Despite rising global ghg emissions, fundamental changes in policy are taking place as the transition to renewables gathers momentum and national policies start to gain traction.
- China coal demand likely peaking in 2025/26 while India continues strong growth albeit on a level ¼ that of China.
- EVs are continuing to increase their world market share, currently 24%, despite sales levelling off at 10% in post-incentives North America. In Europe, EV sales have risen to 26%.
- Renewable energy from solar and wind is growing at rapid rate while hydro growth is levelling as most major sites have been exploited.
Yet carbon emissions continue to grow as the world’s energy budget expands due to population growth and material consumption. Also, as the richness of many of our resources decline, more energy is required to maintain steady output. This is the oft referred to “diseconomies of growth” – the more we use the higher the cost per unit rises which is the exact opposite of what commercial economics preaches.
As China’s emissions peak and decline while emissions from the USA and Europe decline, Canada’s will remain stubbornly high due to mass immigration and a focus on large resource projects instead of productivity improvements and a broadening of the economic base.
Climate Goes Dynamic
The polar vortex has broken up causing unpredictable and volatile weather as we in North America have seen this fall and winter. It is possible a fractured polar vortex will promote more rapid heating in the Arctic as many small parts change temperature more quickly than one large part.
A dynamic climate may provide a great many potential themes for Hollywood blockbusters but the bottom line is that our planet will become less hospitable for sophisticated societies. Massive destructive events are unlikely to cause rapid collapse as a slow erosion of capability but small increases in costs will likely eat away at our social stability. These are much harder to identify and react to than catastrophic storms, droughts etc. Will the climate return to the pattern of huge and rapid shifts ( +/- 5.0C) which took place before we entered the Goldilocks period (+/- 0.75C) 14,000 years ago?
Change is arriving and how we respond to it will determine how healthy our societies can remain. Certainly, the faster we move away from the pursuit of growth and the metrics of the finance cult, the more resilient we will become.
Below are several sites which allow a deeper dive
into carbon emissions and their impacts and trends.
A changing climate means among many other things, changing water regimes. Hydro electric output fluctuations, fires, reduced agricultural and fishery output as well as infrastructure damage from extreme weather events are now clearly identifiable impacts. Changing river flows have a direct effect on costs of living and the stability of food and energy supplies.
Rivers, winds, currents, migration patterns, crop vulnerability, mitigation investment are all moving away from normal patterns leaving rational strategies difficult to formulate. The beauty, or horror, of an increase in extreme weather is that trends become unpredictable with many false negatives and false positives.
In the end, we may have to invest for all eventualities leaving us spread thin and underprepared for the strongest impacts. The best way to deal with this dilemma is to reduce consumption, which when combined with increased local production, produces the greatest level of resiliency.
While Humanity Dithers, What is Carbon Busy Doing?
Where does carbon go? How does it move and what are the trends? Below, the emissions by humans and the bidirectional flows of the land and oceans show slowing absorption as our energy sinks begin to show signs of overload.
The Price of Growth and Financial Metrics
End Result: 1.5C in the rearview mirror. The Price of Growth and Financial Metrics
Growth can no longer be the goal and finance can no longer be the measuring stick. False gods produce poor outcomes. Yes, put blame on duplicitous fossil fuel companies but the finance cult bears even more responsibility and they are rarely cited as part of the problem. This is unsurprising as they control most of the Western corporate media.
As we arrive at 1.5, most of the impacts it makes inevitable are latent. We are just beginning to see the impacts of a 1.5C increase in global temperature. Changing the temperature of a steak by putting it in a frying pan at 190C, the steak is not rendered instantly cooked. It takes time at this temperature for the structure of it to change to the point where it can be considered cooked.
The full potential of global warming will be felt over many decades as earths systems adjust and a new normal emerges. The chances of the new normal being an improvement over the old Goldilocks normal of the last 14,000 years are remote. The freakishly consistent climate in that period provided the stability of favourable weather patterns which allowed humanity to prosper, learn and establish sophisticated societies.
Estimates of temperature increases are climbing steadily higher.
The outcomes of our failure to act can be seen in the chart below. Even the most optimistic scenario of human actions put the chances of keeping warming below 1.5C at 21%. Note that this chart is based on data and modelling which does not capture James Hansen’s latest research showing “The Acceleration”.
At what point do the oceans announce they’ve had enough? (see end of page) Will declining absorption rates of carbon and heat in our major sinks mean temperatures in the biosphere will accelerate? How will the continual increase of energy in our biosphere play out?
Fun with Data – Visualizing the Sources
Here is another great site for pinpointing sources of CO2 and methane emissions. Note the more temperate the region and the lower the density of population, the less intense are the emissions.
Where are the emissions coming from and are they increasing or decreasing?
“The Acceleration” Where is Hollywood when you need them?
We need to be aware of the threat a warming climate poses and of the causes of the changes we are forcing the climate to make. More importantly, we need to expose the interests which are delaying and diverting meaningful response.
Growth is Killing Us but it is just too profitable for our elites to abandon.
The graphic below illustrates the change in deep water heat absorption and defies easy description. So please go to the research site and work through the technical explanations.
