5 ms·
Comparing the costs of decarbonising vs rebuilding isn't quite the right comparison though (though it'll be psychologically important). It's not as if climate
by Scarblac 7y ago
Comparing the costs of decarbonising vs rebuilding isn't quite the right comparison though (though it'll be psychologically important).
It's not as if climate change would be reverted or even stop if we stopped burning fossil fuel now. There is a lag on the effect, and the situation would still be getting worse for a century or so.
The comparison is between all the extra future damage of burning even more than we already have vs the economic gains today.
- Brakenshire 7y agoCould you say that the dipole effect is giving an advanced preview of what the shifting baseline of global warming will deliver every year in a decade or two?
- polotics 7y agoOxides are very stable, Carbone dioxide is no exception, so... https://jancovici.com/en/climate-change/ghg-and-carbon-cycle/what-gases-are-greenhouse-gases/ https://jancovici.com/en/climate-change/ghg-and-carbon-cycle...
- roenxi 7y agoIf we could magically put a negative in front of Australia's CO2 emissions it would change nothing [0]. Even if we stopped selling coal and absorbed that amount of CO2 instead - and assume that nobody else mines coal to meet the market's demand - we would still easily see 90% of the worlds emissions at play. Australia is a moderate player in global terms, but decarbonising is literally a symbolic gesture with real negative consequences. The only response that makes any sense is to focus on better bushfire prevention methods. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita#/media/File:2018_AQAL_Group_variwide_chart_%22Worldwide_Co2_emissions%22.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- Intermernet 7y agoAustralia is also actively not supporting local research and development into renewable energy technologies. Even if I bought the whole "we're only a small contributor to the problem, so it's not really our problem" argument (which I obviously don't), it'd be nice if we at least supported research and development that could actually make money as opposed to holding to the hard line that "anthropogenic climate change is a myth and therefore any effort to reduce it deserves no support".
- roenxi 7y agoWe do support research and development in renewable technologies. It gets farmed out to China because they are better at building things cost effectively than we are [0, 1]. And again, while Australia is quite strong per-capita, renewable energy is a very hot focus in any number of research universities with billions of dollars being spent globally with results that are nothing short of miraculous. It isn't obvious that more investment is needed, solar and wind are improving at an amazing pace led by major players. Germany showed enormous leadership with their Energiewende. It was expensive, convinced nobody and has had what appears to be a marginal effect on their actual emissions emitted. Hoping that Australia charging into the breach would help in any meaningful way is wishful thinking. Business as usual until economic forces cause the US and China to switch away from fossil fuels is what is going to happen, we can't make their decisions for them. Fight that diplomatically, sure. But tank our standard of living for a symbolic gesture and there is going to be very stiff resistance. [0] https://www.smh.com.au/technology/csiro-sells-concentrated-solar-power-technology-to-china-20161128-gsz8gh.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/csiro-sells-concentrated-s... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Zhengrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Zhengrong
- pjc50 7y agoWhat's the standard of living of being on fire?
- roenxi 7y agoWe won't know until the bushfire season ends. There are people who've lost their homes, are in dire straits and need support. But the raw numbers are not doing the same sort of damage as a 10% increase in general energy costs. So far it has been 1,516 homes. Australia will have something like 5,000,000 homes. That is bad, but entirely tolerable averaged over the continent - we build about that many homes in a month or two. The damage is a small % of GDP contained to one year. We need to improve our bushfire management & crisis response, but there is no need to do anything rash.
- kazagistar 7y agoThe same is true for everyone else too. Yet still everyone must decarbonize or eventually face even worse consequences then bushfires, tragedy of the commons or not.
- nl 7y agoAustralia is the worlds largest coal exporter. But we could be supplying SE Asia with clean energy instead: https://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/australia-poised-to-export-solar-energy-to-singapore/ https://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/australia-po... We produce over 1% of the world CO2 emissions, one of the highest in the world, and we worked hard to wreck the Paris agreement. And you think all we can possibly do is to try to prevent bushfires? Maybe we could do that and try to become world leaders in clean technology?
- pjc50 7y agoDoing so on your own? No, doesn't make much of a difference. But in this case the symbolic gesture is actually important for the sake of pressuring other countries. Otherwise you get "Why should we in China decarbonise when Australia won't?"
- everdrive 7y agoI don't understand the chart in the Wikipedia article. How is Palau at the top?
- perilunar 7y agoi.e. "My wrongdoing is much smaller than your wrongdoing, so I will keep doing wrong until you stop doing wrong." So sick of this argument.