Comments on: How important is the two degree target?

By: Jiri

Jiri — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 15:29:05 +0000

I guess I’m bit lost in what David is suggesting here. Strict limitation of CO2 emissions would clearly prohibit development of underdeveloped countries like China and/or cause dramatic economic decline in developed countries. Although developed countries are managing to restrict CO2 emissions by technological development (shale gas), limiting their growth (EU) and exporting emissions (to China) this is clearly not enough for climate alarmists. Some people here are talking about legal framework but this won’t drop CO2 emissions. Obviously, exporting emissions abroad doesn’t change global emissions so the only real option is either technological development or economic decline. I guess it is not sustainable to have both – although US is trying to go this way. They are still technology focused while they are borrowing and printing money to create socialist (and poor) society. Although EU is much more advanced in this area in Russia and Eastern Europe we tried this experiment nearly century ago.
Economic issues are much more important than amount of ice in Arctic or few degrees of global temperature. Majority of population doesn’t really care about ideology and once they begin to struggle to fill up their car and get enough electricity to watch TV we can face collapse of any CO2 emission agreement much sooner than any noticeable increase of the sea level.

By: David

David — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:11:56 +0000

Steve,
I doubt that the comments would have been different, but more difficult in that one trillion tonnes is nearterm, absolute and measurable. That puts the pressure on even though the issue of meeting it remains just as challenging.
The points you make about starting things which we know are directionally correct is a good one.
David

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:18:00 +0000

Do you think Todd Stern’s comments would have been any different if the overall UNFCCC goal was a trillion tonnes rather than 2 degrees?

A trillion tonnes is a little closer to near term actionable measures, but only a little. What about agreeing to make a global start on carbon pricing, fuel efficiency standards (e.g. for cars) and commitments to low carbon r&d funding? Aren’t they the things more likely to build the political will that Todd Stern talks about?

Of course it would just be cynical to suggest the US mainly doesn’t like the 2 degree limit because it requires rather more effort than they are prepared to commit

By: turnedoutnice

turnedoutnice — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:34:37 +0000

Anyone who still peddles this 2 K nonsense is a dupe of the IPCC’s fake science. 6 mistakes in the physics, 3 elementary*, ensure no climate model can predict climate, there can be no CO2-AGW or positive feedback and the GHE is fixed by the first few 100 ppmV of water vapour.

This is not to state there has been no climate change or that CO2 may be very dangerous [by changing the flora in the oceans and accelerating the next ice age by increasing cloud albedo]. The World is cooling and total precipitable water is falling.

*The worst error comes from meteorology which teaches imaginary ‘back radiation’ which if true would breach the 2nd law of thermodynamics. What’s worse these people imagine they measure it with single ‘pyrgeometers’ which measure a temperature radiation field, not a real energy flux. Hence the IPCC ‘Energy Budget’, the creation of meteorologist Trenberth, is completely wrong.

By: Ed Reid

Ed Reid — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 13:00:11 +0000

“A goal, without a plan, is just a wish.”, Antoine de St. Exupery

Limiting a projected global temperature rise to 2C is not a GOAL; rather, it is a wish. There is no PLAN. There is not even, as you acknowledge, any agreement on the steps required to achieve a 2C limit; or, the time frame over which the steps would be taken. This “settled science” appears “unsettled”, which I find “unsettling”.

I have great difficulty envisioning Hansen’s zero global annual GHG emissions scenario other than in a global vegan commune with drastically reduced population, likely run by the current, feckless contender to the mantle of global governance, located at Turtle Bay.

The free people of the globe understand, to one extent or another, that the “despotism” component of “benevolent despotism” always outlives the “benevolence” component. A future run by some subset of the tin pot despots represented on the UN General Assembly is too terrible to contemplate.