196 Nations Agree to New Climate Change Deal At COP26 Summit (bbc.com) 101
The BBC is hailing "the first ever climate deal to explicitly plan to reduce coal, the worst fossil fuel for greenhouse gases." But they also report that developing nations "were unhappy about the lack of progress on what's known as 'loss and damage', the idea that richer countries should compensate poorer ones for climate change effects they can't adapt to."
And the Guardian reports that "In relative terms, the agreements and deals made by the 196 nations in Glasgow nudged the world a little closer towards the path to keeping global temperature rises below 1.5C and avoiding the worst of the climate crisis's impacts.
"But in absolute terms, there is still a mountain to climb." Before Cop26, firm pledges to cut emissions by 2030 pointed to 2.7C of global heating — a catastrophe. After, the figure is 2.4C — still a catastrophe. Longer term promises to go to net zero emissions, notably by India, might possibly restrict heating to 1.8C by the end of the century, but lack the concrete plans to be credible. And 1.8C still means immense suffering to people and the planet.
The key agreements sealed in Glasgow essentially kick the can down the road. Big emitting nations with feeble plans to cut emissions must return in a year to improve them — that is how 1.5C can be said to still be alive. The $100bn a year to pay for clean energy in developing countries promised a decade ago for 2020 will not be delivered until 2023...
There are positives to build on. The 196 nations are now firmly fixed on the 1.5C target demanded by the science. For the first time, nations are called on to "phase down" coal and fossil fuel subsidies in a Cop text... Deals on ending the razing of forests by 2030, cutting emissions of methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — and making green technology like electric cars the cheapest option globally are all encouraging, even if the pact to end sales of fossil fuel powered cars stalled, with the major markets and manufacturers failing to sign up. An end to international finance for coal power will also dent emissions and some of the most outrageous loopholes in proposed rules for a global carbon market rules were closed — but not all, and cheats may yet prosper.
And the Guardian reports that "In relative terms, the agreements and deals made by the 196 nations in Glasgow nudged the world a little closer towards the path to keeping global temperature rises below 1.5C and avoiding the worst of the climate crisis's impacts.
"But in absolute terms, there is still a mountain to climb." Before Cop26, firm pledges to cut emissions by 2030 pointed to 2.7C of global heating — a catastrophe. After, the figure is 2.4C — still a catastrophe. Longer term promises to go to net zero emissions, notably by India, might possibly restrict heating to 1.8C by the end of the century, but lack the concrete plans to be credible. And 1.8C still means immense suffering to people and the planet.
The key agreements sealed in Glasgow essentially kick the can down the road. Big emitting nations with feeble plans to cut emissions must return in a year to improve them — that is how 1.5C can be said to still be alive. The $100bn a year to pay for clean energy in developing countries promised a decade ago for 2020 will not be delivered until 2023...
There are positives to build on. The 196 nations are now firmly fixed on the 1.5C target demanded by the science. For the first time, nations are called on to "phase down" coal and fossil fuel subsidies in a Cop text... Deals on ending the razing of forests by 2030, cutting emissions of methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — and making green technology like electric cars the cheapest option globally are all encouraging, even if the pact to end sales of fossil fuel powered cars stalled, with the major markets and manufacturers failing to sign up. An end to international finance for coal power will also dent emissions and some of the most outrageous loopholes in proposed rules for a global carbon market rules were closed — but not all, and cheats may yet prosper.
A truly human decision... (Score:4, Insightful)
But in truly human fashion we now have to develop tech. to undo the damage. So fellow nerds, what tech. do we have now, or in the pipeline, that'll save us from ourselves?
A Possible Fuel (Score:2)
So fellow nerds, what tech. do we have now, or in the pipeline, that'll save us from ourselves?
Sodium!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Sodium!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I was going to make a negative comment on this idea, however the pyromaniac nerd inside me just finds the idea of a ship with 1000s of kilos of elemental sodium far to exciting to criticise. How the hell does he plan to store tonnes of sodium metal safely? This sounds ambitious.
In His Wheelhouse (Score:2)
This sounds ambitious.
Fair to say, but he is the scientist responsible for the most (AFAIK) groundbreaking research in decades into understanding how and why alkali metals explode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Understanding the reaction better is the first step in controlling and working out safety measures for it (skip to 18:33 [youtube.com] for an example, but IMO the whole vid is worth your time).
Be assured that if anyone is thinking about the problem and taking it seriously (and capable of figuring it out), then he is.
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While I have a fair amount of respect for this guy, this is not his most well-thought-out video.
Here's some things he didn't think about:
- What do you do with all the waste chlorine from the electrolysis of salt? It's a toxic gas.
- Where do you get the energy? Not renewables, because if we had enough of those we'd use them to replace fossil fuel power plants first.
- How would you transport sodium or burn it in an engine? You can't build pipelines for solids, and if exposed to the atmosphere it can explode.
-
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Don't forget Big China, Big USA and Big India...
https://www.treehugger.com/gre... [treehugger.com]
We can do it the easy way or the hard way (Score:5, Interesting)
Would have been easier and cheaper if we started 30 years ago like some of us asked.
Hard way it is ...
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Re:A truly human decision... (Score:5, Informative)
So fellow nerds, what tech. do we have now, or in the pipeline, that'll save us from ourselves?
Primarily renewable energy. Wind and solar work, are cheap, will get better the more we invest in them. There are real technological problems with making really huge turbines and making them cheap to install offshore which are being overcome.
Long range electric transmission grids, specifically HVDC makes use of renewable energy practical. They are great for places like Europe or parts of East Asia where there's a large number of people in a relatively small area and a wide range of climactic conditions available within reasonable range of those people. For China HVDC is close to the limit of it's practicality, and has been a bit problematic but it's getting to be good enough. The USA definitely needs to start investing in this and it will soon make sense to have a whole of North America grid. Superconducting connections are
Smart grids where electricity demand is reduced by switching off some consumer systems, for example your washing machine, when demand is going above supply seems to be a technology that really isn't becoming popular. Finding a way to make this work and be something that people actually liked would be an easy way to make grids more stable without having to invest too much in power storage.
Power storage of many different kinds is beginning to be practical. Tesla Megapacks already make money in some situations already and will get better. There are a bunch of interesting battery technologies like flow batteries which would allow for much cheaper storage of more power for longer. This works great with renewable energy which doesn't really cost extra to run at times of low electricity demand.
Burning iron [popularmechanics.com] as a replacement for coal seems interesting.
Really interesting is steel making without coal using bio-char [luxmet.fi] and heating with electric-arc furnaces.
Advanced Nuclear Fission keeps making great promises but seems to be failing to deliver. There are things like Thorium reactors that sound great but then turn out to be chemically difficult. Still probably worth investing with care in research here, but it's an industry with a history of over-promising and under delivering. Whilst nuclear in countries like Japan, the UK, Germany and the US has been a bit of a disaster, if only financially, France has a reasonable history here and is planning to invest again, so if they get it right maybe there will be something to copy?
Nuclear Fission is a great hope for 50 years time as ever. Probably it will be a great hope for 50 years time in 30 years as well. Many people feel the level of investment is just wrong. Depending what comes out of ITER [iter.org] it's probably a good idea to either commit properly to this or to slow down?
Electric based transport is interesting. If all electrical energy, especially in production of the vehicles and batteries can come from renewable energy the carbon usage is not too bad. This includes cars, but also maybe replacing current short range use of aeroplanes with electric ones. This is currently not practical for ships or planes because battery sizes would just have to be too big. Replacing those with rail transport might help? What about a tunnel from Kamchatka to the US as a crazy idea?
There's lots more, but that's a list to start.
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"Nuclear Fission is a great hope for 50 years time as ever."
Typo. You mean Nuclear Fusion here.
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"Nuclear Fission is a great hope for 50 years time as ever."
Typo. You mean Nuclear Fusion here.
Yes, exactly. Thanks.
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The most viable and low-cost technology is likely thermal storage/ground source heat pumps. Weather extremes in the days-to-weeks-to-month range can be accommodated fairly easily without huge losses in efficiency or over-provisioning.
Underground shelters are also an “easy” way to segregate ourselves from temperature extremes for both living and food production.
Other low-cost opportunities are local rainwater capture and integrating desalinisation into anything with waste heat rejection.
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I think you are mistaking the actions of politicians with the reality on the ground. ICE vehicles will end up being phased out much faster due to market conditions; even India’s failures will eventually be addressed through internal pressure.
There are a few things that require national/international policy, but most of the things needed to force change are here today because of past actions.
That all said I’d brace for a 3C temperature rise if I was going to be around in 50 years.
Re:A truly human decision... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no tech that can save us from the constraints of an economic system that prohibits the right actions just because of money.
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...let's kill ourselves because it's too expensive to do otherwise. But in truly human fashion we now have to develop tech. to undo the damage. So fellow nerds, what tech. do we have now, or in the pipeline, that'll save us from ourselves?
Yourself you might consider Prozac.
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Here you go: https://www.penguin.co.uk/book... [penguin.co.uk]
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Or deport them to a country they actually feel loyal too like Russia.
Funny your should say that. One of the treasonous traitors literally fled to Belarus [cbsnews.com] (a satellite of Russia) to avoid being held accountable for his crimes.
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Or deport them to a country they actually feel loyal too like Russia.
Funny your should say that. One of the treasonous traitors literally fled to Belarus [cbsnews.com] (a satellite of Russia) to avoid being held accountable for his crimes.
Was it ever any actual doubt? Who would benefit most from the USA's destruction?
Since the attemted Republican takeover, the American communists (Republican party) has initiated a political snitch system in Texas, has been attempting to make it difficult to vote, and obviously attempted to institute an official oligarchy.
I've always said, the Devil is a Gentleman, and the traitor will come wrapping himself in the flag.
I'm waiting for more of them to flee to a country that shares their values.
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the American communists (Republican party) has initiated a political snitch system in Texas,
Wut
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the American communists (Republican party) has initiated a political snitch system in Texas,
Wut
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]
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lol yeah someone in Texas found a way to hack the legal system.
World emission of CO2 per region (Score:5, Informative)
As a reminder, to see if you're in a part of the world that is a big contributor and how much your region needs to do: https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
World emission of CO2 per CAPITA (Score:1)
A much more useful chart about how one *personally* is doing compared to the rest of the world.
If counting by country is useful, the whole climate change problem would be solved by moving more Americans and Chinese to different European countries.
https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
In the chart, upper left is bad, lower right is good.
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If counting by country is useful, the whole climate change problem would be solved by moving more Americans and Chinese to different European countries.
Nah. I'd still own a 10 cyl, 5 liter car and an SUV. Plus I'd have pit fires in my backyard all the time.
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Unless you're from a country which is generally melanin-rich, in which case there are special rules allowing you to continue to emit. Because "racism".
Because that's how you handle something that's supposedly an emergency; first you weigh, modify, and apply special rules by skin color.
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Are you really asserting that there aren't special rules for 3rd world countries, and that there haven't been since the BEGINNING at the Tokyo accords?
I guess if you can't argue the facts, attack the messenger. Brilliant tactic as long as you're either
- preaching to your own zealots, or
- talking to people too stupid to see what you're doing.
Yeah, no. Those are worthless stats. (Score:2)
In addition, it actually gives how YOUR nation is doing, not just regions.
Be careful (Score:2, Insightful)
Have to be wary of any deals that come out of something like this -- it might actually increase pollution and CO2. I mean look at the recent infrastructure bill which will actually dramatically increase homelessness while claiming to help reduce it.
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look at the recent infrastructure bill which will actually dramatically increase homelessness while claiming to help reduce it.
What
Re: Be careful (Score:4, Insightful)
The infrastructure bill doesnâ(TM)t require any new housing units built. It specifies that 2 million units be rehabilitated, which is basically a handout to corporations to upscale their rental units. There will be zero benefit to housing prices or homeless people. The main cause of housing being unaffordable is lack of units. The infrastructure bill does zero towards that. It doesnâ(TM)t even encourage cities to change zoning laws to allow more units.
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Infrastructure is about
it has NOTHING to do with homelessness. In addition, it will not increase homelessness like you stated earlier.
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Increase homelessness? Uh no.
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A little honesty would be appreciated. (Score:3)
If most of the representatives came out to a podium and announced, "We're doing absolutely nothing that will require the slightest alteration of our own goals. In fact, 'screw you guys, I'm going home'."... ...that would be the most honest thing said in 26 years.
Carrot instead of stick (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullying countries into reducing their carbon footprint doesn't work, carbon taxes and carbon tariffs don't work. What would actually work is focused research on making carbon-free technologies cheaper than fossil alternatives. This used to be unrealistic, but we are at a point now where any major power could spend less then the economic hit from the emission reduction and develop economic alternatives to pretty much any fossil use case within a decade. It's a lot easier to convince others to lower their emissions when it's the cheaper option.
Re:Carrot instead of stick (Score:4, Informative)
I agree. And this is where signatory countries and activists get it all wrong. These folks seem to think that if we merely legislate something, industries will magically pivot and everything will be well. It's always a matter of someone else doing all the heavy lifting if we just incentivize it. After all consumption of the oil industry's products are the vast majority of CO2 emissions, so they should just stop right? Never mind that the emissions are caused by everyone living their lives, ultimately. Are people willing to pay a significant, individual, cost to get on the path to sustainable, carbon-neutral energy? Rapid change is going to cost everyone, and such cost needs to be borne across entire nations, not just certain companies or industries. Large amounts of a country's GDP should be poured into developing the industries, technologies, and infrastructure needed. Saving the earth by fiat is a fundamentally flawed methodology. Case in point, the Canadian government is toying with some kind of mandate to reduce nitrogen fertilizer use in Canada by 30%, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the nitrates gassing off. Sounds great, doesn't it. Except of course that it means a 30% reduction in Canadian food production, to say nothing of a 30% reduction in farm family incomes, and after that, there will be a rise in food prices as well. Are they willing to help their farmers deal with this? Promote and even subsidize sustainable agricultural practice on a large scale? Or will they simply blame them for not being willing to adapt?
Is the COP26 conference still banding about the 1.5 degree nonsense? That ship sailed before the Paris accords were ever signed. 2.5 degrees might not even be attainable. We have to live with the fact we will see significant temperature rises and the human misery that will accompany that. Are COP26 signatories willing to spend money to help the millions of people displaced by climate change and the most vulnerable? How about improving their lives so they aren't reliant on burning tires, coal, or other health-destructive things, to say nothing of greenhouse gas emissions.
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Is the COP26 conference still banding about the 1.5 degree nonsense?
It's not nonsense, in the sense that exceeding it will rack up much greater mitigation costs.
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Such costs will simply have to be paid at this point. We are more than halfway there from the Paris accords time. All this talk of running out of time is not doing anyone any favors. We have 12 years until the end of the world. Now we have 10 years. Now 8. Now 6, etc. Nothing but hysteria and cloudy thinking arises from that type of communication. We have teenagers despondent and panicked when they could be instead be learning and working steadily towards the new ideas that will do the most good. Many
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It's mostly all done with granular here. Not much rain to speak of. To get better yields we'll almost certainly be reducing granular and moving back to liquid, spoon-feeding it through the pivot.
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Carbon taxes work if implemented in a way that does not promote manipulation of credits, and if it is balanced with national interests to a degree. Unfortunately, that is hard to do.
The goal needs to be to internalize costs of damaging activity so it is not at an unfair advantage.
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The primary effect of a carbon tax is pricing out the poorer and middle class. It does little other than ensure a portion of any economy goes without. The only incentives are for businesses to want to tap into that section of an economy which can only happen if the alternatives are cheaper than the carbon taxed status quo.
It's a convoluted way of investing in research and development and implementation with the added benefits of class warfare for political power/gain. Far more can be accomplished far faster
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Electric Tractors (Score:2)
No.
He is saying that the current corporations that is unintentionally keeping the worlds supply chains at a mechanical level, is unintentionally oil addicted.
I think China is best example: China is investing into green tech, for no reason other than the fact green tech requires a different supply chain than traditional oil/coal based infrastructure, which means at peak expansion you can still do more green tech because the traditional one has been bottlenecked by the extreme scope of the expansion.
But I do
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What is happening at global political meetings is that taxes and tariffs are agreed upon. Not a whole lot else. [...] Taxes and tariffs do not produce new technology that do not exist yet.
The global marketplace won't provide given an economic signal, including research spending?
wrong (Score:2)
What is needed is a carbon tax on CONSUMED goods/services based on where the WORST PART COMES FROM. If it comes from nation/state that is increasing their CO2, then the consumed good/service should be given a slowly increasing tax, starting with say
"The BBC is hailing" a complete farce (Score:1)
So, when and where is the next fly in?
More empty promises (Score:2)
Every time, governments come together to talk about how important this stuff is, set goals, and then completely ignore them. It's time for the billionaires to step up; I'm hearing rumors that Elon Musk is looking to build wind farms on the moon.
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$1 billion spent by Musk will get the same results as $100 billion spent by the government.
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What evidence?
Science doesn't demand anything (Score:2)
1.5C target demanded by the science
No, it isn't.
Scientists may be demanding 1.5C but science doesn't demand anything, it simply says what is and what may be.
1.5 degrees is a political choice - tied to desired policy outcomes and measures.
We could decide it had to be -10C or we could decide to just let things proceed apace if we wished. "Science" couldn't care less.
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delusional Canadian here (Score:3)
We are so in denial about what should be done and our media is so woke that no politician can actually lead us anymore. If the worst offender can't change I don't see any hope for the rest of the world.
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Until ALL NATIONS stop increasing and then start decreasing, nothing will change. That is why these protocols are worthless. Anybody thinkin
No China? Pointless. (Score:1)
Unless China has bought in, and isn't going to cheat (as they always do), there's no point.
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Again, looking at the per-capita. Bad faith argument at its finest.
Look at the overall amount being pumped out by China as a whole.
China is currently the top producer of this form of pollution and basically produces more than the next 5 nations on the list.
So, again, if there's no buy-in from China on these talks, they may as well be speaking Charlie Brown adult.
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Come on down off your high horse.
I didn't say that it's all China's fault.
But unless we have their participation, pretty much anything we do is just a masturbatory exercise.
Deals are for criminals (Score:2)
When bad actors can’t refute evidence of guilt, in order to avoid prosecution they cop to a “deal”
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The article explicitly reserved the best summary of the deal until the end “ outrageous loopholes in proposed rules for a global carbon market rules were closed — but not all, and cheats may yet prosper”
Reasonable minds can agree to disagree, criminals will always cut the best deal they can get.
Let's grow up! (Score:1)
worthless again (Score:2)
However, this does NOTHING to stop China and India, the 2 largest nations that continue to increase the amount of coal that they burn. If they agreement would have simply STOPPED them from increasing, while the west drops, that would be fine. BUT, it does not. So, CO2 will continue to climb and CHina will in a few years surpass America in CO2 per capita, and in