Our climate is NOT breaking down - we are increasingly following the path of transformative change - this leads to GROWTH in everything we value - fact checking the hyperbole of UN Secretary General
What the UN Secretary General said and my comments in brackets to show the hyperbole and what he misses out.
UN SECRETARY GENERAL: The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting.
[there are no dogs, it is a metaphor and so they can't bite]
UN SECRETARY GENERAL: Our planet has just endured a season of simmering — the hottest summer on record.
[There was no simmering, the seas never got anywhere near boiling point and never can]
Climate breakdown has begun.
[Nothing is breaking down. We can't have a warming tipping point which is about the only thing that even approximately fits that description]
UN SECRETARY GENERAL: Scientists have long warned what our fossil fuel addiction will unleash.
[We aren't addicted to fossil fuels. Many countries are well on their way to transition to renewables and especially in Europe boosted by the Ukraine crisis to transition faster]
UN SECRETARY GENERAL: Our climate is imploding faster than we can cope with extreme weather events hitting every corner of the planet.
[We have ALWAYS had extreme climate events like hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes etc and this does NOT mean the climate is imploding which doesn't even make sense. It is a strange metaphor. A climate can't implode. We are getting more extreme events because of climate change but fewer deaths as we respond better - and what are disasters for us are normal weather for the future once we are adapted to the changed world.]
[BTW we will still have snow and ice and winters in the future. On the 1.8 C path we have already warmed by 2/3 of the warming from preindustrial, this leads to us losing some glaciers - but the level for snow / ice in mountains only moves up of order 100 meters or so and some areas like northern Canada and Western Himalayas see more snow in a warming world see comment reply]
UN SECRETARY GENERAL: Surging temperatures demand a surge in action. Leaders must turn up the heat now for climate solutions.
[We are already doing a lot. We are headed for 1.8 C with realistic pledges. It's actually more important to have climate justice and for weaker countries to be helped to adapt and to do their green revolution than to shave off the next tenth of a degree though we can do both.]
[That was the big focus in Cairo and it achieved more than people realize because it didn't reduce the temperature even by a tenth of a degree but it changed our course to a transition that doesn't leave Africa and other countries like Indonesia behind, also with the rainforest alliance to help protect biodiversity.]
BLOG There were lots of good outcomes from COP27 for climate and the environment
UN SECRETARY GENERAL: We can still avoid the worst of climate chaos — and we don’t have a moment to lose.[We are increasingly following the sustainable development path both at government and at community level. This is not a path of avoiding the worst of climate chaos. It is a path that is far better than that. It leads to growth in everything we value.]
Text on graphic. Transformative change maximises good quality of life with GROWTH - material, non material and economic - IPCC and IPBES.
Highlighted: Global sustainable development:
Both policy makers and public prioritize sustainable production and consumption, technological change, environmental protection and fighting climate change.
[If the secretary general explained this to people it would lead to MORE not LESS action on climate change.]
The full statement of the UN Secretary General is here:
https://press.un.org/en/2023/sgsm21926.doc.htm
Hopefully it is clearer why he does this now and why it doesn't work very well.
He wants people to take action to combat it - which we are already doing.
But he thinks that by telling us we aren't doing anything and by using hugely exaggerated hyperbole, to a ridiculous extent indeed, that he will encourage us to do much more than we are already doing.
Psychologists say this approach doesn't work. But he is a politician not a scientist and not a psychologist and he doesn't seem to know these basics about psychology of how to get people to act.
There must be lots of people who try to explain this to him. But presumably he feels his way is best or doesn't understand.
We are doing a LOT we already are down to BELOW 2 C for the global temperature rise for 2100 with realistic pledges. As recently as 2021 it was well above 3 C predicted rise. And none of the big reports talk about a billion dying or even a billion refugees. There will be some mainly internal movement in a warming world. But people move around within countries anyway and often to other countries too. It doesn't mean everyone moves either. In most cases nearly everyone stays where they are but a significant % move because another part of their country gets better for growing crops or for other reasons a place they prefer to live.
It's only the weaker economies where there is a risk of malnutrition from this and that is something we can solve and are solving with things like the world food problem. It is feasible to achieve zero hunger globally by 2030 though it seems likely we don't quite get there by then. But we can feed everyone on all scenarios with climate change, that's not the issue. It is easier to do it with low emissions. .
World bank report is to HELP countries plan for INTERNAL migration as parts of their country get more fertile and other parts get less fertile as the climate changes - while total crop yields increase globally
We can grow enough food for everyone through to 2100 and beyond on all scenarios
Just a few years ago SUVs were seen as very CO2 intensive and the trend to buy SUVs was a major issue in CO2 emissions. Now it isn't any more because of advances in technology in hybrid SUVs which have similar mileage to hybrid normal cars and we have our first all electric SUVs.
That's an example where just 2 years turned from what seemed potentially a major issue to a non problem.
I talk about that at the end here Concrete manufacturers launch roadmap to zero emissions by 2050 - IPCC: steel and cement industries can both be carbon zero - unavoidable CO2 emissions with current technology - but we can capture it at source - already being done
Many billionaires in the USA are doing a lot for climate change. E.g. Jeff Bezos committed in 2020 to spend $10 billion on climate change action in a decade and has been giving out $1 billion in grants, a year since then from his Earth fund.
Bill Gates also spends a fair bit on climate action and there are several other billionaires in the list here:
And it is fine to have kids. Earth's population will level off naturally this century. It's prosperity that leads to fewer kids and the main issue is how quickly Africa can develop because it has high birth rate but falling fast in many regions.
12 Simple lifestyle changes to help reduce global warming and biodiversity loss
Also
GOAL FOR COP28 IN 2023 TO KEEP THE 1.5 C GOAL ALIVE
One of the themes in 2023 will be to keep the 1.5 C goal alive.
It's in the UAE and they say their priority is to keep the 1.5 C goal alive and to feature sustainable agriculture prominently.
QUOTE The COP28 Presidency has said it will work to keep the 1.5C goal alive and ensure that the world responds to the Stocktake with a clear plan of action, including measures that need to be put in place to bridge the gaps in progress. Sustainable agriculture will also feature prominently on the agenda at COP28, where participants will seek to spur innovation in how food is grown and produced.
https://www.uae-embassy.org/discover-uae/climate-energy/cop28
EMISSIONS GAP IS BASED ON SCENARIOS WHERE EMISSIONS FALL EARLY AND SLOWLY - BUT FOR RAPIDLY INDUSTRIALIZING COUNTRIES IT IS NATURAL FOR EMISSIONS TO FALL FAST AND LATE
You can see them in this diagram and you can see what they call the “emissions gap” between where we are with the latest pledges including those received after COP26 cut off date September 2022, and where we should be according to the scenarios looked at by the IPCC for 1.5 C and 2 C.
Graphic from: NDC-synthesis-report-2022#Projected-GHG-Emission-levels which is based on NDCs submitted through to Sept 22, 20222.
Looked at in that way we wouldn’t even get below 2 C.
However the IPCC doesn’t explore scenarios in detail where the emission sstay higher to 2030 and then fall more rapidly after 2030. For instance the 2C scenario stays relatively high after 2030 and never quite reaches zero by the end of the century.
Each report has a few paragraphs looking briefly at those scenarios but because they are not explored in the detailed models they get little attention and are easily missed.
But countries like China that are rapidly industrializing and simultaneously doing a green transition find it much harder to follow a path like that than countries like the EU which already has falling emissions and so are already below the 2C line and just need to keep going and are already 1.5 C compatible. The difference is that the EU had its industrial revolution in the nineteenth through to the early 20th century and started in 2015 with far higher emissions per capita than India and higher emissions per capita also than China.
It is possible to bypass the fossil fuel based industrial revolution. Countries in Africa for instance, which haven’t even started on a proper industrial revolution are well placed to do a green revolution from scratch. But India and China have already started their industrial revolution based on fossil fuels. It is harder to switch in the middle of industrializing when all your infrastructure has been built out for coal, your country has natural coal resources (like Europe in the nineteenth century) and now you need to transition to renewables in the middle of industrializing.
They are both in a position where they had rising emissions in 2015. They could stop emissions rising by stopping the process of industrialization and keeping their population iwith low access to energy but that is obviously not acceptable. So what they have done is to continue to industrialize using fossil fuels while at the same time rapidly transitioning to renewables and India and China have built amongst the largest renewables plants in the entire world, they vie with each other for the top spot there especially for solar photovoltaics.
So - for them the path shown in the emissions gap report is one they can’t follow easily. If they do follow a path like that then they will go down far faster after 2030.
That helps explain why they made submissions with net zero in 2060 or 2070 with emissions peaking before 2030 and then falling very rapidly after that. Those paths may even be 1.5 C compatible depending how fast they fall after 2030 which we will only know once they give the details of their proposals for the 2030s later this decade.
The NDC synthesis report does acknowledge this.
The emissions would have to fall very fast if they don’t increase ambition substantially by 2030. For the 1.5 C path if the countries keep to their current pledges with no increase in ambition before 2030 we have only two years of 2030 level emissions before we use up the CO2 budget for 1.5 C making an overshoot inevitable.
In the context of the carbon budget consistent with 50 per cent likelihood of limiting warming to 1.5 °C (500 Gt CO2), cumulative CO2 emissions in 2020–2030 based on the latest NDCs would likely use up 86 per cent of the remaining carbon budget, leaving a post-2030 carbon budget of around 70 Gt CO2, which is equivalent to approximately two years of projected total global CO2 emissions by 2030. Similarly, in the context of the carbon budget consistent with a likely chance of keeping warming below 2 °C (estimated by the IPCC to be 1,150 Gt CO2 from 2020 onward), cumulative CO2 emissions in 2020–2030 based on the latest NDCs would likely use up around 37 per cent of the remaining carbon budget. For comparison, total global CO2 emissions between 1850 and 2020 are estimated by the IPCC to have amounted to 2,390 (2,150–2,630) Gt CO2.
from: NDC-synthesis-report-2022#Projected-GHG-Emission-levels
It goes on to say that there will need to be either a signfiicant increase in the level of ambition of NDCs between now and 2030 - which seems very likely to happen.
Or signfiicant over achieving of the NDCs which is also possible. If other countries keep to their NDCs it is pretty much guaranteed that China will over achieve as it always does and iti s likely that India also over achieves.
The information above implies, despite some progress since the previous version of this report, an urgent need for either a significant increase in the level of ambition of NDCs between now and 2030 or a significant overachievement of the latest NDCs, or a combination of both, in order to attain the cost-effective emission levels suggested in many of the scenarios considered by the IPCC for keeping warming likely below 2 °C or limiting it to 1.5 °C. If emissions are not reduced by 2030, they will need to be substantially reduced thereafter to compensate for the slow start on the path to net zero emissions. The AR6 identifies net zero CO2 emissions as a prerequisite for halting warming at any level.
from: NDC-synthesis-report-2022#Projected-GHG-Emission-levels
For the 2 C path they say that if countries do keep to their pledges after 2030 we will come in below 2 C with per capita emissions by 2050 of 2.2 tons of CO2 but too high for the 1.5 C scenario with per capita emissions of 0.9 tons per capita
Mindful of the inherent uncertainty of such long-term estimates, the information indicates that these Parties’ total GHG emission level could be 64 (59–69) per cent lower in 2050 than in 2019 and their annual per capita emissions would be 2.4 (2.1–2.7) t CO2 eq by 2050.
Under scenarios of limiting warming to likely below 2 °C (with over 67 per cent likelihood), annual per capita emissions are 2.2 (1.4–2.9) t CO2 eq; hence the estimated long-term per capita emissions of these Parties are at a level consistent with 2 °C scenarios.
However, for scenarios of limiting warming to 1.5 °C (with 50 per cent likelihood by 2100) and achieving net zero emissions this century, annual per capita emissions by 2050 are required to be two to three times lower, at 0.9 (0.0–1.6) t CO2 eq.
from: NDC-synthesis-report-2022#Projected-GHG-Emission-levels
MY PROPOSAL FOR A NEW “INCREASING AMBITION PATH” SCENARIO
Glen Peters requested the public to suggest scenarios to him on Twitter. They are expensive to run so the IPCC can only do a limited number of scenarios. I suggested a new scenario “Increasing ambition”
Suggestion for new IPCC scenario: Increasing ambition path
Easier way to achieve 1.5°C for countries like India and China in the middle of fossil fuel based industrialization switching to renewables as their energy use increases
Also a possible path for other countries with increasing ambition made easier by exponential growth in lower cost renewables
Graphic from: NDC-synthesis-report-2022#Projected-GHG-Emission-levels which is based on NDCs submitted through to Sept 22, 20222.
My tweet suggesting it is here:
https://twitter.com/DoomsdayDebunks/status/1700851281458258284
Scenario:
- renewables prices undercut fossil fuels
- China / India / Africa green industrial revolution
- decision makers motivated by experience of warming.
Enables:
- rapidly increasing ambition in late 2020s
- emissions fall a few % by 2030
- falls much faster after 2030.
The motivation is there is a fair bit of discussion in the literature saying that halving emissions by 2030 is only one way to reach 1.5 C, but these other paths are hardly explored - they seem plausible ways to reach 1.5 C for the reasons given.
Let’s look at the example of China.
Many people bring up the coal use in China and that they continue to build many coal fired power stations.
These are deliberate stranded assets, coal is for energy security for China's industrial revolution - also used for recovery after COVID especially with surge in demand. Most cost of fossil fuel generation is in fuel. They operate at far less than capacity and many will shut down early.
See my:
We’ll find that an exponential growth of renewables with a faster doubling time of the growth in energy demand for China will quickly overtake the energy demand.
When that happens the fossil fuel power plants will have to close down because all the energy is produced by low cost renewables.
It’s not obvious yet. The coal use has flattened but not yet started to fall. But what that hides is that energy use continues to soar.
Up to around 2011 the coal use almost exactly matches the energy consumption - of course there were other sources of power, hydro and nuclear but they were steady and the coal matches the fluctuations in demand:
But since 2011, energy use has nearly doubled, but nearly all that extra energy comes from renewables.
Combines China: coal consumption 2022 | Statista
with Primary energy consumption
The energy consumption is taking more than 16 years to double.
However the energy consumption has already reached UK levels and is only one doubling away from US levels one of the highest energy levels in the world.
Graphic from:
Now look at electrical power. Using this graphic:
. Electricity production by source
First in 2019
Then in 2022
The doubling time for renewables is a bit over 4 years.
The doubling time for electricity demand is rather faster than for total energy consumption, it’s about 11 years from that same graphic.
But solar power is growing faster than in the past. It’s now set to double in 3 years.
Rystad Energy says China may have another record year for new PV installations in 2023, driven by the addition of 150 MW of PV capacity.
. Chinese PV Industry Brief: Rystad forecasts 150 GW of new solar in 2023
Wind installations are also faster than expected, to simplify the calculation suppose that is doubling every 3 years too.
This is another estimate that it will double the combined wind and solar by 2025
So that is potentially even faster.
So it is reasonable to use a 3 years doubling time for renewables in the future instead of 4 years..
Renewables are currently 420.35 + 800.52 out of 8,839.13 TWh or 100 * (420.35 + 800.52) /8,839.13 = 13.8% of electricity generation.
If it takes another 11 years to double electricity use and if renewables double every 3 years, they will increase by 2^(11/3) = 12.7 fold by next doubling. Then to get the % divide by 2 as that's for double the energy demand.
So, by 2034 it reaches 13.8*12.7/2 = 87.63% of the energy is renewables. Together with hydro, nuclear and bioenergy we can expect close to 100% renewables by 2034.
Then assuming that's the last doubling of electricity use since China's industrial revolution is likely just one doubling away from completion, another 3 years takes it to 175.26% by 2037
So, based on this back of envelope calculation, if renewables keep doubling every 3 years, by 2040 it's enough for all Chinese energy use.
It needs detailed analysis but this shows how a faster doubling time for renewables can easily overtake increases in energy use.
Also it could be faster than that. Solar power especially is rapidly falling in price and will reach a point where it is uneconomic to run fossil fuel unless heavily subsidised, and especially if perovskite panels work out China may install solar power far faster than expected.
By mid 2030s expect all electricity in China to be renewables and only 3 years later expect to have enough for their entire energy use for industry as an example of how fast it can go if they keep doubling every 3 years.
So now - combine this with ultra low cost solar and increasing pledges globally and we can easily see how with increasing ambition governments could have emissions falling far faster after 2030 than before.
This is a scenario. It doesn’t mean it will happen but it seems to be worth exploring as it is reasonably plausible.
It’s not a big deal if we end up at 1.6 C instead of 1.5 C. But this scenario suggests we could end up at 1.5 C or less even with less reduction of emissions by 2030 than for the conventional 1.5 C scenario.
JOHN KERRY, ONE OF THE ARCHITECTS OF THE PARIS AGREEMENT THINKS CLOSE TO 1.6 C IS ACHIEVABLE AND BELOW 1.6 C IS WITHIN REACH
This is a personal view here, I think that scenarios with increasing ambition and rapid reduction after 2030 are plausible. Also given that countries are bound to increase their pledges before 2030 and that China always over achieves, I’m with John Kerry who is one of othe few who says that the 1.5 C path is still within reach. That we can get to close to 1.6 C and may be able to do even better.
Also
I use the word realistic here for the current pledges for beyond 2030 as the best way to express it in a short non contentious sentence.
In more details:
If you take into account targets for zero emissions which are very credible, we are headed for 1.7 C. That would be a bit above their 1.5 C and we have leeway here to reduce that further.
I don't think it is right to call 1.7 C "optimistic". It is simply what we will reach if countries keep to their pledges for zero emissions later this century.
Whether that's optimistic or not depends on a separate value judgement about whether or not countries are likely to achieve those targets.
Most countries have kept to their 2015 pledges so why wouldn't they keep to their 2021/2 pledges?
Nearly all are credible targets that the countries can achieve with the technology they have already. It makes economic sense for them too to achieve the targets, and technology improves every year. Especially China which has massively overachieved on all its climate change targets. And as we see effects of warming so far and as younger people grow up we are moving to more, not less action on climate change.
So then after that it is a value judgement about whether countries are going to keep to pledges that are realistic, credible and make economic sense for them and when most countries have a previous history of keeping to their pledges, or exceeding them with a few that do not keep their pledges.
Then with renewables they are NOT going to fulfill these pledges automatically. However the lower price renewables can do quite a lot of the heavy lifting. For instance once renewables halve in price once more as seems pretty certain to happen while fossil fuels are unlikely to fall signfiicantly in price long term - it will simply be uneconomic to keep fossil fuel power stations going if the market is permitted to set a competitive price for electricity. Sos long as the governments set electricity pricing policies that do not artificially swing the market in favour of fossil fuels, all new power stations will be renewables and many existing fossil fuel power plants will close down early because it is no longer economic for them to keep going.
Now governments can do things to keep uneconomic fossil fuel power plants going much as they did with natural gas during the Ukraine war fossil fuel crisis. But it is one thing to do that in response to an energy crisis and it is another thing to do that for decades when it is hurting your economy and there is no external reason to do it.
They may have to use incentives to keep natural gas power stations going to balance the grid in the early stages of transition to a fully renewable grid, that is the plan of the EU. Similarly China has reasons to run coal at a loss if necessary to keep the lights on. Just to have the fossil fuel power plants still economically viable so it can call on them when it has a surge of demand and hasn’t yet got enough renewables installed to cope with it.
Long term it seems pretty clear renewables will displace fossil fuels for power generation. Government policy can speed that up or slow it down but it is pretty much inevitable as the fossil fuels become more and more uneconomic.
A renewable plant has such low running costs compared to the cost of building it, that it can continue to earn a profit even when the prices of renewables are well below those projected when it was built. Even if the renewable power plants were based on overoptimistic projections of future prices, the company may even go bankrupt but the power plant will continue operating as it will earn money for whoever gets it when the company is sold.
But for fossil fuels it’s a different story. Most of the cost is for the fuel not the building. Once the fossil fuel electricity prices are undercut by renewables the fossil fuel power plant is LOSING money every day it operates (unless supported by goverment subsidies or artificial electricity price setting in which case it is subsidised by the consumers in what amounts to a form of indirect taxation essentially).
So long term since another halving in renewables will make fossil fuel power plants uneconomic to keep running, they have to close down. So the transition to 100% renewables seems pretty certain apart from any that are kept going in order to keep the stability of the grid. Those are most likely to be natural gas which can ramp up and down quickly, will be less needed as we over produce on renewables, and they can be fitted with carbon capture and storage at source to reduce the emissions.
However the cost of keeping fossil fuel power plants going would stimulate governments to look for lower cost solutions even then. .
With cars however, without government policy we may continue to use fossil fuel cars because of the convenience of gas stations.
So government policy with electric charging stations is essential fir ekectruc cars. Then the inflation reduction act also stimulates innovation in battery technology and reducing the prices of electric cars. China is still the leader in electric car innovations but the US is rapidly catching up and of course the scandiinavian countries like Norway especially have been leaders for a long time in electric cars and now in electric planes.
All this by itself is not enough to stay within 1.5 C. But it creates the conditions for it to be easier for countries to make far more ambitious pledges in the late 2020s and the 2030s. That is what can get us to within 1.5 C in my view.
it is not at all contentious to say that we have the prospect of staying within 1.6 C and that is still alive as a future possibility.
For 1.5 C the more optimistic people like John Kerry say it is still a possibility.
I pesronally think John Kerry is right.
It is NOT controversial to say that we can stay within 1.5 C with levels of CO2 emission in 2030 that are higher than 50% of the present. That is in all the IPCC reports.
But the IPCC don’t include any example model pathways that have a rapid reduction in CO2 emissions after 2030.
I think it should which is the reason for my suggestion to Glen Peters’ tweet.
NEXT ROUND OF PLEDGES STARTS FIRST QUARTER 2024 AND CONTINUES TO FIRST QUARTER 2025
The next round of pledges starts in the first quarter of 2024 and continues for a year.
So - we may get preliminary discussion of them in COP28 in 2023 but countries tend to leave announcements of pledges to later on. They like to announce them during COPs so maybe COP29 will be when they are announced?
This is from the technical dialogue of the firt global stocktake Technical dialogue of the first global stocktake
In 2024, which starrts the next round of pledges, COP29 should be hosted by a country in the Eastern group which includes Russia, and several countries in the EU. It is difficult to find a host because of the Ukraine war. Russia blocks any host in the EU and the EU is not keen on Russia’s choices. the main candidates are Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Armenia but Azerbaijan and Armenia are also at war with each other and the meeting hasn’t come to a choice.
. Bitter conflicts stop Eastern Europe from choosing next year's Cop host
Australia which may host COP31 had an interest in swapping with the Eastern nations so that it could host COP29 under a labour government and not risk a less climate ambitious Liberal government running the COP giving the Eastern nations more time to decide. But Australia seems to be focusing now on its COP31 BID.
COP25 which is after the final date of the next round of pledges will almost certainly be in Brazil.
. Brazil makes official bid to host UN climate talks in Amazonia
Summary from Wikipedia which should be reasonably accurate / kept up to date on something like this:
. 2023: COP 28/CMP 18/CMA 5, Dubai, UAE
. 2024: COP 29, Eastern Europe Group (TBC)
. 2025: COP 30, Belém, Brazil (TBC)
. 2026: COP 31, Australia and Pacific Nations (TBC)
WE GET MORE DISTASTER IN A WARMER WORLD - BUT THAT IS NOT BECAUSE THE CLIMATRE IS INTRINSICALLY MORE DANGEROUS FOR HUMANS IN A WARMER WORLD - IT IS BECAUSE WE BUILT OUR CITIES AND SOCIEITIES FOR A COOLER WORLD - AND WE ARE GETTING MUCH BETTER AT PREVENTING DEATHS FROM DISTASTERS
We do get more disasters - but this is due to us building houses and cities designed for a different climate. The world is if anything more habitable for us.
Suppose we had set up an industrial civilization during the ice ages when for instance there were large areas of land in the North sea between Europe and the UK, and built our cities in places that are now 100 meters below sea level. We’d have had numerous disasters to deal with as the world warmed to the present and it would have been a major issue moving the cities and dealing with the changes in agriculture as the ice sheets retreated and exposed vast new areas to colonize.
We’d have ended up with a far more habitable world but we might have had many issues adjusting to it.
It’s similar today, as we adjust to a .1.2 C and eventually maybe 1.8 C world on the 1.8 C path.
Yes today’s youth will see more heat waves - but fewer cold waves - and more disasters - but on low emissions there may well be fewer deaths due to disasters as we are getting better at preventing them
A SLIGHTLY WARMER WORLD DOES STILL HAVE SNOW AND GLACIERS, INDEED EVEN MORE THAN AT PRESENT IN SOME AREAS SUCH AS THE WESTERN HIMALAYAS AND NORTHERN PARTS OF CANADA
Text on graphic: Changes in Mer du Glace in 100 years On 1.8 C path we already had 2/3 of the total warming.
I cover this in a reply to a comment on this blog post see the comments section.
See comment here - my answer to one of the comments on this blog post, it may be easier to just scroll down to the comments section to find it.
A SLIGHTLY WARMER WORLD IS MORE HABITABLE EVEN FOR CORALS THROUGH TO 2 C AND BEYOND, THE ISSUE IS THE SPEED OF ADAPTATION
Corals are the only ecosystem vulnerable to us losing them in their entirety and they only vanish from oceans above 3°C - replaced by sponge reefs not deserts - but we stopped them from vanishing - need to slow down warming to help them more - corals are the only ecosystem that can vanish due to warming - often did in the past
Given help corals are far more resilient than previously thought
Reason for hope for corals that many more survive at 2 C than previously thought - much quoted figure of 99% lost at 2 C based on study from 2016 - recent research suggests many corals may be more resilient
At 1,8 C or even 2 C the world is actually better for corals than it is today once they adapt.
IT IS NOW FAR MORE IMPORTANT TO TRANSITION IN A WAY THAT PROTECTS BOIDIVERSITY AND ENABLES WEAKER ECONOMIES TO TRANSITION RAPIDLY IN A GREEN REVOLUTION AND TO ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE THAN TO SAVE ANOTHER FEW TENTHS OF A DEGREE THOUGH IT IS BEST TO DO BOTH
We are doing a LOT we already are down to BELOW 2 C for the global temperature rise for 2100 with realistic pledges. As recently as 2021 it was well above 3 C predicted rise. And none of the big reports talk about a billion dying or even a billion refugees. There will be some mainly internal movement in a warming world. But people move around within countries anyway and often to other countries too. It doesn't mean everyone moves either. In most cases nearly everyone stays where they are but a significant % move because another part of their country gets better for growing crops or for other reasons a place they prefer to live.
It's only the weaker economies where there is a risk of malnutrition from this and that is something we can solve and are solving with things like the world food problem. It is feasible to achieve zero hunger globally by 2030 though it seems likely we don't quite get there by then. But we can feed everyone on all scenarios with climate change, that's not the issue. It is easier to do it with low emissions. .
World bank report is to HELP countries plan for INTERNAL migration as parts of their country get more fertile and other parts get less fertile as the climate changes - while total crop yields increase globally
We can grow enough food for everyone through to 2100 and beyond on all scenarios
We aren’t in the middle of the sixth mass extinction - we are at the start of what would be a mass extinction if it continued at this rate for 1000 years- but already doing a lot to end and reverse biodiversity loss - we can stop this!
https://debunkingdoomsday.quora.com/Debunked-that-we-are-in-the-middle-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction
I wrote this several years ago and it is even more true today
https://robertinventor.online/booklets/remarkable_progress.htm
LOOKING AT OUR MANY SUCCESSES TO INSPIRE MORE ACTION INTHE FUTURE
We are doing so much to stop and reverse biodiversity loss.
There are many positive things going on. Here are some of the ones I shared.
Pocket forests - making a small forest very quickly by using lots of small saplings and shrubs - reaches a full fledged forest in just 40 years - and small circular gardens as part of the Great Green Wall in Africa #positivenewsclimate
#PositiveNews Expedition to save four land snail species on Deserta Grande island in Madiera - snails generally NOT at risk - snails adapted to particular islands often vulnerable to invasive species - Many care about tiny snails on remote islands
COP15 very encouraging outcomes - agreement for effective conservation and management of 30% of land, coastal waters and inland waters by many countries - and action to stop and redirect subsidies that harm nature
Videos of good things that are happening in the world for climate change and biodiversity
Yes our generation’s children are headed for a world with nature and wonder in it - and their children too
https://robertinventor.online/booklets/childrens_future_nature_wonder.htm
Blue Whales now back in South Georgia - used to be one of their ancestral homes
Grey whale is not even classified as threatened any more - and prospects are good in a warming world
Emperor Penguins are not going to go extinct under any realistic climate scenario - the headlines are about “Business as usual” which is no longer realistic
Pocket forests - making a small forest very quickly by using lots of small saplings and shrubs - reaches a full fledged forest in just 40 years - and small circular gardens as part of the Great Green Wall in Africa
Expedition to save four land snail species on Deserta Grande island in Madiera - snails generally NOT at risk - snails adapted to particular islands often vulnerable to invasive species - Many care about tiny snails on remote islands
COP15 very encouraging outcomes - agreement for effective conservation and management of 30% of land, coastal waters and inland waters by many countries - and action to stop and redirect subsidies that harm nature
Videos of good things that are happening in the world for climate change and biodiversity
Same also for water, shelter etc. The main risk is for the weaker economies but we are increasingly doing things to help them too. Not enough yet but things like the World food program and the $1 billion a year CERF fund help ensure the famines we had in the 70s and 80s never happen again and we are gradually, with some setbacks, moving towards a world with zero hunger. The aim was zero hunger by 2030, unlikely to achieve that but it seems an aim that is within reach.
We have a huge food surplus every year and the issues with feeding everyone are economic and political not scientific or practical in terms of growing enough food for them all.
I cover the background here
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FAO food projections for 2020–2021 remain high during pandemic with strong performances from developing countries with end of year 3 - 4 months cereal surplus as usual and how the world can grow plenty of food for everyone into the far future
Examples of 16 species mix of forage for cattle and mixing trees with agriculture #positivenews Climate, Biodiversity, Agriculture
The Coral Reef Restoration Foundation acted swiftly to save corals from their coral nurseries from the marine heat wave, moved them to big marine aquariums on land where they will grow for several months then get returned to the sea
Hope reef - word “hope” spelt out on Google Earth as restored coral reef
Great barrier reef lost half its corals - but they have a recovery plan
Nature paper about coral reef sharks says we can save them.
https://debunkingdoomsday.quora.com/Nature-paper-about-coral-reef-sharks-says-we-can-save-them
Deserts + water = good soil often - Sahara desert was grassland 5000 years ago due to Earth’s axial precession - and will be in the future - but we can make it somewhat greener right now - Great Green wall
#positivenewsclimate China continues to add more renewables each year than it did the previous year, since 2019 - world leader on renewables
#PositiveNews: Ocean Cleanup removed 100 metric tons of plastics from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2021–2 - larger net should remove a million metric tons in 2023 - ten large nets should remove a fifth of the patch every year
#positivenewsclimate - one in 10 of all cars sold globally are electric
#positivenews Pigmy hogs 10" high - once thought to be extinct - return to the wild
Positive story few have shared - likely headed for a world with fewer rather than more areas of desert and drylands with global warming
Positive articles on climate change if you feel it is hopeless
https://debunkingdoomsday.quora.com/Positive-articles-on-climate-change-if-you-feel-it-is-hopeless
Positive news - conservation projects in Australia
THE MEDIA FOCUS ON TEMPERATURE RECORDS IS UNDESTANDABLE BUT CONFUSING - BECAUSE WE CAN EXPECT A TIME IN THE FUTURE PERHAPS IN THE 2030s WHEN THE GLOBAL AVERAGE OVER 20 YEARS BEFORE AND AFTER IS EVEN HIGHER 1.3 C BUT THE ANNUAL TEMPEATURES ARE 1.1 C AND SO, 0.3 C LOWER THAN THE PRESENT WITH MOST PLACES FEELING COLDER THAN THEY ARE TODAY - IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DETECT THE DIFFERENCE IN GLOBAL WARMING IN JUST A FEW YEARS ONLY BY LOOKING AT TEMPERATURE RECORDS
The news has been full of how this has been a record breaking summer with the global average sea surface temperatures higher than they have ever been. But nobody lives on or in the sea.
Actually hardly anyone lives in the areas of the world that were affected by the warmth of the El Nino we are in. Many of us experienced a summer if anything cooler than last year which doesn’t match what the media told us was happening.
This is normal and natural. Global warming is happening but it is far better probably to think of it as “climate change” and as something we can expect to notice on a timescale of decades rather than years. So we are noticing that this decade is significantly warmer than the end of the last century when we were in a similar warm phase of our climate. But we cannot notice that it is warmer than it was in 2015 as the changes we notice in a personal level on that short timescale are nearly all due to us being in the warm phase of various yearly and multi-decadal cycles.
It was NOT a record breaking summer all over the world. It was an El Nino on top of a warm phase of many ocean cycles but most countries are not warmed by an el Nino in the northern hemisphere summer, only parts of south America and central America and the ones in south America are in their winter.
There were marine heat waves off the coast of the UK but the UK didn’t have a record breaking summer on land. We didn’t have a record breaking average temperature, We didn’t have a longer drought than last year. Nothing record breaking as far as I know. Nothing that hit the news that I noticed. And we wouldn’t expect that of an El Nino. The only thing record breaking that hit the news were the marine heat waves and of course those are not experienced as temperatures on land.
I think it is important to realize that this idea of the global average sea surface / land surface temperature is itself very artificial because most of the heat is stored in the oceans and most of what is left is in the atmosphere, very little is in the region measured just 2 meters above the land and the surface of the sea. It is a proxy and not a very good one at that. The reason we use this particular figure is because it is where we live and so it is easy to measure, especially on land.
A dolphin civilization would use the sea temperature to a depth of tens of meters probably.
To deal with this, the IPCC uses the average over the entire world at land surface and sea surface and then the average of that over 20 years before and after the present. That is something that can be measured and also modelled.
So - based on that definition, we have what is measured as a warmer year than normal this year. That is because we had an El Nino. This moves warm water below the sea surface to the surface. It leads to warmer surface land area temperatures in some places too. But most people don’t live in the relevant land areas and nobody lives in the sea so the sea surface temperature mainly affects marine life and it is only if it is a heat wave in summer that it can exceed the limits of what the life is used to, and many fish are mobile and can move to a cooler part of the ocean if needed, others have short lifetimes and can grow very fast if they get a setback one year.
It’s often other things like drought or changing of precipitation that is more the issue for an El Nino than the actual temperature measurements.
So yes this year it pushed the global average up higher for one year but that is misleading for most of the world as an El Nino has very localized effects which also depend on the season.
This one was unusual because it also was combined with an increased sea level warming in the north Atlantic and a warming of the sea around Antarctica. That doesn’t happen with a normal El Nino. It’s not yet clear if it was connected or a coincidence. The warming off Scotland where I live was because of more movement of warm water from the tropics to here and that was jsut a shallow layer of a few meters that got blown up to Scotland.
That then got replaced by other warm water below the surface in the tropics so the end effect was to increase the average temperature more than is usual for an El Nino.
It was an unusual year but that does NOT mean the climate was breaking down in any way of course.
And it doesn’t mean that people on land experienced it as warmer than usual. Most countries indeed are not affected by an El Nino at all.
Only small limited areas of the globe experience an El Nino as a warming on land in the northern hemisphere summer or even in winter.
Text on graphic: Even in the northern hemisphere winter most regions experience no change in temperature.
Notice in a normal El Nino year only some regions of central and South America experience it as a warmer than usual in the northern hemisphere summer / southern hemisphere winter.
So you wouldn’t expect to notice it in North America for instance.
So this artificial figure of the average temperature doesn’t necessarily even mean much by way of averaged human experienced temperature for that year as that depends on whether the warming happens in inhabited areas.
For instance warming of the surface of the sea will not be experienced as a warming except by fishermen and ocean going passengers and such like and of course sea life.
Warming in deserts or sparsely inhabited areas like Alaska won’t be experienced as warming by most people.
It also depends on the season whether they notice it.
Then in addition to that the day to day / anomalies are frequently +- 10 C or +- 20 C even or more.
So a global average increase of 1.2 C on top of that swing of +- 10 to 20 C is not going to be necessarily noticed as a warming.
It does get noticed as temperature record breaking but only in some places as you say.
This is why many call it climate change rather than global warming. Though global warming is technically correct it is not how people experience it necessarily. Human beings experience it more as a climate change which may not necessarily be a warming though sometimes they do experience heat waves that are unusual. But then they do anyway and it requires analysis after the event to find out if it was historically unusual. E.g. when we experienced 40 C in the UK that could have just been natural variability as it was an unusual climate event that moved a coherent mass of warm air north from the Sahara desert to the UK - on the same day the Sahara desert was unusually cold for the normal climate there.
It took a lot of detailed analysis to prove that the temperature we experienced in the UK would never have reached 40 C preindustrial - almost never, over periods of thousands of years.
So it was indeed a result of global warming and without it would have been a degree or two lower in temperature. We can say that with some confidence.
But though we can do that and have done warming attribution in many individual cases, we couldn’t work backwards and without knowledge of how the climate system works and without these detailed models, we couldn’t deduce global warming from heat records.
We can deduce global warming without modeling from the average over the sea and land but that is not the same as the experienced warming of human beings as I said.
So there are nuances here that many people miss in the media and it needs very careful use of language to get it right.
IF WE CONTINUE TO FOCUS ON THE IDEA OF AVERTING CHAOS - AND NO CHAOS HAPPENS THE PUBLIC WILL THINK THE SCIENTISTS WERE WRONG AND WANT TO ABANDON CLIMATE ACTION - IF INSTEAD WE PRESENT ACCURATE INFORMATION THAT THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PATH IS A PATH OF GROWTH IN EVERYTHING WE VALUE - WHEN THE PUBLIC SEE THEIR LIVES ARE IMPROVED IN THE 2030s AND 2040s THEY WILL WANT MORE CLIMATE ACTION NOT TO ABANDON IT
I think this emphasis on the experienced warming and on heat records is a mistake myself. Because we are setting lots of records now because we are in a warm phase of most of the multi-decadal and short range cycles.
But that will change. We are at 1.2 C average but the yearly average is more like 1.4 C. But in the future when maybe we are at 1.3 C the yearly average may be 1.1 C because the cycles are all in the opposite direction. We don’t know when that will happen but it will happen, perhaps in the 2030s.
So we’ll have a time of very few temperature records even though global warming continues as before. The reason being that the temperature records only measure temperatures in places where humans are living.
But the climate will still be changing. It won’t mean global warming has stopped.
And then at some point maybe once we reach 1.5 C we will have very hot years again now averaging 1.7 C and again most places the natural variability obscures most of the signal most of the year but the climate noticeably different at 1.5 C
I think we have overemphasis on temperature records and there are so many tweets even by climate scientists about how extraordinary and unprecedented the sea surface average temperatures in the Atlantic are. But they don’t give this broader picture and ordinary people get confused by it and think it means the entire world has heated up suddenly which is not true at all.
The average temperature according to the IPCC is pretty much indistinguishable in 2023 from e.g. 2020 and not that much different from 2015. We wouldn’t be able to deduce without the models that the average has increased from 2015 to 2023. If we didn’t have the broader context of the temperature records back to the nineteenth century and didn’t have the detailed modelling, just the 8 years from 2015 to 2023 wouldn’t be enough to prove that global warming is happening.
This idea that it is something we can notice at a personal level over a timescale of a year or a few years is not in fact valid, and it is leading to potential future issues when we are no longer in a warmer phase of all the cycles and at a personal level the world seems to be cooling rather than warming.
So I think it is important to explain this better to the public and to focus also on the “climate change” rather than the “global warming” way of undertanding it. Both are technically accurate but “global warming” is more easily misunderstood and is very badly misrepresented by the media sadly.
This warm phase of all those cycles is what makes the UN Secretary General’s hyperbole more believable.
But what is he going to do when we enter a cold phase, probably in the 2030s, widely experienced as colder than today, when his message will not match people’s experiences any more of what seems like a fast warming in just a few years?
It won’t work and there is a risk here of it leading to climate skepticism which would be just as invalid as the hyperbole.
So I think it is important to present things far more clearly, without hyperbole, focusing on the positives too. Because on the path we are following we are not headed for a future of climate chaos. So again what do we say when people look around in a 1.5 C world in the 2030s and don’t see the climate chaos they had been told would happen?
But if we explain that the transformative change path is a path of growth in all we value and they look around and see that life is easier, biodiversity loss stopped, countries adapted to climate change, plenty of food etc, they can then say “This is what scientists predicted would happen on the path of transformative change, so we should do more of the same”.
But if we predict chaos if we don’t act and we don’t quite meet the 1.5 C path they look around and may say “no chaos, NAH those scientists were nuts, we shouldn’t try to keep within 1.5 C”.
That would be very unfortunate so I think it is veyr improtant to explain things clearly and carefully and without hyperbole and explain that we are on a path that if we continue to follow it will lead to growth in everything we value.
SEARCH MY BLOG FOR MORE ARTICLES ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND MANY OTHER TOPICS
You can find many more articles in my list of debunks which now has a search feature to let you search the titles of the blog posts. It also gives you a link you can use to search my blog on Google.
https://robertinventor.online/booklets/debunking_doomsday_list.htm