Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The latest United Nations emissions gap report criticises pretty much everyone for not imposing harsh enough CO2 emission abatement plans.
UN warns of ‘unacceptable’ greenhouse gas emissions gap
Report reveals large gap between government pledges and the reductions needed to prevent dangerous global warming.
There is still a large gap between the pledges by governments to cut greenhouse gas emissions and the reductions scientists say are needed to avoid dangerous levels of climate change, the UN has said.
Current plans from national governments, and pledges made by private sector companies and local authorities across the world, would lead to temperature rises of as much as 3C or more by the end of this century, far outstripping the goal set under the 2015 Paris agreement to hold warming to 2C or less, which scientists say is the limit of safety.
The UN’s findings come in its latest assessment of progress on climate change, published on Tuesday ahead of the COP23 conference, a follow-up to the Paris agreement, to be held in Bonn next week.
There was some good news, however: the report found that carbon dioxide emissions had held steady globally since 2014. Against that, emissions of other greenhouse gases, notably methane, had increased.
The “emissions gap” uncovered by the UN does not include the consequences of a US withdrawal from the Paris agreement. If the US president, Donald Trump, presses ahead with plans announced this summer to take the US out of the agreement, the picture would become “even bleaker”, the report found. The US is the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China.
…
The full report is available here
The report tiptoes around Asia’s booming contribution to CO2 emissions;
… Asia’s role in emissions of black carbon and methane is ever-increasing, while North America and Europe (including Russia) combined represented nearly one third of global methane emissions in 2010, primarily via emissions from the oil and gas sector. Although sectoral structures of emissions vary greatly across pollutants, a few sectors tend to dominate. For black carbon, residential combus on (cooking and hea ng in solid fuel stoves) has been a key source of emissions, with transport and industry gaining importance in recent years (Hoesly et al., 2017). …
Read more here.
The report authors are far more direct about criticising President Trump;
… The INDC communicated by the United States of America in 2015 indicated an intent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels in 2025, which translates to 4.6-4.8 GtCO2e/year (national estimate, in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) Global Warming Potential terms). In June 2017, President Donald Trump announced that the United States of America intended to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and would cease implementation of the NDC. The United States of America subsequently communicated its intent to the United Na ons Secretary-General (The Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, 2017). The earliest that United States of America withdrawal can take e ect is in 2020, four years a er the Paris Agreement entered into force. Seven studies to date estimate that 2025 emissions under the new Administration’s policies will range from 5.7-6.8 GtCO2e/year, in contrast to 5.0-6.6 GtCO2e/year under the previous Administration’s policies (Chai et al., 2017; Climate Action Tracker, 2017a; Climate Advisers, 2017; ClimateInteractive, 2017; Hafstead, 2017; Rhodium Group, 2017a, b). The impact of current and upcoming action by subnational and non-state actors may also be significant (Kuramochi et al., 2017). …
Read more here (same link as above).
In my opinion this report hi-lights rampant gross international hypocrisy when it comes to climate action. Despite big shows of global unity and lots of green rhetoric aimed against President Trump over his Paris decision, the reality is nobody is making a serious effort to reduce CO2 emissions.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if we¹ want to do something significant to quell the quantity of CO₂ emitted by vehicles, industry, commerce and domiciles, then there are but three ways to accomplish this. ALL of them are thru economic pressure to cut demand:
(1) Super Taxation – Levy a +3%/mo tax rate increase (compounded!) every month, indefinitely. On motor fuel, diesel, bunker oil (shipping), coal and lignite. That doubles tax rate every 2 years. In a decade, taxes are 2⁵ = 30 times higher.
(2) Good Behavior Tax Credits – a LOT of money will be raised by (1). Pay some of it out to the people and industries that radically change their CO₂ exhaust budget. BE SMART tho’: don’t buy into “low emissions” when the “thing” also has a LOT of emissions.²
(3) Superfund Industry to research and implement substantially significant replacement technologies to accomplish “1 unit of output for ⅓ unit of CO₂ emissions”. Remember, there’s a lot of manna in (1).
And, failing these, fail to renew oil well leases, coal mine certifications, petroleum import licenses. If self-imposed taxation doesn’t get the job done (which it obviously will), cutting off the supply will further increase the VALUE of the remaining coal-lignite-oil-and-petrol resources.
[4] To prevent NIYCE (not in your country, either) back-door ellipsis strategies (making all your CO₂ barfing products off-shore where ‘they’ don’t impose such draconian CO₂ abatement tariffs), impose CO₂ “fraction tariffs” on all imported items. Every one of them. From rubber tires to rubber ducks.
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¹ we – Ideally “the world”, but the wording above needs to change for that. The implementation of [4] would significantly solve “the whole world” problem, driven by First World country consumption.
² the low emissions bûllsnot – “smog control” is one of these. A big old 6,000 lb Cadillac might have sparkly (huge) hydrocarbon catalytic converters and “only” emit 100 ppm of unburned HC’s. And my prehistoric Toyota Corolla emits a whopping 175 ppm HCs. But my TC gets nearly 35 mpg, and your Caddy gets a laughable 13 mpg. So:
¹/₁₃ gal × 100 ppm = 7.7 units of HC per mile (whatever they are) CADDY
¹/₃₅ gal × 175 ppm = 5.0 units of HC per mile TOYOTA.
Clearly my Toy is doing 50% better per mile than your tuna boat. But my Toy won’t pass “smog”. Your tuna boat will. Where’s the utility in that?
And your current lifestyle drastically changes, then the real complaining begins, “What! No lattes today?”, “How do I get to work?”, “How do I heat my house?”, “Oh, now I live on the street.”
Goatguy,
My guess is that your older Toyota is light enough that it’s brake dust, or tire pollution, per mile is rather low compared to a Cady too- or a Telsa for that matter.
And, just “why” do “we” want “to do something” about limiting CO2 emissions?
The only realistic way to do what the greens claim is essential is roughly this:
— close the auto industry
— close the suburbs
— close out of city industrial estates
— close all the malls and out of town supermarkets
— stop chemical and oil based agriculture
— close the airlines
— move everyone into dense housing in cities – think Manhattan – where they live in new build highly insulated buildings with district heating, bike, walk or take mass transit to work, and the kids walk to school.
And this is not the US and Europe that has to do it. Its most importantly Asia.
No way is this going to happen.
michel,
If all those things were done, just what “work” would people have to go to?
Seriously? The greens don’t expect “us” to do anything–it’s just a way for them to signal their membership in the “club” of Elite, Educated, Social Activists. “The Planet (TM)” is right up there with “diversity,” “empathy,” and “intersectionality” is a Thing To Be Seen Doing in upscale, trendy urban enclaves. Outside the wannabe “Thought Leader” class, it ain’t even a “thing.” Because the non-indoctrinated saw through the silliness long ago. However, I know MANY millennials who truly agonize about whether their lunch is organic, fair-trade and “clean” enough to qualify them as “carbon-neutral.” Guffaws ensue.
2 to the power 5 equals 32.
Bumper Sticker:
Got Carbon?
Carbon, it’s what’s for dinner.
Je Suis Carbon
I http://bestanimations.com/Signs&Shapes/Hearts/heart-animation10.gif CO2
(And so do plants).
I think we should start with the U.N. How much ” plant food” does that overbloated, resource sucking bureaucracy emit in year? We should take down that monstrosity of a building and fill the vacant lot with CO2 eating trees.
Trump could turn the UN building into a hotel.
Actual UN reason: We’re not being paid enough money to pretend to make a difference with CO2 emissions. Fork it over, now!
+1
What I can’t believe is it took them that long to work that out. Even the Climate pet countries like Germany are going to miss by a country mile on targets and everyone is doing creative accounting.
It finally leaked in Germany that they haven’t got a chance in hell of making there 2020 emission targets but blind Freddy could see that if you looked at the numbers. They are saying they are going to miss by 9% but it’s higher than that because there is this whole group of emissions from the lignite power stations which magically disappears because the electricity is being exported.
So Germany has spent close to $200 billion euros (close to $300M USD) to get it’s emissions back to 2008 levels and that is all the easy stuff. Now the harder stuff and serious money and on they charge into the abyss.
It will be interesting to see how far they fall off the cliff before they realize they can’t do it and no one thought to pack a parachute or tie on a bungee cord.
The miss is in the heating and transport sectors, not electricity – and the level achieved still represents a decline, not a ‘return to 2008 levels’.
you will note in the same period they also turned off 50% of their nuclear plant
Rubbish Griff get off you [pruned] and look at the numbers from the power authorities it isn’t hard. Stop reading the Guardian and fact check it because you just made that up.
Griff, we’ll assume for the sake of argument (yours) that you live in an unheated yurt, cook scavenged nuts and berries on a geothermal vent, wear flax and hemp clothes you spun and sewed yourself by hand, and recycle pee. That would explain why the uric acid buildup has turned you into a troll.
The EZ economy was on life support with negative interest rates to prevent large bank failures. Now it’s growing again and still headed higher. Check back a little later on emissions. Cyclical high growth tends to lower the attention span for listening to crap Greens.
“Griff, we’ll assume for the sake of argument (yours) that you live ”
Nope, griff is an inner-city far-left latte sipper with fossil fuel heating in winter.
I also suspect he is highly dependent on government hand-outs for his existence and his hallucinogenic substances..
Griff wrote: “The miss is in the heating and transport sectors, not electricity”
It looks like the Renewable programs in your neck of the woods, are running into some trouble, Griff.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/new-onshore-wind-capacity-dries-up-as-subsidies-end/
New Onshore Wind Capacity Dries Up (As Subsidies End)
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/11/01/new-solar-developments-dry-up/
New Solar Developments Dry Up
I mentioned not long ago that I was noticing Windmill companies doing a lot of advertising on American tv starting several months ago, and I guess the solar companies are going to do the same, as I saw a solar panel company advertising a couple of days ago.
They haven’t been advertising all this time and now suddenly they are all over the airways (well, all over early morning Fox News, don’t know about the rest of the channels). So what has changed?
Well, my state for one, voted earlier this year to cut off all future subsidies to Windmill Farms (not that this is that important of a factor by itself). And we have been hearing troubling stories like the two above for a while now, so it looks to me like the Renewables industry is getting a little bit nervous about future subsidies and so is trying to tell the public about all the so-called benefits they provide.
As soon as the subsidies are cut, the future looks bleak for renewables.
Well TA, the govt took a decision to effectively ban new onshore wind development at the last election.
so the emphasis has shifted to the (large number of) offshore wind developments. 1.5 times current wind capacity is in the pipeline.
And solar is still continuing: you missed the opening of UKs first subsidy free solar farm earlier this summer.
I note the EU as a whole go 24% of its electricity from wind Saturday last… and Italy joined UK and France in setting a date for shut down of all coal power plants.
Goldrider the point is nobody has to live in a yurt etc etc because we can manage a technical and industrial society quite well enough with renewables and decreasing amounts of fossil fuels.
Certianly we could do away with coal plant and suffer no change in our living standards at all (UK coal use was a couple of percent of electricity demand at best through this summer)
… “blind Freddy” may be able to see it but willfully ignorant (or stupid) freddy won’t see it no matter what.
Germany will miss far any “climate target”. The only member of the upcoming coalition that closes their eyes to reality is the 9.7 percent Greens, who now want to wave the dog with his tail. This will not succeed, the “Jamaican Coalition” will be the beginning of the end of the Greens. See Austria.
Quite apart, without sarcasm, it lives much better in an atmosphere with twice the amount of CO2. But we have to make an effort to achieve that. Not enough in this matter is done. It is not enough to miss climate targets, you have to miss them in the right way!
Only a 27% reduction instead of a 40% one is still a significant reduction.
And German public opinion is still overwhelmingly in favour of the energy transformation.
LdB
Here are some actual energy and emissions figures
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-carbon-emissions-rise-2016-despite-coal-use-drop
“Hard coal and lignite consumption fell 4 percent and 2.6 percent respectively”
“The 1.8 percent increase of mineral oil consumption was mainly due to a higher use of diesel fuel in transport”
“Renewable energy sources increased their share slightly to a 12.6 percent of total primary energy consumption”
Of course the UN is complaining about not enough CO2 reduction. They fear reality where the extra CO2 will do nothing as the planet inevitably enters a natural cooling phase. They need to be able to point to reduced CO2 as the cause for cooling.
Even the enviros at the United Nations are pushing for more CO2 by opposing nuclear power.
As long as population growth is not stopped, there will be more and more CO2. However, CO2 also helps to feed the population. So we should be grateful that the UN is not able to really cut co2!
So how come we do not have the uncontrolled runaway temperature rises that were forecast in the hundred months now expired? Because the climate “scientists” had more self confidence than ability is the answer.
Many institutions put together different CO2-statistics, and they all should be consumed with one or several pinches of salt (my figures are no from this report, but are similar).
They have one insight in common though: China and India are mainly (∼77%, 10 Gt of 13) responsible for the increase of „man-made“ (fossil fuel & cement) CO2 from 1990 (ca. 22 Gigatons) to 2015 (ca. 35 Gt).
The bad „capitalists“ USA, EU & Japan together did not increase their output, as did not Russia and its empire; only the well developing countries did.
The last 3 years saw no increase of „manmade“ CO2 to speak of. The atmospheric increase was the weather’s fault.