6 ms·

So, is there any convincing reason to think that any emissions targets will be met? Does anyone buy the line in the article about India? Surely they will becom

by sarbaz 7y ago

So, is there any convincing reason to think that any emissions targets will be met? Does anyone buy the line in the article about India? Surely they will become an emitter at least as significant as China. Isn't our money better spent preparing for the inevitable effects of climate change?

Scarblac 7y ago
There is no reason to think they will be met, on current trends -- global output is still increasing, and new "green" energy seems to just come on top of fossil fuel energy, not replacing it. But it makes no sense to spend money on the effects while the rate at which they're getting worse is still increasing. Like starting to repaint the house while the fire is still blazing. We just need to do a lot more, keeping fossil fuel in the ground forever will always be more effective than any measures to live with the consequences.
currymj 7y ago
even if we miss a target, more emissions beyond that target still make things much worse. it's not like we can just declare bankruptcy or something. ultimately we have to reduce emissions as much as possible while preparing for their impact -- and I am not an expert, but I suspect reducing emissions is cheaper in the long run than dealing with the effects.
- sarbaz 7y ago
  > I suspect reducing emissions is cheaper in the long run than dealing with the effects. I'm not entirely sure. People seem to be convinced that climate change will destroy all civilization, but in the distant past the earth has flourished with significantly higher temperatures than what we have today. Once our climate reaches a new equilibrium, humanity will adjust and everything will probably be OK. And we can be certain that there will be a new equilibrium, otherwise life wouldn't have lasted for hundreds of millions of years.
  - mempko 7y ago
    All but one major extinction event in the past was because of global warming. What you are missing is that during those times , the temperature change was over a much longer period of time than now. What we are doing is unprecedented and there is little reason to believe anything will flourish.
    - sarbaz 7y ago
      But not all instances of global warming caused mass extinction events. I think that there is a correlation here rather than a causation. In fact, looking at historical charts the earth's temperature undergoes a relatively significant change every few 100k years at least. So extinction events are only a tiny minority of those events, around 5/5000
  - currymj 7y ago
    i think the idea of reducing emissions is to reach a new equilibrium as quickly as possible, and one as close as possible to our current climate which we know is pretty good. climate change is likely not going to destroy all civilization (notwithstanding sensationalistic New York Magazine article) but adding decades or centuries of "adjustment" -- droughts, floods, crop failures, less predictable extreme weather, displacement of people in coastal regions -- is likely to be very expensive. hard to imagine that all this cost over several generations is outweighed by oil and coal being somewhat cheaper than renewables/nuclear.
  - Hextinium 7y ago
    The issue is not that we all face a catastrophic cataclysm but that climate change makes the earth significantly less amenable to us. Cropland destruction, lack of drinking water and relocation of population centers due to changing coastlines are extremely expensive and preventing that would be advantageous. The earth will be just fine without us.
  - c0nducktr 7y ago
    > Once our climate reaches a new equilibrium, humanity will adjust and everything will probably be OK. That really depends on what your definition of "OK" is, I suppose.
familysized 7y ago
What's wrong with the line about India? It's absolutely correct - per capita emissions from India are very small. > Surely they will become an emitter at least as significant as China. Looking at a country's total emissions makes no sense because the population needs to be taken into account. India will eventually have the largest total emissions, which is fine because per capita is really low.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >India will eventually have the largest total emissions, which is fine because per capita is really low. Earth doesn't care about "emission per capita" though, it just cares about the total sum of emissions... So "India eventually [having] the largest total emissions" means a huge extra tonnage of emissions will be added to the already troubling amounts... So, the per capita number is mainly relevant in regards to fairness...
  - familysized 7y ago
    > Earth doesn't care about "emission per capita" though, it just cares about the total sum of emissions... True. How about reducing the extremely high per-capita emissions of developed countries? That will result in a huge drop in the total sum of emissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... People in such countries are taking up too many resources and that is not sustainable for the planet. There needs to be a carbon tax.
  - reitzensteinm 7y ago
    What the Earth doesn't care about is the arbitrary lines in the sand we declare to be this nation or that.
    - wtdata 7y ago
      What Earth does care about, is when you decide that's a good idea to have on average more than 4 children per couple over the last 2 generations in India [1] instead of only 2 or even less children per couple like in USA or the EU [2]. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/fertility-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/fertility-ra... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fertility-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fert... Every country has a set of natural resources at its disposal. It should manage and cherish those resources and not overtax them. If a country decides it's a good idea to perpetually grow their population when all they have are the same set of natural resources available, then well, the onus is on them to figure out how to do it without destroying everything.
jsingleton 7y ago
There is an interesting bit here about exporting the problem: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/DmZ6C9zSsR/road_to_clean_energy#group-Exporting-the-problem-dvkyuW6VWJ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/DmZ6C9zSsR/road_to_clean_en... Regarding China: "It’s the world’s biggest burner of coal, but it’s also the biggest global investor in renewables." Keep in mind that China is the world's factory and a lot of services (IT etc.) are performed in India, so they are not just national emissions but emissions that we have offshored.
chimprich 7y ago
> Isn't our money better spent preparing for the inevitable effects of climate change? No. The numbers have been crunched. Averting climate change is much cheaper than dealing with the effects. Even if that wasn't the case, you don't just deal with the effects and then get on with civilisation. You still have the effects, and you're still faced with the same problems in the future. In case that didn't persuade on an emotional level, here's an analogy for that last point: a doctor points out to you that you're putting on weight at a dangerous rate. Sure, you could manage it by buying bigger clothes and taking medication for blood pressure and cholesterol, but if you're still overeating (and accelerating the rate at which you're gaining weight) then you haven't solved the problem. You have all the inconvenience and expense of dealing with the effects, and the problem is getting worse.
asaegyn 7y ago
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/16/china-is-doing-a-lot-better-on-climate-action-than-most-people-realize https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/16/china-is-doing-a-lot-be... As long as GDP is related to emissions and globally advanced countries engage in zero sum competition, exploiting others by pressing their historical power advantage, there is a very strong incentive for China, India and the rest of the developing to catch up by any means necessary.

by sarbaz 7y ago

Scarblac 7y ago

There is no reason to think they will be met, on current trends -- global output is still increasing, and new "green" energy seems to just come on top of fossil fuel energy, not replacing it. But it makes no sense to spend money on the effects while the rate at which they're getting worse is still increasing. Like starting to repaint the house while the fire is still blazing. We just need to do a lot more, keeping fossil fuel in the ground forever will always be more effective than any measures to live with the consequences.

currymj 7y ago

even if we miss a target, more emissions beyond that target still make things much worse. it's not like we can just declare bankruptcy or something. ultimately we have to reduce emissions as much as possible while preparing for their impact -- and I am not an expert, but I suspect reducing emissions is cheaper in the long run than dealing with the effects.

sarbaz 7y ago
> I suspect reducing emissions is cheaper in the long run than dealing with the effects. I'm not entirely sure. People seem to be convinced that climate change will destroy all civilization, but in the distant past the earth has flourished with significantly higher temperatures than what we have today. Once our climate reaches a new equilibrium, humanity will adjust and everything will probably be OK. And we can be certain that there will be a new equilibrium, otherwise life wouldn't have lasted for hundreds of millions of years.
- mempko 7y ago
  All but one major extinction event in the past was because of global warming. What you are missing is that during those times , the temperature change was over a much longer period of time than now. What we are doing is unprecedented and there is little reason to believe anything will flourish.
  - sarbaz 7y ago
    But not all instances of global warming caused mass extinction events. I think that there is a correlation here rather than a causation. In fact, looking at historical charts the earth's temperature undergoes a relatively significant change every few 100k years at least. So extinction events are only a tiny minority of those events, around 5/5000
- currymj 7y ago
  i think the idea of reducing emissions is to reach a new equilibrium as quickly as possible, and one as close as possible to our current climate which we know is pretty good. climate change is likely not going to destroy all civilization (notwithstanding sensationalistic New York Magazine article) but adding decades or centuries of "adjustment" -- droughts, floods, crop failures, less predictable extreme weather, displacement of people in coastal regions -- is likely to be very expensive. hard to imagine that all this cost over several generations is outweighed by oil and coal being somewhat cheaper than renewables/nuclear.
- Hextinium 7y ago
  The issue is not that we all face a catastrophic cataclysm but that climate change makes the earth significantly less amenable to us. Cropland destruction, lack of drinking water and relocation of population centers due to changing coastlines are extremely expensive and preventing that would be advantageous. The earth will be just fine without us.
- c0nducktr 7y ago
  > Once our climate reaches a new equilibrium, humanity will adjust and everything will probably be OK. That really depends on what your definition of "OK" is, I suppose.

familysized 7y ago

What's wrong with the line about India? It's absolutely correct - per capita emissions from India are very small. > Surely they will become an emitter at least as significant as China. Looking at a country's total emissions makes no sense because the population needs to be taken into account. India will eventually have the largest total emissions, which is fine because per capita is really low.

coldtea 7y ago
>India will eventually have the largest total emissions, which is fine because per capita is really low. Earth doesn't care about "emission per capita" though, it just cares about the total sum of emissions... So "India eventually [having] the largest total emissions" means a huge extra tonnage of emissions will be added to the already troubling amounts... So, the per capita number is mainly relevant in regards to fairness...
- familysized 7y ago
  > Earth doesn't care about "emission per capita" though, it just cares about the total sum of emissions... True. How about reducing the extremely high per-capita emissions of developed countries? That will result in a huge drop in the total sum of emissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... People in such countries are taking up too many resources and that is not sustainable for the planet. There needs to be a carbon tax.
- reitzensteinm 7y ago
  What the Earth doesn't care about is the arbitrary lines in the sand we declare to be this nation or that.
  - wtdata 7y ago
    What Earth does care about, is when you decide that's a good idea to have on average more than 4 children per couple over the last 2 generations in India [1] instead of only 2 or even less children per couple like in USA or the EU [2]. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/fertility-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/fertility-ra... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fertility-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fert... Every country has a set of natural resources at its disposal. It should manage and cherish those resources and not overtax them. If a country decides it's a good idea to perpetually grow their population when all they have are the same set of natural resources available, then well, the onus is on them to figure out how to do it without destroying everything.

jsingleton 7y ago

There is an interesting bit here about exporting the problem: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/DmZ6C9zSsR/road_to_clean_energy#group-Exporting-the-problem-dvkyuW6VWJ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/DmZ6C9zSsR/road_to_clean_en... Regarding China: "It’s the world’s biggest burner of coal, but it’s also the biggest global investor in renewables." Keep in mind that China is the world's factory and a lot of services (IT etc.) are performed in India, so they are not just national emissions but emissions that we have offshored.

chimprich 7y ago

> Isn't our money better spent preparing for the inevitable effects of climate change? No. The numbers have been crunched. Averting climate change is much cheaper than dealing with the effects. Even if that wasn't the case, you don't just deal with the effects and then get on with civilisation. You still have the effects, and you're still faced with the same problems in the future. In case that didn't persuade on an emotional level, here's an analogy for that last point: a doctor points out to you that you're putting on weight at a dangerous rate. Sure, you could manage it by buying bigger clothes and taking medication for blood pressure and cholesterol, but if you're still overeating (and accelerating the rate at which you're gaining weight) then you haven't solved the problem. You have all the inconvenience and expense of dealing with the effects, and the problem is getting worse.

asaegyn 7y ago

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/16/china-is-doing-a-lot-better-on-climate-action-than-most-people-realize https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/16/china-is-doing-a-lot-be... As long as GDP is related to emissions and globally advanced countries engage in zero sum competition, exploiting others by pressing their historical power advantage, there is a very strong incentive for China, India and the rest of the developing to catch up by any means necessary.