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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"?
And even if CO2 stopped increasing, global temperature would continue to increase for several decades.
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.
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'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.
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.
This just in, Carbon Dioxide still lags temperature.
Sometimes CO2 lags temperature, but even then it still leads additional temperature at the same time. Right now, it's only leading it. The oceans are still net sinks, taking up about 45% of the produced CO2.
Seriously though, this appears to be implied CO2, rather than measured.
They do both.
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.
The oceans are still net sinks, taking up about 45% of the produced CO2.
Correcting myself here: 45% is the percentage that stays in the atmosphere. About 26% is taken up by the oceans.
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.
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
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 !
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....
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.
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.