Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
We haven’t displaced any fossil fuel use with renewables so all our “progress” with renewables was wasted. Bitcoin and AI are great examples of completely unneccessary energy wasting of civilization.
We are on track for RCP 8.5. This is triggering non-anthropogenic positive feedback loops like polar clathrates and loss of albedo from melting ice cover. Up until 1.5°C humans were driving emissions and we could theoreticaly just turn them off.
We’ve now committed all life on earth to non-anthropogenic emissions with tipping points. Turning off fossil fuel use today (yeah right) doesn’t stop CO² and equivalents from rising at an alarming rate. We are no longer in control of what’s going to happen.
We’re in a for an absolute shitshow. 8.2 billion people all wanting to eat on a planet where vast swaths of agricultural production will fail due to heat, drought, flooding and fires. The rule of thumb is that for every degree you lose 10% ag production. This holds true for 1-4 deg. We don’t think the relationship is linear beyond that.
We are not still on track for RCP 8.5. That pathway was based on continuing growth in coal use that was seen in the early 2000s that didn’t continue. And the dramatic drop in price for renewables and batteries is already having an impact, and the energy transition will continue. (Whether the US likes it or not.)
I’m not trying to pretend everything is fine, it’s absolutely not, but we need to be realistic about what our trajectory is. Right now, I think we’re on track for 3C by 2100, closer to RCP 4.5 or RCP 6, which is still awful. But it shows that we have made progress relative to 20 years ago, and there is still plenty more work to be done. Every fraction of a degree matters, and I’m not throwing in the towel yet.
Coal use is still growing.
The IEA says "Global coal demand grew by 1.2% in 2024 in energy terms, rising by around 67 million tonnes of coal equivalent (Mtce) (or in physical terms by 1.4% or 123 million tonnes). "
India is up 5% itself which is more than enough to offset European and North American reductions. President Poopy Pants is cancelling renewables and begging for coal to come back.
“China remains the dominant player in global coal markets, consuming roughly 30% more coal than the rest of the world combined. Its power sector alone accounts for one-third of global coal consumption, underscoring China’s central role in shaping the trajectory of global coal demand.”
I see lots of articles about China being a green leader in renewables, but fossil fuel use is still growing.
I’m not arguing that coal use isn’t growing. Rather, I’m saying that the assumptions researchers made when making the RCPs, about the availability of coal and the rate at which its use would increase, do not line up with what actually happened. As well, the price of renewables has dropped faster than was previously expected. So I’m just saying we shouldn’t base our understanding of where we are and where we’re headed on outdated and flawed models.
This article is a few years old, but it gets into the weeds about RCP 8.5, if you’re interested: https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-high-emissions-rcp8-5-global-warming-scenario/
Good post. But it’s a little nerve racking when it says “Global coal use is down from it’s peak in 2014”, but also this..
A bit of rose coloured glasses.
But I conceed the point, RCP 6.5 is the more likely candidate. I don’t feel any better about it.
Yeah, it can get messy, depending on which data source you’re looking at, or if one article pulls from multiple different data sources. But I agree, any increase in coal use is a bad thing, and certainly no one should be building new coal plants, and we should be retiring existing coal plants ahead of schedule.
Seeing the recent news that renewables has overtaken coal for global energy supply makes me happy, but there’s still so much work that needs to be done.
But some millionaire got richer from ai and Bitcoin, and some few people. So whats the problem?
In France we’re having an official public consultation on how to prepare to 4°C in Y 2100 (with steps of 2° in 2030, 2.7° in 2050).
I guess we re cooked
Planning for 75 years from now seems a bit premature when we are probably going to be shit out of luck in 25 years. Its like planning what to eat for dinner in the final seconds before you are about to get in a deadly car crash
Planning is never a bad idea.
The climate crisis isn’t going to “kill us all”, it’s going to kill a whole lot of us and make the lives of the rest really really miserable.
Which is why planning is a good idea.
How long do I get to finish my KFC bucket before I kick the other one?
Less than 4 seconds.
We’re already circling around +1.5℃. I’d bet on +2.0℃ by 2040.
Yeah. Two years ago, mainstream studies were estimating 3°C by 2100 - and it’s well documented at this point how climate scientists deliberately underestimate predicted rates of warning to avoid being seen as alarmist.
At this point I agree with 2°C by 2040 and bet on 3°C by 2050. 5°C by 2100, 10°C if some of the worst case feedback loops exist.
That’s not even taking AMOC into account. If that stops things might look a lot different.
