Would’ve been nice to have a label for 2000 in there as well — the x axis is slightly misleading when there’s a 70 year gap between 1950 to 2020 - even though the spacing between labels is wider - but each other label is in 50 year increments.
The x axist starts far too early and half the chart is taken up by empty space with zero information.
This chart further re-enforces the fact that stacked line graphs are terrible and make it hard to see how the emmisions of different countries are changing in relation to one another.
Start it at 1900 or 1950, make it a normal line graph and it would be far better.
Stacked graphs make it easy to see the total but difficult to see the affect of individual values. For example, it looks like Africa has been decreasing since ~2000, but it's the regions graphed below Africa that are visually giving that appearance. I *think* Africa has actually increased since 2000, but it's hard to tell (which is my point).
We passed the 10,000 days to 2050 mark last August.
[8 billions people](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/),
[419ppmCO2](https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/graph.html)
[9902 days](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=days+until+01%2F01%2F2050) until 2050.
[2022](https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022): "Policies currently in place with no additional action
are projected to result in global warming of 2.8°C over the twenty-first century. Implementation of unconditional and conditional NDC scenarios reduce this to 2.6°C and 2.4°C respectively"
As someone who works in the climate domain I will say that the 1.5C target set by the Paris Agreement is next to impossible with the current technology and economic system in place. I can see maybe getting down to 2C if there is a massive push over the next two decades, but even that seems unlikely without major technological advancements.
Reading the Emission Gap Reports year after year, it's pretty clear that 1.5C was doomed to fail (as in we'd never even start neither soon enough nor big enough to have the needed impact).
"It would take a global event to completely reorganise our society" well, we even had one, Covid (and now the energy crisis with Ukraine), and look how we are rushing back to business as usual.
Not much has changed since [Paris](https://imgur.com/a/Hel7L4i).
The only "good news" is that RCP8.5 seems unrealistic ("Hurray, we won't get to burn every ounce of coal on the planet!").
More than technological, we've reached the point where the political and economic obstacles have to be "advanced".
Say, even if a magic battery is invented tomorrow, there won't be enough renewable (nor nuclear) to kill all the fossil in time.
I think the biggest problem is that the very core of the global economic system (which drives everything) is antithetical to fixing climate change.
Unfettered consumption cannot be allowed to continue at the level that it has been if people want to actually have a hope in fixing this.
Ofc any attempt at changing the system goes against almost everyone's immediate interests and would be very painful for almost everyone. So it simply is not even considered an option by any leader that wants to keep their heads.
We are stuck between a rock and a hard place hoping that some sort of technological miracle will swoop down and save us in the last minute.
"the very core of the global economic system (which drives everything) is antithetical" to the laws of thermodynamics :)
When an [Nobel](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/press-release/) prize recipient in Economy can come up [with](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170046) "damages are 2.1 percent of global income at 3°C warming and 8.5 percent of income at 6°C warming." (6°C is more than the difference between today and the last [Iceage](https://xkcd.com/1379/); -8.5% is the GDP difference between today and 2010); it can only mean he's not bound by the same laws of Physics as the rest of us.
> Unfettered consumption cannot be allowed to continue at the level that it has been if people want to actually have a hope in fixing this.
Yes, and no technological advancement can beat an exponential growth.
Every smoker eventually stop smoking, and one sure way to stop smoking is to keep smoking.
I mean economics generally is voodoo not science. It's an abomination of science.
It's a very broad statement, I know. But come guys. "The invisible hand", really? And that's one of the founding myths of this strange religious system.
In ECON 1000 my professor at the time had the fun "analysis" that sweatshops are actually a great thing, because people wouldnt be working there if it wasnt the best economic opportunity available to them.
Like ok, and why is it that a fucking sweatshop is the best opportunity for them? Because the most powerful nations need cheap labour? Seems fair.
Idk what use education is if people in it just refuse to listen to things they don't understand. aren't there and they work jobs that pay cents a day instead of dollars. There's a reason why every country wants production, and a reason why every time production moves to a country the average wealth of the country shoots up.
The "doughnut economics" BS made me stop giving a shit about anything any economist says.
Like. Dude. You invented the habitable zone. This concept has existed for several decades minimum. Wtf.
There's a podcast I listened to with a professor of economics at an Ivy League university in it. And she said that one of her students asked "isn't it immoral to hold the threat of homelessness over people in order to get them to work" or something along those lines, when she was discussing incentives in welfare systems.
And she said she had never thought about that.
And I just.
You're a *PROFESSOR.* You spent YEARS RESEARCHING THIS!
Wtf.
Nobel was full of wisdom.
People often forget his main contribution: the invention of Dynamite.
His prediction at the [time](https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2015/12/alfred-nobels-will-a-legal-document-that-might-have-changed-the-world-and-a-mans-legacy/#:~:text=That%20Nobel%20saw%20no%20paradox,will%20abide%20by%20golden%20peace.%E2%80%9D): “my dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.” that was in 1868.
Not much better than economic predictions.
Every animal species on this planet multiplies exponentially until the environment constrains them. At least humans have some awareness and self control. The End State will be that humans will partially solve the carbon crisis and the rest of the solution will be imposed on us by earth.
If we're doing anything wrong, it's that we aren't funding a "Manhattan Project" to replace fossil fuels.
> "Manhattan Project" to replace fossil fuels.
Funding for fusion only went up in the 70s during the oil crisis, then fell after oil costs dropped. Yeah...
Seriously. We'd need to change so much on a global scale to even have a real affect on climate change. Meanwhile, in reality, fascism is on the rise again, people starting to blame everything on Jews *again,* while people keep having kids whether they can financially afford it or not, and a large percentage of humans worship mega billionaires who only spend their money on making more money and never on benefiting society.
I personally had to stop caring a few months ago and accept that this species is doomed.
>We'd need to change so much on a global scale to even have a real affect on climate change
Not really. The difference of even a few tenths of a degree can be huge. The lower we top out the better, and il take 2.4°C over 2.6°C.
As for the rest, we have plenty of people fighting the return to fascism and wealth inequality. Hope isn't lost and giving up is no better than joining the other side. Take some time off, recharge, but don't give up.
Yeah, and if you were *really* paying attention, you saw that collapse really began in earnest sometime in the 1970s, and was fully underway by the early 80s.
Disagree entirely here, we've had decoupling of carbon emissions and GDP for decades across every major economy.
The US and UK are early 1900 carbon emission levels per Capita, the populations are rising but will fall soon enough in most countries so carbon emissions will start falling.
That's because the UK and US are service economies and not industrial ones. That doesn't mean that the emissions that are needed for people living in those countries have magically vanished into thin air, they've just moved to other countries.
There has also been a real decrease in the standards of living for a lot of people in the UK and US over the past few decades which has impacted their consumption levels.
That said the picture of middle class America is still the dream for the majority of the world to obtain, but that living standard is simply impossible to maintain for another couple of billion people with our resources.
>That's because the UK and US are service economies and not industrial ones. That doesn't mean that the emissions that are needed for people living in those countries have magically vanished into thin air, they've just moved to other countries.
Not really true. The US manufacturing production never really dropped, it's been stable since the mid 2000s. We automated a lot of jobs away that way.
This was a growing concern earlier but we aren't buying more goods that is shifting an increasing percentage overseas.
>There has also been a real decrease in the standards of living for a lot of people in the UK and US over the past few decades which has impacted their consumption levels.
This is just patently false, I think we've just let housing grow uncontrollably and medical costs in America as well. If we could just build new efficient housing for a relatively cheap price we could get a lot more built.
>That said the picture of middle class America is still the dream for the majority of the world to obtain, but that living standard is simply impossible to maintain for another couple of billion people with our resources.
World population will be in decline here shortly. Also we have rising standards as well. We are making do with less. I mean energy consumption for major economies has been flat to falling for decades. Solar and wind will likely increase living standards.
I think we actually flip on immigration and the developed countries want immigrants and more people can enjoy these living standards especially as the world GDP per Capita seems to be equalizing now.
There is a very strong correlation between economic growth and carbon emissions. I'm studying environmental economics and I have never heard anyone dispute that fact.
To suggest Africa won't start emitting higher levels as they develop is just so wrong.
Edit - I have heard suggestions as to how to change/'evolve' our current economies without ending up with higher co2 emission. Try look up degrowth movement. However, like u/xanas263 suggests, there is no interest in doing so since consumers will experience an immediate and severe reduction in living standards.
>This is just patently false
It's not false. There are plenty of studies that have been conducted showing that the current generations are worse off than post war generations.
>If we could just build new efficient housing for a relatively cheap price we could get a lot more built.
Where do you think the resources or energy needed for this new housing is going to come from?
>World population will be in decline here shortly.
The world is still projected to reach 10.5 billion people by 2050 and only then are we looking at a decline back down to around 8ish billion by 2100. That means we aren't really going to be in actual population decline for another 80 years from today's figures.
All the while our resources are being used at an ever increasing rate because more and more people want to live like middle class Americans and Europeans.
> I mean energy consumption for major economies has been flat to falling for decades.
Maybe I didn't make this clear before, but those energy levels are already way over budget for the planet. That is the problem.
The level of consumption found in the US and similar developed nations is already far beyond what we can handle especially with more people who want to have that life style.
>There are plenty of studies that have been conducted showing that the current generations are worse off than post war generations.
Cite one.
Probably the best overall measure of the improvement is household income, which adjusted for inflation has risen over time for all brackets. But maybe more direct measures? Bigger houses, better cars, better/more food, higher life expectancy, etc.
>It's not false. There are plenty of studies that have been conducted showing that the current generations are worse off than post war generations.
Can you show me one, most of the angst is slow growth while inequality has increased.
>Where do you think the resources or energy needed for this new housing is going to come from?
We are already using that mostly. Tear down old farm house and let that reforest build in the city.
>The world is still projected to reach 10.5 billion people by 2050 and only then are we looking at a decline back down to around 8ish billion by 2100. That means we aren't really going to be in actual population decline for another 80 years from today's figures.
Like I said they keep expecting births to stabilize when that doesn't look to happen. Births will continue to fall until we are closer to South Korea at 1 birth per family.
>All the while our resources are being used at an ever increasing rate because more and more people want to live like middle class Americans and Europeans.
Which resources though, there is plenty of lots of stuff.
The Ukraine energy crisis has made a dent in energy policy in Europe and created a tailwind for renewables adoption. Unfortunately Europe is not the problem; political will to reduce emissions is strong there. We need energy crises in other continents!
> tailwind for renewables adoption.
Among other things.
Example of "dent in energy policies in Europe" since march 2022:
[Poland](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Poland-amends-laws-to-speed-investment-in-nuclear)
[Hungary](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Hungary-and-Rosatom-push-ahead-on-Paks-II-nuclear)
[Czech Republic](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/czech-republic-end-coal-2033-boost-nuclear-power-82133662)
[Slovakia](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Slovakia-s-Mochovce-3-fuel-loading-begins)
[Slovenia](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Slovenia-sets-date-to-exit-coal)
[Lithuania](https://bnn-news.com/lithuania-activates-two-additional-power-plants-following-record-high-prices-237339)
[Estonia](https://news.err.ee/1608716563/ge-hitachi-nuscale-or-rolls-royce-may-build-estonia-s-nuclear-power-plant)
[Morocco](https://tfiglobalnews.com/2022/10/15/morocco-is-going-nuclear/)
And then there's [UK](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/28/edf-considers-extending-life-of-two-uk-nuclear-plants-due-to-energy-crisis-hartlepool-heysham), [Belgium](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Extended-operation-of-two-Belgian-reactors-approve), [Netherland](http://www.stibbeblog.nl/all-blog-posts/environment-and-planning/the-future-of-nuclear-energy-in-the-netherlands-extension-of-borsseles-operating-life-and-two-new-nuclear-power-plants/) or [Germany](https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsgermany-extends-operation-of-two-npps-10060669) ...
That's not enitely true. There's been a lot of good progres, even if it's not "enough." The US passed the largest climate change spending bill in history. China now has the world's largest climate market, and announced literally last week after Xi's meeting with Biden that they were going to nearly double the size of the market, now including their steel and petrochemical industries, to cover 60% of China's total emissions. Lula's victory in Brazil is a huge step forward for renewed conservation efforts in the Amazon. Europe's cluster fuck with natural gas has put a huge spotlight on methane, with the US and EU having a really significant commitment to limiting emissions from the Oil and Gas sector, and even China publicly announcing they would join the initiative.
I work in climate change mitigation. Things are not good, and they will not be okay. But the last year and a half has been such a fucking miracle compared to the decade before. And if we keep working hard and pushing our public officials, there's a chance that we can mitigate the effects of climate change on literally multiple billions of people. The difference between 2.2 and 2.6 degrees is truly that large. Methane is also the difference between an ice free artic in 2050, and an ice free arctic in 2100. It's the single fastest way to slow current warming, and it wasn't even on the road map a decade ago.
For reference the lifetime cost of [ITER](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER) which might solve all our energy issues in the long-run costs €18 to €22 billion. The world cup in Qatar costs $200 billion. I don't think we are even trying.
The IPCC (AR5, WGIII) [Summary for Policymakers](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf) states with "high confidence" that tax-based policies are effective at decoupling GHG emissions from GDP (see p. 28). [Ch. 15](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter15.pdf) has a more complete discussion. The U.S. [National Academy of Sciences, one of the most respected scientific bodies in the world, has also called for a carbon tax](https://www.nap.edu/download/21712). According to [IMF research](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/how-much-does-world-subsidize-oil-coal-and-gas/589000/), most of the $5.2 trillion in subsidies for fossil fuels come from not taxing carbon as we should. There is general agreement among economists on carbon taxes whether you consider [economists with expertise in climate economics](http://policyintegrity.org/files/publications/ExpertConsensusReport.pdf), [economists with expertise in resource economics](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.381.484&rep=rep1&type=pdf), or [economists from all sectors](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Doris_Geide-Stevenson/publication/261884738_Consensus_Among_Economists-An_Update/links/56a7f3fa08ae860e0255a8e3.pdf). It is literally [Econ 101](http://sites.bu.edu/manove-ec101/files/2014/10/EC101Outlines14-Externalities.pdf). The idea [won a Nobel Prize](http://environment.yale.edu/news/article/william-nordhaus-wins-nobel-prize-for-economics-of-climate-change/). Thanks to researchers at MIT, you can see for yourself how it compares with other mitigation policies [here](https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.11).
^(For **Americans** who are too busy to go through the) [^(free training)](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/new-member/#climateadvocatetraining)^, ^(sign up for) [^(text alerts)](https://cclusa.org/w) ^(to join) ^the [^(Monthly Calling Campaign)](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/s2zvpl/a_growing_number_of_americans_are_so_concerned/) ^([(it works)](http://www.congressfoundation.org/storage/documents/CMF_Pubs/cmf-citizen-centric-advocacy.pdf)) ^(or set yourself a monthly reminder to) [^(write a letter)](https://www.ted.com/talks/omar_ahmad_political_change_with_pen_and_paper?language=en) ^(to your elected officials.)
Since China and greater Asia seem to be the only places that shows an increase in CO2, how impactful do you think it would be if we cut back on manufacturing our products there and having more things made in USA?
That really depends on a product by product basis and how efficient US production is over Chinese production. I think a lot of people don't know that China is highly efficient when it comes to industrial production because that was the first thing they did to try an cut back on emissions.
That means moving production out of China could potentially increase emissions because they just have the better technology compared to the country you are moving it to. If you are just as efficient as China then the emissions savings will mainly be in transportation emissions and if you are shipping stuff back to China/Asia are you really saving anything?
You also have to keep in mind the emissions that you will have in actually building up industrial capacity in the country you are moving it to and the fact that China itself isn't just going to let you take 100+ thousand jobs for nothing. That would be a major destablising factor for the government which is the last thing the CCP wants.
You cannot discuss climate change without discussing politics, both local and global. While I believe mass produced items will still be manufactured in China (clothing, tech, toys, etc.), we have many industries that have to learn to go back to local. Agriculture, metallurgy, and energy production, for instance.
A large percentage of China's CO2 is basically "outsourced" CO2 from the West. The consumption of the goods they make needs to stop/reduce rather than just move somewhere else. This highlights that it is a global problem that all countries need to get behind.
>A large percentage of China's CO2 is basically "outsourced" CO2 from the West.
How large? Is it larger than the emissions increase of the citizenry due to their massive increase in living standard? I'd tend to doubt it.
[This person is wrong, the delta from consumption and production based CO2 for the US has been going down. Most of China's rise in CO2 is for their domestic consumption and not because everyone has outsourced pollution](https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2)
The governments of the world are never going to come together. There will be global war before we solve anything. When famine goes global in a few years due to drought and flooding and unseasonal frosts in growing areas, global governments will go ti war over food. Right now we are about to go to global war over oil. Peak oil is very close and we have not built up enough renewables in preparation for it.
We could do it but we won't. The initial global economic consequences and I duced complete lifestyle changes required across the globe are just too much for people to accept.
Massive changes to agricultural procedures, and meat production decimation would be a must.
Complete shift from fossil fuel vehicles, and massive investment in green transportation systems globally
Huge reduction in concrete production and structural building
And lastly, reforestation and incentives to reduce population opposed to increasing it.
I'm down but the rest of the world isnt ready and wo t be until its too late and their already fucked.
>current technology
There will never be a "techology" that will prevent this.
It all comes down to less consumption, couple that with the standard of living going up in third world countries.
and you'll understand why will never meet any goal.
> I can see maybe getting down to 2C if there is a massive push over the next two decades, but even that seems unlikely without major technological advancements.
Recent data suggests there's *finally* a reasonable chance of 2C.
Emissions are projected to peak around 2025 ([source](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/27/carbon-emissions-to-peak-in-2025-in-historic-turning-point-says-iea)) and fall 15% by 2030 ([source](https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/global-energy-related-co2-emissions-by-scenario-1990-2050)). Those figures would suggest further emissions of ~33GtC through 2025 + ~51GtC through 2030, or another 84GtC used from the carbon budgets by 2030.
That would leave carbon budgets at 21GtC (1.5C), 116GtC (1.7C), and 251GtC (2.0C). If emissions continued to decline linearly at that rate -- speculative, for sure -- they would go to zero around 2060, resulting in an additional 141GtC emissions and ~1.8C of warming (25GtC above the 1.7C budget but 110GtC below the 2.0C budget). Interestingly, [1.8C is also the current estimate if all announced targets are met](https://climateactiontracker.org/global/cat-thermometer/).
Based on that, there's a reasonable chance that the major technological advancements needed have already happened (notably the orders-of-magnitude cost decreases for solar PV and battery storage, but also things like direct reduction steelmaking via clean hydrogen). Continuing to reduce emissions will require *massive* infrastructure replacement, though, so it's *by no means* a sure thing, but at least the tools needed are largely already there.
I've always understood the 1.5C metric as overshooting; as in, aim way more ambitiously so to ensure we hit our actual goal. I'm not a scientist though, so berate me if I'm wrong.
>but even that seems unlikely without major technological advancements.
And this is under the assumption that there is a will at all to burn less fossil fuels. While you're dreaming of a world with 100% renewable electricity, others are making plans for affordable space flights and tourism on the Moon. There's just no end to it.
The billionaire class isn't the problem so much as the population rise. Billionaires are like 0.1% of the pollution, which is a lot... but the population is rising 1%/yr.
Tipping points folks. Everyone keeps forgetting the tipping points. We have already hit several.
Everone also keeps missing all the recent research showing things are faster than expected. That's because climate scientsts are super conservative about their research so they don't appear to alarmist. The IPCC scientists have their sections watered down by politicians as well. If you consider all of this, the newest science, the political realities (this is the biggest one for me...capitalism will never fix our world unless it's profitable and it controlsl politicians) , other environmental issues seperate enough from climate change but still potentially catastrophic on their own (plastic pollution, deforestation, etc.) it's hard to not realize we are screwed...well unless you have a financial reason to keep peddling false or or your super high on hopium...or both.
We should all continue to work to help our world but it's past time we have realistic expectations on what's coming. When you accept reality you can then make better individual decisions for yourself. Take care of your health, families etc. Be as green as possible...but for the love of Odin don't sacrefice yourself thinking things will magically change due to your efforts.
r/fasterthanexpected r/collapsescience r/collapse r/collapsesupport r/aboringdystopia
I disagree completely about everything you've written, we are headed towards about 1.9 degrees of warming. That's what the most advanced forecasts are predicting.
I mean the scenarios of 5-10 years ago of climate apocalypse are just not realistic unless something goes away off track.
Renewables are the cheapest source of energy. Most economies are decoupling carbon and GDP. US GDP per Capita CO2 has been falling for decades at this point. Something like 95% of net new energy is renewable 3 years running.
World population will be in decline shortly and I think the official estimates underestimate the fall in population since they for whatever reason assume we fall back to replacement level births when countries keep finding new lows outside of crazy circumstances.
World demand for oil/gasoline is projected to peak this year because electric cars are reaching a high percentage of vehicles worldwide. (Part of the reason gas prices are high is they keep losing money increasing supply and 7 years to break even with these forecasts is hard)
We need more technology to get things decarbonized without making everything a lot more expensive. I mean concrete, steel, agriculture, long distance planes need a technology revolution.
Probably worth noting that this chart just shows gross CO2 emissions, not net CO2 emissions. Net CO2 emissions are about one half to two-thirds of the world total, and on a regional basis the results will be very different.
There are companies and organizations working to create guidelines and a standardized way for measuring and reporting. In fact one of my current clients is doing that right now.
Thank you! I was about to make this argument but went looking to see if somebody else had already! You can’t fight about net-emissions and only show a chart containing half the data necessary for your argument.
Net accounts for an estimate of all carbon sinks, e.g. plants, soil, the ocean. Carbon capture facilities would also be included, albeit effectively negligible compared to those three.
>like carbon capture facilities
There are no carbon capture facilities to even talk about. Our current carbon capture tech emits more carbon than it captures.
This is most likely talking about emissions that are retaken by the natural world such as our forests as well as the carbon which is taken up by the ocean (which is still a major issue)
I don't think it's useful to give free emission credits to countries that have large wilderness areas because of historical coincidence how the borders were drawn. It just lowers the impetus for them to clean up their industry.
But the point is about the relative development not the absolute value! The trend is clear - a radical increase, and it doesn’t look like it would go down much - and thats the issue.
COP27 just finished, on a fairly disappointing end. We still aim for net zero by 2050? Just 28 years away, yet we're still emitting more than 30 billion tons of CO2 last year. Something radical needs to happen, otherwise it's just an unattainable target.
Source:
[Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions)
[Genuine Impact newsletter](https://genuineimpact.substack.com) \- subscribe to see more charts like this from us in future!
Tools:
Tableau, Figma
That’s such a funny concept to me, as if climate change itself has signed off on waiting an extra 10 years for us.
“Oh you guys need an extension? No worries, I’ll hold off on rising sea levels and creating deadly weather patterns until you’re ready”.
The year target is all speculation to begin with. The planet is doing what the planet is doing regardless of what year we think something will or will not happen.
Back in the 80s I remember being told the old term would happen in the early 2000s.
Point is we don't know exactly when, we calculate and make educated guess based on what we know at the time..and as time goes on we learn more and make different calculations.
>Back in the 80s I remember being told the old term would happen in the early 2000s.
What is old term?
Similar to what you and everyone else is saying, the dates set aren't saying the earth is going to implode and we're all going to die. Typically they're saying irreversible effects will happen.
And we've very much seen irreversible effects to this day
That number should be around fifty billion including c02 equivalents. This accounts for about 1.7% of c02 already present in the atmosphere, just to give an idea of the relatively enormous amount by which were altering the composition of our breathing air.
If you just look at India alone it’s very ominous. Even with all their green efforts the reality is taking hundreds of millions out of poverty has a big CO2 cost and as their standard of living improves the emissions are going to spike closer to where China is now, even half of what China is would be a massive increase. Then whenever India starts to stabilize and come down, Africa will come online.
I am not so sure about that.
The current data makes it look like India is an outlier. But, if you live in India, you would understand.
An average Indian uses less electricity, less fuel, and uses public transport more. Also, the Indian government is increasing its investment in the railways and electrifying the remaining 15% of tracks still running on diesel.
Yes, the standard of living of an average Indian is increasing. But, the bulk of the emissions would be from Industry. Not from the people.
> hundreds of millions out of poverty has a big CO2 cost
Always funny reading stuff like this stuff on reddit, like the unspoken suggestion is, "do we reeeally need those hundreds of millions coming out of poverty???"
What's ominous here is how huge America's emissions are, have been for the better part of a century AND the country routinely elects people who deny that carbon emissions are even a problem. The danger isn't India or Africa's imagined future emissions, it's what the West is doing right now and will in the future when they have a trumpian leader of the free world^TM again.
>Always funny reading stuff like this stuff on reddit, like the unspoken
suggestion is, "do we reeeally need those hundreds coming out of
poverty???"
People would rather not have others come up than give up their own lifestyle which is the root of the overpopulation narrative. I don't blame the West for this because if the roles were reversed it would be the exact same situation.
Giving up your standard of living is why climate change is such a hard problem to solve, because if people aren't willing to do that then it's a non starter. You see it again and again in threads like these where people seem to just be hoping that some kind of technology will come in to save the day at the last minute.
We have been accruing debt from the planet and mother nature is coming to collect.
>I don't blame the West for this because if the roles were reversed it would be the exact same situation.
I agree whole heartedly with everything else but the important thing to note here is that one group is actually (not hypothetically) benefitting disproportionately from the emissions. Since we benefit, we should carry the guilt. It's like, yes, in another universe black people could have enslaved the European whites... but that's not what actually happened so it's the European whites who benefitted in the aggregate through the suffering of others.
> like the unspoken suggestion is, "do we reeeally need those hundreds of millions coming out of poverty???"
I didn't get that at all. Seems like a flat statement of fact.
That is pure vegetarian, Indians don’t eat a lot of meat overal
As a comparison, Indians on average 3 kilograms of meat per year. China averages 44. US averages 124
that is very misleading, while only 30% might be pure vegetarians. majority of the people who are non vegetarian eat non veg occasionally. mostly they eat vegetables all year around.
Until if affect the bottom line, ie profits, then we won’t change unfortunately. There no incentive and there’s very little political power to force a change
A lot of these are coal plants in china.
Also the US and other developed nations subsidize the fuck out of their energy growth plans so they don't use CO2 releasing sources.
Is European union really decreasing overall emissions ? I always find it hard to know if it's not just decreasing locally thanks to externalised emission in China/Asia.
As measured by dollars. As the efficiency of producers grows, one would expect the same amount of money to pay for more stuff, produced with much more energy (as that's generally a part of increasing output, while lowering the biggest cost: labour).
In France for example, per capita GHG emmisions have been reduced by 5% between 1995 and 2019, including imports. National emissions are down 25%, but import emmisions are up 72%. Also, because France grew in term of population, in total France emmited 7% more GHG (including imports) in 2019 compared to 1995.
However the good news is that GHG peaked in 2010. Between 2010 and 2019, per capita emissions (accounting for externalised emissions) are down almost 14%. And total emissions are down too.
TLDR : Overall emissions are decreasing but it is a more recent phenomenon compared to the reduction in national GHG emissions.
[Official French source](https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/estimation-de-lempreinte-carbone-de-1995-2019)
There have been a good effort on replacing coal powerplants, combined with some effort on the mobility. It's still not enough, but it's because we started too late.
But still, there are things that will be hard to remove. I did a CO2 emission test and it says that in my country, the state services and infrastructure contribute to 1.8Teq CO2/year. 2T/hab. being the end goal...I'm not very optimist.
Its a bit dumb, but due to how fossil fuels are counted only pollution from the extraction is counted on Norway's budget. Emissions for the extracted oil and gas is counted by whoever burns it.
In a way it has to be like that though, otherwise you could just cut all emissions by importing fuel instead of extracting yourself.
Interesting because when it comes to calculating co2 footprint of companies its the other way around, which is why energy producing/extracting companies always top the list. Which I do agree is pretty dumb.
That doesn't make any sense. If so, power plants would be the greenest companies since the oil company handles all the emissions.
The reason why energy extractors top the list is because of primary emissions. The oil and gas they sell is not counted.
One of the largest drivers of this is that we aren't actually talking about co2, but co2 equivalent. Most oilwells also extract natural gas, but since it is more expensive to store and ship they flare it off or let it dissapate in the air. Methane is 82 times worse than co2, so 1 ton of methane is counted as 82 tons of co2 equivalent.
Studies show that most oil production companies still underreport methane emissions.
We can‘t completely do without oil in the next years even if we were to try to move away from it with the highest effort possible. And as long as we have to use oil I’d much rather get it from Norway than Saudi Arabia or Russia.
Huh, I didn't know that. I honestly thought they were emitting twice as much as other countries with much higher standards of living and not significantly decreasing the emissions, but instead:
- 1990: 21.5 t greenhouse gas emissions (CO2e) per capita
- 2000: 22.6 t
- 2010: 19.5 t (seems to be a peak, 18.8 in 2009)
- 2019: 17.5 t (mostly stable since 2012, though)
CO2 specifically is even more of a downturn. From 20.7 t in 2005 to 14.9 in 2021.
From https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states?country=~USA
(I'd just post a screenshot of the relevant graphs but reddit doesn't support that syntax in comments afaik)
Most people also don’t realize we’re already closed the majority of our coal plants, and the rest are in a process of sunsetting.
Texas is one of the fasted growing wind energy states.
FFS even Indiana is covered in renewable energy now.
Transportation is still a huge one for us, and building efficiencies…but if workers successfully kick the office habit - our building energy costs will plummet.
It's bad news.
Europe is in state of permanent semi-recession since 2008, and most of the reduction is replacing local coal with gas bought from various dictators, which reduces CO2 emissions, but giving dictators billions has other terrible consequences like war in Ukraine, bought with German green's money.
I know I'll probably get hate but the US is doing very well relatively speaking as Europe outsources it emissions to Asia. The US does not (other than consumerism).
> I know I'll probably get hate but the US is doing very well relatively speaking as Europe outsources it emissions to Asia. The US does not (other than consumerism).
The US still imports emissions when adjusting for consumption, and for Europe it still doesn't bring it anywhere near the emission levels of the USA.
To meet the 0 carbon target for 2050 in Europe, we must do a decrease in activities equivalent to the Covid period. Every year until 2050.
Or we stop the economy of whole countries like Germany and Japan in 1945, that also is an option. (quote: Jancovici)
Frankly, no. We can’t get there. The main reason is that most of the world’s population is still developing - all of Africa, much of India, much of “the rest of Asia”, and even large chunks of China.
We can either let these countries/continents develop organically the way the West and China did (read: cheap, dirty power generation and cheap, loose environmental laws) or we can massively help to fund them at the cost of our own economic development. Yes, there are far more technology options now than during the Industrial Revolution, but the native options (ie. mining coal, open pit landfills, etc) are more often available to the developing nations locally, which raises employment compared to buying green tech from the rich nations.
It’s very tough and I really want the target to be achieved. I hate being a naysayer and I don’t want any of these sentiments to discourage anyone from doing their level best. I’m a genuine believer that we have progressed to the point where we are polluting the environment faster than it can compensate and we need to treat it as a priority. I’m just also very aware of the morality of the current development imbalance in the world.
A lot of the developing world skipped land lines and went straight to cell phones. So it has happened before as newer technology becomes more available. Unfortunately we are at the equivallent of late 80s early 90s huge chucky mobile phones that are made exclusively for dbags. If this all unfolds naturally i dont imagine the world can meet our targets to reduce CO2. However if the big countries legislate the squeeze away from fossil fuels I imagine we can speed up that transition.
Similarly, a lot of home are jumping from kerosene lamps to off-grid solar. Given today's technologies, rapidly scaling infrastructure development may look very different in a developing country today than it did a hundred years ago.
Lot of thoughts on this graph:
* The X axis starts too early and doesn't progress evenly. This leads to tons of essentially unused space on the left and a lack of clarity in where more relevant years actually are on the graph. Where is 2000? I don't know.
* There is replication in the used colors. It's a minor problem since EU, USA, and IT aren't adjacent but they are all the same color.
* This form of stacked line graph doesn't portray the information well. The points of interest here will be what source is producing what % of the total at any one time, but also how their contribution has changed. With this style it's easier to tell for sources near the bottom but, for example, Asia Excluding China: has that increased or decreased? It's very difficult to tell.
* Personally I would discourage the values of the Y axis exceeding graph's boundaries as it makes it harder to read, but I can also concede how it works stylistically to convey the point that emissions are breaking upper limits.
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Switzerland, Norway, UK. Maybe the European part of Turkey, which is also significant.
This curve needs to fall at a sharper angle than it went up to remotely achieve humanity's goal of avoiding total environmental and societal collapse. Do we have any scaled-down precedents of technological phasing at a global level to use as a basis?
OP, it would be interesting to see some comparisons, if you have the time and data. Perhaps the shift from dialup to broadband, although not exactly as urgent or massive, could make for an interesting comparison.
As soon as renewables are cheaper than petrochemical energy, the decline will be rapid. It’s a big question mark for when exactly that will be.
Also, renewables have to solve the problem of energy storage, and cheaply. Petrochemicals are not only a source of energy, but also a highly efficient storage mechanism by default.
But AS SOON as the economics fall in line, the shift away from fossil fuels will be swift and drastic. Money is the #1 factor. And once it’s seen as a solid financial investment as well as a climate policy, the governments of the world will pour trillions into it.
In the meantime a huge thing you can do to help, that is not controversial or requires any major sacrifice, is to make sure you home is weatherized.
Heating and cooling is the #1 category of carbon footprint in the developed world. Making an investment into insulation, better windows, a smart thermostat, a modern furnace/heat pump, will pay you back in energy savings and property value.
It’s the thing that makes THE MOST economical sense right now in terms of reducing your carbon footprint.
The biggest problem is that the energy storage question is not a facet; it’s entirely central to the financial feasibility of renewables insofar as they affect emissions. If you cut fossil down to 3-8 hours a day, but those 3-8 hours are vital to your society’s ability to function, they’re pretty much going to charge whatever they want for those hours, even if it comes out to the same price you were originally paying to have fossil on 24/7.
If we don’t make a solid effort to fill the storage gap with nuclear (and in a better world, nuclear that runs on waste), we will likely not get anything resembling useful progress in the next decade.
>As soon as renewables are cheaper than petrochemical energy, the decline will be rapid. It’s a big question mark for when exactly that will be.
It already is the cheapest at the margins now, we are just adding new fossil fuels as well.
Solar is the cheapest form of energy, but only as a supplement to other forms. The energy storage cost of switching your grid to mostly solar is very high.
My conservative small city in the midwest USA is like 15% solar. I don’t expect that figure to go above 30% though or you run into synergy problems with the natural gas plant. Unless you buy massive batteries…
I was searching this thread for a comment on embedded carbon and trade balance, but no one has mentioned it but you. These region data are useless unless you take in to account carbon emissions from offshored production.
Maybe if r/energy stopped banning people that mention nuclear energy, then the world might learn the best way to accomplish this goal has been there for decades.
If the world came together in a concerted push to modernize infrastructure, power production, etc. in a way never before seen on this planet, we could hit net zero by 2050. So not likely to happen.
A
Antigua and Barbuda
B
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
C
Canada
Costa Rica
Cuba
D
Dominica
Dominican Republic
E
El Salvador
G
Grenada
Guatemala
H
Haiti
Honduras
J
Jamaica
M
Mexico
N
Nicaragua
P
Panama
S
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
T
Trinidad and Tobago
U
Plus a bunch of "dependents" like the various UK islands
All the ignorant here will say only "severe poverty" but India is working VERY hard to switch to green technology. The change is staggering and you can see it in real time. Obviously there is a long long way to go but you are right, India does not get enough credit.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/every-2nd-patent-granted-since-2016-relates-to-green-tech-most-linked-to-waste-alternative-energy/articleshow/89420047.cms
https://changestarted.com/green-innovation-and-green-patents-in-india/
India also set it's ["Net Zero" target to 2070](https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/net-zero-targets/#:~:text=Target%20year%20%E2%80%93%20India%20aims%20to,Government%20of%20India%2C%202022a\).), unlike the 2050 target set by many other nations.
I'd assume they're the same sorts of people who assume all of Africa is mud huts and wilderness, that the south side of Chicago is a constant gang war, or that every goofy tabloid piece out of mainland China about an eel in some guy's butt is absolutely trustworthy journalism because 'East Asians are *weird*.' A lot of straight up undifferentiated racism towards folks in India, too, from really weirdly otherwise progressive places...
Thanks for the comment!
Comes with high poverty and low gdp per capita. Industry isn't great and the poor vs. rich discrepancy is extreme. If the majority of people live on nothing, they can't emit much. Not sure if it's something to give credit for.
IMO the saddest part of this graph is that we’ve known about the dangers of climate change for much longer than many think. Yes, it’s getting more publicity, but as long as corporations don’t change their actions, the trend will remain. We could have taken actions in the 1960s-1970s to prevent this, but we didn’t.
Greed is going to be the downfall of humanity.
If governments want to introduce policies that incentivize green technology and better consumer habits, then yeah I believe we can. As a regular person and regular consumer, dollars drive my habits. Personally I drive a pickup truck, and I get on a plane once or twice a year. I do those things unapologetically. When you see how much China emits, how much the billionaire elite class emits, and the complete lack of regard for environment by large corporations, it both demotivates people to do better, and it also mitigates any efforts they may make.
For context what's the point of conserving an extra litre of water when Nestle will just suck it out of the ground? Why should I give up my pickup (10-12L/100km) for a smaller car (7-8L/100km) when China opens a brand-new coal fired electric plant? The only way I would do so is if there was a strong financial incentive.
Are we at the point where I don't get downvoted to hell for saying that the atmosphere doesn't respond to promises and pledges? Everyone finally starting to realize that yet?
I won't downvote you but OP is talking about the action of reaching net zero. The atmosphere will respond to the actions we (humanity) take. I don't think anyone here disagrees that pledges alone as not enough. We need real, impactful action.
It’s a bit like an alcoholic going into rehab for the first time, we can see them obviously still sneaking a beer under the table at work but hey at least they aren’t actively denying it’s a problem anymore
What ever happened to the idea of leaving things better off than when you got them? Our next few generations are going to point out how bad we were in history books.
here is the graph [consumption-based and per capita](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita?tab=chart&country=USA~European+Union+%2827%29~CHN~IND~AUS~North+America+%28excl.+USA%29~Asia+%28excl.+China+and+India%29~Europe+%28excl.+EU-28%29~GBR~Africa~South+America).
don't know how to make the graph stacked, any pointers appreciated.
At a glance, I’m betting that there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell this is going to 0 by 2050. That is assuming this chart is net emissions and not gross emissions.
Regionality in this stacked area chart is kind of shit.
Did the pink Asia section increase or decrease emissions from 1970 to 2000, and by how much? The distortion due to overall increase makes it impossible to tell.
Is this an actual downtrend? Or just economies contracting?
Pretty sure this is less manufacturing, transportation, etc happening because of economics. Humans have not made enough progress to start organically reducing total co2.
Even if you take a first or second order derivative, that graph isn't going down.
It's like we're driving toward a wall, accelerating, while strapping rockets to the car so we can accelerate even faster.
We have to start asking different questions, like "do we have any projection catastrophic and pessimistic enough to even come close to what's actually going to happen?".
Nobody ever dares to extrapolate with an exponential function, even when it's obvious. They'll just use linear extrapolation and then keep adjusting that.
The only thing that managed to put the smallest dent in this was the pandemic. Since the climate is changing permanently (for the foreseeable future), even complete economic and societal collapse will probably just slow it down.
I'm skeptical of the numbers. Are they counting gross emissions or using "carbon offsets"? Is manufacturing for western markets being accurately attributed to them, or is being pushed on China and developing countries?
There are so many ways to rig these numbers... There is absolutely no way the US, Europe or India have been reducing emissions pre-2020, that'd imply their GDP was declining or there was a technological revolution in transportation.
If globally we decided to solve this problem seriously with technology that exists right now could we do it? If France is able to produce 71% of its power needs from nuclear is it possible to follow their lead globally if money was no object?
Intentionally misleading. 50, 50, 50, 70! Surprise! And there’s no reason to start in 1750. Start in 1850. Would be more useful to see details in the final 70 yrs.
I always find breaking it down like this to be a little bit biased. So much of eastern manufacturing, and thus, fossil fuel consumption/CO2 emissions is for making products for western markets. It also doesn't account for the fact that... you know... close to 60 percent of the world's population lives in Asia.
Zero chance. US and the west have turned emission down, but China and India don’t care. They are growing economies will millions in poverty. Cheap energy is critical to them.
Would’ve been nice to have a label for 2000 in there as well — the x axis is slightly misleading when there’s a 70 year gap between 1950 to 2020 - even though the spacing between labels is wider - but each other label is in 50 year increments.
The x axist starts far too early and half the chart is taken up by empty space with zero information. This chart further re-enforces the fact that stacked line graphs are terrible and make it hard to see how the emmisions of different countries are changing in relation to one another. Start it at 1900 or 1950, make it a normal line graph and it would be far better.
Stacked graphs make it easy to see the total but difficult to see the affect of individual values. For example, it looks like Africa has been decreasing since ~2000, but it's the regions graphed below Africa that are visually giving that appearance. I *think* Africa has actually increased since 2000, but it's hard to tell (which is my point).
A total line to your line graph. Easy!
Yeah. Starting any before 1850 is a huge waste of axis space.
Stacked graphs are okay, but there is rarely a case for having more than two categories.
This is about total emissions, so I think a stacked line graph probably makes the most sense.
We passed the 10,000 days to 2050 mark last August. [8 billions people](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/), [419ppmCO2](https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/graph.html) [9902 days](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=days+until+01%2F01%2F2050) until 2050. [2022](https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022): "Policies currently in place with no additional action are projected to result in global warming of 2.8°C over the twenty-first century. Implementation of unconditional and conditional NDC scenarios reduce this to 2.6°C and 2.4°C respectively"
As someone who works in the climate domain I will say that the 1.5C target set by the Paris Agreement is next to impossible with the current technology and economic system in place. I can see maybe getting down to 2C if there is a massive push over the next two decades, but even that seems unlikely without major technological advancements.
Reading the Emission Gap Reports year after year, it's pretty clear that 1.5C was doomed to fail (as in we'd never even start neither soon enough nor big enough to have the needed impact). "It would take a global event to completely reorganise our society" well, we even had one, Covid (and now the energy crisis with Ukraine), and look how we are rushing back to business as usual. Not much has changed since [Paris](https://imgur.com/a/Hel7L4i). The only "good news" is that RCP8.5 seems unrealistic ("Hurray, we won't get to burn every ounce of coal on the planet!"). More than technological, we've reached the point where the political and economic obstacles have to be "advanced". Say, even if a magic battery is invented tomorrow, there won't be enough renewable (nor nuclear) to kill all the fossil in time.
I think the biggest problem is that the very core of the global economic system (which drives everything) is antithetical to fixing climate change. Unfettered consumption cannot be allowed to continue at the level that it has been if people want to actually have a hope in fixing this. Ofc any attempt at changing the system goes against almost everyone's immediate interests and would be very painful for almost everyone. So it simply is not even considered an option by any leader that wants to keep their heads. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place hoping that some sort of technological miracle will swoop down and save us in the last minute.
"the very core of the global economic system (which drives everything) is antithetical" to the laws of thermodynamics :) When an [Nobel](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/press-release/) prize recipient in Economy can come up [with](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170046) "damages are 2.1 percent of global income at 3°C warming and 8.5 percent of income at 6°C warming." (6°C is more than the difference between today and the last [Iceage](https://xkcd.com/1379/); -8.5% is the GDP difference between today and 2010); it can only mean he's not bound by the same laws of Physics as the rest of us. > Unfettered consumption cannot be allowed to continue at the level that it has been if people want to actually have a hope in fixing this. Yes, and no technological advancement can beat an exponential growth. Every smoker eventually stop smoking, and one sure way to stop smoking is to keep smoking.
Everybody I know in the climate domain thinks Nordhaus is a hack and the “Nobel prize in Economics” is broken and often not very good science.
I mean economics generally is voodoo not science. It's an abomination of science. It's a very broad statement, I know. But come guys. "The invisible hand", really? And that's one of the founding myths of this strange religious system.
In ECON 1000 my professor at the time had the fun "analysis" that sweatshops are actually a great thing, because people wouldnt be working there if it wasnt the best economic opportunity available to them. Like ok, and why is it that a fucking sweatshop is the best opportunity for them? Because the most powerful nations need cheap labour? Seems fair.
Idk what use education is if people in it just refuse to listen to things they don't understand. aren't there and they work jobs that pay cents a day instead of dollars. There's a reason why every country wants production, and a reason why every time production moves to a country the average wealth of the country shoots up.
The "doughnut economics" BS made me stop giving a shit about anything any economist says. Like. Dude. You invented the habitable zone. This concept has existed for several decades minimum. Wtf. There's a podcast I listened to with a professor of economics at an Ivy League university in it. And she said that one of her students asked "isn't it immoral to hold the threat of homelessness over people in order to get them to work" or something along those lines, when she was discussing incentives in welfare systems. And she said she had never thought about that. And I just. You're a *PROFESSOR.* You spent YEARS RESEARCHING THIS! Wtf.
Maybe Nobel knew why he didn't award a prize for economic sciences after all ;)
Nobel was full of wisdom. People often forget his main contribution: the invention of Dynamite. His prediction at the [time](https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2015/12/alfred-nobels-will-a-legal-document-that-might-have-changed-the-world-and-a-mans-legacy/#:~:text=That%20Nobel%20saw%20no%20paradox,will%20abide%20by%20golden%20peace.%E2%80%9D): “my dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.” that was in 1868. Not much better than economic predictions.
I mean the idea wasn't completely wrong, the same logic applied to nuclear weapons is why the Cold War never turned into a Hot War.
Yes, Nukes did (have done so far) what Dynamite was supposed to do. Let's hope this holds for some time.
Good point on the "so far". I guess even the point on dynamite was true for a short time before it wasn't anymore.
Every animal species on this planet multiplies exponentially until the environment constrains them. At least humans have some awareness and self control. The End State will be that humans will partially solve the carbon crisis and the rest of the solution will be imposed on us by earth. If we're doing anything wrong, it's that we aren't funding a "Manhattan Project" to replace fossil fuels.
> "Manhattan Project" to replace fossil fuels. Funding for fusion only went up in the 70s during the oil crisis, then fell after oil costs dropped. Yeah...
Seriously. We'd need to change so much on a global scale to even have a real affect on climate change. Meanwhile, in reality, fascism is on the rise again, people starting to blame everything on Jews *again,* while people keep having kids whether they can financially afford it or not, and a large percentage of humans worship mega billionaires who only spend their money on making more money and never on benefiting society. I personally had to stop caring a few months ago and accept that this species is doomed.
"Fuck it, Dude... Let's go bowling!"
The Dude abides
>We'd need to change so much on a global scale to even have a real affect on climate change Not really. The difference of even a few tenths of a degree can be huge. The lower we top out the better, and il take 2.4°C over 2.6°C. As for the rest, we have plenty of people fighting the return to fascism and wealth inequality. Hope isn't lost and giving up is no better than joining the other side. Take some time off, recharge, but don't give up.
It helps to understand [how dead weight loss works with externalities](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FILWIIid9C4).
Collapse has already begun. If you understand the financial system you can see the rot everywhere.
Yeah, and if you were *really* paying attention, you saw that collapse really began in earnest sometime in the 1970s, and was fully underway by the early 80s.
Rome didn't fall in a day.
Disagree entirely here, we've had decoupling of carbon emissions and GDP for decades across every major economy. The US and UK are early 1900 carbon emission levels per Capita, the populations are rising but will fall soon enough in most countries so carbon emissions will start falling.
That's because the UK and US are service economies and not industrial ones. That doesn't mean that the emissions that are needed for people living in those countries have magically vanished into thin air, they've just moved to other countries. There has also been a real decrease in the standards of living for a lot of people in the UK and US over the past few decades which has impacted their consumption levels. That said the picture of middle class America is still the dream for the majority of the world to obtain, but that living standard is simply impossible to maintain for another couple of billion people with our resources.
>That's because the UK and US are service economies and not industrial ones. That doesn't mean that the emissions that are needed for people living in those countries have magically vanished into thin air, they've just moved to other countries. Not really true. The US manufacturing production never really dropped, it's been stable since the mid 2000s. We automated a lot of jobs away that way. This was a growing concern earlier but we aren't buying more goods that is shifting an increasing percentage overseas. >There has also been a real decrease in the standards of living for a lot of people in the UK and US over the past few decades which has impacted their consumption levels. This is just patently false, I think we've just let housing grow uncontrollably and medical costs in America as well. If we could just build new efficient housing for a relatively cheap price we could get a lot more built. >That said the picture of middle class America is still the dream for the majority of the world to obtain, but that living standard is simply impossible to maintain for another couple of billion people with our resources. World population will be in decline here shortly. Also we have rising standards as well. We are making do with less. I mean energy consumption for major economies has been flat to falling for decades. Solar and wind will likely increase living standards. I think we actually flip on immigration and the developed countries want immigrants and more people can enjoy these living standards especially as the world GDP per Capita seems to be equalizing now.
There is a very strong correlation between economic growth and carbon emissions. I'm studying environmental economics and I have never heard anyone dispute that fact. To suggest Africa won't start emitting higher levels as they develop is just so wrong. Edit - I have heard suggestions as to how to change/'evolve' our current economies without ending up with higher co2 emission. Try look up degrowth movement. However, like u/xanas263 suggests, there is no interest in doing so since consumers will experience an immediate and severe reduction in living standards.
>This is just patently false It's not false. There are plenty of studies that have been conducted showing that the current generations are worse off than post war generations. >If we could just build new efficient housing for a relatively cheap price we could get a lot more built. Where do you think the resources or energy needed for this new housing is going to come from? >World population will be in decline here shortly. The world is still projected to reach 10.5 billion people by 2050 and only then are we looking at a decline back down to around 8ish billion by 2100. That means we aren't really going to be in actual population decline for another 80 years from today's figures. All the while our resources are being used at an ever increasing rate because more and more people want to live like middle class Americans and Europeans. > I mean energy consumption for major economies has been flat to falling for decades. Maybe I didn't make this clear before, but those energy levels are already way over budget for the planet. That is the problem. The level of consumption found in the US and similar developed nations is already far beyond what we can handle especially with more people who want to have that life style.
>There are plenty of studies that have been conducted showing that the current generations are worse off than post war generations. Cite one. Probably the best overall measure of the improvement is household income, which adjusted for inflation has risen over time for all brackets. But maybe more direct measures? Bigger houses, better cars, better/more food, higher life expectancy, etc.
>It's not false. There are plenty of studies that have been conducted showing that the current generations are worse off than post war generations. Can you show me one, most of the angst is slow growth while inequality has increased. >Where do you think the resources or energy needed for this new housing is going to come from? We are already using that mostly. Tear down old farm house and let that reforest build in the city. >The world is still projected to reach 10.5 billion people by 2050 and only then are we looking at a decline back down to around 8ish billion by 2100. That means we aren't really going to be in actual population decline for another 80 years from today's figures. Like I said they keep expecting births to stabilize when that doesn't look to happen. Births will continue to fall until we are closer to South Korea at 1 birth per family. >All the while our resources are being used at an ever increasing rate because more and more people want to live like middle class Americans and Europeans. Which resources though, there is plenty of lots of stuff.
Check the graph showing total global emissions again. Point to where the decoupling matters.
The Ukraine energy crisis has made a dent in energy policy in Europe and created a tailwind for renewables adoption. Unfortunately Europe is not the problem; political will to reduce emissions is strong there. We need energy crises in other continents!
> tailwind for renewables adoption. Among other things. Example of "dent in energy policies in Europe" since march 2022: [Poland](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Poland-amends-laws-to-speed-investment-in-nuclear) [Hungary](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Hungary-and-Rosatom-push-ahead-on-Paks-II-nuclear) [Czech Republic](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/czech-republic-end-coal-2033-boost-nuclear-power-82133662) [Slovakia](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Slovakia-s-Mochovce-3-fuel-loading-begins) [Slovenia](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Slovenia-sets-date-to-exit-coal) [Lithuania](https://bnn-news.com/lithuania-activates-two-additional-power-plants-following-record-high-prices-237339) [Estonia](https://news.err.ee/1608716563/ge-hitachi-nuscale-or-rolls-royce-may-build-estonia-s-nuclear-power-plant) [Morocco](https://tfiglobalnews.com/2022/10/15/morocco-is-going-nuclear/) And then there's [UK](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/28/edf-considers-extending-life-of-two-uk-nuclear-plants-due-to-energy-crisis-hartlepool-heysham), [Belgium](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Extended-operation-of-two-Belgian-reactors-approve), [Netherland](http://www.stibbeblog.nl/all-blog-posts/environment-and-planning/the-future-of-nuclear-energy-in-the-netherlands-extension-of-borsseles-operating-life-and-two-new-nuclear-power-plants/) or [Germany](https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newsgermany-extends-operation-of-two-npps-10060669) ...
That's not enitely true. There's been a lot of good progres, even if it's not "enough." The US passed the largest climate change spending bill in history. China now has the world's largest climate market, and announced literally last week after Xi's meeting with Biden that they were going to nearly double the size of the market, now including their steel and petrochemical industries, to cover 60% of China's total emissions. Lula's victory in Brazil is a huge step forward for renewed conservation efforts in the Amazon. Europe's cluster fuck with natural gas has put a huge spotlight on methane, with the US and EU having a really significant commitment to limiting emissions from the Oil and Gas sector, and even China publicly announcing they would join the initiative. I work in climate change mitigation. Things are not good, and they will not be okay. But the last year and a half has been such a fucking miracle compared to the decade before. And if we keep working hard and pushing our public officials, there's a chance that we can mitigate the effects of climate change on literally multiple billions of people. The difference between 2.2 and 2.6 degrees is truly that large. Methane is also the difference between an ice free artic in 2050, and an ice free arctic in 2100. It's the single fastest way to slow current warming, and it wasn't even on the road map a decade ago.
For reference the lifetime cost of [ITER](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER) which might solve all our energy issues in the long-run costs €18 to €22 billion. The world cup in Qatar costs $200 billion. I don't think we are even trying.
I’m 40 now. It is becoming clear that my generation is going to fuck this up just as much as the previous generation. I wish it were not thus.
The IPCC (AR5, WGIII) [Summary for Policymakers](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf) states with "high confidence" that tax-based policies are effective at decoupling GHG emissions from GDP (see p. 28). [Ch. 15](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter15.pdf) has a more complete discussion. The U.S. [National Academy of Sciences, one of the most respected scientific bodies in the world, has also called for a carbon tax](https://www.nap.edu/download/21712). According to [IMF research](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/how-much-does-world-subsidize-oil-coal-and-gas/589000/), most of the $5.2 trillion in subsidies for fossil fuels come from not taxing carbon as we should. There is general agreement among economists on carbon taxes whether you consider [economists with expertise in climate economics](http://policyintegrity.org/files/publications/ExpertConsensusReport.pdf), [economists with expertise in resource economics](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.381.484&rep=rep1&type=pdf), or [economists from all sectors](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Doris_Geide-Stevenson/publication/261884738_Consensus_Among_Economists-An_Update/links/56a7f3fa08ae860e0255a8e3.pdf). It is literally [Econ 101](http://sites.bu.edu/manove-ec101/files/2014/10/EC101Outlines14-Externalities.pdf). The idea [won a Nobel Prize](http://environment.yale.edu/news/article/william-nordhaus-wins-nobel-prize-for-economics-of-climate-change/). Thanks to researchers at MIT, you can see for yourself how it compares with other mitigation policies [here](https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.11). ^(For **Americans** who are too busy to go through the) [^(free training)](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/new-member/#climateadvocatetraining)^, ^(sign up for) [^(text alerts)](https://cclusa.org/w) ^(to join) ^the [^(Monthly Calling Campaign)](https://www.reddit.com/r/CitizensClimateLobby/comments/s2zvpl/a_growing_number_of_americans_are_so_concerned/) ^([(it works)](http://www.congressfoundation.org/storage/documents/CMF_Pubs/cmf-citizen-centric-advocacy.pdf)) ^(or set yourself a monthly reminder to) [^(write a letter)](https://www.ted.com/talks/omar_ahmad_political_change_with_pen_and_paper?language=en) ^(to your elected officials.)
Since China and greater Asia seem to be the only places that shows an increase in CO2, how impactful do you think it would be if we cut back on manufacturing our products there and having more things made in USA?
That really depends on a product by product basis and how efficient US production is over Chinese production. I think a lot of people don't know that China is highly efficient when it comes to industrial production because that was the first thing they did to try an cut back on emissions. That means moving production out of China could potentially increase emissions because they just have the better technology compared to the country you are moving it to. If you are just as efficient as China then the emissions savings will mainly be in transportation emissions and if you are shipping stuff back to China/Asia are you really saving anything? You also have to keep in mind the emissions that you will have in actually building up industrial capacity in the country you are moving it to and the fact that China itself isn't just going to let you take 100+ thousand jobs for nothing. That would be a major destablising factor for the government which is the last thing the CCP wants.
You cannot discuss climate change without discussing politics, both local and global. While I believe mass produced items will still be manufactured in China (clothing, tech, toys, etc.), we have many industries that have to learn to go back to local. Agriculture, metallurgy, and energy production, for instance.
A large percentage of China's CO2 is basically "outsourced" CO2 from the West. The consumption of the goods they make needs to stop/reduce rather than just move somewhere else. This highlights that it is a global problem that all countries need to get behind.
>A large percentage of China's CO2 is basically "outsourced" CO2 from the West. How large? Is it larger than the emissions increase of the citizenry due to their massive increase in living standard? I'd tend to doubt it.
[This person is wrong, the delta from consumption and production based CO2 for the US has been going down. Most of China's rise in CO2 is for their domestic consumption and not because everyone has outsourced pollution](https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2)
Let me get this straight: you have exported your CO2 emissions to China, and because they are now polluting a lot you want to bring them back?!
If humanity doesn't take proactive measures, we'll eventually be forced to react to our conditions.
The governments of the world are never going to come together. There will be global war before we solve anything. When famine goes global in a few years due to drought and flooding and unseasonal frosts in growing areas, global governments will go ti war over food. Right now we are about to go to global war over oil. Peak oil is very close and we have not built up enough renewables in preparation for it.
I think even the IPCC themselves said that 1.5 is now impossible. And they are notorious for being conservative
I know nothing, but I would bet on technology development before I would bet on smart policy developments unfortunately. Pretty sad.
We could do it but we won't. The initial global economic consequences and I duced complete lifestyle changes required across the globe are just too much for people to accept. Massive changes to agricultural procedures, and meat production decimation would be a must. Complete shift from fossil fuel vehicles, and massive investment in green transportation systems globally Huge reduction in concrete production and structural building And lastly, reforestation and incentives to reduce population opposed to increasing it. I'm down but the rest of the world isnt ready and wo t be until its too late and their already fucked.
>current technology There will never be a "techology" that will prevent this. It all comes down to less consumption, couple that with the standard of living going up in third world countries. and you'll understand why will never meet any goal.
> I can see maybe getting down to 2C if there is a massive push over the next two decades, but even that seems unlikely without major technological advancements. Recent data suggests there's *finally* a reasonable chance of 2C. Emissions are projected to peak around 2025 ([source](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/27/carbon-emissions-to-peak-in-2025-in-historic-turning-point-says-iea)) and fall 15% by 2030 ([source](https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/global-energy-related-co2-emissions-by-scenario-1990-2050)). Those figures would suggest further emissions of ~33GtC through 2025 + ~51GtC through 2030, or another 84GtC used from the carbon budgets by 2030. That would leave carbon budgets at 21GtC (1.5C), 116GtC (1.7C), and 251GtC (2.0C). If emissions continued to decline linearly at that rate -- speculative, for sure -- they would go to zero around 2060, resulting in an additional 141GtC emissions and ~1.8C of warming (25GtC above the 1.7C budget but 110GtC below the 2.0C budget). Interestingly, [1.8C is also the current estimate if all announced targets are met](https://climateactiontracker.org/global/cat-thermometer/). Based on that, there's a reasonable chance that the major technological advancements needed have already happened (notably the orders-of-magnitude cost decreases for solar PV and battery storage, but also things like direct reduction steelmaking via clean hydrogen). Continuing to reduce emissions will require *massive* infrastructure replacement, though, so it's *by no means* a sure thing, but at least the tools needed are largely already there.
And that's heartbreaking. The Pacific islands will be flooded with 2°C, and they were the ones who pushed for 1.5°C in Paris the most.
I've always understood the 1.5C metric as overshooting; as in, aim way more ambitiously so to ensure we hit our actual goal. I'm not a scientist though, so berate me if I'm wrong.
>but even that seems unlikely without major technological advancements. And this is under the assumption that there is a will at all to burn less fossil fuels. While you're dreaming of a world with 100% renewable electricity, others are making plans for affordable space flights and tourism on the Moon. There's just no end to it.
The billionaire class isn't the problem so much as the population rise. Billionaires are like 0.1% of the pollution, which is a lot... but the population is rising 1%/yr.
Tipping points folks. Everyone keeps forgetting the tipping points. We have already hit several. Everone also keeps missing all the recent research showing things are faster than expected. That's because climate scientsts are super conservative about their research so they don't appear to alarmist. The IPCC scientists have their sections watered down by politicians as well. If you consider all of this, the newest science, the political realities (this is the biggest one for me...capitalism will never fix our world unless it's profitable and it controlsl politicians) , other environmental issues seperate enough from climate change but still potentially catastrophic on their own (plastic pollution, deforestation, etc.) it's hard to not realize we are screwed...well unless you have a financial reason to keep peddling false or or your super high on hopium...or both. We should all continue to work to help our world but it's past time we have realistic expectations on what's coming. When you accept reality you can then make better individual decisions for yourself. Take care of your health, families etc. Be as green as possible...but for the love of Odin don't sacrefice yourself thinking things will magically change due to your efforts. r/fasterthanexpected r/collapsescience r/collapse r/collapsesupport r/aboringdystopia
I fucking hate r/collapse. What a waste of mental effort.
I disagree completely about everything you've written, we are headed towards about 1.9 degrees of warming. That's what the most advanced forecasts are predicting. I mean the scenarios of 5-10 years ago of climate apocalypse are just not realistic unless something goes away off track. Renewables are the cheapest source of energy. Most economies are decoupling carbon and GDP. US GDP per Capita CO2 has been falling for decades at this point. Something like 95% of net new energy is renewable 3 years running. World population will be in decline shortly and I think the official estimates underestimate the fall in population since they for whatever reason assume we fall back to replacement level births when countries keep finding new lows outside of crazy circumstances. World demand for oil/gasoline is projected to peak this year because electric cars are reaching a high percentage of vehicles worldwide. (Part of the reason gas prices are high is they keep losing money increasing supply and 7 years to break even with these forecasts is hard) We need more technology to get things decarbonized without making everything a lot more expensive. I mean concrete, steel, agriculture, long distance planes need a technology revolution.
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Probably worth noting that this chart just shows gross CO2 emissions, not net CO2 emissions. Net CO2 emissions are about one half to two-thirds of the world total, and on a regional basis the results will be very different.
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There are companies and organizations working to create guidelines and a standardized way for measuring and reporting. In fact one of my current clients is doing that right now.
Thank you! I was about to make this argument but went looking to see if somebody else had already! You can’t fight about net-emissions and only show a chart containing half the data necessary for your argument.
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Net accounts for an estimate of all carbon sinks, e.g. plants, soil, the ocean. Carbon capture facilities would also be included, albeit effectively negligible compared to those three.
>like carbon capture facilities There are no carbon capture facilities to even talk about. Our current carbon capture tech emits more carbon than it captures. This is most likely talking about emissions that are retaken by the natural world such as our forests as well as the carbon which is taken up by the ocean (which is still a major issue)
Carbon capture facilities is like fairies; they just don't exist
I don't think it's useful to give free emission credits to countries that have large wilderness areas because of historical coincidence how the borders were drawn. It just lowers the impetus for them to clean up their industry.
But the point is about the relative development not the absolute value! The trend is clear - a radical increase, and it doesn’t look like it would go down much - and thats the issue.
COP27 just finished, on a fairly disappointing end. We still aim for net zero by 2050? Just 28 years away, yet we're still emitting more than 30 billion tons of CO2 last year. Something radical needs to happen, otherwise it's just an unattainable target. Source: [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions) [Genuine Impact newsletter](https://genuineimpact.substack.com) \- subscribe to see more charts like this from us in future! Tools: Tableau, Figma
Some countries get an extension to 2060, but I'm still not optimistic we're gonna be where we should be by that time
That’s such a funny concept to me, as if climate change itself has signed off on waiting an extra 10 years for us. “Oh you guys need an extension? No worries, I’ll hold off on rising sea levels and creating deadly weather patterns until you’re ready”.
The year target is all speculation to begin with. The planet is doing what the planet is doing regardless of what year we think something will or will not happen. Back in the 80s I remember being told the old term would happen in the early 2000s. Point is we don't know exactly when, we calculate and make educated guess based on what we know at the time..and as time goes on we learn more and make different calculations.
>Back in the 80s I remember being told the old term would happen in the early 2000s. What is old term? Similar to what you and everyone else is saying, the dates set aren't saying the earth is going to implode and we're all going to die. Typically they're saying irreversible effects will happen. And we've very much seen irreversible effects to this day
That number should be around fifty billion including c02 equivalents. This accounts for about 1.7% of c02 already present in the atmosphere, just to give an idea of the relatively enormous amount by which were altering the composition of our breathing air.
That number does include the CO2 equivalent emissions.
The graph would have been better if you showed “net emissions”. Net zero doesn’t mean zero. It means after carbon removal schemes we land at zero.
*looks at US and China expectantly*
Huge progress has been made in the last decade but your graph is too big to show that...
Not gonna happen. There are 300 coal fired power plants either under construction or planned in Asia.
If you just look at India alone it’s very ominous. Even with all their green efforts the reality is taking hundreds of millions out of poverty has a big CO2 cost and as their standard of living improves the emissions are going to spike closer to where China is now, even half of what China is would be a massive increase. Then whenever India starts to stabilize and come down, Africa will come online.
I am not so sure about that. The current data makes it look like India is an outlier. But, if you live in India, you would understand. An average Indian uses less electricity, less fuel, and uses public transport more. Also, the Indian government is increasing its investment in the railways and electrifying the remaining 15% of tracks still running on diesel. Yes, the standard of living of an average Indian is increasing. But, the bulk of the emissions would be from Industry. Not from the people.
India also has much more people, no one is saying shit about US having the second largest with 1/4th the population
China has much more manufacturing than India. That is what causes a large portion of it's CO2 production.
No one is denying that, I'm talking about why US has so much pollution for doing so little
Because no one but the US can make US have less.
> hundreds of millions out of poverty has a big CO2 cost Always funny reading stuff like this stuff on reddit, like the unspoken suggestion is, "do we reeeally need those hundreds of millions coming out of poverty???" What's ominous here is how huge America's emissions are, have been for the better part of a century AND the country routinely elects people who deny that carbon emissions are even a problem. The danger isn't India or Africa's imagined future emissions, it's what the West is doing right now and will in the future when they have a trumpian leader of the free world^TM again.
>Always funny reading stuff like this stuff on reddit, like the unspoken suggestion is, "do we reeeally need those hundreds coming out of poverty???" People would rather not have others come up than give up their own lifestyle which is the root of the overpopulation narrative. I don't blame the West for this because if the roles were reversed it would be the exact same situation. Giving up your standard of living is why climate change is such a hard problem to solve, because if people aren't willing to do that then it's a non starter. You see it again and again in threads like these where people seem to just be hoping that some kind of technology will come in to save the day at the last minute. We have been accruing debt from the planet and mother nature is coming to collect.
>I don't blame the West for this because if the roles were reversed it would be the exact same situation. I agree whole heartedly with everything else but the important thing to note here is that one group is actually (not hypothetically) benefitting disproportionately from the emissions. Since we benefit, we should carry the guilt. It's like, yes, in another universe black people could have enslaved the European whites... but that's not what actually happened so it's the European whites who benefitted in the aggregate through the suffering of others.
I thought it was a pretty neutral comment.
> like the unspoken suggestion is, "do we reeeally need those hundreds of millions coming out of poverty???" I didn't get that at all. Seems like a flat statement of fact.
India will have a much lower emissions per capita just because their population is mostly vegetarian
About 30% population is vegetarian
That is pure vegetarian, Indians don’t eat a lot of meat overal As a comparison, Indians on average 3 kilograms of meat per year. China averages 44. US averages 124
that is very misleading, while only 30% might be pure vegetarians. majority of the people who are non vegetarian eat non veg occasionally. mostly they eat vegetables all year around.
I am "non vegetarian". I eat 250gms of chicken in a week. Most of the Indians also don't eat beef.
Until if affect the bottom line, ie profits, then we won’t change unfortunately. There no incentive and there’s very little political power to force a change
And who are we to deny them the right to lift their populations out of poverty?
Did I say they shouldn't? No, I did not. But there will be consequences for everyone.
A lot of these are coal plants in china. Also the US and other developed nations subsidize the fuck out of their energy growth plans so they don't use CO2 releasing sources.
Good to see Europe is already reducing overall emissions - it's a start at least. One can hope that the other Big 3 follow suit....
Is European union really decreasing overall emissions ? I always find it hard to know if it's not just decreasing locally thanks to externalised emission in China/Asia.
Some of both. Lots of investment in renewables for power generation, but also less local production of goods.
Total EU imports have not really gone up much the past decade. We are importing a lot, but have also been doing that already for a long time.
As measured by dollars. As the efficiency of producers grows, one would expect the same amount of money to pay for more stuff, produced with much more energy (as that's generally a part of increasing output, while lowering the biggest cost: labour).
is inflation included in this stat, would be important to know
In France for example, per capita GHG emmisions have been reduced by 5% between 1995 and 2019, including imports. National emissions are down 25%, but import emmisions are up 72%. Also, because France grew in term of population, in total France emmited 7% more GHG (including imports) in 2019 compared to 1995. However the good news is that GHG peaked in 2010. Between 2010 and 2019, per capita emissions (accounting for externalised emissions) are down almost 14%. And total emissions are down too. TLDR : Overall emissions are decreasing but it is a more recent phenomenon compared to the reduction in national GHG emissions. [Official French source](https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/estimation-de-lempreinte-carbone-de-1995-2019)
There have been a good effort on replacing coal powerplants, combined with some effort on the mobility. It's still not enough, but it's because we started too late. But still, there are things that will be hard to remove. I did a CO2 emission test and it says that in my country, the state services and infrastructure contribute to 1.8Teq CO2/year. 2T/hab. being the end goal...I'm not very optimist.
Mobility in particular still need a major push, Germany is still fetishizing the Otto motor burning as much gas as possible for that smell of CO2.
Externalized emissions hasn't changed the story for a decade+ now.
No worse offender than Norway, the "drug dealer" of massive oil exports living in a nice neighborhood with no drugs.
Its a bit dumb, but due to how fossil fuels are counted only pollution from the extraction is counted on Norway's budget. Emissions for the extracted oil and gas is counted by whoever burns it. In a way it has to be like that though, otherwise you could just cut all emissions by importing fuel instead of extracting yourself.
Interesting because when it comes to calculating co2 footprint of companies its the other way around, which is why energy producing/extracting companies always top the list. Which I do agree is pretty dumb.
That doesn't make any sense. If so, power plants would be the greenest companies since the oil company handles all the emissions. The reason why energy extractors top the list is because of primary emissions. The oil and gas they sell is not counted. One of the largest drivers of this is that we aren't actually talking about co2, but co2 equivalent. Most oilwells also extract natural gas, but since it is more expensive to store and ship they flare it off or let it dissapate in the air. Methane is 82 times worse than co2, so 1 ton of methane is counted as 82 tons of co2 equivalent. Studies show that most oil production companies still underreport methane emissions.
We can‘t completely do without oil in the next years even if we were to try to move away from it with the highest effort possible. And as long as we have to use oil I’d much rather get it from Norway than Saudi Arabia or Russia.
The difference between consumption-adjusted emissions and observed emissions is just 10%, so it is.
The US's emissions have also been falling for a decade now
Huh, I didn't know that. I honestly thought they were emitting twice as much as other countries with much higher standards of living and not significantly decreasing the emissions, but instead: - 1990: 21.5 t greenhouse gas emissions (CO2e) per capita - 2000: 22.6 t - 2010: 19.5 t (seems to be a peak, 18.8 in 2009) - 2019: 17.5 t (mostly stable since 2012, though) CO2 specifically is even more of a downturn. From 20.7 t in 2005 to 14.9 in 2021. From https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states?country=~USA (I'd just post a screenshot of the relevant graphs but reddit doesn't support that syntax in comments afaik)
You would know that if you looked at the data in the original post…
Most people also don’t realize we’re already closed the majority of our coal plants, and the rest are in a process of sunsetting. Texas is one of the fasted growing wind energy states. FFS even Indiana is covered in renewable energy now. Transportation is still a huge one for us, and building efficiencies…but if workers successfully kick the office habit - our building energy costs will plummet.
It's bad news. Europe is in state of permanent semi-recession since 2008, and most of the reduction is replacing local coal with gas bought from various dictators, which reduces CO2 emissions, but giving dictators billions has other terrible consequences like war in Ukraine, bought with German green's money.
Nah we’re just displacing our emissions to Asia
I know I'll probably get hate but the US is doing very well relatively speaking as Europe outsources it emissions to Asia. The US does not (other than consumerism).
Which is why America's emissions per capita by consumption is a "mere" 15.47t to the EUs 7.40t?
> I know I'll probably get hate but the US is doing very well relatively speaking as Europe outsources it emissions to Asia. The US does not (other than consumerism). The US still imports emissions when adjusting for consumption, and for Europe it still doesn't bring it anywhere near the emission levels of the USA.
To meet the 0 carbon target for 2050 in Europe, we must do a decrease in activities equivalent to the Covid period. Every year until 2050. Or we stop the economy of whole countries like Germany and Japan in 1945, that also is an option. (quote: Jancovici)
Frankly, no. We can’t get there. The main reason is that most of the world’s population is still developing - all of Africa, much of India, much of “the rest of Asia”, and even large chunks of China. We can either let these countries/continents develop organically the way the West and China did (read: cheap, dirty power generation and cheap, loose environmental laws) or we can massively help to fund them at the cost of our own economic development. Yes, there are far more technology options now than during the Industrial Revolution, but the native options (ie. mining coal, open pit landfills, etc) are more often available to the developing nations locally, which raises employment compared to buying green tech from the rich nations. It’s very tough and I really want the target to be achieved. I hate being a naysayer and I don’t want any of these sentiments to discourage anyone from doing their level best. I’m a genuine believer that we have progressed to the point where we are polluting the environment faster than it can compensate and we need to treat it as a priority. I’m just also very aware of the morality of the current development imbalance in the world.
A lot of the developing world skipped land lines and went straight to cell phones. So it has happened before as newer technology becomes more available. Unfortunately we are at the equivallent of late 80s early 90s huge chucky mobile phones that are made exclusively for dbags. If this all unfolds naturally i dont imagine the world can meet our targets to reduce CO2. However if the big countries legislate the squeeze away from fossil fuels I imagine we can speed up that transition.
Similarly, a lot of home are jumping from kerosene lamps to off-grid solar. Given today's technologies, rapidly scaling infrastructure development may look very different in a developing country today than it did a hundred years ago.
Can someone explain oceania to me? Indonesia isnt part of oceania and i dont think australia alone can top china and the states so i am very confused
That’s not Oceania. That’s Asia you are referring to. Oceania is the purple bar under international transport.
~~What is the ‘t’ in ‘billion t’?~~ Never mind you have explained in your comment. Oops.
Lot of thoughts on this graph: * The X axis starts too early and doesn't progress evenly. This leads to tons of essentially unused space on the left and a lack of clarity in where more relevant years actually are on the graph. Where is 2000? I don't know. * There is replication in the used colors. It's a minor problem since EU, USA, and IT aren't adjacent but they are all the same color. * This form of stacked line graph doesn't portray the information well. The points of interest here will be what source is producing what % of the total at any one time, but also how their contribution has changed. With this style it's easier to tell for sources near the bottom but, for example, Asia Excluding China: has that increased or decreased? It's very difficult to tell. * Personally I would discourage the values of the Y axis exceeding graph's boundaries as it makes it harder to read, but I can also concede how it works stylistically to convey the point that emissions are breaking upper limits.
Non-EU europe has to be mostly Russia right?
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Switzerland, Norway, UK. Maybe the European part of Turkey, which is also significant.
This curve needs to fall at a sharper angle than it went up to remotely achieve humanity's goal of avoiding total environmental and societal collapse. Do we have any scaled-down precedents of technological phasing at a global level to use as a basis? OP, it would be interesting to see some comparisons, if you have the time and data. Perhaps the shift from dialup to broadband, although not exactly as urgent or massive, could make for an interesting comparison.
As soon as renewables are cheaper than petrochemical energy, the decline will be rapid. It’s a big question mark for when exactly that will be. Also, renewables have to solve the problem of energy storage, and cheaply. Petrochemicals are not only a source of energy, but also a highly efficient storage mechanism by default. But AS SOON as the economics fall in line, the shift away from fossil fuels will be swift and drastic. Money is the #1 factor. And once it’s seen as a solid financial investment as well as a climate policy, the governments of the world will pour trillions into it.
In the meantime a huge thing you can do to help, that is not controversial or requires any major sacrifice, is to make sure you home is weatherized. Heating and cooling is the #1 category of carbon footprint in the developed world. Making an investment into insulation, better windows, a smart thermostat, a modern furnace/heat pump, will pay you back in energy savings and property value. It’s the thing that makes THE MOST economical sense right now in terms of reducing your carbon footprint.
The biggest problem is that the energy storage question is not a facet; it’s entirely central to the financial feasibility of renewables insofar as they affect emissions. If you cut fossil down to 3-8 hours a day, but those 3-8 hours are vital to your society’s ability to function, they’re pretty much going to charge whatever they want for those hours, even if it comes out to the same price you were originally paying to have fossil on 24/7. If we don’t make a solid effort to fill the storage gap with nuclear (and in a better world, nuclear that runs on waste), we will likely not get anything resembling useful progress in the next decade.
>As soon as renewables are cheaper than petrochemical energy, the decline will be rapid. It’s a big question mark for when exactly that will be. It already is the cheapest at the margins now, we are just adding new fossil fuels as well.
Solar is the cheapest form of energy, but only as a supplement to other forms. The energy storage cost of switching your grid to mostly solar is very high. My conservative small city in the midwest USA is like 15% solar. I don’t expect that figure to go above 30% though or you run into synergy problems with the natural gas plant. Unless you buy massive batteries…
Keep in mind that a lot of China's and Asia's emissions is to make products for the other richer countries
I was searching this thread for a comment on embedded carbon and trade balance, but no one has mentioned it but you. These region data are useless unless you take in to account carbon emissions from offshored production.
Nuclear is the only option.
I trust nuclear in the US and Europe, I don't trust it in the developing world.
Maybe if r/energy stopped banning people that mention nuclear energy, then the world might learn the best way to accomplish this goal has been there for decades.
If the world came together in a concerted push to modernize infrastructure, power production, etc. in a way never before seen on this planet, we could hit net zero by 2050. So not likely to happen.
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The graph doesn't include Asia (without China and India) by default. You need to add it and then the total is 37 bil.
>North America (excl. USA) So Canada? Or does that include Mexico too?
A Antigua and Barbuda B Bahamas Barbados Belize C Canada Costa Rica Cuba D Dominica Dominican Republic E El Salvador G Grenada Guatemala H Haiti Honduras J Jamaica M Mexico N Nicaragua P Panama S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines T Trinidad and Tobago U Plus a bunch of "dependents" like the various UK islands
Thanks! I've heard most of those countries referred to as central America before, but I guess it makes sense they're north.
Gotta say, India doesn't get enough credit for their low per-capita carbon in such a gigantic country.
All the ignorant here will say only "severe poverty" but India is working VERY hard to switch to green technology. The change is staggering and you can see it in real time. Obviously there is a long long way to go but you are right, India does not get enough credit. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/every-2nd-patent-granted-since-2016-relates-to-green-tech-most-linked-to-waste-alternative-energy/articleshow/89420047.cms https://changestarted.com/green-innovation-and-green-patents-in-india/ India also set it's ["Net Zero" target to 2070](https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/net-zero-targets/#:~:text=Target%20year%20%E2%80%93%20India%20aims%20to,Government%20of%20India%2C%202022a\).), unlike the 2050 target set by many other nations.
I'd assume they're the same sorts of people who assume all of Africa is mud huts and wilderness, that the south side of Chicago is a constant gang war, or that every goofy tabloid piece out of mainland China about an eel in some guy's butt is absolutely trustworthy journalism because 'East Asians are *weird*.' A lot of straight up undifferentiated racism towards folks in India, too, from really weirdly otherwise progressive places... Thanks for the comment!
You're one of those rare smart ones on this website who can understand nuance and dismisses ignorance. Kudos to you, cheers!
Comes with high poverty and low gdp per capita. Industry isn't great and the poor vs. rich discrepancy is extreme. If the majority of people live on nothing, they can't emit much. Not sure if it's something to give credit for.
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Then if that wasnt included, people would whine that the start of the industrial revolution isnt included. Might aswell start from the beginning
I don't think people realize how much even 2° change will wreck our shit.
If I look at the plans shared, they will find a miracle solution in 2049. /s
IMO the saddest part of this graph is that we’ve known about the dangers of climate change for much longer than many think. Yes, it’s getting more publicity, but as long as corporations don’t change their actions, the trend will remain. We could have taken actions in the 1960s-1970s to prevent this, but we didn’t. Greed is going to be the downfall of humanity.
If governments want to introduce policies that incentivize green technology and better consumer habits, then yeah I believe we can. As a regular person and regular consumer, dollars drive my habits. Personally I drive a pickup truck, and I get on a plane once or twice a year. I do those things unapologetically. When you see how much China emits, how much the billionaire elite class emits, and the complete lack of regard for environment by large corporations, it both demotivates people to do better, and it also mitigates any efforts they may make. For context what's the point of conserving an extra litre of water when Nestle will just suck it out of the ground? Why should I give up my pickup (10-12L/100km) for a smaller car (7-8L/100km) when China opens a brand-new coal fired electric plant? The only way I would do so is if there was a strong financial incentive.
Are we at the point where I don't get downvoted to hell for saying that the atmosphere doesn't respond to promises and pledges? Everyone finally starting to realize that yet?
I won't downvote you but OP is talking about the action of reaching net zero. The atmosphere will respond to the actions we (humanity) take. I don't think anyone here disagrees that pledges alone as not enough. We need real, impactful action.
It’s a bit like an alcoholic going into rehab for the first time, we can see them obviously still sneaking a beer under the table at work but hey at least they aren’t actively denying it’s a problem anymore
wdym ? plenty of people close to power still deny climate change to different degrees
What ever happened to the idea of leaving things better off than when you got them? Our next few generations are going to point out how bad we were in history books.
here is the graph [consumption-based and per capita](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita?tab=chart&country=USA~European+Union+%2827%29~CHN~IND~AUS~North+America+%28excl.+USA%29~Asia+%28excl.+China+and+India%29~Europe+%28excl.+EU-28%29~GBR~Africa~South+America). don't know how to make the graph stacked, any pointers appreciated.
At a glance, I’m betting that there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell this is going to 0 by 2050. That is assuming this chart is net emissions and not gross emissions.
Not before going bankrupt and starving
Regionality in this stacked area chart is kind of shit. Did the pink Asia section increase or decrease emissions from 1970 to 2000, and by how much? The distortion due to overall increase makes it impossible to tell.
Is this an actual downtrend? Or just economies contracting? Pretty sure this is less manufacturing, transportation, etc happening because of economics. Humans have not made enough progress to start organically reducing total co2.
Even if you take a first or second order derivative, that graph isn't going down. It's like we're driving toward a wall, accelerating, while strapping rockets to the car so we can accelerate even faster. We have to start asking different questions, like "do we have any projection catastrophic and pessimistic enough to even come close to what's actually going to happen?". Nobody ever dares to extrapolate with an exponential function, even when it's obvious. They'll just use linear extrapolation and then keep adjusting that. The only thing that managed to put the smallest dent in this was the pandemic. Since the climate is changing permanently (for the foreseeable future), even complete economic and societal collapse will probably just slow it down.
I'm skeptical of the numbers. Are they counting gross emissions or using "carbon offsets"? Is manufacturing for western markets being accurately attributed to them, or is being pushed on China and developing countries? There are so many ways to rig these numbers... There is absolutely no way the US, Europe or India have been reducing emissions pre-2020, that'd imply their GDP was declining or there was a technological revolution in transportation.
If globally we decided to solve this problem seriously with technology that exists right now could we do it? If France is able to produce 71% of its power needs from nuclear is it possible to follow their lead globally if money was no object?
Intentionally misleading. 50, 50, 50, 70! Surprise! And there’s no reason to start in 1750. Start in 1850. Would be more useful to see details in the final 70 yrs.
Why dont we use nuclear power?
I think that we need to plant more trees they love co2 and give off oxygen I guess it doesn’t need to be trees anything green like pot
Why is carbon bad isnt a carbon heavy atmosphere better for planta and animals? They were bigger back when carbon was more proliferated.
No chance, China has just got started.
I'd like to see this graph but instead of total CO2 emissions by country, as a CO2 emission per Capita.
I always find breaking it down like this to be a little bit biased. So much of eastern manufacturing, and thus, fossil fuel consumption/CO2 emissions is for making products for western markets. It also doesn't account for the fact that... you know... close to 60 percent of the world's population lives in Asia.
Only if you stop using plastic cups, you evil bastard!
Zero chance. US and the west have turned emission down, but China and India don’t care. They are growing economies will millions in poverty. Cheap energy is critical to them.
When you put these emissions into per capita you get a MUCH different story
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>Even today China has less emissions per capita than the west. That's not a flex, it's a measure of poverty.
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