3 ms·

Nobody cares (nobody should care) about the amount of coal, or gas, or oil burned or number of coal/gas plants constructed. We should care about the amount of C

by Yizahi 3y ago

Nobody cares (nobody should care) about the amount of coal, or gas, or oil burned or number of coal/gas plants constructed. We should care about the amount of CO2 and other GH gasses in the atmosphere. The actual important number, not the derivative numbers intending to hide issues and misdirect public. And that number is constantly rising and that rise is accelerating. Always, so far.

cmeacham98 3y ago
Isn't "amount of coal burned" a direct proxy for "amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere (by coal-powered electricity)"?
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  I think you’re missing the emphasis. The headlines is that less coal is being burned, which implies less emissions. But there arent less emissions - its a false hope.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- Yizahi 3y ago
  In some ideal world - yes. In the real world that number can be easily cheated and hard to verify, and hard to translate into emissions, due to different tech, different fuel composition, different usage patterns and so on. So estimate, then use estimate to estimate a bigger picture and on and on, introducing errors every time and never being sure about base numbers, if they are true or fake. We can't cheat or fake CO2 level in the atmosphere. You can plop a spectrometer in the middle of Beijing and no CCP can alter that number (there was a fun permanent scandal similar to this, when US embassy in China was measuring air pollution daily and published it in Xitter, CCP was furious). No politicians at COP9000 can sit together and fudge some numbers to make their work look good and important. It's just there, in every place on this planet, easily measurable by everyone.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
The rise isn't accelerating though, it's slowing. It might have already peaked: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-co2-emissions-could-peak-as-soon-as-2023-iea-data-reveals/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-co2-emissions-co...
- Yizahi 3y ago
  See, this is exactly what I was talking about. With all due respect to the IFA and all other people involved in the climate issue - they obviously know more than me, they obviously have a better expertise. And they may be even correct. Who knows, maybe emissions are indeed slowing down. The problem is that "Emissions" is a doubly problematic value. It is a derivative number (because it is impossible to measure directly), so it is an estimation which relies on other estimations. And another problem is that it is kinda meaningless on its own, we aren't interested in the emissions per se, we are interested in the damage done by them, in particular temperature. And temperature depends on the amount of GH gasses deposited by emissions. So IFA paints a bright rosy future for us, emissions peaked and will even go down. But if we go to the agency measuring actual CO2 in the atmosphere (and let's not forget about methane and other gasses), we see that the graph is only ever increasing and slowly turning upwards from the mean line, accelerating. https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/ https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/ PS: I really hope to be wrong in this. Reeeeally hope.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    It's hard to see on that graph but the last 4 years have been on a downward trend i.e. still increasing but increasing less per year than the decade before: https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration See the graph at the bottom titled "Annual CO2 Growth Rates" This is apparently partly due to el nino effects, but still, it leaves a small opening for hope.

by Yizahi 3y ago

cmeacham98 3y ago

Isn't "amount of coal burned" a direct proxy for "amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere (by coal-powered electricity)"?

nonethewiser 3y ago
I think you’re missing the emphasis. The headlines is that less coal is being burned, which implies less emissions. But there arent less emissions - its a false hope.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Yizahi 3y ago
In some ideal world - yes. In the real world that number can be easily cheated and hard to verify, and hard to translate into emissions, due to different tech, different fuel composition, different usage patterns and so on. So estimate, then use estimate to estimate a bigger picture and on and on, introducing errors every time and never being sure about base numbers, if they are true or fake. We can't cheat or fake CO2 level in the atmosphere. You can plop a spectrometer in the middle of Beijing and no CCP can alter that number (there was a fun permanent scandal similar to this, when US embassy in China was measuring air pollution daily and published it in Xitter, CCP was furious). No politicians at COP9000 can sit together and fudge some numbers to make their work look good and important. It's just there, in every place on this planet, easily measurable by everyone.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

The rise isn't accelerating though, it's slowing. It might have already peaked: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-co2-emissions-could-peak-as-soon-as-2023-iea-data-reveals/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-co2-emissions-co...

Yizahi 3y ago
See, this is exactly what I was talking about. With all due respect to the IFA and all other people involved in the climate issue - they obviously know more than me, they obviously have a better expertise. And they may be even correct. Who knows, maybe emissions are indeed slowing down. The problem is that "Emissions" is a doubly problematic value. It is a derivative number (because it is impossible to measure directly), so it is an estimation which relies on other estimations. And another problem is that it is kinda meaningless on its own, we aren't interested in the emissions per se, we are interested in the damage done by them, in particular temperature. And temperature depends on the amount of GH gasses deposited by emissions. So IFA paints a bright rosy future for us, emissions peaked and will even go down. But if we go to the agency measuring actual CO2 in the atmosphere (and let's not forget about methane and other gasses), we see that the graph is only ever increasing and slowly turning upwards from the mean line, accelerating. https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/ https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/ PS: I really hope to be wrong in this. Reeeeally hope.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  It's hard to see on that graph but the last 4 years have been on a downward trend i.e. still increasing but increasing less per year than the decade before: https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration See the graph at the bottom titled "Annual CO2 Growth Rates" This is apparently partly due to el nino effects, but still, it leaves a small opening for hope.