CO2 Emissions May Be Starting To Plateau, Says Global Energy Watchdog (theguardian.com) 44
Global carbon dioxide emissions are still rising but may at least be reaching a plateau, research from the International Energy Agency has shown. From a report: CO2 from energy -- by far the biggest source of emissions -- increased by less than 1% in 2022. This was despite the turmoil in energy the markets caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The rise is smaller than the 6% increase in emissions from energy recorded by the IEA in 2021, a leap that came on the back of the rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic. However, a 7% reduction is needed every year to meet the goal of halving emissions this decade.
Many experts had feared the soaring price of gas could push countries back towards using coal, which has much higher carbon emissions. But renewable energy seems to have been a big beneficiary, as countries opted for solar and wind power, and encouraged the take-up of heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs). A mild start to Europe's winter also helped to save energy across the EU. Even a small increase in greenhouse gas emissions takes the world much further away from the path to net zero , the goal needed to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Scientists have warned emissions need to fall by nearly half in this decade, if the world is to have a good chance of holding to the 1.5C limit.
Many experts had feared the soaring price of gas could push countries back towards using coal, which has much higher carbon emissions. But renewable energy seems to have been a big beneficiary, as countries opted for solar and wind power, and encouraged the take-up of heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs). A mild start to Europe's winter also helped to save energy across the EU. Even a small increase in greenhouse gas emissions takes the world much further away from the path to net zero , the goal needed to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Scientists have warned emissions need to fall by nearly half in this decade, if the world is to have a good chance of holding to the 1.5C limit.
ya. right (Score:2)
biosphere.
does not have an 8 30 morning status report
Neato (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
CO2 output has been linked to economic output since the beginning of the 19th century.
You are telling me that places using nuclear power have lower economic output than places using fossil fuels?
Do you have data to show that purported reduction of economic output with nuclear power?
Re: (Score:3)
Not what he's telling you. What he said is an approximation. In the global scale (planet) they count for almost nothing. So, as a first degree approximation, yes, CO2 output has been linked to economic output since the beginning of the 19th century.
That is because 80+% of all energy used by humans is fossil (coal, gas, oil).
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Not what he's telling you.
That is precisely what he's telling us. He specifically said CO2 output, not energy. The way to show that it's CO2 output, not energy, that is the factor of interest would be to look at places with high energy but low CO2.
However, he also embodies the correlation/causation fallacy. If I told you rich people buy more teddy bears than poor people, nobody would shout out "let's give teddy bears to poor people, that will make them rich!". If I told you states with better economies spend more money on import
Re: Neato (Score:2)
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Economic output has decoupled from CO2, and will continue to diverge. Are you a Luckyo?
To a large extent, this is absolutely wrong. Yes, there has been a (very) small dent but by large, gas, coal and oil still get 83%... That's effectively going down from 93% in 1965.... That's not a decoupling. That's a very small thing that might one day become a decoupling.
https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
Re: Are you a Luckyo? (Score:2)
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That's a wee bit dramatic, don't you think? Perhaps even contrary to observable data?
No, it's the only outcome that fits the observable data. That's what things were like last time CO2 was this high. Any other outcome is speculation.
"Plateau" (Score:3)
I can't help but think that in a saturated solution, the amount of material dissolved also "plateaus". Because you can't dissolve any more in the medium of choice.
Re: (Score:2)
A few hundred million carbon sinks would work, say trees.
Re: "Plateau" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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The main problem I have with this is that I'm not a plant, and thus don't really like more CO2 in my atmosphere.
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Increased CO2 - which has been replicated at a much higher CO2 concentration in labs - results in increased plant vitality and growth. It's a self-balancing system until you've killed all the plants
So your belief is that a single plant can consume any amount of CO2? Please explain how you arrived at that conclusion.
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Except in this case, we're talking about a gas, so it is not a solution, and nothing is being dissolved. You can certainly keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere and keep increasing its relative proportion to other gasses.
No title should call an organization "dog". (Score:2)
"CO2 Emissions May Be Starting To Plateau, Says Global Energy Watchdog"
could be
Re: Clearly it was the 30th or so gathering of SNO (Score:2)
Re: Clearly it was the 30th or so gathering of SNO (Score:2)
How will this end? (Score:2)
I guess that they don't read the news. (Score:1)
Re: I guess that they don't read the news. (Score:2)
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Plant more trees
You couldn't plant enough trees to even make a dent in CO2 output in the world. Stop chasing non solutions.
Seriously though, China
Way to go claiming your own personal superiority. You deserve to spew out more CO2 than some crappy Chinese lesser human right?
I say this with sadness since you Canadians are normally so polite but really go fuck yourself. You are the single largest per capita emitters in the western world, beaten only buy a bunch of oil rich middle Eastern nations and an island and very mountainous country still burni
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YOU are the problem. If you emitted as much as the average Chinese person the world would be a much better place.
Oh shut the fuck up you damn hypocrite. You dare call someone out for pointing out China is the biggest polluter when you in the past have been more than happy to bash US for it. You can't clam any moral high ground here.
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https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
Your graph is stupid. At least a graph with emissions per capita would give a less biased view of the situation. Plus I have to pay to see it.
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If the solution were easy, it would have been done by now. It isn't, and you don't know what you're talking about.
About 22 percent of China's CO2 emissions are caused by producing export goods. It should be "easy" to cut that to zero if everyone just stops buying stuff from China, right?
Re: preparing the story (Score:2)
Unmitigated disaster (Score:2)
The excess of GHG that is already in the atmosphere has been already triggering extreme weather events, increasing global yearly average temperature, starting positive feedback loops (like thawing permafrost, less ice over sea increasing albedo, etc that adds their own emissions and warming), and with a big component of CO2 that stays there for centuries.
But instead from capture it in meaningful amounts and actually reducing emissions, we are still uncapturing old carbon and increasing emissions and at a
Mild winter. (Score:3)
Let me translate this for you (Score:2)
Slashdot readers probably already understand this but your average news consumer will read this as something significant. In reality, what they're saying "in our graph, the line indicating the growth of the problem has reached some totally arbitrary angle".
It's just the derivative that's plateauing. We've been trying to curb CO2 emissions for decades. The moment we STARTED doing that, decades ago, CO2 emissions should have plateaued. But they didn't because humanity as a whole has basically done nothing so
Up, up, and away! Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2 (Score:2)
I do not see a plateau in NOAA's Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2 data charts (yet?):
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/tren... [noaa.gov]