From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Near the end of 2020, as the covid-19 pandemic continued to rage, a few climate scientists and energy experts made a prediction. They estimated that emissions from fossil fuels — which had just plummeted thanks to the global pandemic — might never again reach the heights of 2019. Perhaps, they speculated, after over a century of ever more carbon dioxide flowing into the atmosphere, the world had finally reached “peak” emissions.
They were wrong.
According to a report released last month by the Global Carbon Project, carbon emissions from fossil fuels in 2022 are expected to reach 37.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the highest ever recorded. That means that despite the continued fallout from the coronavirus pandemic — which caused emissions to drop by over 5 percent in 2020 — CO2 emissions are back and stronger than ever.
Scientists have reacted with dismay. For years before the pandemic, emissions appeared to be leveling off — sparking hope that the world was finally reaching the moment when emissions would start to come down. Then in 2020, “Covid came, there was a huge drop in emissions — and I guess we got a little overexcited,” said Glen Peters, a climate scientist at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo.
Here’s why researchers were wrong about emissions peaking — and what it means for the future — in three charts:
This statement is very telling, coming as it does from a climate scientist:
“Fossil fuels are still the cheapest way to provide reliable electricity,” said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science. (While wind and solar can be cheaper than fossil fuels in some cases, their intermittency — and the absence of cheap, big batteries — mean that it’s difficult to build an entire electricity system out of just renewable energy.) “It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” Caldeira said. “Developing countries have to put climate concerns second to their economic concerns.”
If anything, the situation is worse than portrayed, as China’s economy has still been hamstrung by brutal Covid lockdowns during 2022.
Anybody with an ounce of common sense would have known this was going to happen. And that emissions will carry on rising while ever developing nations want to grow their economies, or until something better than fossil fuels comes along.
It shows just how divorced from reality those pushing Net Zero agendas really are.
Are those graphs calculated amounts of CO2 ? They don’t look much like the measurements from Hawaii
Oh, noes! It’s worse than we thought!
This article is yet another reminder that renewable energy sources like wind and solar just can’t provide the large amounts of power needed to run a modern economy, and until high-capacity storage batteries are developed, these alternates will continue to play second fiddle to fossil fuels.
“until high-capacity storage batteries are developed,”
They have been developed & come in several convenient packages …
To be clear sun and wind may be renewable but solar farms and windmills are not. Further they are contributing substantially to rising CO2 emissions through mining, manufacturing, transport, installation, land use changes and whatever feeble efforts are made in decommissioning.
When you add the energy cost to produce backup batteries for wind and solar systems, you exceed the lifetime energy production possible by such systems. It is an elaborate perpetual motion machine, with the initial energy of production being the “hidden spring” common to many fraudulent perpetual motion machines demonstrated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
From the article: Scientists thought carbon [dioxide] emissions had peaked. They’ve never been higher.”
“Never” is a long time.
The facts are, CO2 *has* been higher in the past. Much higher. Try 7,000ppm verses the 420ppm today.
No temperature graph? I suppose the difficulty is which temp graph to use, Al Gore’s, Met office, NOAA?
And human contribution to atmospheric co2 concentration is still in the 3-5% range, correct?
Carbon Dioxide Emissions Hit New Record In 2022
My corn, soybeans, roses, lawn and oak trees are all grateful. Keep up the good work.
Climate whiners need to see the largest emitters chart. EU-27 and USA have been downtrending since the turn of the century — China is responsible for increasing emission — India is increasing, but nothing like China. WU-27 and USA have been downtrending for 20 years.
All good news: rising CO2 emissions, rising living standards, less hunger, more freedom, modest warming, enhanced plant growth, more overall life in the biosphere, underdeveloped countries developing and human society flourishing. Anyone shedding tears over this news is probably not on the side of human society.