CO2 emissions from existing energy infrastructure could see temperatures rise by over 1.5C

[Polycount]

The debate surrounding global warming and climate change is a heated one, and both sides -- those who believe climate change is caused by humans and those who don't -- firmly believe they're in the right. Today, the former group got an extra piece of evidence to bolster their claims, courtesy of a new research paper published in Nature.

The paper, which was put together by a multi-cultural team of Chinese and American scientists, states that the world is already on track to miss the CO2 emissions goals laid out by the infamous Paris treaty, which aims to limit temperature rises to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

Unfortunately, existing power plants and those whose construction plans have already been finalized are expected to generate "two thirds" of the CO2 needed for the world to see a temperature rise of up to 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit); which obviously exceeds the previously-stated goals.

This essentially means that, even if the world never built another power plant (aside from the already-finalized plans mentioned before) or gas-powered vehicle, rising temperatures will be unavoidable unless many current natural gas, coal, or petroleum facilities are shut down.

According to researchers, the world's infrastructure -- if "operated as historically" -- will produce roughly 658 gigatons of CO2 during their lifetimes. To break that number down further, "more than half" of those emissions come from electricity generation: 41 percent comes from China, 9 percent comes from the US, and 7 percent comes from the European Union (57 percent total).

It remains to be seen whether or not these figures and predictions will prove accurate, but hopefully, the world won't have to find out the hard way.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/80751-co2-emissions-existing-energy-infrastructure-could-see-temperatures.html

 

[Karlos95]

How can anti-climate change people be so stupid. It is just one big conspiracy to them.

For arguments sake lets say there isn't enough data to suggest climate change is real. But the science is there that we have an O-zone layer. This O-zone layer is made up of gases and CO2 is killing this layer by putting a hole in it, allowing more sun to come in. There is the change in climate. Yes climate has been changing for billions of years but not at this rate. That is not the argument. The argument is it is changing too quickly. Now lets get back to no climate science available since it is always changing.

The nay sayers love saying, "Oh but the volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans" that is true, how ever, it isn't constantly being produced which is where the instability comes from. Their next argument is "But trees eat CO2" That is true also. But guess what. Back 40 years ago less forests were cut down and probably less cars or things being produced making more and more CO2. So you have this mass CO2 production making the CO2 levels unstable and less and less trees to take up the slack of our constant greed and moronic thinking of "oh the earth will be fine, it is always changing"

The evidence is there that if we don't change, earth will eliminate us. We are the virus living on a this organism that we don't take care of.
Did you know humans have viruses in them all the time but our bodies don't fight it because they aren't causing any harm to us, however, once they start causing harm, our bodies will fight until it is gone or we are dead. That is what will happen to us.

Earth will fight us until one of us is dead. Guess what, we lose both scenarios. Start caring for the larger body and not for yourself.

In conclusion, Earth will win the fight, humans are dumb and greedy, Anti-climate change folk are the main source of the virus and need to be exterminated before it gets any worse.

 

[EClyde]

What a crock of garbage

 

[trparky]

And the stupid part is, the United States isn't the biggest CO2 emission producer in the world; developing nations like China and India are the biggest producers. But don't let facts get in the way of an agenda.

 

[Milton Sanchez]

How can anti-climate change people be so stupid. It is just one big conspiracy to them.

For arguments sake lets say there isn't enough data to suggest climate change is real. But the science is there that we have an O-zone layer. This O-zone layer is made up of gases and CO2 is killing this layer by putting a hole in it, allowing more sun to come in. There is the change in climate. Yes climate has been changing for billions of years but not at this rate. That is not the argument. The argument is it is changing too quickly. Now lets get back to no climate science available since it is always changing.

The nay sayers love saying, "Oh but the volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans" that is true, how ever, it isn't constantly being produced which is where the instability comes from. Their next argument is "But trees eat CO2" That is true also. But guess what. Back 40 years ago less forests were cut down and probably less cars or things being produced making more and more CO2. So you have this mass CO2 production making the CO2 levels unstable and less and less trees to take up the slack of our constant greed and moronic thinking of "oh the earth will be fine, it is always changing"

The evidence is there that if we don't change, earth will eliminate us. We are the virus living on a this organism that we don't take care of.
Did you know humans have viruses in them all the time but our bodies don't fight it because they aren't causing any harm to us, however, once they start causing harm, our bodies will fight until it is gone or we are dead. That is what will happen to us.

Earth will fight us until one of us is dead. Guess what, we lose both scenarios. Start caring for the larger body and not for yourself.

In conclusion, Earth will win the fight, humans are dumb and greedy, Anti-climate change folk are the main source of the virus and need to be exterminated before it gets any worse.

I had to create an account just to respond to your ignorance. Ozone ( O3) is a single gas composed of three oxygen atoms similar to oxygen (O2) gas . Oxygen to oxygen bonds are very unstable which is why oxygen is oxidizing and more so with ozone gas. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an inert molecule and does not effect ozone molecules as you claim. All fossil fuels that are currently under the ground in this planet such as oil, coal, natural gas were completely above the ground as carbon dioxide gas. This planet has had CO2 levels as high as 4000 parts per million (ppm) while current CO2 levels are at 414 ppm according to NOAA. I seen current levels as low as 377 ppm of CO2 and that is a worrying number by biological standards. Plants need around 300 ppm and above of CO2 to conduct carbon fixing. The required level of CO2 by plants varies from species to species but as more organic matter filters underground though time that number does not get any better. This planet has gone through ice ages so severe which covered the planet in ice as far south as the equator while CO2 levels were much higher than today's level. We have also had periods that were ice free in the poles and full of life that have left oil in the arctic.

 

[Vitalis]

How can anti-climate change people be so stupid. It is just one big conspiracy to them.

For arguments sake lets say there isn't enough data to suggest climate change is real. But the science is there that we have an O-zone layer. This O-zone layer is made up of gases and CO2 is killing this layer by putting a hole in it, allowing more sun to come in. There is the change in climate. Yes climate has been changing for billions of years but not at this rate. That is not the argument. The argument is it is changing too quickly. Now lets get back to no climate science available since it is always changing.

The nay sayers love saying, "Oh but the volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans" that is true, how ever, it isn't constantly being produced which is where the instability comes from. Their next argument is "But trees eat CO2" That is true also. But guess what. Back 40 years ago less forests were cut down and probably less cars or things being produced making more and more CO2. So you have this mass CO2 production making the CO2 levels unstable and less and less trees to take up the slack of our constant greed and moronic thinking of "oh the earth will be fine, it is always changing"

The evidence is there that if we don't change, earth will eliminate us. We are the virus living on a this organism that we don't take care of.
Did you know humans have viruses in them all the time but our bodies don't fight it because they aren't causing any harm to us, however, once they start causing harm, our bodies will fight until it is gone or we are dead. That is what will happen to us.

Earth will fight us until one of us is dead. Guess what, we lose both scenarios. Start caring for the larger body and not for yourself.

In conclusion, Earth will win the fight, humans are dumb and greedy, Anti-climate change folk are the main source of the virus and need to be exterminated before it gets any worse.

I love how you mashed up a load of different arguments that in some cases have no proof even. Also calling humanity a virus? If you subscribe to such an idealogy, then I wonder why you haven't resigned yourself from life? My guess would be you haven't thought this through. But anyways back climate change.

According to a study published in the March 2002 Journal of Geographical Research by a joint research team from the University of Maryland and NASA, overall, the increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is speeding up the recovery of the ozone layer -- including the hole at the South Pole. This goes against your hypothesis that CO2 is "killing" the O-zone.

Next are the trees. Your position seems to suggest that there are less trees today than there were around 40 years ago. Although if you would research the matter you would quickly find thay trees are actually increasing in amount according to data.

Next: current CO2 levels being the unstable amount? 400ppm is quite a low concentration for earth to have. 150 ppm would contitute death to trees due to starvation. Scientists who work with plants have made several remarks that the ideal CO2 concentration for plant life is north of 1000ppm. That seems to be correct if we look at the proxy data for carbon concentration durring certain periods of earth time. Some periods have peaked well above 4000 ppm and no apocalyptic events transpired.

Also alarmists tend to not talk about the fact the carbon concentration seems to have a delay of around 1000 years. And the relationship of CO2 and temperature is not simple as it said to be. Because latency appears to show that CO2 concentration follows temperature changes and not the other way around.

Now one fact I agree with you on about is that nobody denies climate change - it always has been and always will be changing. That is something we will likely have to adapt to as human species.

I would also like to counter pose a question to you. Lets say humanity embraces responsibility for climate change (and that is reasonable thing to do, I am deffinetly not making a joke here). What is the actual plan to do anything significant about it? Lets say we all go nuclear to replace fossil energy like France does. I will avoid the whole problem of radio active waste here that it brings but... CO2 is not even anywhere close to be the driving factor for warming. Amongst green house gasses it takes up about one fifth, and its forcing is smaller compared to water vapor and cyrus clouds. And if we take into acount the fact that CO2 follows temperature changes and that the human is not even the sole producer of the aforementioned gas. What even gives the idea that cutting down CO2 emisions will prevent climate change? Especially when all evidence states that climate change has been and always will be, even before first monkey produced CO2 via respiratory processes.

 

[dngbg]

1.5 degrees Celsius interval is NOT 34.7 F! Please double-check before posting incorrect values.
For temperature intervals rather than specific temperatures,1 °F = 1 °R = ​5⁄9 °C = ​5⁄9 K
Thus, the Paris agreement aims at keeping average temperatures from rising above 0.83F from current levels.

 

[Satish Mallya]

And the stupid part is, the United States isn't the biggest CO2 emission producer in the world; developing nations like China and India are the biggest producers. But don't let facts get in the way of an agenda.

Well, the hole *I* put in the boat isn't the *biggest* hole, so I'm not going to patch it up or help with bailing.
You realize you're going to drown all the same, right?

 

[Satish Mallya]

1.5 degrees Celsius interval is NOT 34.7 F! Please double-check before posting incorrect values.
For temperature intervals rather than specific temperatures,1 °F = 1 °R = ​5⁄9 °C = ​5⁄9 K
Thus, the Paris agreement aims at keeping average temperatures from rising above 0.83F from current levels.

Bad math. That works out to 2.7 F

 

[trparky]

The US has already met and even exceeded the requirements of the Paris Agreement, the fact that we left it still hasn't stopped us from exceeding the goals. We could cut our emissions to zero and it still wouldn't help because there are other nations that pollute far more than we do.

 

[JaredTheDragon]

Imagine believing "scientists" that don't even know what heat is, much less how the Earth generates and recycles its own heat.

These same "scientists" can't even see, by their own theories. Light doesn't "exist" to them, and is just a "virtual particle". Incredible that they'd have the audacity to even show up for work, with absolutely no knowledge of physics.