CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions

by daddylonglegs • 7 years ago

114 64 7 years ago

yboris• 7 years ago

OurWorldInData is one of my favorite resources now for finding out about the world ️

1.5°C consistent: there are a range of emissions pathways that would be compatible with limiting average warming to 1.5°C by 2100. However, all would require a very urgent and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Is this polite data analyst-speak for "We're fucked"?

mikelyons2• 7 years ago

It's polite data analyst speak for, "We need immediate and globally-coordinated _radical_ action" (action being the key term) Edit: We're not fucked yet. Apotheosis of hope.

TeMPOraL4• 7 years ago

I'd say at this point, "radical" is the key term here.

rayiner2• 7 years ago

Seeing as how the 1.5C pathways require global emissions to go zero of negative within our lifetimes, yes: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/04/Greenhouse-gas-em....

frankbreetz4• 7 years ago

What I don't understand about this is, that we were flat for about three years, and then we went up a little bit. This to me signals that we are close to if not at peak emissions and we should be able to start seeing the downturn at any time. But the chart you are showing has emissions increasing for the next 20 years. Am I oversimplifying or being naive?

ForHackernews2• 7 years ago

Two years old at this point: https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos...

This image should terrify you. It should be on billboards.
As you can see, in either scenario, global emissions must peak and begin declining immediately. For a medium chance to avoid 1.5 degrees, the world has to zero out net carbon emissions by 2050 or so — for a good chance of avoiding 2 degrees, by around 2065.

frankbreetz4• 7 years ago

It is always interesting to see graphs like this, I am curious how much something like a new green deal would move the 2100 temperature line. A common argument against it is that everything depends on China and India. I don't suspect this is true. The USA is one of the highest per capita emitters, it doesn't seem right that we would get to live like that while we take away resources from these other countries who are not as capable of switching over. At least we should get to a point where we all have equal per capita emitters, preferably we should be investing in the technology that would allow them to never have to use carbon-emitting technologies and even potentially profit off them.

perfunctory4• 7 years ago

And since we outsourced our industry to China, a fair share of China's emissions are also our emissions.

legitster2• 7 years ago

According to the data, consumer electrical demand is a larger and faster growing source of emissions.

nostromo• 7 years ago

A common argument against it is that everything depends on China and India.

This is true though. If you're concerned about absolute fairness, then yes, it makes sense that China should be able to emit as much as the US and Europe does per capita.

But if you care about the environment, then this is a disastrous idea.

The US needs to continue to reduce its carbon output, and China needs to dramatically slow it's increase in carbon output.

Remember, when the US and Europe industrialized, renewables were nonexistent (other than hydro) -- so I think it's fair to expect China and India to leapfrog fossil fuels as much as possible. They've leapfrogged the west on many other technologies -- like telecom and transportation -- so why not energy?

frankbreetz4• 7 years ago

If this is the case we should be investing heavily in research cheap renewables that would allow them to leap the carbon emitting phase. This seems like something even a Republican Congress could get on board with.

briandear• 7 years ago

However, correlate per capita emissions with per capita economic output and the calculus changes. The US also has one of the highest per capita economic outputs of the world. Suggesting that a million people in Yemen (producing very little) should have the same CO2 allowance as the US is just strange. The question isn’t about per capita output of CO2, but of per capita economic value created from that output. If a Yemeni farmer outputs x and an American farmer outputs 10x, but the American farmer is producing 15x the amount of food, we that means that 10x CO2 is a net gain, because we are getting significantly more food per x output. That would mean the Yemeni farmer should produce less CO2 since they are using it so inefficiently compared to an American farmer. In other words, fossil fuel buses produce more pollutants than a car, but they move move dramatically more people per unit of pollution. Suggesting per capita CO2 should be equal across the world is saying that a bus should emit the same as a car, despite a bus being more efficient per passenger than a car.

Glench• 7 years ago

I think Otherlab's analyses talk about this a little:

The Green New Deal: The enormous opportunity in shooting for the moon. https://medium.com/otherlab-news/decarbonization-and-gnd-b8d... (electrifying everything with clean generation will reduce energy needs by half even without any changes in lifestyle)

How do we decarbonize? https://medium.com/otherlab-news/how-do-we-decarbonize-7fc2f... (A fairly balanced take on how realistic various solutions are, from engineering, policy, and economic perspectives)

perfunctory4• 7 years ago

electrifying everything with clean generation will reduce energy needs by half even without any changes in lifestyle

This is pretty cool

frankbreetz4• 7 years ago

I'm really a fan of the new green deal, I am afraid that them trying to couple it with a jobs guarantee and universal healthcare will make it easy for the Republicans to make it look like a power grab. I am a fan of both a jobs guarantee and universal healthcare, but those items are not nearly as important as decarbonizing as quickly as possible.

jwr• 7 years ago

These are fantastic charts.

The problem is that most people will look at them, quickly find "another" large source of CO2 emissions (be it another country, another industry), point fingers and say "it's them!" without doing anything else. Which in the long term (as in, our children and grandchildren will suffer) will destroy our planet.

war1025• 7 years ago

A thought I had the other day, that sort of fits in the context of what you're saying, but probably not completely:

It's interesting to step back and consider how the current Climate Change narrative is similar to the universal theme of "We offended God, so now he is punishing us."

Not really sure what the implications of that are, but seems like something that could be harnessed either for good or ill.

usrusr2• 7 years ago

What happened in 1600 that made CO2 levels drop? Natural reforestation after European germs wiped out agricultural civilizations in the Americas?

roter• 7 years ago

Carbon dioxide and temperature are linked. 1650 was the height of the Little Ice Age [0]. Lots of interesting theories and research, e.g. [1], for the specific carbon dioxide drop.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2769

usrusr2• 7 years ago

The link from CO2 to temperature is well discussed. But carbon does not randomly disappear from the atmosphere, so either the trigger must have been something on the ground/at sea or there's also a reverse causal link from temperature to CO2 (so it could be triggered by something sun activity), which would imply a terribly unstable system. A very interesting topic indeed. Could variations in the amount of living biomass (which temporarily binds carbon to be released after death unless buried into isolation) make that much of a dent in atmospheric carbon concentration? My gut feeling says atmospheric carbon far outweighs biologically bound (and is in turn dwarfed by geologically bound, until we have dug it all up), but that's really just a guess.

legitster2• 7 years ago

It's super depressing to see the acceleration of coal energy in 2000. Despite the rise of renewables, they haven't even been able to keep up with the rise of coal!

And the vast majority of it comes from energy production! Electric cars don't solve the problem if we are switching from high-efficiency gas engines to coal-fired electric.

minikites• 7 years ago

You mentioned electric cars, but Bitcoin deserves much of the blame:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/17/bitcoin-e...

Bitcoin’s electricity usage is enormous. In November, the power consumed by the entire bitcoin network was estimated to be higher than that of the Republic of Ireland. Since then, its demands have only grown. It’s now on pace to use just over 42TWh of electricity in a year, placing it ahead of New Zealand and Hungary and just behind Peru, according to estimates from Digiconomist. That’s commensurate with CO2 emissions of 20 megatonnes – or roughly 1m transatlantic flights.

coldtea2• 7 years ago

Currencies based on "hard cpu work" should be forbidden for that alone...

perfunctory4• 7 years ago

It's even worse. Fossil investments are still growing in 2018 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-iea-energy-investment-idU...

pjc50• 7 years ago

"Molecules of freedom"! https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/29/politics/doe-freedom-gas-...

Beyond parody.

godelski2• 7 years ago

While renewables are awesome and we should do everything we can to support their growth, they have a major problem (which is why they currently can't replace fossil fuels). Renewables are not constant energy providers and they cannot scale to demand (either up or down). The best bet with them is batteries. But that means that you have to produce at minimum enough to fulfill a full day's worth of energy demands within the time period they operate (solar: day, wind: windy parts of day, etc). Worse, tomorrow might be rainy, so you have to provide more than a few days. Unfortunately this problem is frequently left out. (And yes, we should also majorly be funding research into new batteries)

This is actually why people argue for nuclear. Not because they (we) want to replace renewables, but we want to replace fossil fuels. They compete in different areas. The more renewables you have (and battery tech) the less nuclear you need. But there still has to be something in the system to load balance and scale to demand. Because renewables currently can't tackle this problem we end up building more coal and natural gas plants (which are cheap! But they get much more expensive than something like nuclear once you price in emissions and health effects).

WhompingWindows• 7 years ago

Don't perpetuate the myth that intermittency of renewables is a dealbreaker. While intermittency of power supply with inflexible demand is a problem when renewables hit 80% penetration, the reality is we're going to see utilities buy up demand and then flexibly shift that demand to when renewables are producing electrons.

This makes economic sense because renewables are FAR FAR cheaper than new-build nuclear, and the big businesses who supply electricity to EVs, heating, cooling, and industry are going to continue to encourage flexibility of demand.

For all the software and tech we have, you think we can't shift our electricity demand? It's laughable in the USA to imagine new-build nuclear coming online anywhere near as fast as the scenario I outlined above. It's simply far easier to shift demand than to build new nuclear.

ralusek2• 7 years ago

Climate aside, doesn't the increase of CO2 from 280PPM to 400PPM not have a substantial impact on the respiration of trees and animals? 42% increase of poison to animals has no meaningful impact?

village-idiot• 7 years ago

I'm not sure about other animals, but 400ppm is a long way away from toxic for humanity. Poorly ventilated indoor environments can easily hit 1200-1500ppm. You've got to hit 70,000 to 100,000 ppm before you start running the risk of coma and death.

Interestingly some studies indicate that 1200ppm and higher might confer some mild cognitive impairment, even if it's a long way away from fatal. This has been used glibly to explain the poor decisions made in office rooms, but one does wonder what happens to humanity if global emissions make us slightly dumber.

perfunctory4• 7 years ago

That's why they are called "poorly ventilated" and you are not supposed to stay in them 24/7. Indeed, adverse effects begin before coma and death.

NotPaidToPost8• 7 years ago

CO2 is not 'poison' and the concentration increase actually makes plants grow bigger. Let's not go over the top and let's stick to facts.

Overall it's good for plants though this is more than offset by the downsides.

jlarocco• 7 years ago

Phrasing it that way is a little misleading.

At 400 ppm CO2 is only 0.04% of the total atmosphere. Increasing from 0.028% to 0.04% is a 42% increase, but 0.04% is too low to directly poison plants.

The climate change effects will be a problem long before plants and animals start getting poisoned by it.

ralusek2• 7 years ago

It doesn't poison plants, they rely on CO2 in much the same way that animals rely on O2. I know that it's a negligible part of the atmosphere, but a 42% increase on the primary mechanism for plant respiration, which is also a poison for animals, seems like it would have a meaningful impact.

temp99990• 7 years ago

Utterly depressing to see how much damage we can cause in 30-40 years, basically only since older “millennials” were born.

CO₂ and Other Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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