Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new paper claims more shared development goals and less emphasis on wealth creation is the key to solving climate change.
Economic Equality Is Key to Solving Climate Change, Report Shows
By Jeremy Hodges
6 March 2018, 02:00 GMT+10
Economies need to reduce inequality and promote sustainable development for the world to avert the perils of runaway global warming, according to new research.
The risk of missing emissions targets increased dramatically under economic scenarios that emphasizes high inequality and growth powered by fossil fuels, according to research published Monday by a team of scientists in the peer-reviewed Nature Climate Change journal.
“Climate change is far from the only issue we as a society are concerned about” said Joeri Rogelj, the paper’s lead author and a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis outside of Vienna. “We have to understand how these many goals can be achieved simultaneously. With this study, we show the enormous value of pursuing sustainable development for ambitious climate goals in line with the Paris Agreement,” he said.
…
The abstract of the paper;
The shared socioeconomic pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview
This paper presents the overview of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and their energy, land use, and emissions implications. The SSPs are part of a new scenario framework, established by the climate change research community in order to facilitate the integrated analysis of future climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. The pathways were developed over the last years as a joint community effort and describe plausible major global developments that together would lead in the future to different challenges for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The SSPs are based on five narratives describing alternative socio-economic developments, including sustainable development, regional rivalry, inequality, fossil-fueled development, and a middle-of-the-road development. The long-term demographic and economic projections of the SSPs depict a wide uncertainty range consistent with the scenario literature. A multi-model approach was used for the elaboration of the energy, land-use and the emissions trajectories of SSP-based scenarios. The baseline scenarios lead to global energy consumption of 500-1100 EJ in 2100, and feature vastly different land-use dynamics, ranging from a possible reduction in cropland area up to a massive expansion by more than 700 million hectares by 2100. The associated annual CO2 emissions of the baseline scenarios range from about 25 GtCO2 to more than 120 GtCO2 per year by 2100. With respect to mitigation, we find that associated costs strongly depend on three factors: 1) the policy assumptions, 2) the socio-economic narrative, and 3) the stringency of the target. The carbon price for reaching the target of 2.6 W/m2 differs in our analysis thus by about a factor of three across the SSP scenarios. Moreover, many models could not reach this target from the SSPs with high mitigation challenges. While the SSPs were designed to represent different mitigation and adaptation challenges, the resulting narratives and quantifications span a wide range of different futures broadly representative of the current literature. This allows their subsequent use and development in new assessments and research projects. Critical next steps for the community scenario process will, among others, involve regional and sectorial extensions, further elaboration of the adaptation and impacts dimension, as well as employing the SSP scenarios with the new generation of earth system models as part of the 6th climate model intercomparison project (CMIP6).
Read more: http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/13280/
The paper is a little coy about what they mean by “shared socioeconomic pathways”, but the following description of their favoured scenario caught my eye;
… SSP1 Sustainability – Taking the Green Road (Low challenges to mitigation and adaptation)
The world shifts gradually, but pervasively, toward a more sustainable path, emphasizing more inclusive development that respects perceived environmental boundaries. Management of the global commons slowly improves, educational and health investments accelerate the demographic transition, and the emphasis on economic growth shifts toward a broader emphasis on human well-being. Driven by an increasing commitment to achieving development goals, inequality is reduced both across and within countries. Consumption is oriented toward low material growth and lower resource and energy intensity. …
Read more: Same link as above
The paper has a point – there is no doubt if the world killed off prosperity and rapid economic growth, CO2 emissions would stop rising. If we all lived like people do in places like Cuba and Venezuela, places which have de-emphasised material concerns like financial security and having enough to eat, our global carbon footprint would be substantially reduced.
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There is no Law of Conservation of Wealth. Which never stops the utopian (read: dystopian) socialists from trying to invent one.
My wallet had an Economic Growth, then I went to see the Doctor about it and he gave my wallet an Economic Growthectomy. My wallet is feeling much lighter now.
What a brave, brave New world.
“Halting Economic Growth the Key to Solving Climate Change”
Well they have it sort of right there, although as an economist, I have always been aware that the standard solution to AGW involved wrecking the world economy (and starving everyone except the so called elite).
So the claim seems to be consistent with the standard, non Marxist, economic view of the effects of CO2 reduction, which is well documented by Milton Friedman.
Unfortunately as there is no proof that anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming, it is my belief that making the world poorer, by any means, will only have one effect, that is – it will make the world poorer.
The true economic effects CO2 reduction is something that Lord Stern would not admit, although I believe he is a politician not an economist. If he believes what he spouts, he would not even be able to pass Economics 101 at any reputable university.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
History has shown, that during a ‘Golden age’ a society can allocate resources to art, education and philosophy. But when faced with environmental or outside pressure, those resources are needed for security or food production.
So liberal arts professors should get ready for their next career in agriculture. Without oil, that plough is not going to pull itself.
Oil Horse Oxen … something needs to do the work
If you want a row broke using them it will take 20-30 professor team and knot those plow lines, you gonna need to “motivate” them.
An 8 hour work day will be a thing of the past. Hunter-gatherers have to work 16 hours or more. Assign liberal arts professors to the task, and it becomes 32 hours a day.
That is indeed about the only positive that can be taken from this piece of so-called research:
While we can collectively still afford to pay such stupid people to produce this misanthropic twaddle, there is clearly a lot of scope for it to get much worse. Small mercies…
That is truly scary. Everyone would starve if we had to rely on Liberal Arts professors. Going from teaching two or three classes a day to pulling a plow. Oh my!
That is why you knot those plowlines! Seriously, though, if anyone gets the chance at a state fair or farm show try out breaking row with horse or oxen drawn plow. It is an experience!
Which socialists have made that claim?
Socialism itself assumes a zero-sum game when it comes to wealth, since they believe it is found, not created.
Communism.
Nice one Louis – gotta run that through the subwoofers when I get home, may start at 9 b4 giving it 11
:-O
Usual rules: clear the floor, give it some stick and wrap shape around it.
Follow the brunette’s lead if you’re feeling shy.
This IS real science you’re doing here. You’re looking for the Dopamine it generates – clue being that you will come out of it bright, clear-headed and wanting more.
Rather than dizzy, muddled, forgetful and sleepy as other (chemical) sources of Dopamine provide.
Lap it up. There is no better.
WB: “Communism.”
Exactly. And, what was Communism good at? Killing people, directly or indirectly. Climate Change solved!
I thought they tried this already in Africa….
…long live Xi
They are doing it in Cuba and Venezuela right now. We lived like that during the war too. Other than ashes from the one stove, there was no need for garbage collection either. Yes, let the good times roll.
And Cambodia.
The problem is this fetish humans have for longevity.
Yes, I have a strange penchant to see tomorrow’s sunrise.
If I have enough food for breakfast, even better!
“inequality is reduced both across and within countries.” Will somebody show me what “equality” looks like for any species? Not with an abstract example, mind you, but a real example of equality existing between any living creature. I would love to see what it looks like!
Here it is for salmon:
What’s going on with the dog?
He senses something fishy is about to happen
The dog? “four legs good two legs better.”
“somebody show me what “equality” looks like“. Orwell did that in Animal Farm – “the happiest animals live simple lives” and of course some are more equal than others. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy operates unfettered under communism, and the result is always a brutal dictatorship, built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. That is exactly where the free world’s Green parties would take everyone, given the chance.
China just banned “Animal Farm”, and also the letter “N”! https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/01/asia/china-letter-ban-trnd/index.html
China also banned all references to Winnie the Pooh. Xi Jinping is somewhat irreverently known as Winnie the Pooh. (A photo of Xi Jinping and Barack Obama had them positioned just like an illustration of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger). This latest move by Xi Jinping and the ultra thin-skinned sensitivity to even the mildest comments are very very bad news for everyone. China has also, according to recent reports, almost doubled its military expenditure.
Bad times ahead. I sincerely hope that POTUS is up to the task when the S hits the F.
Oh come on, there is already way too much equality, what we need is a bit more redistribution:
http://www.valuewalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Wealth-Inequality-1.jpg
That percentage is small compared to most socialist paradises.
1) Most of the 0.1% are athletes and performers.
2) The list of those in the top 0.1% changes dramatically every year.
@zazove;
Look closely at the notes on that curve. It’s constructed by capitalizing the income reported on income tax returns. In other words, it counts ONLY income. My parents, were they alive today, would be rather low on the scale, having only a retirement income based on Social Security. But the curve wouldn’t capture the house they live in. They bought it for $25,000 in 1961, and today it’s worth about $500,000. Tricksy little things, economists. Before they screwed it all up, when IRA’s were first started, if you contributed the maximum amount of $2,000 a year for 45 years of work and invested in a mutual fund that mimicked the Dow Jones Average, with dividends reinvested you’d have a raw ROR of about 10% and you’d have about $1.5 million in your nest egg. That graph doesn’t catch that, either.
Equality is when everybody has what our betters consider the proper amount of stuff for people like us.
Nothing more, nothing less.
it has electrolytes
Equality is when everybody has $200 (but owes $400 for their monthly electric bill)
Capitalism insists on it being their own individual $200 that they earned themselves
Socialism insists on it being the Same $200 that the government gives them (government gives $200 once and everyone passes it around)
@ur momisugly gnomish March 5, 2018 at 8:19 pm
+10
… it’s what they crave 😉
RR has it right with the salmo, we’re all equal only when we’re dead. Communist despots just typically move that date up for some people.
reduction of inequality does not mean equality.
Equality means everyone has the same opportunity.
Whether you take advantage of that opportunity is up to you.
Mike W “Equality means everyone has the same opportunity.”
Too bad this is so far from the case.
No, it is the case. People do not have equal opportunity when leftists trolls like you get involved in their lives.
It is pretty close to the case. The biggest problem is those who would rather not try, then whine that they aren’t getting ahead.
… and an increase in equality does not mean inequality.
But making everyone “more equal” (the whole point) does not sell well does it?
Why don’t they strive for an INCREASE IN EQUALITY (more of a perceived good), rather than a DECREASE IN INEQUALITY (less of a perceived bad)?
Making everyone “less unequal” sells much better. Are you a buyer or a seller?
(and where’s Griff?)
While the Lowest Common Denominator does create a sense of equality, it is still the LOWEST COMMON GROUND possible
Sounds like the East German experiment all over again. From everyone according to his abilities, to everyone according to his needs (NOT!!!)
Just list to “Trees” by Rush.
Spot on.
Venezuela represents the ideal, with near perfect economic equality. The society consists of the vast multitudes who are all equally poor and miserable, and a tiny elite ruling class which is rich beyond reason. Consider that in the models the rich elite are too few to be significant, and so can be safely ignored. The model result is a population which is perfectly uniform in it’s economic equality. Perfect.
Bonus #1:
Without sustaining investment, oil production in some of the richest fields around is shutting down. “Leave it in the ground”, a holy grail of the environmental movement is realized.
Bonus #2:
Without funds to conduct seasonal activities like spring planting, the entire agricultural sector collapses. This, of course, furthers economic equality. As another environmental plus, the farmland is returned to nature.
Utopia at last!
+1 famine
+2 Mass Death… Gaia Smiles…
+ 3 Hope
+1
These people believe that Venezuela is not doing socialism right. But the problem is, every time you try, you’ll soon run out of other people’s money.
By the way, Venezuela hot not run out of plastic litter yet. But if has run out of toilet paper. So only people that have friends in government have any.
Hell on Earth. But, you could argue, at least they don’t have any economic growth to speak of.
s/hot/has/g
Unix geeks unite
Hmmm…how much of a problem is “illegal immigration” for Cuba or Venezuela?
It wasn’t much of a problem for the Soviet Union either. (The Iron Curtain wasn’t built to keep people out. It was built to keep people in.)
It sounds like the goal of this plan is to give people no place to go.
The most recent report (last week) is a line 8 miles long at the Colombia border, of people trying to get permission to enter Colombia to get work. The bolivar is so worthless that some people are using bolivars for craft projects.
Meanwhile, there is no food unless you count scrounging in the trash for it.
In progressive countries, the issue is not illegal immigration, it is illegal emigration.
I remember reading a few months ago that [Ecuador] has been experiencing a problem of illegal immigrants from Venezuela. Never been to [Ecuador] — assume it’s an okay place, but wouldn’t want to live there — but how desperate does a Venezuelan from a modern city to try to sneak across the border to a poor, mountain country just so they could get a chance to get a small plot of land so they could grow a few potatoes?
[True, the Equator crosses Ecuador, but there is very little land right on that specific line. 8<) .mod]
Mod — [Blushing loudly enough to be heard in the next county] — thank you for correcting my geographical spelling. I must have missed that lesson on northwestern South American nations when I was in fifth grade.
In *any* case, the concept is valid. Ecuador has been having with people from Venezuela trying to get across the border without permission or documents. As for the land, I don’t know about that, but at least they don’t have to deal with Chavez-inspired storm troopers trying to beat them into submission.
Gunga, “The Iron Curtain wasn’t built to keep people out….” You’re right. I would recommend a book entitled “The Forsaken” by Tim Tzouliadis. It relates the little-known story of migration by Americans to the workers’ paradise of Russia during the Great Depression. Only a handful of them ever made it back, having realised their terrible mistake. The rest of them perished. The Soviets being highly skilled at media suppression, the majority of the forsaken folks and their families left little trace after the initial honeymoon period – they even set up a baseball league in those early days, competing against Russky teams. I kid you not. It’s a heartbreaking read.
The, as now, there were well-heeled well-meaning Lefties in the West who swallowed the whole Commie propaganda thing; comfortable and privileged people who saw all the failings of capitalism and none of the good things.
What makes me sad is that many people will not see this for the rather obvious pro-socialism/Communism paper that it is. Worse still, many others will see that, and agree. Having lived most of my life in or near NYC, I can say that many close friends and family members will fall into that category. I’m the “black sheep” being a veteran, conservative, and like most folks here a climate skeptic. Sigh.
I used to feel like that, then I noticed people who claimed to care had fat carbon footprints like everyone else.
Belief is a continuum.
Eric: Indeed. I’d like Kristi or any other contrarian who posts here to provide a list of trips Obama or Holdren did NOT go on to reduce carbon footprint while in office (or after, for that matter). I’m sure there would be press releases, promotion, should be easy to find. That list will be pretty short, leaving time to list the same for the top brass at NOAA, NASA, EPA. Is there a SINGLE instance where any of these climate preachers decided to forego a trip; or just turn off the AC and open a window?
Barri&posse have NOT stopped flying all over the planet since leaving office. They have likely tripled their “carbon footprint” over the last year.
Reduce everyone’s living standard to the lowest common denominator and you have equality……. except for the elites that need to make sure everyone is getting their fare share of nothing (except themselves). With nature not playing the global warming game the warmists are showing their true colors. Or color, red.
The term “sustainable Development” is code for a stable population of humans of 500 million. Oh dear, there are 7 1/2 billion of us, which means these ‘caring” Socialists need to eliminate 94% of us!!
Just who gets to make the decision who shall live and who must die????
It is worse-if we abandon all use of fossil fuels, returning to rather primitive technologies, the carrying capacity of the planet for humans is more like 7 million. The green lunacy would mean that 99.9% of us must perish to satisfy THEIR ideals. Ideals which they refuse to discuss. Ideals which have been tried and have failed repeatedly. Ideals they want to shove down the throats of ALL of humanity. Perhaps it will be the end of humans altogether.
An idea to ponder- could it be that the tribes in the Old testament that G-d wanted totally destroyed were Socialists? Socialists are a breed of perverted “humans” that want to destroy society and continually rear up from the ashes if they are not totally eliminated. Judging by the total garbage they are shoving down our throats and our childrens’ throats (LGBT/Safe schools propaganda) , one could be excused for believing we are at End of Days- Revelation type stuff.
This is why we ALL must do what we can to expose the Socialist nonsense that threatens not only our economy, but the entire species itself.
Have any of the proponents of that 94% reduction actually done some deeper thinking of the consequences?
If they’re going to bury the bodies there is an awful lot of energy and land disruption etc.
If they’re not there is an awful lot of emissions
None of which seem to be in the current modelling efforts
And wouldn’t dumping them in the ocean contribute to sea level rise? And disrupt the ecosystem as predators flock to the site for all the free food and leave the prey species to multiply unchecked?
Veto their life/death decisions. Arm up and get family and friends to join you. Go to an Appleseed event.
Now would be a good time to join the NRA or GOA.
Agenda 21 or is it 30 now? The economic growth is what keeps half of the planet alive and fed!
Dear god.
Mencken had these people absolutely nailed:
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
Mencken was correct. There is a general failure to see that liberty entails free enterprise and prosperity, and that efforts to curtail the operation of free markets lead (ultimately) to totalitarianism. People may be seduced into voting for the latter but they will never again be given the opportunity to vote against it. Democratic ttempts to curtail totalitarian policies are branded ‘populist’.
I regret there is no option to up-vote you here.
Agreed 100%. And the man also penned the best description of “global warming,” “climate change” or whatever other title they apply to the ridiculous notion of human-induced climate catastrophe…
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken
Poverty and starvation is the way the communist have murdered the most of their hundred million victims. This time they’re going for billions which fits nicely with goal of the depopulation loons.
From my tag line and smart remarks file:
A lot of different outfits have been able to hook their agenda to the global warming / climate change scam. Including out of control tax and spend governments who can bleed corporations and the public for billions with their carbon taxes.
Let’s not adopt this misanthropic nonsense and say that we did.
The worst they will scream is hypocrite, and I can take that as long as I am warm and fed.
I think that I like prosperity.
Risky strategy, the Kulaks tried that after the Bolsheviks took over in Russia.
Let’s not and say we didn’t.
My daughter just read “endangered animals” and they had a couple pages that blamed farms, industry and housing for killing off the animals. I had a long discussion with her about how these people really just want her living poorly if not simply dead, while at the same time they live large and opulent lives on beachfront property. Too bad 90% of parents will let their kids be indoctrinated into the human hating ecofascist view.
Once in a while, I shop in a small grocery store in the local college town. The impulse-buy shelf next to the checkout line has a series of chocolate bars prominently featuring endangered animals on the wrappers — not sure what candy has to do with “saving the planet” above virtue signalling. In any case, I sometimes take the opportunity to loudly complain, “You know, I bought that candy bar with the panda on the front and it didn’t taste a *thing* like panda.”
I am, of course, shameless.
Like painted art, photography is more enjoyable in full colour than in grey scale.
Imaginations work best unrestrained, not clamped into uniform grey. Geoff.
“…education and health investments accelerate the demographic transition..”
Hmm…I have a niggling suspicion that this demographic transition isn’t something good for the health and wellbeing of the demographic that I belong to.
This is why we’ve had the slowest economic recovery from 2009 until the 2016 election, since the end of WWII. Its part of the Left’s plan to lower CO2 emissions by restricting economic growth and thus consumption. Its one of the reasons the Sierra Club opposes Nuclear energy, because it fosters faster economic growth.
This study does seem to admire the economic model of the Khmer Rouge, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela. The poor (or the dead) do not have much impact on the environment in their vision. The minor little fact all those places have suffered environmental degradation just gets in the way of their theory.
When you run out of toilet paper (as is the case in Venezuela), your impact on the environment (we’ll call it “degradation”) has reached rock bottom.
The hard core greens want to reduce population, so what is going on in newly third world hellholes is fitting their goals.
They should trot out Jimmy Carter and his cardigan sweater. We just all need to hunker down and eschew comfort and plenty. Bundle up and live hand-to-mouth, off the land. Of course, the killing of even a single animal for food is a sin – ours is a vegan future, strictly enforced by the Gaian Thought Police.
Why doesn’t Jimmy Carter have the good grace to discorporate?
Let’s see the authors leading by example.
As so many post eco-fascists have noted, most of the environmental movement has been taken over by communists/socialists for political ends, not for environmental ones.
@T F. The anti alarmists seems to have been taken over by libertarians and right wingers for political ends, not environmental ones.
Who gains by politicising science, certainly not the truth…_
Warmunist “science” only pretends to be science.
You conflate science with politics in the usual Alarmist way. Science tells us nothing about what we should do – if anything – about Climate Change. Asking for science to be done properly is not political.
The science was politicized long ago.
Funny you only complain about the campaign to take it back.
Leftists always complain when humans refuse to submit to their stupidity.
Digger: Nice try, but if you’re right, if right wingers and libertarians achieve their political ends, the environment will benefit; and if the eco-activists achieve their political ends, far worse for the environment. You are the one favoring politicized science, not us.
Well there is a solution to global warming.
The vast majority of the human population dies and those remaining go back to hunter gatherer life-styles. Maybe a few wheat fields can be used as well but you don’t get to cook much of that into bread.
Go back 12,000 years is the answer.
Either that, or we put an end to this myth-based political science movement.
Actually, that is NOT a “solution to global warming,” because human activity is NOT “driving” global warming. Nor is the CO2 level (as it did not in the past). Nor is the minuscule human contribution thereto (endless attempts to “blame” humanity for the supposed increase in CO2 level notwithstanding, they don’t have a good case even for that). So the mass starvation and death will do nothing but kill a lot of people. The climate will keep changing with or without industrialization and fossil fuel use.
they don’t care about GW. They just care about “A” from AGW. The ultimate gaol is restauration of Eden: a sinless man stripped of knowledge, back to animal ways, without civilization, without fire, without cloth. But a 12000 years backward in time would be quite an ashievement to begin with.
Write this down: there is nothing climate change cannot do, and no problem socialism cannot solve.
Print that on bumper stickers with O’Bummer’s mugshot and the liberals will snatch ’em up.
Rule 1: There’s no problem socialism cannot solve.
Rule 2: When socialism doesn’t solve a problem, add more socialism and see Rule 1.
May we safely assume the authors wrote this paper in a tent using solar power to recharge their laptop, when they took time off from growing vegetables, gathering wood, setting up the solar stove, etc?
Sheri, assume nothing.
They can grow vegetables and gather wood all they want. The mere presence of items like laptops and solar panels speaks to an incredibly advanced technological society right behind them, and supporting them.
They need to write their missives on clay tablets and then fire the tablets for durability.
That tent better not be waterproof nylon.
Woven Hemp tee-pees for them.
Hemp’s a no-go. They’ll smoke all the cannabis first.
I figure they can use the laptops until they no longer work. There can be no replacing them without using additional resources. They are also out of luck on the solar panels when they no longer work. I like the clay tablets. After the tent rips apart, they can live in a cave if they want to stay dry, or make shelters out of leaves and vines. They can enjoy the fruits of capitalism for as long as their individual fruits still function. After that, they’re completely on their own with nature.