Paris Climate Talks Produce an Agreement

[Paratus]

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/paris-climate-negotiations-produce-an-agreement/

After a week of tense negotiations, the 195 countries that met in Paris agreed to the text of a historic climate change agreement late Saturday. The accord is not itself an end game, but it lays out the road the world will have to travel in order to limit the harm of climate change.

The international agreement states that nations will aim to limit “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels." International negotiations have long been focused on a 2°C limit, but the 1.5°C language was a surprise addition.

Rather than prescribe some common emissions target, the negotiations took a “bottom-up” approach, with nations each submitting their own emissions pledges. Current pledges are only good enough to limit 21st century warming to around 3°C. But a key part of the agreement is a framework for revisiting emissions pledges every 5 years, with the goal being that those pledges are ratcheted down over time. To that end, it states that nations will “aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible” and reach net-zero emissions “in the second half of this century”. While the details remain to be filled in, the agreement also calls for transparent reporting of emissions to keep nations to their pledges.

The biggest point of contention in these international negotiations has been how to divvy up the responsibility for action between developed and developing nations. All nations had to submit emissions pledges, but there is recognition of the difficulty that less-developed nations face. The agreement sets up a line of funding—one that should total at least $100 billion annually by 2020—from developed nations to developing ones both for adaptation efforts and for clean energy technology.

The international agreement contains both legally binding and voluntary components. This awkward structure was necessary because a treaty would face certain rejection in the United States Senate. Temperature goals, and much of the framework, are legally binding, but details like the emissions pledges and the amount of funding for developing countries remain non-binding.

Count me as cautiously optimistic. It doesn't try to solve everything at once and seems to be tailored to the political realities of the situation in favor of making progress where progress can be made.

 

[Harabec]

What happens if nature says "FU" and warms up anyway?

Personally I don't believe it can ever be "better" without all of mankind stopping consumerism completely and RIGHT NOW, and finding different means of existing.
We're still buying crap to bury for thousands of years and half the world is still living next to their own crap.

 

[sandorski]

What happens if nature says "FU" and warms up anyway?

Personally I don't believe it can ever be "better" without all of mankind stopping consumerism completely and RIGHT NOW, and finding different means of existing.
We're still buying crap to bury for thousands of years and half the world is still living next to their own crap.

That would falsify MMGW, unless it's because we have went passed a tipping point. Doesn't seem likely to happen, but if it does we are in for a rough expensive ride.

I believe your belief on what is required is incorrect. This particular issue is almost entirely an Energy Production issue. We already have working alternatives for much of it. Implementing that technology and further developing alternative technologies is our biggest hurdle.

 

[Jaskalas]

James Hansen: Paris Talks are “a fraud”

Sounds like they reached an agreement by doing nothing.

 

[Harabec]

When it comes to the environment I think it should be more than just about greenhouse gasses.
Everything we buy should be engineered towards longevity and to be 100% reusable in some form, otherwise the only earth in our future is a Wall-E type garbage planet.
The incredible growth in the number of people living on this rock demands it, IMO.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

That would falsify MMGW, unless it's because we have went passed a tipping point. Doesn't seem likely to happen, but if it does we are in for a rough expensive ride.

I believe your belief on what is required is incorrect. This particular issue is almost entirely an Energy Production issue. We already have working alternatives for much of it. Implementing that technology and further developing alternative technologies is our biggest hurdle.

It is going to warm up anyway, and we did pass the tipping point. The damage we have done is basically irreversible for the near, and probably distant future. We need to change things now, so they just don't get worse.

This would not falsify MMGW. The greenhouse gases we have already pumped into the air are still there! What's more, we will continue to keep pumping more into the air, regardless of any policies we set. Similarly, the climate will continue to heat up, thus releasing more greenhouse gases that were locked away in the earth, primarily methane.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

When it comes to the environment I think it should be more than just about greenhouse gasses.
Everything we buy should be engineered towards longevity and to be 100% reusable in some form, otherwise the only earth in our future is a Wall-E type garbage planet.
The incredible growth in the number of people living on this rock demands it, IMO.

That's true, but that isn't enough. We seriously need to enact child limit policies! It sounds rather insane, but the carrying capacity of the Earth is roughly only 2 billion people(with a moderately high standard of living). We are way above that, 7+ billion, and are depleting resources rapidly.

 

[MagickMan]

The treaty will never be ratified by the US senate.

 

[Charmonium]

That's true, but that isn't enough. We seriously need to enact child limit policies! It sounds rather insane, but the carrying capacity of the Earth is roughly only 2 billion people(with a moderately high standard of living). We are way above that, 7+ billion, and are depleting resources rapidly.

Raising living standards is the best way to reduce population growth. When you have a higher std of living, you don't need the free child labor you get from kids. You also tend to be better educated and have better access to contraception.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

Raising living standards is the best way to reduce population growth. When you have a higher std of living, you don't need the free child labor you get from kids. You also tend to be better educated and have better access to contraception.

Not really true.

Child limit laws is the best way, but people frown on that sort of thing. You could reduce a population of 7 billion to ~2 billion in about a century this way. At which point the law could be repealed, and the population would stabilize at about that figure.

On the other hand, increasing living standards just causes the population growth to roughly stagnate. However, it also does something else as well! It increases consumption! So there might be a lower population growth, but those people will be consuming more per capita. I am not against this obviously, but we can't rely solely on this to fix the problem, because it's by no means a solution.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I think if we just instituted more policies that made having children more of a deliberate decision and less of an "oops" it would go a long way towards some very necessary population control without any hard restrictions. Though maybe I sorely underestimate the number of people who say to themselves "I really need more crying, bills, and poop in my life."

 

[Pneumothorax]

I think if we just instituted more policies that made having children more of a deliberate decision and less of an "oops" it would go a long way towards some very necessary population control without any hard restrictions. Though maybe I sorely underestimate the number of people who say to themselves "I really need more crying, bills, and poop in my life."

Nope,to the 'parents' of the vast majority of babies going to be born today, they didn't say that instead it was all about the SEX. I deal with teenage pregnancies all day in my Medicaid funded clinic. You're going to have to enforce birth control and sterilization to stop the reproducing because of human basic instinct to reproduce with utter lack of basic resources like food.

 

[fskimospy]

The treaty will never be ratified by the US senate.

Luckily it doesn't have to be.

 

[Grooveriding]

How can they have a treaty for something that isn't real ?!! Jesus told me climate change is a hoax of the devil and liberals.

 

[mrjminer]

How can they have a treaty for something that isn't real ?!! Jesus told me climate change is a hoax of the devil and liberals.

Weird that Jesus told you. Science told me.

 

[brycejones]

Luckily it doesn't have to be.

Dictator Obama at it again.

/s

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Sounds more like feel good gum flapping.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html?_r=0

The new deal will not, on its own, solve global warming. At best, scientists who have analyzed it say, it will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by about half enough as is necessary to stave off an increase in atmospheric temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

[trenchfoot]

And all of the decisions being made revolves around how much it's going to hurt profits rather than how much safer and healthier we'll be if we reduce man-made pollution of the environment.

Way to go Global Corporates.

 

[Ken g6]

Sounds more like feel good gum flapping.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html?_r=0

The good news about this agreement is that it puts us on a path to 2C warming...for about five to ten years:

The bad news is that if nothing else is done, we'll wind up around 3.5C. The other good news is that in five years, countries will meet again and discuss what more can be done.

 

[dphantom]

overall appears to be relatively meaningless and as we appear to be entering a natural cooling cycle we may look back on this nice warming cycle with fond memories.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

And all of the decisions being made revolves around how much it's going to hurt profits rather than how much safer and healthier we'll be if we reduce man-made pollution of the environment.

Way to go Global Corporates.

Lack of decisions, or obstruction to any meaningful policy. This should now be evident from the revelations about Exxon-Mobil which hit the front-pages of the LA Times a few months ago.

"Denial" has had a boost from the very same corporations encouraging the argument, while they'd admitted in internal memos decades ago that carbon-pollution was slowly creating the MMGW problem.

At this point, I've chosen to satirize the human race as a "paragon of creation" simply reflecting what you see in a matter of weeks when you start a "culture" of micro-organisms in a closed-system bottle of water and straw. "Oh, gee, Mommy! Look at the Paramecium and Didinium swimming around under my microscope."

A pile of one-celled animals, all with an imperative to do individually what they naturally do. Swim, eat, poop. Swim, eat poop. But failing to engage in sufficient collective behavior to save themselves from their own toxic poop.

I've tried to understand why "Deniers" can't embrace the simple logic and supporting fact of it. Someone sent me a Facebook post by Schwarzenegger the Guber-nator -- I'll append it.

I imagine that it has something to do with perception: what you "see" or "feel". For instance, if somehow carbon-pollution didn't occur as a gaseous molecule of 1 carbon and 2 oxygens, but simply "dropped out" of the atmosphere as black soot settling on everything, what would the perceptions be?

But back to the Petri-dish analogy. The planet is a closed system but for meteors, and solar anomalies. So is a Petri-dish. There was a time, maybe with the Louisiana Purchase, that it seemed like a near-infinite garden of potential. There were stories about spawning season in the Rappahannock, when the fish were so thick you could simply walk across the river.

There is absolutely positively no doubt that there is a finite supply of fossil fuel we inherit from that part of the planet's history spanning 5 million to 200 million years. The conservative pundits tell us "Fine! 400 years-worth!" But that's a reference to coal in addition to oil. Physicists at Cal-Tech insist that there will be severe oil shortages in a matter of decades -- and less than a century.

And there's no known way at the moment to practically replace oil for transportation -- to take it out of the production chain entirely.

Now we see an excess supply of oil stocks leading to a short-run drop in price. So it would only be the short-run perceptions of people leading to some conclusion of "See? There's plenty of oil!"

It's not that different from NOvember 2008 election aftermath and a letter someone wrote to the newspaper editor in December: "See? The Dow-Jones had a major blip and fell yesterday by hundreds of points. That's what Obama has done to us!"

Paris agreement or not -- I've concluded that all is lost. And not just for the climate-change effects. The Paragon of Creation isn't cooperating to find a solution to making oil obsolete. You WANT the "free-market" to respond to prices so something is done in the nick of time. But this problem is not an easy one to solve. Not nearly as easy as building the power-plant at Niagara Falls, choosing AC over DC, or sending horses to the glue-plant while an assembly-line rolled off Model T's.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I see your questions.

Each and every time I post on my Facebook page or tweet about my crusade for a clean energy future, I see them.

There are always a few of you, asking why we should care about the temperature rising, or questioning the science of climate change.

I want you to know that I hear you. Even those of you who say renewable energy is a conspiracy. Even those who say climate change is a hoax. Even those of you who use four letter words.

I’ve heard all of your questions, and now I have three questions for you.
Let’s put climate change aside for a minute. In fact, let’s assume you’re right.

First – do you believe it is acceptable that 7 million people die every year from pollution? That’s more than murders, suicides, and car accidents – combined.

Every day, 19,000 people die from pollution from fossil fuels. Do you accept those deaths? Do you accept that children all over the world have to grow up breathing with inhalers?

Now, my second question: do you believe coal and oil will be the fuels of the future?

Besides the fact that fossil fuels destroy our lungs, everyone agrees that eventually they will run out. What’s your plan then?

I, personally, want a plan. I don’t want to be like the last horse and buggy salesman who was holding out as cars took over the roads. I don’t want to be the last investor in Blockbuster as Netflix emerged.

That’s exactly what is going to happen to fossil fuels.

A clean energy future is a wise investment, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either wrong, or lying. Either way, I wouldn’t take their investment advice.

Renewable energy is great for the economy, and you don’t have to take my word for it. California has some of the most revolutionary environmental laws in the United States, we get 40% of our power from renewables, and we are 40% more energy efficient than the rest of the country. We were an early-adopter of a clean energy future.

Our economy has not suffered. In fact, our economy in California is growing faster than the U.S. economy. We lead the nation in manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, entertainment, high tech, biotech, and, of course, green tech.

I have a final question, and it will take some imagination.

There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.

I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.

I’m guessing you chose the Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door number one is a fatal choice – who would ever want to breathe those fumes?

This is the choice the world is making right now.

To use one of the four-letter words all of you commenters love, I don’t give a **** if you believe in climate change. I couldn’t care less if you’re concerned about temperatures rising or melting glaciers. It doesn’t matter to me which of us is right about the science.

I just hope that you’ll join me in opening Door Number Two, to a smarter, cleaner, healthier, more profitable energy future.

--Arnold Schwarzenegger

 

[Grooveriding]

The strategy the money interested in lying about climate change's reality took was to make it a political issue, rather than a science based fact issue. That immediately allows them to recruit die hards who live and breathe their political ideology with a bit of obfuscated junk science thrown in from paid shills.

I would be ashamed to look at my elected officials literally sitting there, bought and paid for, lying and selling everyone down the river.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The strategy the money interested in lying about climate change's reality took was to make it a political issue, rather than a science based fact issue. That immediately allows them to recruit die hards who live and breathe their political ideology with a bit of obfuscated junk science thrown in from paid shills.

I would be ashamed to look at my elected officials literally sitting there, bought and paid for, lying and selling everyone down the river.

The question in my own mind persists: "Do I really understand it now?'

Back in the early-80s, I was taking a night-class in Industrial Organization. Among the required texts: Letwin, "Law and Economic Policy in America: The Evolution of the Sherman Antitrust Act." And for some reason, it seemed to take years -- more than a decade or two -- for the simple imperatives of "Public Choice Economics" to sink in.

Remember Mary Landrieu, Senator from Louisiana? When it came to matters affecting Big Oil, she was more aligned with conservatives. Do I need to explain the size and impact of the oil industry in Louisiana? Or does anyone think the Deepwater Horizon blowout of 2010 was just a folk-story? Even FICTION is often constructed around historical fact with a subliminal message: "The Pelican Brief," for instance.

So I thought I'd figured out something obvious, tallying Presidential administrations since 1960. Where did most of those political careers originate? Texas and California. Both Big-Oil states; both big defense/aerospace states. Both with the largest number of paved highway miles. YOu could argue that the two big industries are reflected in booming economies generally. But if population and congressional seats is a proxy for "political opportunity," the static percentage of ~20% for TX and CA combined should be otherwise reflected in the presidencies originating in those states. Depending on terms or term-years, it was in a range between 55% and 65% through W. Bush from 1960 forward. And if you only want to count presidencies of any number of terms and years, then you still have a similar percentage, for some 5 out of 9 presidencies.

Then there's Congressman Barton -- of Texas -- standing up to whine about Obama's intention to get immediate compensation from British Petroleum for the Gulf disaster: "Obama is 'shaking down' corporations!" And who put money in his campaign fund?

If, over the course of the last 50 years, you think "no, no! The Silent Majority chose these people!" you need a reality check. People don't even run for local elections unless they have at least $50,000 in a campaign fund to start. The voter gets "sloppy-thirds." The "sloppy seconds" arises in the primary elections. You don't get to the starting gate without money.

 

[Subyman]

I imagine that it has something to do with perception: what you "see" or "feel". For instance, if somehow carbon-pollution didn't occur as a gaseous molecule of 1 carbon and 2 oxygens, but simply "dropped out" of the atmosphere as black soot settling on everything, what would the perceptions be?

I went for an airplane flight with my Uncle a few years ago. He flew up from Savannah Georgia in a two seater RV8. He took me up over Southern IL. As we were flying over Rend Lake and looking over the crop fields he said, "When you are up here, you see how big the Earth really is and how little affect us humans can have on it." Rend Lake was man made and this area used to be all forest.