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CO2 Emissions Rose for the First Time in 4 Years (vice.com)

Human emissions of carbon dioxide have gone up for the first time since 2013, according to the UN's ninth annual Emissions Gap Report, meaning the world isn't on track to mitigate the worst of climate change's already disastrous effects. From the report: The report, published on Tuesday, says that while carbon emissions stayed relatively level between 2014 and 2016, carbon emissions in 2017 went up by 1.2 percent. Composed by climate scientists using the most up-to-date scientific data, the report aims to determine whether we're on track to meet the goals set by international climate agreements, such as the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. The "emissions gap" is the difference between how low our emissions need to be, and where they actually are. The UN report concludes that the world isn't hitting the emissions targets necessary to curb warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. While the goal is not impossible, it's unlikely to be met under current political conditions, which have rendered us unable to take significant action against climate change for more than half a century. "According to the current policy and [Nationally Determined Contributions] scenarios, global emissions are not estimated to peak by 2030, let alone by 2020," the report reads. "As the emissions gap assessment shows, this original level of ambition needs to be roughly tripled for the 2C scenario and increased around fivefold for the 1.5C scenario."

35 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. Thanks, Trump! by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Reversing the Obama fuel economy standards has greatly accelerated the submerging of Mar-a-lago!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  2. WERE ALL GOING TO DIE..... by Zorro · · Score: 2

    Bananas growing in New Jersey! Mass Hysteria!

  3. 2013 ? We were already dead by then by Crashmarik · · Score: 2, Interesting

    According to Hansen
    https://www.theguardian.com/en...

    Still waiting for those 50 million climate refugees predicted by the UN
    http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

    Or how are things on the West Side of Manhattan these days ?
    https://www.salon.com/2001/10/...

    Then again snow is supposed to be a thing of the past as well
    http://www.climatedepot.com/20...

    1. Re:2013 ? We were already dead by then by DivineKnight · · Score: 2

      If you believe, you will see signs everywhere.

      Personally, I have trouble with what these scientists are using as a control for their experiments.

    2. Re:2013 ? We were already dead by then by Crashmarik · · Score: 2

      at this stage you'll drown before long

      Been hearing that for the last 30 years.
      Before that we were supposed to be killing each other to have something to eat
      We were also supposed to be out of energy by now
      and we were supposed to be out of almost all natural resources by now as well.

      It's almost as if the news is manipulated to fit agendas

      https://i.imgur.com/x7C10JP.jp...

    3. Re:2013 ? We were already dead by then by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2

      According to Hansen

      Nothing in that link was demonstrated as incorrect. In fact, the specific predictions (e.g. accelerated ice melting in Antarctica) have come true. Now, he said we had to act already to avoid a feedback loop, but that' not been resolved.

      Still waiting for those 50 million climate refugees predicted by the UN

      That article explains what's happened... those islands in the South Pacific have been expanding by adding mass, and staying above the sea level rise that way. That said, I would say that the hundreds of thousands of people who left Puerto Rico qualify. I'd add to that that refugees, in general, are in the news. The right-wing nationalist response has also been in the news (and, in Italy, left-wing.)

      Or how are things on the West Side of Manhattan these days ?

      Are you not capable of understanding it was a somewhat hyperbolic quote?

      Then again snow is supposed to be a thing of the past as well

      And the number of days with snow in most of the UK has halved since that article was written. Again, you're looking at the exact (and possibly hyperbolic) statement, and not the trend line.

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    4. Re:2013 ? We were already dead by then by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2

      Sure, technically the snow that's been in Antarctica for 10,000 years is fusing to create new ice. Sorry to be imprecise. I meant: the total amount of frozen water on Antarctica, aggregated across all of its various forms, has increased melting.

      BTW, snow fusing to become ice is a process that either requires added pressure (nope) or cycling temperature that goes above a certain point. Gee, I wonder what could be causing Antarctica's temperature to rise above a certain point every year, when it used to not??

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  4. Lack of Leadership and Lack of Sacrifice by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Carbon reduction is hard, there are often a lot of steps which are counter intuitive
    For example it takes less carbon to ship Apple from China to California then it does from New York to California. Mainly because cargo ships use less fuel per ton of goods then shipping via semi-truck.
    Then we have the Automobile guilt. While your home (in most climates) is polluting more then your car.
    To fix this solution we need real leadership who is willing to realize the problem is more then just solar panels, wind turbines and electric cars. It is taking a look at all our energy usage finding wastes and inefficiencies. Making sure businesses are playing by the same sets of rules globally just so we don't offset our emissions to an other country, because they will undercut our price.

    Such issues is too complex for average Joe Sixpack to deal with, or even an Latte drinking hipster. It will require a global change with everyone playing by the same rules, and firm penalties for anyone who wants to cheat the system.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Lack of Leadership and Lack of Sacrifice by Ichijo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For example it takes less carbon to ship Apple from China to California then it does from New York to California. Mainly because cargo ships use less fuel per ton of goods then shipping via semi-truck.

      Why are you shipping by semi-truck and not by train? Trains are 3x as fuel-efficient as trucks.

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
  5. Re:Denialists will not be convinced by science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    People who are ignorant of science are not "skeptics", they are "ignoramuses"

    Flat Earthers, for instance, are not skeptical, They are willingly uninformed.

  6. Re:CAGW alarmists will not be convinced by science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Look at that link, do you see any change in slope 2013-2016?

    https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_full_record.png

    And emissions of CO2 stalled? Hmmm?

  7. Cowardly closings... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

    Cowardly closings of nuclear power plants post-Fukushima are finally hitting home? Less nuclear = more fossil fool energy. Never mind that, despite a few high-profile accidents, commercial nuclear power is a lot safer than any other mode of electricity production.

    1. Re:Cowardly closings... by thesupraman · · Score: 2

      And yet nuclear power has killed FAR LESS people than ANY other significant form of power, including wind and solar..
      No, you are right, nuclear power is SO dangerous, we had better kneejerk ban it...

      After all, the more people killed, the better for the planet, right? right?

    2. Re:Cowardly closings... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

      You're wrong. Solar is more dangerous than nuclear.

      --
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    3. Re:Cowardly closings... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

      False. Insults don't make it any different, either.

      --
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  8. US emissions are down by magzteel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    According to the chart on page 9 the US is doing pretty well.

    Yet somehow China which has 27% of global emissions and went up 17% is marked as "on track to meet the targets under current policies".

    Those targets must not be very serious

    1. Re:US emissions are down by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, it really means the 23 states that are meeting and exceeding the Kyoto and Paris Accords are doing it well, and growing their GDP fast.

      Like the entire West, Texas, and the Northeast.

      It's the rest of the country that are failing. Both at job creation and at using much cheaper renewables, which are cheaper than both coal and natural gas are.

      Adapt. Because you're the areas that get the greatest negative impacts. Most of us will be fine.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    2. Re:US emissions are down by magzteel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The targets make some allowances for the fact that that US emits more CO2 per capita than anybody except some middle eastern oil nations, a few Caribbean islands and Luxembourg (for some reason), and many times as much as many.

      Per capita is meaningless.
      The goal was overall reduction, and the US is achieving it. China and India are increasing a lot.

  9. Re:If you're not a liar, you admit 99% agrees with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    99% of scientists don't agree on man made climate change!

    It is not even the pathetic fake statistic of 97%.
    That Cook paper has been thoroughly discredited.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/03/science-or-science-fiction-97-climate-consensus-crumbles-in-new-survey/

    And many more discrediting studies are showing the same.

    Science is never done by consensus. It is not a popularity contest.
    One small finding can over turn an entire field, Wegner and continental drift for example.

  10. re: political issue by King_TJ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But it IS a political issue, as soon as we start talking about legislation mandating behaviors!

    The true "denialists" aren't that relevant, if the science is solid enough to prove them wrong. You'll never get everyone to accept almost anything. We still have a Flat Earth Society and a number of people refuse to accept the theory of evolution.

    What DOES matter is what you propose to do about the issue. If you want to research machines that could efficiently extract excess CO2 from the air? That's VERY different than trying to implement "carbon taxes" or imposing Federal regulations demanding a halt to the use of a particular fossil fuel (like coal).

    Just because researchers come to a consensus that the planet's climate is slowly increasing in temperature doesn't mean they need to become political - advocating taxation and regulation. If our technological advances are what got us into this mess, they can get us back out too. People will always go with the options that cost them the least money, and give them the most benefit. Improve cleaner energy alternatives so they're cheaper and better, and people will gladly stop burning oil, natural gas and coal!

  11. Let's parse this, shall we? by argStyopa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    " While the goal is not impossible, it's unlikely to be met under current political conditions, which have rendered us unable to take significant action against climate change for more than half a century."
    That sounds very sad....but let's be clear on this.

    "Current political conditions" sounds an awful like "Those fucking stupid Republicans and Trump won't go along with the plan!" ...when in reality the facts or the "current political conditions" and "political conditions for the last half century" are/have been:

    - Kyoto ENTIRELY failed to address/regulate China or India (for...reasons).
    - the world's largest emitter is CHINA - double that of the US* - and it is growing the fastest as well. China's increase over the last decade alone was 60% of the world's increase.
    - the US has - despite disregarding International Kum-Bay-Yah handholding promise-sessions - decreased it's CO2 emissions. In fact the US leads other countries (it's just behind the EU collectively) in reductions. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/#4a376eb73535)
    - the countries that HAVE signed such agreements are largely failing to reach the goals they promise, even though the Paris agreement had the most modest targets ever.

    Essentially, the "political conditions" are that the Climate Agreements are do-nothing SJW virtue-signaling, while the country pointed at as an international pariah is ACTUALLY improving significantly. The worst emitter in the world is now hailed as "leading the fight against climate change!"

    cf The Emperor's New Clothes, I guess?

    *don't give me "but...but...per capita emissions are lower in China!" First, it's an absolute problem, not a per capita problem. We don't talk about per capita CO2 levels. Per capita is West-hating ecomarxist apologists' desperate to find a way to blame the US for everything. If you want to talk about per capita CO2 output, then let's compare per capita PRODUCTIVITY (PPP) vs per capita CO2 production. Hint: China's an even-worse culprit in that context.

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:Let's parse this, shall we? by Kyr+Arvin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      *don't give me "but...but...per capita emissions are lower in China!" First, it's an absolute problem, not a per capita problem. We don't talk about per capita CO2 levels. Per capita is West-hating ecomarxist apologists' desperate to find a way to blame the US for everything.

      If you have, say, 100 in group A generating a total of 500x pollutants, and you have 1000 people in group B generating a total of 1000x pollutants, if A tells B that 1000 is more than 500, so group B needs to cut their outputs more than group A... why should B listen? Group A sounds like a group of greedy hypocrites, having a much higher standard of living that energy use brings while denying it to others.

      Per-capita is extremely important unless you want to argue that one group of people is just far more important than another, and thus entitled to pollute more. If you go down that path, don't expect that the other people are going to pay much heed to your demands that they cut their emissions. Lack of per-capita controls is why I opposed climate treaties that put big caps on the US, but was fine with allowing, say, India to greatly increase their own per-capita pollution.

    2. Re:Let's parse this, shall we? by Deef · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is a bit disingenuous not to mention that a big part of the US's recent reduction in emissions have been due to the 2008 financial crisis, and the temporary losses in production that resulted from it, and were not necessarily due to any particular nobility of purpose or deliberate action of the US government. When China suffers a big recession or depression (which seems likely in the near future, from what I have been reading), the same thing will happen to them.

      Also, the Trump administration has repeatedly been opposing attempts to deal with, or even recognize the existence of, global warming and its consequent climate change. For instance, one of its first actions was to essentially tell NASA that it was no longer in their purview to point their satellite telescopes down at earth, and that they should exclusively be focused on outer space exploration (despite the fact that NASA had been the expert in earth monitoring up to that point). Apparently the Trump administration is so certain of the nonexistence of climate change that there's no longer any need to actually measure its status or get objective temperature measurements and other data. They've also been repeatedly weakening EPA regulations, claiming climate change is a "Chinese Hoax" etc., all without supporting evidence. I'm sure that the fact that the fossil fuel industry heavily disproportionately funds Republicans has nothing to do with all of that. /s

      Regardless, when the government is doing virtually everything it can to fight any attempt at controlling climate change, and individual states like California are instead forced to take action (such as launching their own satellites) due to the fact that the federal government has basically completely failed to do anything (and states must then fight the federal government to do it!), I think it's shows a fair amount of chutzpah to attribute the credit for the U.S. carbon emission reduction at the hands of the federal government as if Trump deserves credit for the reductions that have gone on. (Definition of Chutzpah: A child that kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he's an orphan.)

      You do not appear to have considered the possibility that the point of the Paris accords was to get countries to agree, in principle, that there was a problem and that something needed to be done about it, and that it was never intended to be the final agreement between countries: it was only a first step, with additional steps added as needed when it became evident how effective it was, and to what degree countries were actually complying with it. The fact that the US is now trying to pull out of the Paris agreement completely means that we now have no credibility when it comes to the later steps in which we might have pressed for a stronger agreement or could have pressured other countries to comply more fully with their informal commitments. By characterizing the Paris agreement as "virtue signalling" you are missing the entire point of it.

      Personally, I think the best solution to the problem is probably some sort of market-based solution such as a carbon tax, thus turning the market externality of greenhouse gas pollution into an internality that can be handled by competition within a free market. That's a very "conservative" approach to the problem (at least according to the old definition of "conservative" as opposed to whatever is going on now) but we won't ever get there as long as the party who is historically the one to advance such solutions instead finds it's in their financial and political best interests to pretend that the problem doesn't exist at all, and thus fight any attempt to solve it.

      Characterizing the left as SJW's damages your credibility, by the way. That kind of labeling of opponents only shows that you think you know what they're going to say before they say it, and blinds you to nuances in their opinons that you may not be familiar with. This is not a "my tribe" vs. "your tribe" battle: It's a fight

  12. Re:Denialists will not be convinced by science by youngone · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Unfortunately the climate change deniers are fed their diet of bullshit by a bunch of extremely wealthy people who stand to gain financially from continuing on the current course. (In the short term anyway).
    These same wealthy people also control much of the US political system, so what they want, they get.
    We should treat them with the contempt they deserve, but they have power and are not afraid to use it.

  13. Re:Denialists will not be convinced by science by XXongo · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Science needs skeptics, but one-sided skepticism is worse than nothing. "I'm skeptical about anything that science says, but I completely and uncritically believe any blog post by any idiot disbelieving science if it fits my pre-existing mindset" is not skepticism.

    Skepticism would be asking questions and then listening to the answers.

  14. Re: political issue by XXongo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But it IS a political issue, as soon as we start talking about legislation mandating behaviors!

    Whether the science is correct is not a political issue. The facts are the way they are regardless of your political viewpoint.

    What we chose to do about it (or even, whether we should chose to do anything about it) is a political issue. But that is completely different from the science question.

    When I hear people denying the validity of the science, and when you question them they say the science is wrong because they don't agree politically with some of the proposed solutions: this is denialism. (You can tell these people because within about one minute of opening their mouth they start talking about Al Gore. Deniers are obsessed with Al Gore.) The validity of the science doesn't depend on whether your political ideology is able to solve problems or not.

  15. Re:Denialists will not be convinced by science by MrMr · · Score: 4, Informative

    As I'm involved in a major international effort to start measuring the global Carbon cycle systematically I was somewhat surprised about the claim about emissions in the article. So, I checked the publication. You are spot on: The major CO2 driver in this study is a simple fixed fraction of GDP. It appears that, even if we turned entirely to fusion energy, this report would claim an increase in CO2 emission when the economy picks up.

  16. Explain the CRU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Show me the CRU data used in the IPCC reports, unaltered, along with the methods they used to alter the data and reasons why.

    Oh, you can't? You don't like peer review? You want to hide the data and delete a few weeks before a judge forces you to release it via a FOIA request?

    The science IS political when you literally break the law to prevent peer review, and then claim since you weren't charged you did nothing wrong (which just shows the prosecutors are politically corrupt as well).

    Not a single person can answer why the CRU did this in a way that doesn't make them sound like a partisan idiot shill.

    It may be real, it may not, but the AGWers have lied so frequently and hidden data from peer review I pretty much assume they always lie at this point.

  17. Re:Denialists will not be convinced by science by OrangeTide · · Score: 2

    We need to ignore them for the sake of life on Earth as we know it, and get back to science and scholastic veritas.

    It's difficult to ignore people that we keep electing to office.

    Denialists will always be there, chortling and being pests of no value.

    I guess if things get really bad the denialists might be exiled or killed. Too late to matter by that point, but at least we can feel superior while we starve to death.

    We need to cut them right out of the argument at the first lie they begin with.

    I've given up debating them. The debate is over, and they failed to convince me. Even if they don't realize or accept that they lost, I've moved on.

    I understand some denialists believe they are simply being skeptics. But at the same time so much information has been presented and so many models detailed yet so few self-described skeptics are using those models or presenting counter models. The simulations are correct to a point, in that we can predict short terms weather very accurately and even short term trends. The debate in the scientific community is where the models go past a certain point when things start to go off the rails, it's a debate about what numbers to plug into the simulation and how bad things will get and how soon things will happen.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  18. Re:China, India fail the Paris accords by FeelGood314 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously? Why the hell should people in Canada be able to release nearly 21 tons of GHG/person while you criticize India at 2.28 or China at 8. I live in Ottawa Canada, we might have the worst urban planning anywhere. The city almost entirely white collar jobs, young and educated. 95% the new housing in the last 20 years has been sprawling urban car dependent neighbourhoods. You have to have a car here. Half my neighbours have never walked to a store, hair cut or recreational facility in the entire time they have lived here. It's just not possible. People use their front yards for piling snow and the back yards for dogs to shit in. Kids can't walk to school because we don't have sidewalks and the snow banks and parked cars would mean walking in the middle of the road. Buses don't work because the streets aren't on a grid so there are no good places to put a stop. We have tens of thousands of office jobs in my neighbourhood and no one can walk to work. The offices are surrounded by seas of parking so wide everyone has to drive to go for lunch. It's actually terrible for our physical and mental health. Having kids in the suburbs should qualify as child abuse.

    You want to fix climate change, bulldoze the suburbs with your politicians still there.

  19. Re: Denialists will not be convinced by science by Truth_Quark · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No one is skeptical about the science behind the Earth' s climate changing.

    This isn't true. You see "CO isn't a pollutant, it's plant food" across the denialosphere.

    People are skeptical of the completely off-the-rails scenarios that science proposes if we don't stop the warming.

    If science proposes it then theres a line of reasoning to it from evidence.

    Doomsday scenarios have been sold to the public since the beginning of time, and the solutions are always the same: Give the government more money and control over your life.

    This is the fearmongering that fossil fuel interests are engaging in. But some things are taxed, and freedoms don't end.

    Have you ever read up on the bullshit that "scientists" predicted at the first Earth day back in the 70s? 4 billion people were supposed to die from starvation by 1985.

    Have you ever read up on the theory of Relativity? Scientists predicted gravitation and time dilations precise to the limits of measurement. And the predicted gravity waves have now been observed kicking off a new era in astronomy. Have you ever read up on medical science? Vaccinations? Germ theory and antibiotics? Life expectancy at birth has increased 60% in the USA in the years 1900 to 2000.

    Scientists are nothing more than political mouthpieces.

    Really. You don't believe in the medical advances or technological advances that have been made.

    Do you remember networking before Wi-Fi?

    Remember when it was Global cooling?

    A misperception. The science was at best equivocal on coming global cooling.

    The ozone layer?

    Yes. We got rid of CFC emissions, but the ozone hole is still very extensive. It contributes to blindness and skin cancer especially in the southern hemisphere.

    Overpopulation?

    Yes. The world uses about 30% more resources that it produces every year. They are being depleted, and if it crashes it will get nasty.

    Global warming? Anthropogenic global warming?

    Yes. It's warming.

    They've literally been wrong about the consequences of this shit every time.

    They really haven't.

    Stfu and face the facts that humanity doesn't understand shit about this world.

    This shouldn't be a source of comfort. It means that there will be impacts of climate change that no one has yet realised.

  20. Re:If you're not a liar, you admit 99% agrees with by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

    It's a cherry-picked survey where those who were stated as 'explicitly endorse human-caused climate warming' directly refute the classification. When your data - which is surveyed papers from authors - literally comes out and says you're wrong, well - you should question the accuracy of the survey in the first place.

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  21. Re:If you're not a liar, you admit 99% agrees with by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

    Someone didn't read the article, with actual quotes from authors which Cook lied about. But you have a narrative and a belief to push, I get it...

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  22. The Real Problem Is... by rally2xs · · Score: 2

    People treating the associated costs of converting away from cheap coal and other dirty sources of energy as an inconvenience and people who don't like the inconvenience or additional expense as simply selfish.

    No, no, no.

    This is a matter of life and death. If you raise the price of energy, you plunge more people into poverty. Poverty kills. Smoking can take up to 7 years off your life, but living in poverty can take 10. People in poverty get poor nutrition, little or no preventive medical care, exposure to both the elements and criminal attacks because they're sleeping on a steam grate in an alley and freezing or getting beaten up by another person in poverty that wants to steal their shoes, and so forth. It isn't just that you might have to choose to carpool in order to afford to get to work 50 miles away each day, its that some poor schmuck died today because electricity went from 12.5 cents per KwH to 25 cents per KwH and they couldn't afford that and the rent too, and so were out living on the street and got mugged by a guy with a big knife, and bled to death in minutes. Yes, that's a death from poverty, because otherwise he would have been inside his house with a locked door between himself and the guy with the knife.

    I actually wonder if ANY of the proponents of the pain and suffering of "doing something" about global warming stop to calculate how many people they'll kill doing it, and whether those people they kill will exceed in number the people that would be killed by the global warming if we instead did nothing.

    OBTW I saw a headline a day or 2 ago that USA carbon emissions went down again for 2017, while the rest of the world's went up. Just sayin'...

  23. Re:Hmmmm by AC-x · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You missed one of the options -

    3. Stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on polluting the air and propping up corrupt middle eastern dictatorships and fix the problem of fossil fuel reliance today.