In December 2015, member states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement, which aims to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. The Paris Agreement requires that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission sources and sinks are balanced by the second half of this century. Because some nonzero sources are unavoidable, this leads to the abstract concept of “negative emissions,” the removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through technical means. The Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) informing policy-makers assume the large-scale use of negative-emission technologies.
If we rely on these and they are not deployed or are unsuccessful at removing CO2 from the atmosphere at the levels assumed, society will be locked into a high-temperature pathway.
KaiserJeep wrote: I would prefer to marinate in the angst of fossil fuel depletion, particularly petroleum depletion, which I view as a real and imminent form of Doom. This is the central theme of PO.com, which most of you ignore in favor of off-topic AGW/CC angst and Doom hysteria, which I believe is overblown reaction to natural changes in surface temperatures, caused by a complex relationship between such temperatures and the solar radiation which varies over centuries due to reasons of orbital mechanics, called Milankovitch cycles.
KaiserJeep wrote:To everybody else: Note that I was respectful and asked serious and sober questions, and he returned insults.
dohboi wrote:Kevin Anderson and Glen Peters in Science on the moral hazard of gambling on negative emissions:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/scie ... ign=buffer
Their summary:In December 2015, member states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement, which aims to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. The Paris Agreement requires that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission sources and sinks are balanced by the second half of this century. Because some nonzero sources are unavoidable, this leads to the abstract concept of “negative emissions,” the removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through technical means. The Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) informing policy-makers assume the large-scale use of negative-emission technologies.
If we rely on these and they are not deployed or are unsuccessful at removing CO2 from the atmosphere at the levels assumed, society will be locked into a high-temperature pathway.
dissident wrote:dohboi wrote:Kevin Anderson and Glen Peters in Science on the moral hazard of gambling on negative emissions:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/scie ... ign=buffer
Their summary:In December 2015, member states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement, which aims to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. The Paris Agreement requires that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission sources and sinks are balanced by the second half of this century. Because some nonzero sources are unavoidable, this leads to the abstract concept of “negative emissions,” the removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere through technical means. The Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) informing policy-makers assume the large-scale use of negative-emission technologies.
If we rely on these and they are not deployed or are unsuccessful at removing CO2 from the atmosphere at the levels assumed, society will be locked into a high-temperature pathway.
Wow, expecting non-existing technology to provide terraforming scale solutions in less than 50 years. These clowns need to put their crack pipes down.
Before making such retarded projections they should at least have actual working prototypes of such technologies. For example coal power plants that fully sequester their CO2 emissions or artificial trees. Then we would have to worry about scaling them up. As we see with wind and solar power, scaling up ain't so easy.
Newfie wrote:But that is the way of humanity. If you think about it it's the rare person who makes or initiates some change. The vast majority of us just poke along, self included.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
The IPCC May Have Underestimated Future Warming Trends
A new paper in Nature states that climate models that lean towards a higher level of global warming in coming years align the best with observations of today’s conditions. As a result, the models currently being employed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change might have underestimated future warming trends, and what’s to come for all of us.
Various organizations around the world create models that can be used to make climate change forecasts. They use these models to run standardized experiments, producing a data inventory that the IPCC can cite in its report.
The IPCC panel isn’t actually producing these models itself; it’s simply surveying literature based on work done independently, all over the world.
“That’s really what we’re kind of exploiting in the study, these natural differences that arise from people making different decisions on how to best model aspects of the climate system that are hard to model,” said Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institute for Global Ecology and co-author of the Nature paper, to Futurism.
Brown gave the example of clouds, as there’s still some debate on how they might respond to global warming. The remaining uncertainty leads to different modeling groups making distinct choices with regards to projected cloud behavior.
“It’s good to have all that out there, and all that published, and all that data available for other scientists to come and look at, and try and figure out ‘why is this model giving this answer but this model is giving this answer?'” explained Brown. “That’s part of what we did in our study.”
Brown and co-author Ken Caldeira worked under the assumption that the models that were best at simulating the recent past would be best at projecting the future. Using those models, their research suggested that warming will likely be around 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit greater that the data in the raw model suggests.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
BBC wrote:Climate change: IPCC scientists say it's 'now or never' to limit warming
UN scientists have unveiled a plan that they believe can limit the root causes of dangerous climate change.
A key UN body says in a report that there must be "rapid, deep and immediate" cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts.
Even then, the world would also need technology to suck CO2 from the skies by mid-century.
After a contentious approval session where scientists and government officials went through the report line by line, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has now published its guidance on what the world can do to avoid an extremely dangerous future.
First, the bad news - even if all the policies to cut carbon that governments had put in place by the end of 2020 were fully implemented, the world will still warm by 3.2C this century.
This finding has drawn the ire of the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
"Some government and business leaders are saying one thing - but doing another. Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic."
That sort of temperature rise would see our planet hit by "unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, and widespread water shortages."
To avoid that fate, the world must keep the rise in temperatures at or under 1.5C this century, say researchers.
The good news is that this latest IPCC summary shows that it can be done, in what Mr Guterres calls a "viable and financially sound manner."
But keeping temperatures down will require massive changes to energy production, industry, transport, our consumption patterns and the way we treat nature.
To stay under 1.5C according to the IPCC means that carbon emissions from everything that we do, buy, use or eat must peak by 2025, and tumble rapidly after that, reaching net-zero by the middle of this century.
To put it in context, the amount of CO2 that the world has emitted in the last decade is the same amount that's left to us to stay under this key temperature threshold.
"I think the report tells us that we've reached the now or never point of limiting warming to 1.5C," said IPCC lead author Heleen De Coninck, who's Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation and Climate Change at Eindhoven University of Technology.
Speaking to BBC News she said: "We have to peak our greenhouse gas emissions before 2025 and after that, reduce them very rapidly. And we will have to do negative emissions or carbon dioxide removal in the second half of the century, shortly after 2050 in order to limit warming to 1.5C."
Governments will need to look at the provision of low carbon transport
The next few years are critical say the researchers, because if emissions aren't curbed by 2030, it will make it nigh on impossible to limit warming later this century.
Key to that in the short term will be how we generate energy. Luckily, solar panel and wind turbines have never been cheaper, having fallen in cost by around 85% over the past decade.
"It's game over for the fossil fuels that are fuelling both wars and climate chaos," said Kaisa Kosonen from Greenpeace, who was an observer at the IPCC approval session.
"There's no room for any new fossil fuel developments and the coal and gas plants we already have need to close early."
But diets and lifestyles will also need changing, with huge scope for major carbon savings according to the authors.
"Having the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place to enable changes to our lifestyles and behaviour can result in a 40-70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This offers significant untapped potential," said IPCC Co-chair Priyadarshi Shukla.
"The evidence also shows that these lifestyle changes can improve our health and wellbeing."
In practice this means governments doing more to encourage walking and healthy eating, and putting in place the infrastructure for far more electric vehicles.
One of the most contentious aspects of the report concerns the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
This can be done in a number of different ways, including through planting trees and making changes to farming practices.
Solar power has fallen dramatically in price in the last decade
But the report finds that to keep warming from going over the dangerous 1.5C threshold we will need more than new forests.
Keeping temperatures down will require machines to remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere.
This is very contentious as the technology is new and currently very expensive.
Some participants in the IPCC process are highly sceptical that these approaches will work.
"The idea of quick emissions reductions and large negative emissions technologies are a concern,"said Prof Arthur Petersen, from UCL who was an observer in the approval session.
"There are a lot of pipe dreams in this report."
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Plantagenet wrote:Scientists in the IPCC can call for voluntary emissions cuts all they want, but without a global climate treaty REQUIRING emissions cuts it ain't gonna happen.
Cheers!
jawagord wrote: the predictions are garbage....
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