Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by brentns1

November 11, 2015, 9:09 am

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Australia asks Saudis to invest in renewable energy

Australia has invited Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries to put their money into wind and solar farms Down Under as the new government in Canberra declares it is “open for business” on renewable power investments.
The move is part of what Greg Hunt, Australian environment minister, says is a “significant change in tone on renewable energy” after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull seized the leadership of the ruling centre-right Liberal party in September from Tony Abbott.
snip
Mr Abbott’s departure is one of two significant political shifts in big fossil fuel-producing nations that have boosted hopes for the new global climate treaty due to be finalised in Paris next month.
The other came in October when Canadians voted for a new centre-left government led by Justin Trudeau.
Mr Trudeau claimed Canada became a “pariah” on climate change issues under Stephen Harper, his Conservative party predecessor, who pulled Canada out of the Kyoto protocol climate treaty in 2011.
In Australia, Mr Turnbull may struggle to meet the high expectations climate change campaigners have for his government.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3d41f412-86cb-11e5-9f8c-a8d619fa707c.html

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Comment on Accountability for Climate Change Damages: Is Fossil Fuel Like Tobacco? by catweazle666

November 11, 2015, 9:35 am

≫ Next: Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Don Monfort

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Hans Erren: “I forecast that COP21 will be in a stale mate until the last hour before closing.”

And then the only solid, binding decision of the whole fortnight will be taken – which five star resort will host next year’s mega-party for around 40,000 climate “science” troughers, complete with carbon footprint comparable to a whole year’s output from an average industrialised nation.

Nice work if you can get it.

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Don Monfort

November 11, 2015, 9:48 am

≫ Next: Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by ticketstopper

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China has been driving growth with debt financed capital investment in underutilized factories, bridges and roads to nowhere, ghost cities, biggest in the world shopping malls with no shoppers, etc. Google “China bubble”. The biggest misallocation of resources in world history. Socialists and pseudo-socialists are smart that way. The bubble is going to burst and projections of China CO2 emissions will be revised. In the meantime they are still piling into coal power plant construction:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/asia/china-coal-power-energy-policy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

Short China. You’ll make a lot of money.

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by ticketstopper

November 11, 2015, 9:51 am

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≪ Previous: Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Don Monfort

Sounds so reasonable, except:
1) Annual emissions increases from 2001 to 2012 averaged 0.91 GtCO2 per year, and that included 3 years of worldwide recessions (GFC plus last year of Internet 1.0)
2) The increases noted above represented a 2.36% CAGR for the period above
3) Your “modest proposal” in reality means a well over 3% compound annual reduction rate in CO2 emissions over a 70 or 80 year period
Nice try to play with small sounding numbers, but *it ain’t gonna happen*
The only time in the period above that CO2 emissions actually went down was in the peak of the GFC – and even then the reduction was only 0.288 GtCO2/0.69% YoY.
So, if we have an economic depression twice as bad as the GFC in 2008, every year from 2020 or 2030 to 2100, we’ll reduce the theoretical maximum temperature by – how much exactly?
Even the Consensus ™ says 12 to 14 GtCO2 emissions must be reduced in just 2030 in order to avoid going over 2 degrees C.
Sounds like your “modest proposal” is a load of garbage.

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Comment on Hiatus controversy: show me the data by timg56

November 11, 2015, 9:56 am

≫ Next: Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Joseph

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I don’t know Pamela,

I live in Oregon and state politics are well along the path of screwing up the state. Oregon used to be a state filled with moderates who believed it was better to find areas of agreement and work to accomplish something. No more. The two parties are controlled by the those furthest out from the center. It’s embarassing to be Republican at times. However I’m not stupid enough to vote Democrat.

(Though I did vote twice for David Lee as my Congressman.)

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Joseph

November 11, 2015, 10:42 am

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Don, I thought China’s growth was driven by foreign investment (e.g Apple). And after the recession that investment dried up somewhat.

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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by Danley Wolfe

November 11, 2015, 10:48 am

≫ Next: Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by matthewrmarler

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@ RCP article on Keystone XL: The president said: “Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest … which are served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution ….(however) he did not assert the pipeline would “significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” He also did not mention the State Department study concluded that the Canadian crude will be delivered to U.S. by rail anyway, and exported to other world markets. There is no significant effect on carbon emissions. Department of Transportation and Office of Hazardous Materials Transport statistics say that fatalities-per-billion-ton-miles for crude transport by rail been 0.100 versus 0.004 by pipeline, so the risk loss of American lives is 25 times greater transporting by rail versus pipeline.* Keystone XL, at 1,179 miles long, represents only 0.2% of the U.S. crude and hazardous material pipeline system. The American Association of Railroads has said that as a result of the rapid growth in domestic oil production and constraints in pipeline infrastructure, the number of crude rail cars has expanded by 20X since 2009, from 20,000 in 2009 to over 400,000 today, often traveling through highly populated areas. (* Crude transport by pipeline is $10/barrel cheaper than by rail, so the president’s ecision does, have substantial economic impact on American citizens. The Keystone XL decision has been driven solely by politics and to support the president’s legacy. The only issue that is important and not marginal is health and safety. It is no surprise the decision was announced on the eve of the upcoming COP21 climate conference in Paris in a few weeks. Will the president tell the climate conference his rejection of the Keystone pipeline was based on careful consideration of the need to protect the lives and property of American citizens?

* Furchtgott-Roth, Diane. ”Pipelines Are Safest For Transporting Oil and Gas”. Manhattan Institute for Policy Research: Policy Brief 23, June 2013 (updated 2015)

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by matthewrmarler

November 11, 2015, 10:49 am

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Peter Davies: <i> If you include this single Chinese target it blows all of Lomborg’s miniscule numbers out of the water.</i> How much? Reading your post, I get the "semi-quantitative" idea that it changes Lomborg's conclusions a little bit. <i>So Lomborg’s paper is fatally flawed and should be withdrawn because it leaves out the single biggest swinger in the whole temperature reduction equation. </i> At most, you make a case that someone, perhaps Lomborg, should add in some more scenarios and thus enlarge the paper by about 2 pages inclusive of a new table.

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by matthewrmarler

November 11, 2015, 10:55 am

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gjw2: Generally, a side effect of curbing local pollution is a reduction of CO2, allowing the government to take credit on the global stage for CO2 emissions reduction.

How so? Reducing pollution requires installing a lot of add-on exhaust scrubbers and such which reduce total power output a little, necessitating the burning of more coal to maintain output and economic productivity. It’s worth it (at least judged by American health and pollution discussions and decisions), but it is an increase in cost and consumption. Isn’t that so?

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Don Monfort

November 11, 2015, 11:49 am

≫ Next: Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by omanuel

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You are wrong as usual, yoey. Capital investment financed with debt:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-11/worlds-biggest-bond-bubble-continues-burst-china-suffers-more-defaults

And Tyler, who knows his dookey, does not go into local government debt, or off the books private debt owed to shadow banks. There are a lot of bubbles to burst in li’l ole Red China. Don’t sweat Chinese CO2.

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by omanuel

November 11, 2015, 12:37 pm

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GOOD NEWS ! I understand this conference paper on “Geoethics: The principles of ethics in Natural Sciences,” will also be presented in Paris.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283641399_Geoethics_the_principles_of_ethics_in_Natural_Sciences

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Joseph

November 11, 2015, 1:55 pm

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Don, doesn’t foreign investment enable you to finance your debt? Wouldn’t a decrease in foreign investment which we have seen in the past few years affect economic growth and the ability of to pay off their debt?

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Joseph

November 11, 2015, 2:00 pm

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<blockquote>There are a lot of bubbles to burst in li’l ole Red China. Don’t sweat Chinese CO2.</blockquote> I have heard all kinds of economic forecasts that turned out wrong. Why should take this one any more seriously? And it always possible that some bubble could lead to a slow down in economic growth, but then in five years or so they are back to high growth and energy demand increases. But it is just difficult to predict in the first place.

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by gjw2

November 11, 2015, 2:01 pm

≫ Next: Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Turbulent Eddie

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Peter wrote, “Now relate this to a commitment to peak CO2 in 2030 in an environment where the economy is still growing at 6% per year. You will still need to be installing more electricity generation and expanding energy use (e.g. making cement for new buildings). Some of this can be done with electricity from renewables, but it’s a tall order for all the energy growth to come from this by 2030 – only 15 years, and no-one knows how to make cement efficiently from wind or solar power yet. China is a huge country and it just takes time to do anything – whereas in a smaller country you can move much faster. Maybe 2040.

So you will inevitably be using more gas (half the emissions of coal). But to peak CO2 you have to be reducing coal use by at least half the rate at which you are using more gas, or CO2 will be increasing again. Thus you have to have coal use on a significant downward trend by 2030 or you are not going to meet your 2030 CO2 emissions targets. That means going through a peak (plateau) much sooner than 2030, and 2020 is the figure the experts seem to pick.”

Nuclear offers another solution to the problem. According to an article Professor Curry listed in the most recent “Week in Review” China plans on building 100 nuclear facilities over the coming decade. They anticipate 150 gigawatts from nuclear by 2030. It’s my understanding China looks to build nuclear power plants at home and abroad.

By the way, thanks for the coal use graph. I see two of the projections indicate basically a plateau by 2020. The other five show at least modest growth with some showing substantial growth.

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Turbulent Eddie

November 11, 2015, 2:12 pm

≫ Next: Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Peter Davies

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Here’s why China’s economic slow down or outright decline is inevitable:

It’s a story that is shared by most of the developed world.

Of course, India, African Nations and some other Asia/Pacific nations are still growing and developing.

But CO2 emissions are falling for much of the world.

In fact, according to the EDGAR database ( and IEA for China’s recent peak ), of the leading CO2 emitters, the bolded countries are the ones past peak CO2:
China(2013)
United States(2005)
EU28(1990)
India
Russia(1990)
Japan
Korea
Int. Shipping
Canada(2005)
Brazil
Indonesia
Saudi Arabia
Mexico(2012)
Int. Aviation
Iran(2005)
Australia(2011)
Turkey(2012)
South Africa(2005)
Ukraine(1990)
Taiwan(2010)

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Peter Davies

November 11, 2015, 2:51 pm

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matthewrmarler, the figure I have seen from the Chinese peaking CO2 emissions in 2030 is a reduction by 2100 of 0.4 degrees C. That’s quoted by Joe Romm in http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/11/09/3720613/lomborg-misleads-paris-climate-pledges/. He says it came from Climate Interactive.

Since Lomborg quotes a pessimistic case of 0.05 deg C reduction for the totality of INDC pledges he analyses, the single Chinese pledge beats that by a factor of x8, and beats Lomborg’s “optimistic” case (which in fact is deeply pessimistic with the assumptions he has made) of 0.17 deg C reduction by a factor of x2.3. Add in other commitments and you would more than double those factors to get back to Climate Interactive’s total of a 1 deg C reduction.

The problem Lomborg would have in adding more scenarios is that he has gone to great lengths to exclude the big reductions. Putting them back would invalidate his conclusion that the reduction in warming from the INDC commitments is not worth having!

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Comment on Lomborg: Impact of Current Climate Proposals by Jim D

November 11, 2015, 2:53 pm

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As to why China would be more likely to act if others did, I think every country has some opponents with the same straw man argument as the US Republicans, who say loudly that going it alone is worthless, so that is why a widely endorsed and well explained international agreement is needed, and it takes away that argument against unilateral action by an individual country.

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