The IPCC well knows that halving CO2 emissions in 12 years is politically impossible, economically unaffordable and climatically unnecessary.
Guest essay by Barry Brill
The recently released IPCC SR15 reports (at A1) that global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2032 and 2050 and (at B) will probably bring species extinction, weather extremes and risks to food supply, health and economic growth. If we are to avoid this, net CO2 emissions will need to decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero by 2050 (C1), followed by extensive removals (C5). The required energy investment alone will be $2.4 trillion per year.
Is this possible?
As at 2015, which was not materially different from 2010, more than half the planet’s total CO2 emissions (36Gt) were sourced from just three countries:
Both China and India have made it very clear that the urgent needs of their people preclude any possibility of contributing to emission reductions during the Paris Agreement’s initial commitment period ending in 2030. Instead, China is expected to increase its 2010 emission levels by 50-100%, while the International Energy Agency predicts that emissions in India will treble over the 2010-30 period.
If China and India alone account for 23.31 Gt in 2030 – about 65% of the current total – the IPCC’s 45% global reduction target is clearly impossible. Even if all 195 other members of the UNFCCC (including USA), somehow eliminated all of their CO2 emissions by 2030, they could achieve much less than the global decline required.
But it gets worse. The US has repudiated the Paris Agreement entirely. Allowing 5Gt for USA’s 2030 emissions means the remaining 194 countries all have to reduce their emissions by 134%. Obviously, that’s not going to happen.
SR15 calculates (at D1) that current non-binding commitments under the Paris Agreement will lead to warming of more than 3°C. These targets aim to hold greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2030 to less than 58 GtCO2e – a nearly 30% increase on 2014 levels. But this is already proving too ambitious and very few countries are even trying to meet their stated goals.
So, despite the fact that the Governments of the world have already stated that even their best collective efforts cannot achieve better than a rise to 46 GtCO2 by 2030, the IPCC is calling for a reduction to less than 30 GtCO2. Such a pipe-dream cannot spur greater effort and can only result in a throwing up of hands.
The IPCC’s proposals are bolder than even the most-ambitious scenario set out by the IEA in its World Energy Outlook 2017. This is because SR15 uses only those modelled pathways that might conceivably lead to 1.5°C, rather than scenarios of anything that could possibly happen in the real world.
Just consider the enormity of the 1.5°C fantasy. Coal, which presently represents 37% of the world’s energy must be eliminated entirely within 11 years. But the WEO17 report has found that coal would retain a 25% share for over 20 years. It also reported that CO2 emissions from oil use in transport would almost catch up with those from coal-fired power plants (which are flat) by 2040. The IEA anticipates that a 20 percent rise in emissions from the growth of aviation and ocean-going vessels by 2040 will more than offset the emissions reductions of the 280m electric cars (out of a 2 billion global car fleet) it expects to be operating by that time.
A further IEA report just days ago found that petrochemicals are rapidly becoming the major driver of global oil consumption and are set to account for more than a third of the growth in oil demand to 2030 (and nearly half to 2050) ahead of trucks, aviation and shipping.
Is this affordable?
The IPCC’s modelled pathways show that $2.4 trillion must be invested in new clean energy every year from 2015 through 2035, which, Bloomberg notes, is an almost sevenfold increase from the $333.5 billion invested in renewable energy in 2017. That is an aggregate investment of $48 trillion. The interest bill alone (at say 5%pa) would be $200 billion per month – more than the whole world currently spends on childhood education and environmental protection combined.
The report (C2.7) says that “the literature on total mitigation costs of 1.5°C mitigation pathways is limited and was not assessed in this report”. Others have calculated massive additional expenditure on energy efficiency, electricity transmission and storage, CCS and other carbon dioxide removal (CDR). But even these estimates do not attempt to put a price upon the “unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” called for by the IPCC.
Imagine if a fraction of these massive sums were instead invested in climate adaptation. Or research into future energy technologies. Or poverty alleviation.
New Nobel laureate William Nordhaus uses complex models to balance the costs and benefits of climate goals and finds the optimised outcome is a rise of about 3.5°C by 2100. Bjorn Lomborg says:
“Reducing temperature rises by more would result in higher costs than benefits, potentially causing the world a $50 trillion loss.”
Is this necessary?
Dr Judith Curry points out:
“Over land, we have already blown through the 1.5C threshold if measured since 1890. Temperatures around 1820 were more than 2C cooler.”
All of the risks listed by the IPCC arise on land, if air temperatures rise by 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Even sea level rise is driven by ice-melt on land. And although “pre-industrial” is defined as 1750, the temperature baseline is 1850-1900.
As Willis Eschenbach comments with characteristic clarity:
“We’ve done the experiment. We’ve seen 2°C of temperature rise already, and it was greatly beneficial overall. So why hyperventilate over seeing a smaller 1.5°C rise?”
So why did the IPCC issue this credibility-destroying Special Report?
[redundant text deleted – formatting issue -Anthony]
There is a formatting problem in Firefox 62. The text runs over into the right-hand sidebar making it practicaly unreadable.
It is formatted perfectly in my no-name-given low performance highly secure browser.
FF 62 here and its fine.
Maybe you have something blocked – CSS?
I use Chrome on Android phone. No problems.
Same with Safari 12.0 on OSX 10.13.6
Also in Google and Bing, there is a formatting problem. Text overruns the right-hand bar of the page making it very difficult to read.
And in IE and Ms Edge.
It could help us if the pics and text boxes in the right hand column are moved to the back.
Then we can highlight the text and separate it from the stuff on the right. As it is now, the images and text boxes are in the foreground and still obscure even the highlighted text.
Whoops!
Never sleeping Anthony fixed the formatting problem while I was reading and posting. Ignore my comment above.
Same formatting problem in Opera…
Even the IPCC can see that the great scam is unravelling and like the Fuhrer at the end of WWI is issuing increasingly bizarre and senseless commands.
The Fuhrer issuing commands at the end of WWI would be bizarre since he only took power 15 years after that.
Didn’t you hear? HYDRA perfected time travel, so Captain America had to go pull him back to WW2
Per comments above, I fixed the formatting problem. The way the author submitted the guest essay was non-standard, and really a mess. I thought I had gotten it all out on the first pass…sadly, no.
Should be OK now.
I suggest a title alteration to “…Negative Credibility,” meaning that any statement made by the IPCC must be taken to its opposite conclusion for correctness to be achieved.
This side of the pond we have a proper response to the latest IPCC report. It is very short and to the point.
It is this:
“Balls”.
Bollocks works too.
…IPCC achieves net zero credibility…
Is that actually a problem?
So long as the money keeps rolling in from Europe, all the alarmists need is a convenient rallying cry to keep their supporters together. They could claim that the Earth is going to be invaded by little men from Jupiter and people would still give them money….
I am reminded of the Xhosa cattle-killing movement and famine of 1856-7, caused by the prophetess Nongqawuse. Look it up.
The Xhosa were an agricultural people, living off crops and cattle. That was their specialist skill – they knew a lot about then and their civilisation depended on them.
Nongqawuse claimed that there was a problem which endangered their society (British settlers) which could be eradicated if they killed all their cattle and destroyed all their crops. In return the spirits would remove the British and they would become prosperous. The chiefs believed the story because their top spiritualists agreed with it.
They killed the best part of half a million cattle, but nothing happened. Nongqawuse blamed the few ‘deniers’ who had disbelieved her for ruining the spell. By then three quarters of the Xhosa were dead.
We are a civilisation based on energy production. Our ‘top’ scientists all agree that what we have to do is collapse energy generation. Three quarters of the world population is a bit over 5.5 billion…
‘then’ = ‘them’. I wish we could edit….
Isn’t this the event that all the adults were persuaded by a young girl who had some sort of vision, and that vision was to kill all livestock?
Xhosa, IIRC, were in what is now Zimbabwe?
It wasn’t a 15-year old’s visions that caused mass cattle slaughter and subsequent famine. It was people using her visions in their politics and religion. The foremost Xhosa Chief Sarhili sent 2 councillors to notify the chiefs under British jurisdiction that they must sacrifice their ‘bewitched’ cattle.
Xhosa speakers are mainlyin what is now S Africa. Eastern cape, Zululand etc.
A few in Zim.
My daughter, through marriage, speaks Xhosa, as well as three other languages including English.
Patrick
Nongqawuse lived near Butterworth (now eGcuwa) towards the coast) in Fingoland. The Fingos had not been there all that long, actually. They arrived late in the southerly migrations and took up land south of the Gcalekas, on the East side of the Kei River, Northeast of East London. The Fingos brought knowledge of beer making – something unknown traditionally. No one knows where they came from. Their daughters became popular wives as they know how to brew the happy sauce.
East London and environs had been settled by a small migration from England in 1820. As farmers, they were not doing as well as the locals who knew how to get the most from poor land, and had extensively terraced the coastal hills. The hills around Nongqawuse’s home are still terraced, though abandoned today.
It was particularly the Fingos and Gcalekas plus one more tribe (name escapes me) that obeyed the instructions of the ancestors. The girl was beside a pool and they spoke to her, not once but several times. Her chief sent members of his advisory council to observe and a couple of the sangomas (diagnostician/spiritual healers) agreed they heard the voices.
Because this was not the first cattle-killing (two previous ones in the preceding few decades failed) this message was not without precedent. They were a “millennialist” culture expecting supernatural things to save them from their misery. The promise was that if they sacrificed everything and truly believed, the ancestors (emaqawe or “heroes”, not just the average dead Joe) would arise out of the sea and drive the invaders from their lands. At the time the Western Tembus, fleeing a brotherly argument over succession, had emigrated Southwest and reached the Great Fish River, so there was a strip of territory occupied by the local Khoi, San and amaXhosa plus of course the newly arrived immigrant/refugees from England.
It was a desperate act and had the ultimate effect of destroying the independence of the Southern groups. They scattered and entered servitude on white-man-owned farms.
…They were a “millennialist” culture expecting supernatural things to save them from their misery. The promise was that if they sacrificed everything and truly believed,…
…and so are we…..
It’s crazy what people will believe.
That’s standard. It’s like the propaganda techniques used by Herman Goering.
It also reminds me of how experts respond when their prognostications are proven false. Philip Tetlock spent decades studying experts. link
Experts always have an excuse for being wrong. Accountability, that’s the ticket. Some alarmists have profited handsomely. It would be good if, when the scam finally collapses, they could be suitably punished for the damage they are causing.
..Some alarmists have profited handsomely. It would be good if, when the scam finally collapses, they could be suitably punished for the damage they are causing..
Don’t punish them. They are not the cause of this catastrophe.
If you want to punish anyone, punish US. WE are the reason that this idiocy is playing out. The ‘experts’ are just individuals with an idea. It is society which has taken that idea and made it impossible to argue against.
Present company excepted, of course… 🙂
– And, another one. Hermann Goering was many things, but he wasn’t much of a propagandist – especially looking like that! You likely mean Joseph Goebbels – though der fuhrer was pretty good at propaganda too…
Thanks Dodgy. The Xhosa Cattle Killing Movement is an almost perfect analogy for the Climate Change Hysteria Movement.
Here are some links for the Xhosa Cattle Killing Movement:
Xhosa cattle-killing movement and famine (1854-1858)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Cape_Colony_from_1806_to_1870#Xhosa_cattle-killing_movement_and_famine_(1854-1858)
The Cattle Killing Movement
https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/cattle-killing-movement
“The Xhosa Cattle‐Killing Movement in History and Literature” by Andrew Offenburger
https://www.academia.edu/1802791/The_Xhosa_Cattle_Killing_Movement_in_History_and_Literature
And now Merkel tell us to kill all the diesel…
Even if all 195 other members of the UNFCCC (including USA), somehow eliminated all of their CO2 emissions by 2030
What is most aggravating is that every government official of every country in the world involved in the matter can do the same math. In fact they get paid to.
I’m not sure which is worse. Believing that they aren’t capable of doing the math, or that they have done the math and are choosing to ignore it. Are there no other choices than incompetence and conspiracy?
Yes, there are other choices. See my later comment on the Alinsky model. The proposals are designed to be impossible. Those advocating them don’t believe they are necessary or that they are doable. They are not interested in climate as a thing in itself, its just an issue to organize around.
The impossibility of their demands is a feature, not a bug.
Now Do you realize the POWER of groupthink?
It’s even worse than that because this groupthink hasn’t come from the scientists involved in the articles, but conclusions from the higher hierarchy political few in the IPCC.
UN-IPCC had credibility?
UN-IPCC as an international body, whose sole purpose is to rewrite and translate cherry-picked scientific papers into a form of socialist bureaucratese mixed with catastrophist-speak for national politicians to just accept, is found to have little credibility.
Well color me convinced.
The Synod of the Anglican Church has decided to disinvest in fossil fuels. Did they consult their pensioners? These proud prelates don’t care a toss about the poor of the world, gazing only at their navels.
Did you expect that a group that believes in a pink elephant would be able to logically decide a course of action?
I hope you are not claiming the Royal head of that Church believes in pink elephants. She happens to be the the Canadian Head of State, and awarded Dr. Schellnhuber his well earned CBE. Just coincidentally the Consort is a WWF founder.
A Revelation about CO2 just might have a rather earthly origin.
Norwegian climate specialists at CICERO (Climate research Centre in Oslo) Samset and Kallbekken, publically propose that Nuclear energy is used as a means to phase out fossil fuel, before 2050! They actually acknowledge the fact that it is impossible to only rely on hydro-, wind-, and sun-energy, before that. This happened yesterday, in one of the main newspapers (Dagens Næringsliv), ironically, at the same time as Nato’s general minister, Mr Jens Stoltenberg is riding on board the world’s largest nuclear powered vessel, the aircraft carrier ‘Harry S. Truman’, during a major Nato excercise along the Norwegian coast. How desperate can one get, just because the weather is improving, here in the north….?
The Russians now have floating nuclear reactors that produce power.
So do we: Aircraft carriers.
The new Bechtel A1B units (in the Ford-Class), are 700 MW. It has 2. Build a modular facility with capability for 3 or 4 pairs of them ( minus the carrier, 6-8 total ) and you are looking at a plant with 4.2-5.6TW nameplate, in the range of the Bruce CANDU site on Lake Huron, but with a much smaller footprint.
Its not a matter of engineering, just a matter of economics and will.
I have suggested before that climate proposals and demands are designed to be impossible to meet. One more example of why this extraordinary conclusion could be justified. The IPCC has put forward a classic of its kind, a demand and proposal that is plainly not going to be implemented, and which it must know cannot realistically be implemented.
Si why would you do that?
Its the Alinksy model. What you are seeking to do is NOT to get anything specific done. You are seeking to radicalize and organize. For that you need an issue, and you need demands on that issue.
Suppose you come up with a set of demands that can be met. Well then, they are, and then what do you do? It either works or it doesn’t. If it does, you need another issue and more demands. If it doesn’t, then you have a real problem, you’re implicated.
Vaccination against smallpox is a classic. You agitate for it, its realistic, people do it, it works, and then where are you? You have solved a problem and lost a movement. That is the problem from a radical’s point of view with solving problems through realistic demands for action that people can be persuaded to do. The problem is that it works.
Same thing happens if you seek to come to power. You are then responsible for action on the issue, you do what you have advocated, and you’re open to another radical movement sniping at you if you don’t solve it.
What you want is demands and proposals which you can be pretty sure will not be met, and you want to avoid all suggestions that you should come participate in government to solve the problem.
Your aim is to get a sufficiently large base sufficiently radicalized that you can come to power not with any specific mandate to solve any particular problem, but to govern. You want generalized disaffection. Once you have that power, you can figure out how to retain it. But in the meantime, avoid all achievable goals, actions and all participation in them.
The demand to cut emissions in half globally by 2030 is superb for the chosen purpose. Its even better to demand that it be done without asking China or India to either reduce or stop increasing. You can be absolutely sure it will not happen, and that gives you unlimited opportunity for arguing for ever more alarm and ever more draconian measures which will also have no chance of implementation.
Michel, Nicely put, and clear reasoning. I fear you are correct.
The last thing Socialists want is happy content people. I think I will show this to my brainwashed millennial offspring.
To put it into different words As michel the above poster noted:
The goal of the IPCC like any organization is to survive. If they solve the ” non problem” of global warming then the organization has no reason to continue. As long as nothing can be done the IPCC can keep scaring us into submission of all of our wealth, power, and civilization.
It was written by a committee, in it only for the dancing and drinks.
Seriously astute on many levels 🙂
The camel was a horse designed by (an IPCC?) committee!
One good approach to all this is for China to give the USA money that the USA can use to build new power plants that rely on nuclear energy. Such an effort would not really affect climate but it would help the USA to use less fossil fuels which will make the USA”s reserves of fossil fuels last longer.
Clearly you are joking because that would reverse the intended effect—bleeding the US to build world socialism.
Perhaps their credibility has taken a serious hit?
The Sunday after the IPCC report release no not mention this cataclysm on their UK front pages at all today.
The BBC news channel and SKY tv news did not cover it.
The BBC did have a paper reviewer from the Green party who tried to say every thing wrong with the world could be blamed of fossil fuel but it go no traction at all……
When the people shouting “fire” in crowded theatre aren’t running for the exit, something very dodgy is going on.
IPCC attained “net zero credibility” with me some time ago. IPCC are a political, not a scientific body. Their latest report is a joke.
1. The decarbonization they advocate is economically impossible.
2. Climate activists have always politicised energy. Always promoting renewables. Always dissing nuclear power. If IPCC can’t take their own arguments seriously, why should I?
PS: Here is an example of their anti-nuclear power positions: Benjamin Sovacool was appointed an AR6 lead author (for the next IPCC full report in 2022). He is an energy policy expert. Also responsible for this junk 2016 paper which he retracted within 3 months. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14693062.2016.1179616
A paper I helped retract by emailing to all and sundry, and raising awareness of the junk.
They claimed that spending money on nuclear energy caused more emissions and caused fewer renewables to be adopted? Are both of those false?
I posted my view of how much it would cost to eliminate all the world’s C2 emissions from electricity and gasoline consumption on another posting yesterday. I will repeat it here. If I’ve erred in any of my assumptions or calcs, let my know. As I see it, only $2.6 trillion would be required
If the IPCC, which considers CO2 the main GHG that needs to be reduced, it can be
easily done and won’t require anything even remotely approaching their claimeed costs.
Let’s look at the two major energies consumed : electricity and gasoline.
The world consumes 21,000 TWhrs of electricity , which is 21,000,000 GWhrs
or 21,000,000,000 MWhrs. and could be produced by a continuous production of
2.4 TWs of generation. The major low carbon generators are nuclear (.46TW currently operating or
under construction, with another .55 TW planned) and hydroelectric (.45TW), which
we can assume will together have a capacity output of 1.46TW. Molten salt small
nuclear reactors will commercialize within the next 5 to 7 years and can be
constructed in factories, much faster than wind or solar and have a build cost of roughly
$2.5 billion per GW of capacity – two trillion dollars could therefore produce 1600 molten
salt SMRs with a total capacity of 800GW, or 0.8 TW of continous power. Added to the
existing nuclear and hydro outputs (1.46TW), we get 2.26 TW of continous low carbon electricity
Add solar and wind and you have accomplished the goal of 100% electricity production
using only low carbon generation . All for $2 trillion. But there will be more electricity demand as the
world’s vehicles transition to electric. Judging by the world’s consumption of gasoline
(roughly a billion gallons per day) and assuming 20MPG, we estimate that the world’s
drivers travel 20 billion miles per day. Assuming the average electric car gets 3.5 miles
per kWhr, that would require an additional 6 TWhrs per day, which would require an
additional .25 TW of continuous electric power generation. About $0.65 trillion for
250GW of molten salt SMR reactor capacity would provide all of the power required by
an all electric vehicle fleet. Therefore $2 trillion plus $0.6 trillion or $2.6 trillion could
replace virtually all carbon intensive electricity and gasoline energy consumption.
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking serious money…
Don’t forget the cost of the grid upgrade.
BP energy statistics show global electricity consumption at 25.6PWh in 2017. You cannot assume hydro production continuously at capacity. There is a limit to how much water is behind those dams. You should apply typical capacity utilisation factors for all generation sources.
In costing you should include write-offs of anything you plan to close early.
You should also recognise that there is extensive use of fossil fuels in transport, heating and industrial processes that somehow has to be replaced, not only as a source of energy but often also as a raw material.
You might have a more readily made point were you to consider mitigation instead.
I am no longer concerned about AGW (climate change) because I know for a fact that in 10, 20, 50 or 100 years time the flat-lining reported since 1995 (say) will still be continuing and that CO2 slashing is climatically unnecessary as pointed out by Antony; however I am concerned that IPCC want lame brainedly to spend at least $2.4 trillion of other people’s money to do just that. Half witted governments such UK and those in the EU will only be too willing to start or continue spending on this massive scale; thank goodness for somebody with some common sense like Donald Trump may his tribe increase.
It’s easy to get any temperature they want, we live in the adjustocene. The lower temperature data set is something new, what happened to the ‘tipping point’ and ‘run away greenhouse effect’. Now we will reach destruction at 1.5 C .
While trying to show that co2 is the cause of the temperature increase, they trot out the math supposedly showing the relationship between pre industrial levels of co2 and temperature which was below the baseline of what the temperature should have been….. then on the other showing the total rise from that time till now as being a total result of co2. That’s assuming the temperature record is correct. That’s if the temperature record hadn’t been changed repeatedly. Who knows what it really is.
AGW can only cool the past so far. They run into a problem of what the temperature should have been at that given time with x amount of co2. If they lower the co2 for that time, then the effect of the co2 has to be greater on temperature and they have to also adjust the co2 record to reflect greater amounts of co2 being produced. If they leave the co2 amounts the same then less amounts of co2 has an impact on temperatures. If temperatures were following AGW, there would be no need for adjustments. In fact, if temperatures were following co2, the AGW people wouldn’t adjust anything.
Temperatures are not cooperating with AGW theory.
Yes, I hear that at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July of 1776, the temperature was -40 (or should I say “will be”)?
RU familiar with (my example) music festivals** or certainly large crowds, classically at football games?
Below a certain number of attendees, the event is dead. Just a group of people moping around in a field just as they might in a shopping mall.
BUT, there comes a Critical Mass when ‘something happens’
The crowd takes on a life of its own, it becomes more than the sum of the parts. It has self-sustaining life, arguably a variation on positive feedback.
There is ‘vibe’. It becomes electric & exciting and the individuals within it forget their shyness and inhibition. (Not the best word there by a long shot, but…)
Is that ‘Safety in Numbers’ maybe.
Perfect example being the Glastonbury music festival. Tickets went on sale recently and were all sold inside 30 minutes.
People are not going there to see the bands or music especially, they are going there for the ‘vibe’, the energy, the release.
And THAT is the IPCC and its conferences and jamborees and consensus and huuuuuuge numbers of cited documents & references and authors in its report.
A self sustaining ‘thing’ with a life of its own where not even one of the participants could explain coherently the GHGE, all they need is Trapped heat and the safety of knowing that anyone else inside that crowd will give you the exact same answer.
It is a Bubble, and I would assert a very dangerous one.
Because: Lots of people want to be in on it for ‘the vibe’ (the Glastonbury football crowd phenomena) and thus it is distracting & diverting attention from a very real problem (soil erosion)
**Interesting places, especially when a lot of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) is on the playlist.
Go there and be aware of the young women esp, age 20 to 30. Girls try harder than the boys and it’s not so obvious what you’re looking for.
The girls are tall. Slim. Have self confidence. Poise. Very few smoke. They are NOT welded to their cell-phones. Do not have ‘slapped fish’ faces. Engage with their partners. Are gentle and understanding with their children. Get lots of exercise thanks to the music. Leave the place clean and tidy. Not constantly eating. Do not drink to any great extent.
Then visit ‘rich’ places and ‘poor’ places. (You need a very big city of at *least* 50 miles of distance)
See how rich places have EDM girls while poor places have girls that are short, fat, grumpy, belligerent and ‘always eating’ and *always* engrossed in their phones
What caused what? How does richness affect your taste in music, phone use (not an inexpensive pastime) appetite for food and drink, how you treat your partner & children and all round personality and amount of physical exercise you do?
What about a bowl of nutrient-rich pasta while you think about it?
Will that help you think, or will it make you sleepy and thereafter wake up dehydrated, with a headache and craving after donuts/chocolate/ice cream/cigarettes/Ibuprofen/coffee.
Any chance of then wanting to shake your booty in a 6/7 or 8 hour dance party?
THAT is what something akin to the IPCC shoud be worried about – what we should all be aware of at the very least. Not worried though, worry is a bad emotion and leads to bad decision making.
Because you will use easily available chemical means to relive the stress that worry brings on.
Whereas going to an EDM party does the same but *without* the chemicals and attendant physically & mentally damaging side effects.
Hopefully we understand our kids a bit better now. Trust their *natural* instinct.
And our own. If yours is lost, I know a good place to start looking for it..
(and if you wanna lose anything, such a hypertension, weight and pre-diabetes not least. Again, trust the children)
People are not going there to see the bands or music especially, they are going there for the ‘vibe’, the energy, the release.
No, they are going for the sex and the drugs. Sadly rock and roll no longer features.
Don’t try to convince me of your hate facts by using logic and math you evil person who wants to destroy the earth.
So why did the IPCC issue this credibility-destroying Special Report?
So they could interfere with and potentially swing the US midterm election.
Same goes for Gore and so many other climate prophets of doom.
The IPCC never had any credibility because CO2 doesn’t lead temperature like they think:
Yes. We see this with every El Nino. Very nicely with the last one and 1998.
There is real science backing the Green House Gas Effect, and the IPCC covers none of it. The question needs to be asked, “why are the models so wrong?” If I was going to model Weightloss and the variables I included in the model were # of Pens in home, area of driveway, distance one lives from Florida, I would expect my model to produce results like the IPCC Models. If you don’t include and weight the correct factor, you will never develop an accurate model. Everything regarding CO2 and its impact on global climate must revert back to CO2’s one and only mechanism by which to affect climate change, that being the thermalization of LWIR between 13 and 18 microns. That is the only defined mechanism for CO2, and therefore every observation must be explained in that context. LWIR between 13 and 18 won’t melt ice or warm water, in fact ice emits LWIR of around 10 microns, and very cold ice will emit LWIR between 13 and 18 microns. There is also only a limited amount of LWIR between 13 and 18 microns emitted by the earth and 100% of it is “trapped” by CO2 and H2O by the altitude of 5 feet. More CO2 would simply lower that level slightly towards the surface, but with the convection of the lower atmosphere, that becomes meaningless. Simply use MODTRAN, double CO2 in the atmosphere and measure the impact on the lowest 0.1km of the atmosphere. It has no impact.None, Nada, Zip. Focus on the significant factors. The oceans clearly dominate the climate, the oceans are warming, the oceans aren’t warmed by LWIR between 13 and 18 micron. What is warming the oceans is warming the climate, and what is warming the oceans is more incoming visible light, especially on the blue end of the spectrum. To warm the oceans you need fewer clouds over the oceans or a hotter sun, or both. The IPCC doesn’t focus on those factors so they will never have an accurate model.
To experience the greenhouse effect you need a greenhouse. Without it, convection immediately ruins all your fun.
I’m a sceptic. I’ve commented several times on WUWT about how you misrepresent the Paris Agreement targets. This is in keeping with other sceptic blogs, alarmist blogs, the MSM (left and right), institutions such as MIT and governments. So you’re in good company. This is because such misrepresentation suits both sides of the climate debate (see below).
I almost never use capitals, it looks shrill. But in this case, it’s I’ve used them to emphasis the most important aspects of the underlying problem that leads to this profound misunderstanding of the Paris Agreement.
I’ve read the Paris Agreement several times and gone through the websites of the main players, cited below, with a tooth comb. I’ve done an immense amount of research on this since Trump’s Paris Agreement speech.
To start with, here’s the key excerpt from your post:
“SR15 calculates (at D1) that current non-binding commitments under the Paris Agreement will lead to warming of more than 3°C. These targets aim to hold greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2030 to less than 58 GtCO2e – a nearly 30% increase on 2014 levels. But this is already proving too ambitious and very few countries are even trying to meet their stated goals.”
You’ve conflated the 3.4°C target (“more than 3°”) implied in the Paris NDCs with the 1.5°C target, which is just a vague “aspiration”. The Paris Agreement uses that word, aspiration. You’ve fallen into the trap of believing your Washington Post hyperlink (“very few countries”) which makes the same mistake by misinterpreting the highly misleading data from Climate Action Tracker (CAT).
Unfortunately, the way in which CAT spins the countries’ emission data to serve their agenda also serves the sceptic agenda. This is because (supposedly) not reaching our Paris targets means “we’re not doing enough” (for alarmists) and “why bother if it’s so hard?” (for sceptics). WAPO don’t even link the CAT page so here it is:
https://climateactiontracker.org/
The 3.4°C cited by CAT on their thermometer (link above) is the temperature we will (supposedly) arrive at in 2100 based on the Nationally Determined Contributions agreed on at Paris for the Paris Agreement. Most countries are ON TARGET to reach their NDC targets and therefore it’s categorically wrong to say “very few countries are even trying to reach their stated goals”.
There are in effect two goals/targets in the Paris Agreement. First is the 3.4°C implied by the solid emission-cut pledges (the NDCs agreed at Paris) and secondly, the 1.5°C long term aspiration which, when agreed to at Paris was ABSOLUTELY KNOWN not to be covered by the NDC’s. Every delegate knew that in order to achieve the 1.5°C aspiration, they would have to improve on the NDCs agreed at Paris. In pursuit of this, they agreed to 5-yearly meetings to thrash out more ambitious NDC agreements. The 5-yearly meetings are written into the agreement itself and the first meeting HASN’T EVEN TAKEN PLACE YET!
Thus, to say “very few countries are even trying to reach their stated goals” is totally misleading. Their “stated goals” (the NDCs) ARE being reached. The aspiration of 1.5°C is not being reached yet because every delegate knew that this would be a work in progress.
CAT mislead us by focusing on the 1.5°C aspiration, while calling it a target of the Paris Agreement as if it was solidly agreed and backed with NDCs at Paris which are now being flouted. That is categorically untrue. Of course CAT would deny this and point to a very abstruse calculations page buried on their website. But the upshot is that alarmists and sceptics alike think that we all agreed to 1.5°C at Paris, backed that agreement with solid emission-cut pledges (the NDCs) and are now not meeting those NDC pledges. Of course, there are some falling a bit short and some doing better than their stated NDC’s but it averages out to being on target as a whole.
So, once and for all we ARE, from the global perspective, meeting the Paris Agreement pledges and are totally aware that those pledges need to be improved on at the pre-planned 5 yearly meetings in order to achieve 1.5°C.
And yes, it’s a joke that those meetings will achieve 1.5°C because we’ll all have to agree to zero emissions at the first of those meetings to reach it. But that’s not the point here. I’m talking about the honest representation of what was agreed to in the Paris Agreement. This is consistently misrepresented by WUWT, CAT, WAPO, GWPF, MIT and many others on both sides of the spectrum because it suits both agendas for the opposite reason (“do more” vs “don’t bother”).
I’ve presented this several times in the comments here at WUWT but it’s consistently ignored. I don’t know how to explain it any more clearly.
Anthony, it would be really helpful if you did a post on this to settle the matter. It doesn’t detract from the sceptic argument because the futility of 1.5°C or even 2°C is easy to see. But it does show how the left (and CAT and MIT especially) mislead us all.
PS- just a note on the CAT thermometer. It used to say 3.6°C for the “current policies” which were very closely in line with the policies implied in the Paris NDC commitments (MIT Report 291, 2015: 3.6°C; MIT Global Outlook 2015: 3.7°). However, the MIT Global outlook 2015 didn’t include some developing country NDC’s amounting to around 20% of emissions. Their 2016 Outlook still didn’t include them when submitted because they weren’t well-presented. In 2017 CAT reduced the 3.6°C to 3.4°C based on reinterpretations of the policies of India, China and some others as well as the small (opposite sign) negative contribution from US pulling out. Therefore “current policies” though not being the exact representation of the NDC’s, appears to be within 0.1°C of them. This is why I refer to CAT’s “current policies” as representing the NDC’s. Indeed the current policies were put in place because of the NDC’s needing to be met.
Also, the 3.2°C “pledges” should be completely ignored. These are NOT the NDC pledges made at Paris. CAT’s obscure calculation pages say that the 3.2°C includes 2050 strategies for some developed nations that were submitted long after Paris, are NOT appended to their NDC’s and are therefore aspirations that may or may not be firmed up at the 5-yearly meetings. It also includes an assumption that the NDCs continue to be strengthened after 2030 at the same rate of emission-cutting from 2020-30. This is simply putting words in the mouths of delegates at future COP meetings, i.e. a disgracefully misleading ploy.
To illustrate what a huge effect the spurious 2050 studies have and how misleading it is to include them, the “pledges” used to be 2.8°C. The jump to 3.2°C was almost entirely due to the US 2050 strategy being removed from the calculations.
The big negative contribution of the US 2050 strategy removal is different from the “small (opposite sign) negative effect” mentioned above for the US NDC adjustment mentioned above. The first represents huge pie in the sky, hoped-for emission cuts being implemented by 2050 and running to 2100. The second represents the modest NDC commitment which will be largely fulfilled anyway because a) its the low-hanging fruit and b) all NDC’s incorporated the long-agreed Copenhagen Agreement pledges (2010-2020) which are now largely implemented and constitute 0.5°C of the 0.7°C impact of the “Paris” Agreement. So yes, you read that correctly: the Paris Agreement itself contributed 0.2°C only, not 0.7°C or “on the order of 1 degree Celsius” as claimed by MIT in their response to Trump’s correct citation of their work.
I agree that alarmists and the media tend to over-emphasise the inadequacy of Paris NDCs, so as to urge developed countries to “do more”. Sceptics, who think the 1.5°C target would be met by doing nothing, deride the huge requested CO2 cuts as unachievable and say “don’t bother”.
The Paris Agreement main target is “well under 2°C”, which is not that much more than 1.5°C. The IPCC (SR15,D1)says: “Pathways reflecting current [NDCs] are broadly consistent with cost-effective pathways that result in global warming of about 3°C by 2100, with warming continuing afterwards (medium confidence).”
The IPCC thinks the current NDC trajectory will result in 1.5°C happening as early as 2032 (with 2°C not long after). If we don’t double the pace by 2030, no targets will ever be met.
CAT (and WaPo) say most countries aren’t really trying. I’ve no cause to argue with this. I know USA has pulled out, Australia has just done a u-turn, Canada provinces are rejecting the new carbon tax, Germany and Japan are building numerous coal plants, nobody is financing the Green Climate Fund, and the Katowice COP24 is looking dicey.
As to whether
Well, yes, alarmists say”do more”emission cuts, and sceptics (who think all targets would be achieved by doing nothing) ridicule the huge numbers.
The main Paris target is “well under 2°C”(forever), which is not much different from 1.5°C. The IPCC (SR15, D1) says the present NDCs will lead to “global warming of about 3°C by 2100 and continuing thereafter”, and the 1.5°C will be broken as soon as 2032. Therefore, the world must massively step up the pace between 2015 and 2035.
CAT says few countries are even trying to meet their Paris promises. I’ve no reason to argue with this – given that the USA has pulled out, Australia has just U-turned, Canada is rejecting its carbon tax, Germany and Japan are piling into new coal stations, nobody is contributing to the Green Climate Fund, and the Katowice COP24 is looking decidedly dicey.
Thanks for your replies
“IPCC achieves net zero credibility”
It achieved this even last century with ignoring views of scientists, cherry picking only pro CAGW articles and politicians making its own conclusions.
“Even if all 195 other members of the UNFCCC (including USA), somehow eliminated all of their CO2 emissions by 2030”
If this was even possible I would bet all the money in global warming scam that nobody would notice any difference.
Numbers, numbers, numbers, and simple ones at that. If the general public could think with this stuff, we would not have AGW alarmism.
They do not care about economics because that is everybody else. Besides, economists are always wrong.
The general public believes hurricanes are driven by “heat” because they start in the tropics, and is too stupid to grasp the idea that it is temperature differences that provide the energy to power them. Warming affects higher latitudes more, so more even, so fewer hurricanes.
It would take some time to get across the idea of a “proxy.” But Mann’s temperature proxy was tree ring growth, and I think they can grasp that. Then they can get it: alarmists hate all life.
The Left Wing is not group think. The Left Wing has shutdown thinking in their wing. The Left Wing is a big tent that includes revolutionary Zombies groups who spread chaos.
Park the fact that there is no CAGW problem to solve.
The CAGW ‘plan’ does not work.
The forced solution to CAGW is to spend more and more money on wind and sun gather as the ‘solution’ to anthropogenic CO2 emission/
Wind and sun gathering simply does not work (reduce CO2 emissions enough and is too expensive), regardless of how much money is spent.
P.S. There is a Canadian/US Molten Salt reactor that is underdevelopment, phase II Canadian Regulator approval. The new design MSR (Molten Salt Reactor) can produce electricity as cheap as coal and is failsafe. It is 1/10 the cost, 7 times small, 10 times lighter, 20 times more efficient with fuel, than the old pressure water reactor. It new MSR is failsafe. This is an interesting subject. This is a destructive engineering breakthrough, that is gathering political momentum.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-renewable-energy-fantasy-1436104555
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/shocker-top-google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-simply-wont-work/
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
Yes. We see this with every El Nino. Very nicely with the last one and 1998.
Just a side note. My curiosity was piqued by news headlines to the effect that “the IPCC warns we only have 12 years to act” to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Without getting into any underlying details, it struck me that 12 appears to have a remarkable precision, namely +- 1 year. Undergraduate physics students are prone to write answers to problems and entries in lab reports to as many significant digits as their calculator outputs. Often they get problems stated in terms of a “2.3 kg mass with a 10 N force acting on it” and express their answers as 4.347826 m/s^2 or some such. I literally have to threaten them with points off to get them to round answers to the last significant digit of the problem.
I wanted to see the source of this particular claim and it appears it comes from the statement in the report:
A1. Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global
warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global
warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at
the current rate (high confidence).
It looks like the 12 year figure comes from (2030 – 2018). It appears the report believes it is operating with a precision of 1 year. I noted that it states the upper bound as 2052, not 2051 or 2053, but 2052. It strikes me it would be much more consistent with undergraduate physics understanding to state no more than 2030 – 2050, and the warning should be “we have only about a decade to act.” Stating the number as “12” suggests a precision that is quite remarkable. I find this odd when compared to the often-claimed notion that it takes 10 years for change in any climate variable to be detectable.
“The IPCC well knows that halving CO2 emissions in 12 years is politically impossible, economically unaffordable and climatically unnecessary”
I think they knew that from the beginning.- that is since about 1980.
Never fooled Donald Trump I would say, nor Al Gore and Co either.
I think the UN has passed its use by date, all it is doing now is advocating communism.
For instance.
https://thedemiseofchristchurch.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/unitednations-conference-on-human-settlements_habitat1.pdf Page 8. The emphasis is mine.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
The old adage applies to the IPCC crew. “never get so close to your position, that when your position falls you fall with it”. They are so close to their position that if we had 12 years of global cooling they would stick to their guns
There was a mention about a increase in the use of electric cars, so where is the electricity to come from to recharge the cars batteries. Will each single electron tell the owner if it comes from dirty coal, or from a nice clean windmill ?.
MJE
There are 250 million vehicles in the USA alone. Any significant portion of that converting to all electric will require an upgrade of the grid and increased capacity. 70% of US electricity is generated via fossil fuels.
Really funny how a fake, climate denial blog like this can say a notable organization like IPCC has zero-credibility, yet has not issued one credible, comprehensive report to refute the IPCC report. You and other climate denial advocates are the reason why we are in this mess and Trump & Republicans are only making matters worse.
Denial is a religious term. Warmies are religious people. I’m a scientist like many here and skepticism is the norm and accepted in science. IPCC forecasts have consistently been wrong. When the data says your model is wrong you abandon the model- that’s science.
What mess? You mean the mess that is yet another corrupt UN company fleecing countries out of billions of dollars to line their pockets and usher in a globalist government?
You’re a useful idiot and you’re being fooled.
“So why did the IPCC issue this credibility-destroying Special Report?”
To scare countries into committing more cash in Poland.
Will it backfire? -> maybe
Are politicians smart enough to reject it? -> probably not.