Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Is 2°C warming inevitable?

The Washington Post editorial, Oct. 29, 2022:

"At the 2015 Paris climate conference, nations agreed to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius relative to preindustrial levels — and preferably to under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). According to a new report the United Nations released on Thursday, the more ambitious 1.5 degree target is now all but out of reach.

This year’s U.N. Environment Program’s Emissions Gap Report found that there was “no credible pathway” to remain under 1.5 degrees Celsius — and that countries are falling “pitifully short” in making good on their national commitments. Under the current policy framework, global temperatures are projected to rise 2.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. If nations scale up according to their agreed-upon climate pledges, the projected temperature increase will be between 2.4 and 2.6 degrees Celsius — which would threaten billions of people.

This prognosis comes on the heels of another U.N. analysis released Wednesday, which considered countries’ voluntary emissions commitments. It found modest increases in emissions reductions and adaptation goals over the past year, but not enough to put the world on a better trajectory. Though countries agreed to establish more rigorous emissions plans after last year’s climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, just 24 nations have actually done so. The additional Glasgow pledges would reduce emissions by less than 1 percent by 2030.

And their conclusion? "...the U.N. system represents the world’s best hope at averting catastrophe." So basically, we are in trouble.

"His [Robinson's] next novel is likely to be set in the Arctic, where scientists are debating controversial ideas for manipulating the climate in a bid to stop the region's self-fulfilling feedback loop of ice melt and warming waters. The techniques, which could be implemented in polar regions and elsewhere, range from injecting aerosols into the atmosphere to underwater curtains that shield glaciers from warm water, or seeding massive algae blooms that can sink carbon to the seafloor.

Some of these suggestions have alarmed certain groups of scientists who see hubris and the potential for distraction where Robinson sees noble desperation. 'I see immense resistance to geoengineering that is ignorant and reflexive and comes out of a moral calculus of, like, 1990,” he says. The moral hazard associated with continuing to burn fossil fuels because of the existence of an escape clause is 'not relevant', he adds. 'We know we have to decarbonise. We know we’re not. It’s desperate.'"

—Writer Kim Stanley Robinson: ‘If the world fails, business fails’ The cult sci-fi author on Mars, Musk — and how speculative fiction can offer real-life solutions to the climate crisis. Kenza Bryan. November 17, 2023.

"The United Nations reported Wednesday that global warming will rise to between 2.1 and 2.9 degrees Celsius based on the world’s current climate pledges – way beyond the 1.5 degrees nations are trying to stay below."
"World still way off track on goal to keep global warming below dangerous threshold, UN says." By Ella Nilsen and Radina Gigova, CNN, October 26, 2022

Another perspective from Karl Burkart (Oct. 25, 2022):

"...the gnawing sense that solving climate change is just too difficult, and that exceeding the 1.5°C limit in global temperature rise at this point is a foregone conclusion.

Now let’s ask ourselves, who would benefit from this narrative? Why of course, the fossil fuel industry and the institutional investors...

* * *

Back in the mid-2000s, the industry devised a five-phased strategy to delay regulatory action on climate change. ...the final phase is to promote the idea that it’s just too expensive and/or too late to do anything about it.

This final phase has always worried me the most. There’s nothing like a sense of doom and perpetual anxiety to make people check out..."

The ocean is really good at absorbing carbon.

Update: The 1.5-degree climate goal may be ‘deader than a doornail,’ and scientists are bitterly divided over it Laura Paddison, CNN, January 18, 2024

1.5 is possible if you're "clutching at straws," says the Washington Post editorial board (January 18, 2024). But look at reality:

"Last week, the European climate monitor Copernicus reported that the globe’s average temperature hit 14.98 degrees Celsius last year, 1.48 degrees above that of the second half of the 19th century. Two U.S. agencies, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, followed suit, putting warming since then at 1.4 and 1.35 degrees, respectively. The synthesis by the World Meteorological Organization landed on 1.45 degrees above the preindustrial average, with an uncertainty band of plus or minus 0.12 degrees."

So what does that mean? It means we have to "put more tools on the table."

"If the fracturing of our once stable climate doesn’t terrify you, then you don’t fully understand it. The reality is that, as far as we know, and in the natural course of events, our world has never — in its entire history — heated up as rapidly as it is doing now. Nor have greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere ever seen such a precipitous hike.
* * *
The truth is that people can take being scared if they know there is still hope and that they can do something to make things better, or at least stop things getting worse."

Opinion: I’m a climate scientist. Am I obliged to scare you? Opinion by Bill McGuire, CNN, March 7, 2024

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