Paris agreement 1.5°C is still alive if we triple renewables by 2030 - NOT yet committed to 1.6°C or 1.7°C - helping weaker economies and protecting nature is as important as an extra -0.2°C reduction
This is to counteract gloomy claims that “1.5°C is dead”. First, this is all about a tenth of a degree. Everyone agrees we can still stay within 1.6°C but some are saying we can’t stay within 1.5°C.
But though those who say that get the attention of the media, the IEA who are very authoritative have no doubt about it that we can stay within 1.5°C if we can triple renewables by 2030. This is a goal which is not only achievable but the figures for additional renewables in 2023 and 2024 shows us well on track to achieve it.
This is where the IEA say we need to triple renewables by 1.5°C to keep it within reach. That is with existing technology.
QUOTE Ramping up renewables, improving energy efficiency, cutting methane emissions and increasing electrification with technologies available today deliver more than 80% of the emissions reductions needed by 2030. The key actions required to bend the emissions curve sharply downwards by 2030 are well understood, most often cost-effective and are taking place at an accelerating rate. T
The other 20% is things like improving energy efficiency which we are also doing.
This is just with existing technology as we have right now and immediately foreseeable near future technologies we can achieve this tripling of renewables to stay within 1.5 C.
Actually we are well on track for tripling renewables by 2030 which is promising for the easiest way to stay within 1.5 C.
The IEA always under project what actually happens so it’s not surprising to see that they project that we are not quite on track for the tripling goal yet.
Wood Mackenzie is lower than the IEA.
But the BNEF projection actually goes ABOVE that tripling goal and Solar Power Europe go even higher than BNEF. Remember this is just based on existing technology and we may well go above those projections with new technology
. TEXT ON GRAPHIC: The IEA say we need to triple renewables by 2030 for the easiest path to 1.5°C.
Two out of 4 projections already say we will exceed that goal.
. Solar power continues to surge in 2024
Looking under the hood a bit, we can see how projections keep increasing
This shows how every month in 2024 we are installing more renewables in 2023, and those were more in turn than in 2022 and those in turn more than in 2021
Also the projections for 2024 keep being revised upwards
Based on this and more data, EMBER say:
QUOTE STARTS
The massive step up in solar capacity installations in 2023 and 2024 has shifted perceptions around solar’s role in the energy transition. Solar will likely add more GWs in 2024 than the entire global increase in coal power capacity since 2010 (540 GW). Just how fast solar deployment has accelerated is further highlighted by the fact that differences between predictions of annual installations are now larger than total solar installations were just a few years prior.
This now puts ambitious climate pledges within reach. Beyond 2024, outlooks for the rest of the decade from BNEF and SolarPower Europe are now aligned with the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge, which aims to triple renewable power capacity by 2030. Achieving this would mean that solar power generates a quarter of the world’s electricity by the end of the decade. Under this scenario, solar shows the fastest growth, with expectations that it needs to quintuple to reach 6000 GW by 2030. After the high levels of additions in the last two years, annual solar installations would only have to show relatively modest levels of growth to meet this. BNEF forecasts average growth of 6% per year from 2024 to 2030. They reported 76% growth in 2023 and are expecting 33% in 2024.
So, no we are NOT yet committed to 1.6 C. We CAN stay within 1.5 C just based on the renewables and our progress in tripling renewables by 2030.
That renewables increase gets us 80% to the EASIEST way to stay within 1.5 C. There are other ways where the emissions stay high and then fall rapidly in the 2030s.
Now this is NOT to do with future technology we don’t have yet.
We likely get huge improvements in renewables and in battery technology and many other things as we develop future technology.
This for instance shows the huge reductions in solar panel prices, a ten-fold reduction in 10 years. This is what has made this all feasible. Back in 2015 when the Paris agreement was signed, solar power was three times more expensive than in 2021.
Solar PV prices fell ten-fold in ten years from 0.4 to 0.04 2019 USD / kWh.
. Renewables Increasingly Beat Even Cheapest Coal Competitors on Cost
There is no reason to suppose this has stopped. Indeed we can see a way for it to halve in price again. And Perovskite panels once they are mature could lead to another halving of solar panel prices. Or other technologies may reduce it hugely.
I discuss solar panel technology in:
Then, if we manage to solve the problems with lithium-air batteries, this could hugely increase the range of electric cars and make electrically powered jet travel possible across and between continents. It has a power storage capacity not far off gasoline. That is a longer term project, there are so many thins to solve it may take a decade or more, but meanwhile there are many things we can do with other forms of technology and batteries improve every year and these projections can’t take account of that in advance.
BLOG: Rising to the challenge of zero emissions aviation
Another way to think about it may help, it's how John Kerrry sees it. When all countries are on a 1.5 C path then the whole world will be. He is one of the main people who got the Paris agreement across the line in 2015. He said this before COP27
John Kerry, US special envoy for climate:
“If we get more countries directly engaged in changing their plans to more rapidly kill the emissions, to more rapidly transition, it is plausible that we can hold it very close to that, to 1.5 C or close to it.”Transcript from BBC news broadcast, mp4 here for transcript verification only
Many countries are already, at 1.5 C, and a fair few on paths more ambitious than 1.5 C.
NEARLY THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE WORLD AND ECONOMY NOW HAS NET ZERO TARGETS
As of writing this in 2024, 88% of emissions, 92% of GDP and 89% of the population of the world has net zero targets
.
All these countries have some form of net zero targe
t
Map from: Net Zero Tracker | Welcome
Only China, India and Russia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia of the largest emitters have net zero pledges after 2050. Russia’s 2060 pledge is not yet very plausible. But the most important pledges for the 2020s are the ones from China (2060) and India (2070), currently by far the largest emitters of those with pledges after 2050 and these are realistic with both countries showing far more ambition in practice than is needed to achieve their current policy documents, and are well able to achieve these pledges, they just don’t have them yet in law.
This shows the share of total emissions and the net zero date for each country with the larger emitters labelled:
Graphic from here This Interactive Chart Shows Changes in the World's Top 10 Emitters
Using it under creative commons license. Permissions & Licensing
I have colour coded all the countries with zero emission targets for 2050, 2060 or 2070, in various shades of blue and purple. Light purple for Mexico and Pakistan indicates that they have zero emissions under discussion.
Text on graphic: India has target of zero emissions by 2070 - and 1st and 3rd largest ssolar power plants in the world. Bhadla Solar Park 57 km²
Plus aviation and cement both zero emissions by 2050
Aviation: Rising to the challenge of zero emissions aviation
So it has to be possible to target 1.5 C. I talk about John Kerry’s ideas here.
This is the list of the countries with pledges in law already as of 2024 - they are legally required by their own legal system to achieve their net zero pledges
:
Only the last one, Nigeria, has a net zero date after 2050 (Nigeria’s date is 2060).
These are the ones that have pledges in policy documents with net zero dates of 2050 or earlier
:
And with net zero dates after 2050, the main ones are China for 2060 and India for 2070, both likely to exceed their pledges
.
And as a declaration or pledg
e
See: Net Zero Scorecard
And more detailed descriptions of the ones that already have it in law or policy: . Which countries have a net zero carbon goal?
Of course some of these net zero pledges may be over-optimistic but the biggest emitters equal or exceed their pledges, with the one exception of Russia.
This is why it still seems well feasible that we can end up at 1.5 C instead of 1.6 C.#
No warming tipping points from ANY source by IPCC / AR6 / WG1 / Chapter 7
There aren't any warming tipping points from ANY source, methane or anything else. Many don't realize, for a warming tipping point you need to trap or absorb as much extra heat as a warmer world radiates. That is VERY HARD to do.
Virtually impossible by IPCC IPCC AR6 / WG1 / Ch 7.4.2.7 Synthesis page 7–73:
SEE BLOG:
And the issue is the speed of the warming not the end result. The world is far more habitable now for humans than it was in the last ice age with glaciers covering a lot of the potential agricultural land in the northern hemisphere.
It actually continues to be more habitable not just for us but for biodiversity generally at least for low levels of warming beyond the present. As we approach and exceed 3 C if we get that far we lose the coral reefs but before then on low emissions it becomes a better world even for coral reefs, our most vulnerable ecosystem, so long as the warming is slow enough for them to adapt.
On low emissions the issue is the speed of the warming not the end result. As we reduce emissions per year the speed of warming will slow down more and more greatly reducing that risk by the mid century and then when we reach net zero then the warming stops.
The tenth of a degree difference between 1.5°C and 1.6°C would be challenging to detect and also very challenging to study its effect although there would be a difference
The goal of 1.5°C is based on an average over a decade before and a decade after. The tenth of a degree difference between 1.5 and 1.6 C will not even be something you can detect by measuring the yearly average temperatures until you measure them for oa decade or more, only theoretically working out by modelling combined with observations where we likely are.
We are at 1.2°C at present but there are difference of opinions about where we are exactly depending on how you evaluate our current positions in the fluctuations up and down of climate and how you work out what the average temperature was during pre-industrial based on the historical records both of which have leeway enough so different groups come up with slightly different values for where we are at today.
Whether headed for 1.5 or 1.6 C, it is very important is to do it with climate justice and preserving biodiversity - but the 1.5 C goal helps to maintain ambition
It would not be good if we end up at 1.5 C with a world where biodiversity is not protected well, Nature services are deteriorating and where the weaker economies remain in poverty hampered by a lack of support to transition to renewables or to industrialize and without adequate protection for the flooding, drought, hurricanes, and so on of a slightly warmer world.
It is just as important to deal with all those things as to try to shave off an extra tenth of a degree to get from 1.6 to 1.5 C.
But I think we need to continue to have 1.5 C as our objective because it remains well within reach.
The 2015 Paris agreement was NEVER intended to get us on track to 1.5 C after just the first round of pledges, - they are every 5 years
The 2015 Paris agreement was NEVER intended to get us bang on track for 1.5 C after the first round of pledges in 2020 (postponed to 2021 because of COVID).
If you could tell the framers of the agreement, going back in a time machine that we would be headed for 1.7 C already they would be astonished. Indeed our current goal of 1.5 C was only really formulated as an actual objective after the report on the difference between 1.5 and 2 C in 2018
If Climate papers used F instead of C we are already very close to 3 F with current pledges
Meanwhile it is all veyr artificial. If climate papers used Farenheit rather than Celsius, then the report in 2018 would have been on the difference between 3 F and 4 F.
3 F is 3*5/9 C = 1.66666... C
4 F is 4*5/9 C = 2.22222... C
We are already almost at 3 F if the goal was put in Farenheight indeed within a tiny margin of error of 3 F.
Those who think 1.5 C is no longer achievable but that 1.6 C is will agree we can still achieve 3 F.
So if the report had been in F, then we are already on track for the lower temperature they would have recommended.
This helps understand how there is a certain arbitrariness here due to us using Celsius to measure temperatures and the natural tendency to choose neat numbers like half a degree for the steps to look at in reports.
It would be very hard to study the difference between 1.5 and 1.6 C. There would be a difference but very hard to model or describe.
So I hope that helps put it in perspective.
Sadly some climate scientists who have neve studied this topic are very vocal about saying 1.5 C is dead - the disadvantage of discarding it is that we lose ambition
The majority of climate scientists have never studied this topic and sadly are quite vocal about saying we can’t stay within 1.5 C but the actual data strongly suggests we can.
The main issue with dropping the target of 1.5 C is that it would leave us with no more ambition, if countries kept to their current pledges we are headed for 1.7 C which is well below 2 C. But if we keep the target of 1.5 C, it is still well possible and something that will encourage countries to continue to improve on their pledges as we head towards 2050. So for that reason alone I think we need to keep it, given that it IS feasible according to experts like the IEA.
Next IPCC report, AR7 is sure to say 1.5°C is feasible for as long as the IEA does
I expect the next IPCC report, AR7, to say that 1.5°C is feasible. That is because the IEA say it is. And many others do.
The IPCC doesn’t do research itself. It is a high level review of all the research in the last several years and it often cites the IEA so it is sure to include the IEA projections and their prediction that 1.5 C is achievable with a tripling of renewables.
For more about how the IEA works
BLOG: No the IPCC does not err on the side of least drama, just follows scientific method
Climate experts are not oracles
Please do NOT just take some expert you like and treat everything he or she says as if they were an oracle. Even if they say things with total conviction. This is just their own opinion.
This is all to do with the "Trust me I'm an expert" misunderstanding of science.
Yes you trust experts for many things. For the safety of your microwave. To make sure that your car is properly designed. That when you buy aspirin from the pharmacy it really is aspirin and not just sugar or something worse like arsenic.
That is right and proper.
But no you should NOT trust an expert when he presents his opinion on a topic like this. Especially if he studied a different topic from the one he is opining on and no matter how prestigious he is.
Even if he is a Nobel laureate you must ALWAYS treat experts as human beings with human opinions and failings and that ESPECIALLY outside their speciality area you should NOT just say "So and so is expert so I must accept what he says".
You should look and see what other experts say and especially should look at what experts say who are working on that topic area and most of all the ones that are talking about their own peer reviewed research and above all what they say at the highest level of review such as the IPCC (which does NOT say 1.5 C is impossible) and the likes of the IEA high reputation working on the topic with lots of expertise on the topic.
And you should always see science as progress, it's fluid, changing.
Many things are settled. Nobody is going to find a radically different temperature for the melting point of ice now, it’s settled science. But others are not.
In a topic of active research like this you get experts who are totally convinced of completely different incompatible things. That is confusing to ordinary folk but it is how science progresses.
Scientists pursue research based on their convictions and they then have to try to do the research to back up what they say. And they either succeed or they fail and science progresses as a dialogue between experts that often are veyr convinced of incompatible ideas..
I'm sure the various experts quoted by the mainstream media as saying “1.5 C is dead” would never add "You must believe me",
These people know this very well too. They know they are not oracles. They will be familiar with what the IEA say and EMBER and others. They will know very well that others have other opinions.
But when asked what they thinks by an interviewer naturally they give their own opinion.
A scientist who says that 1.5 C “is dead” is NOT saying that the IEA is wrong.
It is just that as a scientist they have every right to have an opinion different from the IEA.
Even the IEA has a history of consistently underestimating the renewables transition with more renewables every year than they predicted the previous year
This is the analysis by the IEA who do the most detailed m modelling there is out there including everything, the economics, politics, sociology.
The International Energy Authority is a highly respected source on the topic. It projects 2.4 C with current policies but 1.7 C if countries keep to their pledges
:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
As technology improves we expect it to be EASIER to achieve these pledges and improve on them.
APS [Announced Pledges Scenario]
Most of these pledges are
- economically feasible
- from countries that historically equal or exceed pledges.
The 1.7°C scenario assumes countries achieve their announced pledges.
Why do so many say 1.7°C is impossible?
It can't be, by definition.
Highlighted text: "In the Announced Pledges Scenario (APS), the temperature rise in 2100 is 1.7 °C"
This graphic is from the latest IEA report from 2023 from this page of the online report:
These are countries that almost all
have a history of equalling and exceeding their pledges and
made pledges that are both economically and scientifically plausible
As for the IPCC, their last report had a cut-off date BEFORE COP26. As a result the researchers working on it had to work based on pledges that were announced before COP26 and those pledges couldn't be taken account of or discussed. Most of the CO2 modeling in the report is based on policies in place and pledges only through to the end of 2020.
It may be partly because of that that many climate scientists who worked on that report are skeptical about us remaining within 1.5 C.
Even WGIII couldn’t summarize the pledges by India or China, for instance, as nobody could publish anything on it until those countries made their pledges.
China’s emissions likely peaked in 2023 and global emissions may have peaked too.
China, India and now the USA have joined Europe which was the pioneer in low cost renewables and prices globally are falling fast
Renewables are growing exponentially and growing far faster than energy use allowing the largest emitter China to vastly exceed its ambitions in reducing CO2 emissions will make it easier and easier to fulfill their long term pledges
Emissions are set to fall and then fall faster faster
Countries like China with its 5 year plans will put its longer term policies in place later this decade which experts expect to achieve and over achieve their long term net zero goals
As we see the practical effects of this on the global emissions curve, I expect we will see more optimism amongst the scientists who are not studying how countries translate pledges into action to match the optimism of the 20% or less who have studied this topic.
WE ARE ALREADY DOING A LOT
We are increasingly following the path of transformative change which maximizes good quality of life with GROWTH in everything we value, material, non material and economic
.
Transformative change maximizes good quality of life with GROWTH, material, non material and economic - IPCC and IPBES Increasingly we are following this path makes sense [Scroll down page to see second copy of this graphic for the rest of the text] Graphic from page 33 of the appendix to chapter 4 of the IPBES report in 2019
I am in Scotland we produce enough renewables electriicity already for the entire Scottish grid although we produce more electricity than we need and export the rest.
The UK is required by law to stay on a path to zero emissions by 2050 and its emissions per capita are down to levels last seen in the nineteenth century.
UK’s emissions have fallen 53% since 1990 while its GDP grew 82%
.
We remain on track to net zero by 205
0
See:
, Analysis: UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest level since 1879 - Carbon Brief
China and India have the largest renewable power stations in the world. The Chinese renewables industry is doubling every 3 years and will reach one terrawatt of power by 2026.
GDP is now uncoupled from emissions in more and more countries with emissions falling as GDP increases
.
. Change in per capita CO₂ emissions and GDP
There is a huge amount happening.
In the USA the inflation reduction act especially has led to an irreversible change in the US industry towards renewables. With a few exceptions most of the developed countries already have falling emissions.
NONE OF THE IPCC / AR6 REPORTS LOOKED AT THE COP26 NET ZERO PLEDGES AS THE CUT-OFF DATE FOR THE PUBLICATIONS TO ASSESS WAS JUST BEFORE THE DELAYED CONFERENCE STARTED
COP26 was delayed to 2021 because of the COVID pandemic. The IPCC report AR6 had a cut-off date just before COP28. They set a cut-off debate because you have to unless you write a “living” systematic review like the ones the WHO do during a pandemic.
In a living systematic review, the report is constantly rewritten as new research comes in.
A living systematic review has to be much smaller and more focused because there is just too much work to do to repeat an entire IPCC assessment even every year.
The IEA do yearly reports. But the IPCC reports are too large to make that feasible.
So the research they used to write the report couldn’t include the ambitious net zero pledges announced in COP28.
So NONE of the authors can base their responses on what the report itself contained as the cut-off date for the reports didn’t include the net zero pledges.
Most will reply based on what they remember of reports such as the IEA report.
Very few of them will have any experience in working to prepare the IEA report and this is just a poll, so we don’t know how much time they may have spent answering the questions. They may have just spent a few minutes of their day on it.
Then to make things even worse the number of IPCC experts who study this topic at all is small
IPCC AUTHORS ESPECIALLY IN WORKING GROUPS I PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND MODELLING AND II IMPACTS AND ADAPTATION DO NOT HAVE THE EXPERTISE TO SAY ANYTHING FROM THEIR OWN RESEARCH ABOUT THE WORK OF THE MINORITY IN WORKING GROUP III WHO ACTUALLY STUDY THE SOCIOLOGY, POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND ENGINEERING OF MEETING PLEDGE COMMITMENTS
You might think that IPCC authors would be the best people to ask about whether we are headed for 1.8 C or not. But no - they aren't.
Climate change is such a vast topic. Only a small number of IPCC researchers actually study what we can achieve politically / economically / socially and what our current commitments enable. A lot of them are modellers - others give them the numbers to put into their models. Or they study a detail such as how clouds behave or methane emissions / peat bogs / permafrost etc etc.
Hardly any of them study this topic of
what is economically / politically / sociologically feasible by way of emissions,
what we are actually committed to with our pledges
how feasible it is for countries to achieve their pledges
There are three working groups, working groups
I, for the physical science and modelling,
II for climate impacts, and adaptation and
III for the mitigation i.e. what we do to reduce emissions.
QUOTE The IPCC is divided into three Working Groups and a Task Force.
Working Group I deals with The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change,
Working Group II with Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability and
Working Group III with Mitigation of Climate Change.
These do separate reports.
Any scientist in working group III is likely to have a better understanding than in I and II, because they have been to lots of conferences on mitigation and heard other scientists talking about it a lot.
Those in I and II will rarely even listen to scientists talking about mitigation and likely get a lot of their ideas via the press.
It's only IPCC scientists in working group III who look at what we are actually doing to reduce emissions so that is only a third of the IPCC scientists. The rest aren't studying this.
Then, it's only a small % of scientists who are actually involved in calculating the effects of the pledges and working out what would happen according to different political / economic / sociological scenarios. This is only a small part even of WGIII.
This topic is a cross-over between sociology / politics / science so it’s even smaller than the total number of sociologists and economists. The main experts here are
scientists from multiple disciplines who work together, e.g. economists who work together with sociologists, physical modellers and experts in integrated assessment models to try to get them to become more accurate
the very rare multi-disciplinary scientists, those who have genuine expertise in more than one discipline at once.
They are the only ones who answer from their own expertise. This is hard to calculate but will be only a few percent of all the IPCC scientists.
Even the approximately 33% of the IPCC in working group III study a range of different topics. This is primarily a question in sociology, economics and politics. The IPCC is not especially strong on that topic area with its strong focus on physical sciences. It has always had very few who study how human society will behave as it translates policies into action even in working group III.
By the time of AR5, the most recent report, the number of economists had greatly increased compared to earlier reports but it fell again for the most recent AR6 report. Only half the coordinating lead authors in AR6 / WGIII are economists or other social scientists. Adding about 4% for WGII and assuming roughly equal numbers of scientists in total for each report, we get a total of 54/3 or 18% or all coordinating lead authors who study economics or sociology at all
.
(Noy, 2022. Economists are not engaged enough with the IPCC - npj Climate Action : Figure 1)
When they work out the figures for all authors rather than the coordinating lead authors the totals are
6% economists and 30% other social scientists in WGII
26% economists and 15% other social scientists in WGII
total for sociologists and economists specifically studying mitigation: (26 + 15) / 3 = 14%.
total for the entire report: (6 + 30 + 26 + 15)/ 3 = 26%
Here as a first approximation I’m just assuming all three reports have the same number of authors.
Then the IPCC working groups don’t do any research, they summarize the existing research
The top 5 economic journals in reputation collectively publish on average 2 climate change economics articles a year. That’s not 2 per journal, it is 2 over all 5 journals. In 2021 only 1 climate change economics article was published in these top journals, on trading CO2 credits.
Noy says that the IPCC uses simplified out of date economics models for their Integrated Assessment models
The one type of economic research that does play a significant role in the IPCC is Integrated Assessment Modelling (IAM), which relies on structural modelling methodologies. There is a wide variety of IAMs; though they are typically divided into two groups: cost-benefit IAMs that are used in WGII, and energy system IAMs that are the focus of mitigation work in WGIII.
Broadly speaking, though, the IAMs include macroeconomic modelling approaches as these were developed in the macroeconomic literature some years ago. Given the computational demands of the climate and sectoral parts of the IAMs, the prevailing choice for the macroeconomic half was to resort to older and simpler modelling approaches.
Because of that, and because structural modelling is not as prestigious, among economists, as the other two methodological approaches, the papers describing IAMs, and their development are rarely, if ever, published in economics journals.
(Noy, 2022. Economists are not engaged enough with the IPCC - npj Climate Action)
The IPCC can’t summarize papers which haven’t yet been written.
All figures from: (Noy, 2022. Economists are not engaged enough with the IPCC - npj Climate Action : Figure 1)
So, only a few of those have the overview to be able to give a good idea of how practical it is to achieve zero emissions and how close or not we are to being able to stay within 1.5 C from their own research or research they are most familiar with.
Even those who do work on economics are likely using older methods for simplicity to speed up the calculations, and most of them will not publish their research in economics journals because structural modelling such as they do in the IPCC reports is not seen as prestigious enough to publish in economics journals.
Noy wrote this in 2022 which is after the cut-off date for the working groups research so even if the situation has improved since then, the research the IPCC summarized is based on the state of economics research in 2021.
WHY DO SO MANY CLIMATE SCIENTISTS IGNORE THE ANNOUNCED PLEDGES SCENARIO - WHAT COUNTRIES HAVE TOLD THE WORLD THEY CAN AND WILL DO? THIS HAS TO BE A POSSIBLE SCENARIO
Climate scientists on Twitter often share these reports but then just ignore the Announced Pledges Scenario. They only look at the Stated Policies Scenario.
Why?
Especially why do they then go on to say that the announced pledges scenario is impossible?
I’m not sure but it may be due to a cultural difference between the developing countries and the developed countries in how they approach reductions of emissions
RAPIDLY INDUSTRIAL ECONOMIES HAVE TO RECONFIGURE THEIR ENERGY SUPPLY AS THEY INDUSTRIALIZE - A BIT LIKE CONVERTING A GASOLINE TO AN ELECTRIC CAR WITHOUT STOPPING DRIVING :)
The issue here is that countries with a rapidly industrializing economy are doing radical changes in how their grid works. It is natural for them to want to work out the details of how exactly they go to zero emissions later on.
The Stated Policies Scenario is bound to under-estimate for countriers that are doing this. It’s sort of like rebuilding your car engine while the car is still running.
China especially only do 5 year plans. They plan to go to net zero by 2060. So that is many 5 year plans into the future. We can’t expect China’s stated policies scenario to tell us much about their net zero plans until the 2040s or 2050s.
So why do so many academics use the stated policies scenarios? And why do they say the Announced Pledges Scenario is impossible?
Especially since it will get easier and easier to do as technology improves and is already affordable and practical?
I don't know.
My guess is that it's partly:
- experts in countries industrialized a century ago find it hard to believe a rapidly industrializing country
- can aim for zero emissions
- with rapidly reducing carbon intensity.
- rising emissions, and
- "under the hood" exponentially growing renewables.
RIGHT NOW CHINESE RENEWABLES DOUBLE EVERY 3 YEARS - THIS MEANS A TEN-FOLD INCREASE PER DECADE, FROM 10% TO 100% IN 10 YEARS
For instance if the renewables are doubling every 3 years, as they are in China at present, that is a ten-fold increase every decade.
2^{10/3}= 10.08
If it's at 10% of the power from electricity in some country today it will be 100% a decade from now. Then 3 years later 200%.
QUOTE China’s solar sector is set to break records in the coming years. When installed capacity crosses the 500 gigawatts (GW) mark by the end of 2023, it will have taken 13 years to reach that milestone. That total, however, will be doubled to 1 terawatt (TW) in just three additional years. Rystad Energy modeling shows total installed solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in China will cross the 1,000 GW mark by the end of 2026.
. China’s solar capacity surges; predicted to top 1 TW by 2026
Exponentials are like that. So long as they keep doubling then it's 2 terawatts by 2029, 4 terrawatts by 2032, 10 terawatts by 2036, 100 terawatts by 2046
Exponentials are like that, nothing seems to happen then in the last decade or so all the electricity transitions to renewables.
QUOTE China’s solar sector is set to break records in the coming years. When installed capacity crosses the 500 gigawatts (GW) mark by the end of 2023, it will have taken 13 years to reach that milestone. That total, however, will be doubled to 1 terawatt (TW) in just three additional years. Rystad Energy modeling shows total installed solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in China will cross the 1,000 GW mark by the end of 2026.
. China’s solar capacity surges; predicted to top 1 TW by 2026
Exponentials are like that. So long as they keep doubling then it's 2 terawatts by 2029, 4 terrawatts by 2032, 8 by 2035 and so on.
Exponentials are like that, nothing seems to happen then in the last decade or so all the electricity transitions to renewables.
They share graphics showing a graph of emissions rising fast then gradually levelling off as they are now - and then -say to get below 2 C this has to suddenly going down to 0 in the 2040s and 2050s. Then they just appeal to gut feeling to say that looks implausible.
But that is EXACTLY WHAT YOU EXPECT with exponentially growing renewables.
And it can expanding faster than exponential because the technology gets lower cost.
Perhaps it's because of my background in pure maths that this is so striking to me but to me it seems completely illogical to pay so little attention to how renewables are expanding exponentially under the hood.
MAKING UP AN EXAMPLE TOY MODEL TO SHOW THE IDEA: ENERGY DOUBLING EVERY 5 YEARS THEN LEVELING OFF AT INDUSTRIAL COUNTRY LEVELS - AND RENEWABLES DOUBLING EVERY 5 YEARS, REACHES NET ZERO BY 2050
This might help make it clearer. I approach this as a mathematician - the basic maths is simple.
We have a slowly growing exponential for the energy use. It’s actually a sigmoid curve because China’s energy use will level off eventually . It will likely go down after that if anything as it gets more efficient at using electricity and energy generally. At least that is what happened in the UK and in the EU it’s pretty much level.
Meanwhile more and more of that energy is being produced by renewables and the renewables are doubling every 3 years in China.
In this curve I do a slower exponential than for the renewables than China,
renewables doubling every 5 years instead of every 3 years.
energy use assumes a rapidly developing economy doubling energy use every 5 years initially but leveling off as it gets close to developed nation levels of energy.
I just used equations for the three curves which I tweaked in this way to fit the parameters: a sigmoid curve for energy use, and an exponential for the renewables.
I then subtracted the exponential from the sigmoid curve to get total emissions.
It is a “toy model” not intended for prediction. It is just to illustrate how if you subtract a plausible fast exponential from a plausible sigmoid curve the total emissions rapidly go to zero. In this case, it reaches net zero by 2050 but peaks probably in the late 2030s depending on the parameters for the various equations.
"Toy model" similar to India
?
Text on graphic: "Toy model" developing country with peak emissions late 2030s, zero emissions by 2050.
Energy use rising to a plateau (sigmoid curve)
Zero carbon energy doubling every 5 years.
Total emissions reach zero by 2050 Function Subtraction
This represents the situation for China and India, more like India than China because the Chinese curve should peak already by 2023.
These are countries that have a history of equalling and exceeding their pledges and they are economically and scientifically plausible pledges.
Of course there are lots of simplifications in my toy model. It’s just meant to show why the detailed assessments using the announced pledges are plausible.
In reality
renewables aren’t totally net zero.
Also, some forms of energy use need a higher energy density than we expect from electric batteries in the near future (may eventually be solved with innovations such as air - lithium batteries).
like long distance flight and very heavy tractors and formula 1 cars to take some examples
Then some forms of CO2 emission can’t be net zero, for instance:
It’s impossible to have totally zero emissions plastics at present.
So, we have a remainder that needs to be offset. But it’s only a few percent.
Our net zero plans take account of that. First of all
by land use change such as reforestation, and a huge potential possibly in agricultural soil improvement.
Longer term many of the forests may “saturate” and not remove enough CO2 every year but
there are many ways to use or store CO2 studied by working group III of the IPCC
So there are many ways we can continue beyond then.
Many are low cost
Several methods of achieving high levels of sequestration pay for themselves
I cover some of these here.
So yes countries can achieve these net zero plans.
WE CONTINUE AT 2 PPM ON ALL PATHS FOR MORE YEARS
This is another form of gut feeling reasoning that’s not accurate because the real situation is unintutivie.
The CO2 levels in the atmosphere continue to rise and don’t even show any sign of slowing down yet, rsing 2 ppm per decade.
So how can it level off?
The answer is that it can when the emissions per year fall rapidly.
This is expected and happens on all the paths. We ARE taking immediate radical measures. We can’t expect to notice a difference in the ppm increase per year. That won’t be noticeable until the end of the 2020s even on a very low emissions path We continue at 2 ppm / yr, for the next few years, on all paths
.
Abandon all climate policies - increases to > 5 ppm / yr by 2100 Low emissions falls to 0 ppm / yr by 2050 Why you can't tell which path you are on by ppm / yr in 2021 From Figure 4.1 in chapter 4 page 4-194 of AR6 part 1.
MORE REALISTIC NEW “INCREASING AMBITION PATH” SCENARIO
The IPCC scenarios are expensive to run so the IPCC can only do a limited number of scenarios. When one of the climate scientists suggested the public propose new scenarios, I suggested a new scenario “Increasing ambition”
Not sure if he saw this but this graphic I did in response helps show the idea:
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.
We are already headed for 1.8 C with realistic targets and nearly all the countries that made those pledges have a history of equalling or exceeding their targets. Also the Paris agreement is based on increasing ambition. As we develop the 1.8 C target industry we then will have the capability to improve on those pledges even more in the future.
So that's a pretty good argument that it is certainly feasible to target below 1.8 C and also likely we do get to below 1.8 C. As to whether it is 1.7 C or 1.6 C or even 1.5 C that's not so clear
and depends on our future ambition.
FAR MORE IMPORTANT TO REACH 1.7°C WITH CLIMATE JUSTICE FOR WEAKER ECONOMIES THAN 1.6°C OR 1.5°C WITH THE WEAKER ECONOMIES IN POVERTY - THOUGH THE BEST PATHS DO BOTH
But it's far more important to do this in a way that supports weaker economies and biodiversity and adapting to the new conditions than a far faster transition that leaves the weaker economies behind and in poverty. That was one of the good things about COP28 that it focused on the importance of supporting weaker economies.
To explain how it works: the largest emitters in the world are roughly divided into two kinds of counrtries.
1. Industrialized high income countries with emissions already falling - Most of these are now on track for zero emissions by 2050 or earlier and most have a history of equalling or exceeding their targets.
2. Rapidly industrializing countries, which are changing their industry to renewables at the same time as they rapidly increase their energy use. - China is targeting zero emissions by 2060 and India is targeting zero emissions by 2070, both have a history of exceeding all their goals by huge margins.
Most of the experts are in already industrialized countries. So then - they are puzzled, how can a country that is rapidly industrializing with increasing emissions say it is targeting zero emissions?
In actuality, India and China actually have the largest renewable plants in the world and are doing a huge amount.
They do it by having a goal to reduce carbon intensity. They produce less and less CO2 per kilowatt hour.
So yes - unintuitive as it seems, it is possible and indeed is likely that the emissions from China and India suddenly bend over and start falling very fast in the 2030s and 2040s. It is already happening, with China likely reaching peak emissions last year.
MEANWHILE COSTS GO DOWN AND THE YOUNG GENERATION GET MORE AMBITIOUS
Meanwhile solar and renewables power get lower cost, easier to install and this then can lead to countries making more ambitious pledges. That's why I personally am optimistic we will go below 1.7 C.
It won't take much by increased pledges to remove another tenth of a degree. Surely we get big increases in the pledges when solar power is half the cost it is now, already competitive with the lowest cost fossil fuels.
As the younger generation grow up, as prices go down, as we see more effects of climate change of course we will have more pledges and COP26 can't be the last round of significant pledges we will ever have.
When you approach the problem from that direction it seems pretty certain we are headed for below 1.8 C
But most IPCC scientists when they chat about this on Twitter post graphics about the rising CO2 emissions and see no sign of the curve leveling off yet. Of course they won't because yearly emissions are not yet falling.
And they post graphics of the emissions per year and draw these lines down to zero and this also looks very implausible because there is no sign of it falling rapidly yet.
But that is coming at it from the wrong direction because CO2 emissions are not going to show you clear signs of the exponential growth of renewables until the last two or three doublings. It is just too soon to see what they are looking
By the 2030s we should begin to notice.
I think I see this more easily because of my maths training, I see everything in terms of the maths.
It doesn't help that many official forecasts ignore the zero pledges and just use the data at 2020 and 2030 to project to the end of the century.
DEALING WITH A COMMON MISCONCEPTION - OUR BODIES ARE WELL ADAPTED TO DRY AIR TEMPERATURES WELL ABOVE BLOOD HEAT AND THE TEMPERATURE WE FEEL ON THE SKIN MAY EASILY BE JUST ABOVE 20 C WHEN THE AIR TEMPERATURE IS WELL ABOVE 40 C, FOR INSTANCE
We are desert adapted mammals and can even run long distances with external temperatures well above blood temperature.
QUOTE (MISLEADING) . “Last summer, we had around 47C maximum. The worst part is that, even at night, it’s 38C, which is higher than your body temperature. It doesn’t give a minute of the day for your body to try to recover.”
Our sweat acts as a natural refrigerant and the temperature you actually feel on the skin is far less than the dry heat temperature. It's called the wet bulb temperature, it's typically 10 C or more below the wet bulb temperature of 35 C. It is the temperature a thermometer will measure if you cover it with a wet cloth, hence the name.
Your body has no problem copying with temperatures well above blood temperature.
So when the day time temperature was 47 C her skin would feel well below 35 C. In most of the world it is 10 or 15 C below wet bulb so you might have a day time temperature of 47 C but the air is so dry the wet bulb is 27 C or less.
Many people live in places where the dry heat temperature is above blood temperature. This is NOT HARMFUL TO HUMANS. We are desert adapted animals.
In Kuwait the summer temperatures regularly go above 47 C at midday. Or 10 C above blood temperature.
. Kuwait climate: average weather, temperature, rain
With a 47 C temperature and 10% humidity (they say
humidity in Kuwait often goes below 10%) the wet bulb is 22.546 C
BLOG: . Please don’t be scared by IPCC AR6 / WG2 - facts same as earlier reports - “life threatening” is like 2003 heat wave in Europe - 30% of world exposed every year - NOT “unliveable” - maybe not aware how it would be interpreted?
Also you can ignore all those stories about billions of people migrating. They are oversimplified "toy models"
In reality we expect internal migration mostly. As parts of a country get drier others get wetter and it is more to do with rainfall than temperature. Numbers in the order of tens of millions migrating total.
Nowhere gets too hot for humans on any realistic scenario apart from some hot spots - and there it is just hot enough to have a mild temperature, e.g. a degree warmer than usual - in practice this has been going on for decades and nobody in those small cities noticed - was only discovered after analysing later. I suppose they use a lot of air conditioning may be partly why nobody noticed.
Most of the world remains way way below these wet bulb temperatures and a 0.6 C rise to 1.8 C from 1.2 C is not going to make a difference. It's 4 C before large areas are affected and we aren't headed there for sure.
And the Guardian does a lot of these climate gloom / doom posts for some reason, one of the worst. Also this is something we have enountered before though I'd need to do a search to find the other examples - a story where someone does a poll of the ICC authors to ask a question that most of them wouldn't be expected to know the answer to
Hannah Ritchie is the best for someone who just tells it to you straight. And the situation is very positive and hopeful.
HANNAH RITCHIE: WE’VE MADE A SURPRISING AMOUNT OF PROGRESS ON CLIMATE CHANGE - WHY WE NEED TO HIGHLIGHT STORIES OF PROGRESS TO BUILD A BETTER FUTURE
This is what Hannah Ritchie says:
TWEET STARTS We have made a surprising amount of progress on climate change, despite being up against vested interests, and expensive solutions.
We haven't had a proper go at tackling it.
Think what we can do now that many of the solutions are affordable, and getting better every year. Hannah Ritchie (@_HannahRitchie) on X
She goes through five reasons why we need to highlight stories of success and progress and says it doesn't lead to complacency but instead to more action.
She first explains that highlighting the amazing progress we've made to better well being in the past century doesn't lull us into complacency but instead inspries us that we can do more.
She then goes through particular points:
1. Progress creates the momentum for more positive change
She gives the example for someone training for a marathon. If they see signs that they are managing to run longer and longer distances they will be far more encourged to keep training than if they make no progress.
She also gives the example of action measles, something that she is an advocate for. Success in combating measles encourages people to give more it doesn't discourage them.
2. Shows how in the past we found that the seemingly unachievable, IS ACHIEVABLE and so can do so again today
She talks about how the world we are living in today would seem an unachievable future in the mid 20th century. Which is true. We have moved far faster than most people imagined by now in terms of equality, health, ending famines etc.
Then says that recognizing this doesn't lead to complacency but instead inspires us that we can achieve a future where the world is running on clean energy, we end world hunger, and wildlife is making a comeback (it already is in many places e.g. in Europe).
She says "We are not killing tens of millions of animals for meat" too - but we can have a future with sustainable agriculture with meat eating - I don't think she is advocating veganism or vegetarianism there from other thing she has said.
We will surely still have meat eating on all scenarios so I'm not sure why she said that since it is clearly true but maybe it is in response to people who don’t know that.
3. Past progress is full of lessons that can improve things today
She gives the example of health success story in Bangladesh.
We could use examples of many renewable success stories today - and the numerous success stories in restoring degraded habitats that became deserts. I give many examples here of numerous past and present day stories of success for climate change and biodiversity:
BLOG: Videos of good things that are happening in the world for climate change and biodiversity
4. Pointing out successes puts pressure on leaders to deliver the same (or more)
Gives examples of past situations like acid rain where showing that another country has solved the problem means that leaders can no longer use the excuse that it is too difficult to attempt.
Same also with the example of a low carbon grid. Many countries are now showing by doing that it can be done which then shows that the people who say it is impossible were wrong. Which puts pressure on other countries to follow suit.
5. To solve problems we need to move forward, not backward
She talks about how it is not possible to move backwards to some utopia where we all live at low levels of technology like we did in the nineteenth century - because that would lead very rapidly to mass starvation of billions of people. Instead we need to move forwards and know what we know we can do which is to live sustainably which we can do with even much more than our current population.
See my BLOG: We can grow enough food for everyone through to 2100 and beyond on all scenarios
The balance of progress and complacency
She talks about how we need to explain what we are doing without giving the impression we are already doing enough to keep the balance.
Her post again is here: Why we need to highlight stories of progress to build a better future
It is about how nothing succeeds like success basically, which Psychologists tell us is by far the best way to motivate people to action.
She is one of the few I can recommend who communicate accurately, clearly and positively on climate change.
If the activists talked more about how much we are doing I think they'd be far more effective.
MANY PLUSES IN A SLIGHTLY WARMER WORLD ONCE WE ADAPT, WOULDN’T WANT TO GO BACK TO THE ICE AGES, IT’S THE SPEED OF CHANGE WE NEED TO STOP
Also we shouldn’t see a warmer world as a worse world for humans. There are many pluses for a slightly warmer world.
We wouldn't want to go back to the ice ages even though it would greatly reduce heat waves, Un the same way we may not want to go back to nineteenth century levels of warming once we ae well adapted to the warmer nearly 2 C (say)
NEVER RUN OUT OF FOOD AND CAN’T HAVE RUNAWAY WARMING
We never run out of food on any scenario. Our food security is increasing year on year. The issues with hunger and malnutrition are because of distribution issues most often disrupted by natural disasters or war / conflict not because of any shortage of food.
And also for economic reasons that are hard to solve to make the food we have affordable for weaker economies. But there is plenty of it, huge surpluses at the end of every year. And will be on all scenarios. Even the worst and now impossible climate scenarios. We can still grow enough food for everyone it's about doing it in a sustainable or non sustainable way.
BLOG: We can grow enough food for everyone through to 2100 and beyond on all scenarios
We can’t have runaway warming.
A WARMER WORLD HAS MORE NOT LESS WATER, IT’S ABOUT USING IT BETTER IN AREAS THAT GET DRIER WHEN OTHER AREAS GET WETTER
A warmer world has more not less water overall and water isn't valuable enough for wars. It only leads to local conflicts over water supplies and this is usually resolved peacefully through water agreements rather than conflict.
In a warmer world more water is evaporated so more of it rains out as rain
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But some areas get drier because of changing climate. Typically some areas of a large or even moderate sized country get wetter as other parts get drier.
The biggest challenge is often preserving water from the wetter times to the drier times of the year. E.g. UK gets lots more rain in winter in a warmer world but it has droughts in summer which means that for the first time our famers need to think about irrigation to bring in water instead of just for draining.
YES WE NEED TO PLAN FOR MIGRATION, ESPECIALLY INTERNAL MIGRATION WITH CLIMATE CHANGES IN A SLIGHTLY WARMER WORLD - ALREADY HAPPENING -BANGLADESH AS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW TO DO IT RIGHT - PEOPLE MOVE A LOT ANYWAY IN THE MODERN WORLD
We do get migration in a warmer world it is already happening in some places such as Bangladesh but most of it is internal not between countries. Bangladesh is held up as an example of how to do it right. After all people move a lot anyway in our modern more mobile world. Typically many stay behind in the areas that are become perhaps a bit drier, or flooded more often and work on solutions and others move to places where agriculture has become easier meaning they need more farmers in a warmer world.
