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In Historic Turn, CO2 Emissions Flatline In 2014, Even As Global Economy Grows
mdsolar sends this report from Forbes:
A key stumbling block in the effort to combat global warming has been the intimate link between greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth. When times are good and industries are thriving, global energy use traditionally increases and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions also go up. Only when economies stumble and businesses shutter — as during the most recent financial crisis — does energy use typically decline, in turn bringing down planet-warming emissions.
But for the first time in nearly half a century, that synchrony between economic growth and energy-related emissions seems to have been broken, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, prompting its chief economist to wonder if an important new pivot point has been reached — one that decouples economic vigor and carbon pollution. The IEA pegged carbon dioxide emissions for 2014 at 32.3 billion metric tons — essentially the same volume as 2013, even as the global economy grew at a rate of about 3 percent. Whether the disconnect is a mere fluke or a true harbinger of a paradigm shift is impossible to know. The IEA suggested that decreasing use of coal in China — and upticks in renewable electricity generation there using solar, wind and hydropower — could have contributed to the reversal.
But for the first time in nearly half a century, that synchrony between economic growth and energy-related emissions seems to have been broken, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, prompting its chief economist to wonder if an important new pivot point has been reached — one that decouples economic vigor and carbon pollution. The IEA pegged carbon dioxide emissions for 2014 at 32.3 billion metric tons — essentially the same volume as 2013, even as the global economy grew at a rate of about 3 percent. Whether the disconnect is a mere fluke or a true harbinger of a paradigm shift is impossible to know. The IEA suggested that decreasing use of coal in China — and upticks in renewable electricity generation there using solar, wind and hydropower — could have contributed to the reversal.
...A man has cancer, and and he's still getting sicker, but not sicker at a faster rate, so I'm sure he'll be just fine.
I guess we've done enough to ward off all those hurricanes and droughts and tornadoes and dogs and cats living together. No need for a carbon tax! Congrats, humanity!!
Just in case you are not being sarcastic, or someone is not getting it: Even with constant emisions, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is still increasing, now it is just no longer also accelerating.
economic statistics and economic reality?
Another explanation is that the global economy has flat-lined or gone into recession. CO2 may be a leading economic indicator for the next crash. GDP figures are more easily faked than CO2 levels.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
My guess is that it's a little bit of everything
giagwatts of wind and solar are coming online all over the developing world
There is also a glut of methane in the world economy and its beginning to displace coal, which in terms of carbon/watt is a win
"A key stumbling block in the effort to combat global warming has been the intimate link between greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth."
"The IEA suggested that decreasing use of coal in China — and upticks in renewable electricity generation there using solar, wind and hydropower — could have contributed to the reversal."
Doing a stellar job at journalism.
And even if CO2 stopped increasing, global temperature would continue to increase for several decades.
I'm not sure there is really an absolute correllation between economic growth and greenhouse gas emmissions. An increase in stock value does not increase global emmissions per se.
If the shadow banking, quantitative easing, and other shennagins are counted in the global economy there surely is no correllation.
"A key stumbling block in the effort to combat global warming has been the intimate link between greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth."
Time to cue up the warning about correlation not being causation.
Most particularly, in this case: when the economy gets better, people buy more stuff. There's a correlation between how many teddy bears people buy for their children and their income. That doesn't mean that increasing the production of teddy bears will increase average income. When the economy grows, people buy more.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
But oh, no, it can't possibly be that China's fast-track of building new nuclear power plants had anything whatsoever to do with it, oh no, never never never never. (grumble grumble grumble)
The CO2 problem will never be solved until the people who continue to loudly assert that they are so very very concerned about it get over their irrational dread of the only 24x7 source of energy that has the capacity to compete with coal.
That's the sad thing. Sadly politicians don't understand that. So the GOP wants to cut Social Security over some potential threat by Baby Boomers but Global Warming - which has far more dire consequences - they're willing to kick the can down the road. Nice.
It could also be a result of increased biomass eating up more CO2. Someone needs to compare biomass via satellite mapping with the usage levels of natural gas, wood, coal and oil.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
You may have missed it, but there's this whole thing called Fracking which pretty much upped our output to the same level as Saudi Arabia, give or take a few hundred thousand barrels.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
This just in, Carbon Dioxide still lags temperature.
Seriously though, this appears to be implied CO2, rather than measured. And it seems to be "energy sector" rather than overall. Oh, and the alleged "3% global expansion" is even more imaginary.
See that "Preview" button?
That's the sad thing. Sadly politicians don't understand that. So the GOP wants to cut Social Security over some potential threat by Baby Boomers but Global Warming - which has far more dire consequences - they're willing to kick the can down the road. Nice.
Sadly I think most of them understand, but don't give a rats a**.. It is more about now. Them and the people that gives them money to say "Move along. Nothing to see here"
Think about it. They've been doing quantitative easing for years now. QE is just massive levels of money printing (a few trillion a year), with said money being pumped into the various entitlement programs and the stock market. This has caused massive inflation, but since inflation figures are fudged (since the 70s, no less) this shows up as growth. Milk and gas doubling in price is your imagination- but the NASDAQ, that's real!
Since the US dollar is still the fundamental unit of measurement for all things economic, it looks like we're in the midst of massive growth, when we're really stagnant and in the midst of massive money printing.
The CO2 numbers aren't reflecting the same trend because printing money doesn't cause economic growth.
You're right it couldn't possibly be Chinese nuclear plants because they only generate about 2% of the country's electricity. As for building lots of nuke plants elsewhere, all you have to do is figure out how to finance them, who pays for the liability insurance (it better not be taxpayers), how to safely dispose of the existing waste, who is going to agree to live near them, and how to make them come online in less than 10 years.
It is the replacement of coal with natural gas that is really dropping the CO2 emissions.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Until the price dropped and it became uneconomic. Current fracking is just using sunk infrastructure costs, but unless the price goes back up again, fracking will die.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
"The IEA pegged carbon dioxide emissions for 2014 at 32.3 billion metric tons". Note that this is at best a semi-scientific *guess* at the level of emissions.
There's pretty good accounting of fossil fuel production/trade/usage, so not really a guess.
...we may really be worrying more about the methane. Thats set to grow.
According to wikipedia, nuclear is only responsible for 2% of the Chinese electricity right now, and most of that was already operational in 2013. They are fast-tracking new plants, but it'll take a while before these are on-line. They are aiming to get 6% of their electricity from nuclear in 2020.
Wow, the level of ignorance here is astounding. When Barack and company had both the White House and both houses of Congress, just how much did they get accomplished on this? Or did they too "kick the can down the road?" Politicians are all alike, and if you don't comprehend that then just keep feeding on what they're shoveling to you. Maybe your determined consumption of political bull$h!t will cut down on some cow's carbon footprint.
Your right it has nothing to do with the insignificance of nuclear energy in China. Also coal is no longer the benchmark of cheap energy generation. Its natural gas. Welcome to the 21st century.
"Just in case you are not being sarcastic, or someone is not getting it..."
Yes, I'm sure he was totally serious about the dogs and cats living together.
Proverbs 21:19
Fracking will come and go with the price of a barrel, true, but it will always be here, just waiting to pound down prices when they start back up.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Why does it seem to piss off so many people that there is a bit of good news? What the hell is wrong with needing less and less fossil fuel?
It's like every time there's any story that indicates renewable resources are becoming for efficient and economical, there has to be this rage over, "But alternative energy's going to kill us all and make us have to live in caves!"
I guess once you've grabbed hold of a narrative, you'd rather die than give it up. Little by little, step by step, we're going to need less fossil fuel. Don't worry, we'll let you keep your Hummer H3 matchbox cars to play with.
You are welcome on my lawn.
A much bigger problem with fracking is the quick depletion rates of wells, both for oil and gas. It's normal for a well to decline to 50% or even 25% of the production rate after one year of production, and continue declining afterwards.
Ah, and a new Slashdot meme is born!
./er grumbles: "but,but,but. . . NUCLEAR!"
*Some positive energy/global warming related article is posted that does not explicitly attribute nuclear power*
Some grumpy
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
The high price of oil likely played a bigger factor then nuclear power in China. With the lower price for oil, consumption will go back up for 2015. The high price lead to some investment in non-carbon energy sources but that investment has since stalled.
Where
E = Environmental impact
P = Population
S = Standard of living
T = Technology
I was at a symposium some twenty years ago when I saw a well known environmentalist write that on the board. He wasn't being literal mind you; this equation was a metaphor for how these factors interact.
The world's population is increasing, and already many people are living in dire poverty. We naturally want to raise their standard of living, but that will raise their level of consumption which combined with their growing numbers could have devastating environmental consequences. Fortunately raising the living standards of people tends to reduce the number of children they have, so we have something of a lucky break there, but populations are still likely to grow under any development scenario.
The message was this: if we want to preserve the environment AND raise living standards, we have to get our asses in gear on green technology.
Now I think it's premature to declare success based on preliminary data about one year; the "win" could disappear with the discovery of a few accounting errors. But I think there's no question technology has got greener and that helps.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Which is exactly why OPEC has refused to decrease production. They are trying to kill off drilling in the US.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Once the House passed the Waxman-Markey bill, the next step would have been for the Senate to have passed its own comprehensive climate and energy bill. Unfortunately, the Senate was unable to do so...S.1733 passed the committee by a vote of 11-1, with all seven Republican members boycotting the final vote...Citing a lack of bipartisan support in the Senate, however, Reid announced in July 2010 that upcoming energy legislation would not include a cap on GHG emissions. This effectively ended action on climate legislation for the 111th Congress.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Wow, the level of ignorance here is astounding. When Barack and company had both the White House and both houses of Congress, just how much did they get accomplished on this? Or did they too "kick the can down the road?" Politicians are all alike, and if you don't comprehend that then just keep feeding on what they're shoveling to you. Maybe your determined consumption of political bull$h!t will cut down on some cow's carbon footprint.
Unfortunately US politics is a lot more complex than that. The Democrats as a whole probably did want to get something done, however the Republicans REALLY didn't want to do anything even on things they could agree with, for something like Global Warming they would have been able to make it extraordinarily costly to do something.
The Democrats simply didn't have the popular support to enact a serious climate policy, especially after they spent all their political capital on health care reform and economic stimulus.
I stole this Sig
So was there a filibuster (I honestly don't know)? I don't see a mention of it in the text that you posted.
Stop spending stupid algore money.
Plant moar trees
Yes, this is more likely.
China's economic growth has declined to lows in the past years, as Europe, Japan, and the US (despite all the happy propaganda talk).
I can serve up lots of links on how poorly the economies are doing.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-11/china-reports-worst-industrial-production-data-ever-outside-global-financial-crisis
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-13/what-happens-stock-market-if-us-follows-world-recession
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-12/q1-gdp-expectations-are-crashing
Let's see if the Keeling curve has an inflection !
Wow, the level of ignorance here is astounding. When Barack and company had both the White House and both houses of Congress, just how much did they get accomplished on this? Or did they too "kick the can down the road?" Politicians are all alike, and if you don't comprehend that then just keep feeding on what they're shoveling to you. Maybe your determined consumption of political bull$h!t will cut down on some cow's carbon footprint.
You are referring to the 111th Congress. A list of what they did do is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress
They passed more legislation than any other Congress since Lyndon Johnson was in office. Most of what they passed was meant to deal with the fallout of the Bush economy they inherited. If that wasn't the case, maybe they would have done more for the environment.
Next time you achieve something at work your boss can stroll in and say: "Jimmy here just stopped our servers from crashing every hour and instead they crash every 3 hours now. Jimmy's work is done here. He can go home early for such great work!"
Positive reinforcement is a much better motivator than to bash the progress no matter how little it appears to be. News like this makes me realize the small changes I made and that my company made actually helped.
Central banks have dumped credit, not wealth, into the global economy. That has goosed the numbers only, not the organic growth of world economies.
This has occurred in order to mask the poor quality of the debt held by private and public banks, and to allow gov'ts the ability to spend in deficit.
The patient has been giving more blood than is healthy for about thirty years now. Replacement with saline and meth has made them alert and conversant, but collapse is inevitable without ENERGY INPUT.
So, give it some Twinkies and we're golden, right?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The Democrats simply didn't have the popular support to enact a serious climate policy,
That's the real kicker. If the public support were there, they would get something done, and Republicans would go along (heck, as hypocritical as politicians are, they might lead the charge. Even Bush supported climate change legislation when it was convenient). If public support were there, then politicians who didn't pretend to go along would be voted out of office.
Even dictators work to manipulate public opinion, because even they know their power ultimately relies on the people.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The pace for nuclear in China seems slow compared to wind and solar. http://www.worldnuclearreport.... and nuclear power seems to be in a rut so probably it's only contribution is not adding more opportunity cost by being moribund. http://www.worldnuclearreport....
Can't we at least celebrate some progress? No, the job isn't done, not at all, but can't we be happy that we're at least moving a little in the right direction?
I'm not saying there's no problem any more, of course there is, but why does everything have to be 100% gloom and doom and disaster and condemnation?
Probably not, more likely their building of solar and wind farms like crazy in the past few years in an effort to get to grips with their pollution problem. (In addition to bringing online new coal power plants to replace their oldest ones.) While they have been building some nuclear plants they have only just approved the first one since the 2011 disaster in Japan.
A child has jumped in front of our car, so we took our foot off the gas and stopped accelerating. We're only coasting now, we're absolved and any further responsibility because it's entirely up to the child to crawl out of our way. Maybe in a several more meters (years?) we'll apply pressure to the brakes and give the child a little more time to not have his brains splatter onto our grill..
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The ONLY reason that it flatlined is because china's growth has slowed way down, combined with the west making massive cuts.
However, america's economy may actually lift china's, which will mean massive increases continue.
For those of you who do not understand this, this is REAL values as opposed to the assumed numbers for this article.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Oco2 shows that china's emissions are far greater than others and it is the fact that their economy is slowing way down, that has slowed this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What has a nuclear reactor in China to do with reduction of CO2 output?
A new reactor might stop/prevent growth of CO2 output, but does not reduce it.
The rest of your argument makes no sense either as Solar,
Wind and Biomass (and water where it is viable) are all CO2 free alternatives to coal, not only nuclear. Why do idiots like you always claim such nonsense??!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Oco2 is showing which geographic regions co2 is coming from and to what levels. It can tell what is creating it, but it does show where the real issues are.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
More like a simplistic argument from someone who hasn't done their homework gets censored.
I'm probably wasting my time but... First you need to realize the ocean and atmosphere are a coupled system with heat being transferred between them all of the time. Second the heat capacity of the ocean is at least 100 times greater than the atmosphere so small changes ocean heat absorption can make a big difference in the heat retained in the atmosphere. And the ocean has continued to warm over the past 20 years. It can't continue to do that forever without some of the heat showing up in the atmosphere eventually. (If the PDO is switching to a warm phase as it appears to be doing that will be sooner rather than later.) The slowdown in warming is probably from a combination of factors which are complimentary rather than contradictory as you believe.
Go online and type in different zip codes for store prices and then compare NEWLY opened stores in anew region, against regular stores. There are major differences.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The real problem is the far left that screams about western nations, while ignoring the fact that China alone is over 40% emissions ( thank you oco2 for showing that ).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
All of the reduction can be attributed to China's "reported" reduction. Some of that might be real because they are ramping up nuclear and hydro projects.
But consider the source of that report.
Democrats could have enacted a serious climate policy if they had sat down and negotiated. But they tried to do it unilaterally and got stuffed. Same with health care reform; the Republicans wanted to be at the table and work out a solution - but Pelosi locked the door.
I think you've been Poe'd.
Probably once the CO2 levels get well below 280 ppm which is where it was for the last ~10,000 years until the early 1800s.
You should understand that this story doesn't mean that CO2 is not still rising in the atmosphere, just that the rate of increase didn't accelerate in 2014.
"In Historic Turn, CO2 Emissions Flatline In 2014, Even As Global Economy Grows." There are three distinct claims made:
1 - That CO2 emissions have not flatlined or declined before while the economy grew - While this is a logical assumption, there is not sufficient data to support the conclusion on the historical end.
2 - That CO2 emissions flatlined. I do not believe we measure the emissions with sufficient precision to accept this assertion. When the numbers consist of estimates piled upon estimates, the conclusion has error bands that still go well into the positive side.
3 - That the global economy grew. Same issues as #2 in the other direction.
Given that, according to the headline itself this is unprecedented, should we not be skeptical of claims 2 and/or 3?
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
QE is just massive levels of money printing (a few trillion a year), with said money being pumped into the various entitlement programs and the stock market.
It doesn't actually work that way. QE is just an asset swap and it doesn't create inflation. It does however force down interest rates and that allows for higher leverage levels which elevate asset prices.
You better get used to it because physics doesn't care what you think and anthropogenic climate change will continue for the foreseeable future.
The percentage may be lower but the absolute number of people working is still greater than any time before the 1990s and maybe than before 2000.
We've managed to raise the global temperature enough to thaw the Arctic areas that are holding huge amounts of methane and have now allowed that to escape into the atmosphere. Unless somebody figures out how to stop further releases of that greenhouse gas, as David Letterman said on his show a year or so ago, "We're screwed."
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Troll food" - Dance troll. Dance I say!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's at 400 now, apparently.
And the ocean has continued to warm over the past 20 years.
No, it hasn't.
NASA is a big proponent of AGW, and even they admit the oceans are not warming to the extent required to explain the pause.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Both the International Energy Agency article and the Forbes magazine orticle cited in the Slashdot story are written for narrow viewpoint audiences such as business finance managers and economists working for national governments.
Think of the audience being written to as accountants who watch accounting transactions and balance sheets. For these people, the news is a business operating ratio of energy consumption vs. economic activity has changed a very small amount.
If anything, both OP articles should be faulted for not presenting the two numbers that compose an actual "operating ratio". What is the ratio of gross KWH producing CO2 to Dollars or Euros of economic activity? That is a number the IEA should have presented. Together with error bars, of course.
In the articles, a clue to the very narrow perspective of the "news" is that the IEA article does not mention global warming atmospheric gas concentration increase. The bad news from the Mauna Loa observatory is:
Recent Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2
February 2015: 400.26 ppm
February 2014: 397.91 ppm
Last updated: March 5, 2015
I read an article not long ago, where the CEO of Exxon said they hadn't done much fracking yet because they had been researching ways to reduce production costs (they already have the land, if you're thinking in longer term, the best way to maximize income is to reduce production costs). They were confident that they could frack for much less than $50 a barrel.
The costs involved in fracking have dropped dramatically in just a few years. It still can drop more.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Another simplistic argument. Both of those stories are about the abyssal ocean below about 2,000 meters, not the upper ocean. To determine that the abyssal ocean had not warmed they took the amount of sea level rise attributed to ocean warming and determined that all of the rise could be accounted for by the warming in the upper ocean alone. They didn't actually measure the deep ocean temperatures. You need to work on your reading comprehension.
Yes, CO2 in the atmosphere is right around 400 ppm now. It hasn't been that high for at least 3 or 4 million years.
Do you think more CO2 in the atmosphere would result in more vegetation growth?
To some extent for some types of plants. But that assumes there is plenty of water, other plant nutrients and good growing conditions too. It seems to me there was plenty of vegetation when atmospheric CO2 was 280 ppm.
they are also aware that the world is moving to more economical forms of power generation/delivery, solar/wind/hydro/nucleur power generation, electronic vehicles etc etc and getting less reliant on oil based power.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Can't we at least celebrate some progress? No, the job isn't done, not at all, but can't we be happy that we're at least moving a little in the right direction?
I'll wait for a report which confirms this report before I celebrate.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Lazy morons don't try to support their BS points.
Although the Tea Party has embraced home solar.
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If it replaces a coal or natural gas station it does.
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Yeah the Republicans are that. Renaming it to climate change so that it sounds less scary.
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All 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no warming for between 14 and almost 18 years. In that time CO2 has risen 8-10%.
You mean temperatures have not risen since the super el-nino that put a lot of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere?
What happens if you look at 10 or 20 years?
By the way lost in the politics of CO2 is the fact that at 150 PPM all plant life above the oceans dies. Followed very shortly after by all the animals.
So people are wanting to get back down to 280 and somehow this would mean going down to 150?
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But it does not ... their power demand is increasing, so they simply add plants.
They are far far away from replacing old plants. Perhaps they replace really old ones like an 80 year old plant ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It does seam coal in general is being reduced though.
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/...
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Much of the twenty first century's GDP is produced without burning something. Government borrowing is counted in the GDP. Telecommunications, financial, and medical services grow the GDP without smokestacks. Automation increases productivity without increasing energy usage.
Renewables are coming online now. They have a carbon footprint but it shrinks as the energy used in their production is amortized over their useful lifetime.
Let's count the win guys, let's count the win.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Ah, so we are on a turning point here, that is something good!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
In the medicine cabinet there's going to be a bottle labeled "seroquel" or "lithium" or some other neuroleptic. Go get yourself a glass of water and follow the label.
The CO2 problem can not be solved by the denial of arithmetic.
Agreed. Where is your arithmetic supporting that nuclear power contributed to this 2014 "reduction" in any meaningful way?
It seems you are the one who is coming to a conclusion without any arithmetic. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!