU and take a further 10 million from Turkey such that there will by 2045 be about an extra 20 million people in Europe (more with births). This will greatly increase the amount of CO2 that Europe will emit since this number is the equivalent of 4 Norways, or 2 Swedens, and will require a huge amount of infrastructure to be built (steel and concrete are high emitters of CO2) and then will require a substantial year on year energy increase to meet the needs of these people for electricity and transport etc. There is no way Europe can significantly reduce its CO2 emissions if it is going to open its boarders like that.
@richard V, don’t tell them that that the “smoke” coming out of coal fired smoke stacks is water vapor, then they’ll have 2 reasons to shut them down (:
The climate models used to make these projections of 2 degrees C or whatever are total garbage as clearly demonstrated in the IPCC AR5 report which shows these model projections have no defined certainty at all. These projections mean absolutely nothing and are just pure guesses of climate behavior. To use these projections for defining world climate policy actions is absolutely absurd. It’s time for the entire world to stop paying any attention to climate alarmist garbage based on completely hypothetical, unproven and flawed climate models projections.
Hanson’s blog posts at Huff Po read like a sexual deviant demanding the killing of his sexual challengers to the Pussy aka Vagina of Obama.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/title-tk_1_b_8665400.html
“Earlier this year I received a message from a long-time reader of my Communications [1], who was persuaded of the urgency of the climate problem. As a significant supporter of the Democratic Party, he had the opportunity to meet President Obama, and he was preparing a specific question: would the President be willing to “meet with Jim Hansen,” who, the supporter asserted, understood the problem as well as anyone and has “some viable ways to fix the problem?” ”
Lets see if Hanson gets a room with Obama as his … “succulent”.
Ha ha
[Comment deleted. “Jankowski” has been stolen by the identity thief pest. All Jankowski comments saved and deleted from public view. You wasted your time, sockpuppet. -mod]