No the earth is not hotter than it has ever been!

Surprise, surprise! Will wonders never cease, the woke Washington Post, WA,PO has recently published an article that contradicts one of the most oft repeated dogma's of Climate Change. 

The article "Scientists have captured Earth’s climate over the last 485 million years. Here’s the surprising place we stand now."

The article refutes the regular claims by the Climate Chane Zealots that the earth has never been warmer than it is today. On the contrary, WAPO says its comprehensive study of the earths' climate over the past 465 million years

" reveals that the world was in a much warmer state for most of the history of complex animal life."

But WAPO seems unaware that it is contradicting one of the shibboleths of the CC dogma, and continued to claim that 

"The revelations about Earth’s scorching past are further reason for concern about modern climate change"

So it seems once again that the CC dogma is unfalsifiable. Previously claims that the earth was now hotter than ever before in its history were taken as proof of anthropogenic CC. Now we have a claim that the earth had much higher temperature in the past and again we have the claim that this too supports the CC dogma. 

As you can see I remain a skeptic. While there seems to be some evidence of warming over the recent past, I believe the contribution of CO2, and man-made CO2 , are highly debatable. Add to that the failure of climate models to predict even the recent past makes it impossible to  trust these models to predict eighty years into the future.

Moreover even if these predictions were true, there is a very serious question as to what the world could possibly do about it. Certainly the Paris accord goes nowhere near the magnitude of cuts required.  So I remain skeptical about the science and strongly against the counterproductive policies of many Western governments trying to cut emissions and transform energy usage.

 

Energy frontiers

Whether you are a strong advocate or a mild skeptic, the focus on CC has spawned widespread research for efficient low cost inexhaustible, non-polluting energy. This research is gradually bearing fruit with advances in new technologies making headlines weekly.

From time to time I have highlighted some of these in posts (see What the Heck is Thorium?, What is LENR?), and will continue to do so.

In the mean time here is a list of recent articles on some of these new technologies;-

• Solar. The gradual drive for increased solar conversion efficiency is yielding incrementally greater inefficiencies. New materials show promise of inefficiencies as high as 30% see Low-cost solar cells poised for commercial breakthrough

• Energy Storage. Intermittency is perhaps the major constraint on the use of Solar and Wind power that can be addressed by energy storage. There are many approaches and widespread research. Tesla battery technology is widely known and is gaining increasing acceptance. Vanadium based Flow batteries are less well known but potentially equally valuable. These batteries use a liquid Vanadium 'electrolyte' that can be in a charged or discharged state. It can be charged using renewable sources and if required transferred to provide power where it is needed.  (see Vanadium-Flow Batteries: The Energy Storage Breakthrough We've Needed.)

• Renewable Hydrogen. Australia's next big export industry could be its sunlight and wind, as game-changing technology makes it easier to transport and deliver their energy as hydrogen. (see Renewable hydrogen could fuel Australia's next export boom after CSIRO breakthrough.) 

• Nuclear. Given its low cost , proven capacity, and despite Fukushima , nuclear is developing on several fronts.
• Mini reactors. China is starting the roll-out of factory size 300 Megawatt 'mini' nuclear reactors (see Mini Nuclear Reactor ready to be built.) The ACP100 reactors meet all IAEA safety standards and promise efficiency and safety beyond the conventional larger size reactors. China plans to start mass production for the local market with plans to later export overseas.
• Thorium reactors.  Indonesia together with consortium ThorCon is developing novel Thorium Molten Salt Reactors for deployment in Indonesia. (see Indonesia and Thorcon to develop Thorium MSR.) For some background on the use of Thorium in nuclear reactors, see my earlier post What the Heck is Thorium?

• Cold Fusion. Yes it is still around. See my post "What is LENR?" for an introduction and the video below gives a technical intro.

• Biofuels. Students at Arizona State University have used algae to both clean wastewater and create a renewable source of energy. (see Algae cleans wastewater while producing biofuels. )

This list is by no means complete.

New energy technologies rather than Carbon taxes

With the world's energy needs rising and the concentration of energy use on fossil fuels that threaten Climate change the rewards for any breakthrough are substantial. So it is no surprise that research in new technologies is pervasive.

Despite widespread efforts by the world community to counter climate change by limiting the use of fossil fuels, their use is still rising. Poorer countries are not willing, nor should they, limit the economic prosperity of their people by using more expensive renewable technologies. I believe it is unlikely that all the global agreements on limiting "Carbon pollution" will have the desired effect.

At the same time as soon as renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels there will be no incentives required to encourage its use and the world will rapidly convert.  I believe this is the most likely solution to the threat of climate change and will occur with in the next decade.

The mythical 97%

It happened just last night. Not for the first time and I hazard not the last. It started with a friend complaining about the unseemly argument he had faced with a group of Climate skeptics. He felt he had been assaulted by climate change skepticism. I have to confess I tend take a contrarian view whenever I am confronted by strongly worded statements. However in this instance, given I had limited time, I kept a neutral stance simply raising some questions. Discussions on Climate Change however tend to get emotional very quickly. Despite the casual way we had fallen into the topic and ignoring my body language hinting I wanted to be elsewhere, he felt a need to explain his position and in some detail.

The essence of his argument was indeed the simple one; -

"We rely on a range of experts in every part of our daily lives . We don't build bridges ourselves we let engineers do that, we don't do DIY home surgery, we let doctors to that, we don't represent ourselves in courts we use barristers to do that for us.. So why should it be different with Climate Change, we should rely on Climate Scientists"

And then came the clincher " 97% of scientists are telling us that CC is real and dangerous, so that should be enough for us"

These are indeed sound arguments, and, for those not willing to explore further, totally compelling. Who would go against the world's scientists. So if the claim that a vast majority of Climate Scientists believe in dangerous Climate Change is true, then it is sensible for people to accept the verdict and move on.

I listened and left with but a few neutral platitudes ; "debate is generally a good thing", "we should keep a level head", "we should all keep a level head about it and not get too emotional".

I am guessing he mentally filed me away as a skeptic. We'll see at our next meeting.

But is the claim true?

It has certainly taken prime place in CC debates especially by laymen when debating climate science, notably including the now ex-president of the USA Barack Obama and his secretary of state John Kerry.

But is it true that "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: climate change is real, man-made and dangerous"?

It seems not.

In their article in the WSJ (The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'), Joseph Bast and Roy Spencer present the history of the claims and demonstrate that it relies on proven falsehoods. But of course "A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes". So we are stuck with the lie.

The article is well worth a read, if you can get through the paywall at the Wall Street Journal. 

However if you cannot here is a summary; -

• In 2004 an opinion essay by Naomi Oreskes claimed to have examined 928 articles between 1993-2003 and found 75% supported the notion that human activities are responsible for most of the observed warming. However the 928 articles omitted a large number written in the same period that clearly did not support this claim, so it was a flawed survey. Also Oreskes survey looked at the claim of 'man-made' the question whether such climate change was dangerous was ignored.
• In 2009 an article by Maggie Zimmermann and Peter Doran reported the results of a two question on-line survey of selected scientists. They reported that "97% of climate scientists agree that global temperatures have risen and that humans are a significant factor" However there were only 79 Climate Scientists who responded to their survey. Moreover many climate skeptics would agree that global temperatures have risen and that humans are a significant factor.cause.
• In 2010 Anderegg used Google Scholar to identify the views of the 200 most prolific writers on climate change. He found that 97 to 98 % of these believe "anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for 'most' of the 'unequivocal' warming". 200 researchers is a far claim from 97% of ALL climate scientists and again the claim is rather weak.
• In 2013 John Cook, an Australian blogger, with some friends reviewed the abstracts of peer-reviewed papers published from 1991 to 2011. He reported that "97% of those who stated a position explicitly or implicitly suggest that human activity is responsible for some warming". Mr Cooks work was very quickly debunked as having used flawed methodology. After reviewing exactly the same papers as Cook had claimed, Legates would that "0.3 percent of the 11,944 abstracts or just 1.0 percent of the 4,014 expressing an opinion and not 97.1 percent - had been found to endorse the claim that human activity is the causing most of the current warming" 
• Surveys conducted by Bray and von Storch have found that "most climate scientists disagree with the consensus on key issues such as the reliability of the climate data and computer models"
• Surveys of meteorologists repeatedly find a majority oppose the alleged consensus with only 39% of 1854 American Meteorological Society members agreeing that global warming is dangerous.
• IPCC is cited most often to be in favor of the consensus. Its report claims"human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems." Yet IPCC lists only 41 scientists that have contributed to the chapter covering the key question as to "How much of the temperature increase and other climate changes observed in the 20th century was caused by man-made greenhouse-gas emissions?
• Finally there is a survey by some 31,000 scientists that claim ""there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of . . . carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

So where does that leave the layman?  Where laymen usually are just blowin' in the wind.

Climate Change theatrics, again!

With the recent release of the report Towards a Climate Policy Toolkit by the Climate Change Authority (CCA), the finger-waggers are at it again. Two board members of the CCA joined by vested interests and an unquestioning media, are once again demanding Australia sign up to greater reduction targets than the those made at COP21 some 10 months ago.

But are such calls justified? Certainly not! Since industrialization Europe, the US and China have contributed the most to global warming. So they have to contribute the most to mitigate the impact of their emissions.  Australia, and the rest of the world, have had smaller contributions and therefore their fair share is lower.

Yet, self-serving advocates and the compliant media seem to gloss over these inconvenient facts.

Consider historical contributions

The greatest contribution to climate change since industrialization has come from the USA and Europe with significant contributions by China , Russia and Japan. (see graphic below.)

China is most notable for the speed with which it has become the largest annual emitter and a significant driver of global warming in its own right, despite its much more recent industrialization.

The historical contributions of just 5 countries, if you will permit me to call Europe a country, to global warming is approx 75%. Three quarters of all global warming (to 2011) is due to just these 5. One would therefore expect that the contribution to the mitigation effort should be commensurate. Quite simply if you caused 75% of the problem you should clean up 75% of the problem. You clean up your own mess. Well, let's see.

A vast majority of the pledges made at Paris were based on a nominated percentage reduction of GHG emissions below some baseline rate by a nominated deadline. The actual percentages and baseline dates vary but do not really impact on the problem. At first glance it may seem quite reasonable that each country makes commitments that reduce their own emission rates, especially if the reductions are of the same magnitude, and indeed most countries have chosen roughly similar reductions. So each country is effectively making equal commitments based on their own contribution. That's ok, isn't it?

No it isn't.

Climate change is the result of the cumulative impact of emissions over decades. So any mitigation should relate to the cumulative impact of a country.

But all Paris pledges are based on emissions rates as opposed to cumulative historical emissions.

And here is the problem. The large emitters, Europe and the US, and to a lesser extent Russia and Japan, went through industrialization a long time ago and have had high emissions for a much longer time. Their current annual emissions may still be high, but nowhere near their cumulative impact.

Lets look at the numbers. While the top 5 contributors to climate change represent 75% of cumulative emissions they only represent 50% of current emission rates. (see below)

Source  CAIT Climate Data Explorer

So pledges based on current emission rates will always favor the earlier industrialized countries. 

But wait there is more

If that were not bad a enough there is a second problem.  GHG emission rates do not take into account the impact of imports and exports. The GHG generated in the production of goods is generally not included in the emission rates attributed to a country. So the producing country  has the burden of the emissions which are enjoyed by the consuming country. Countries like the US and Europe are major importers of high GHG products and therefore benefit from this error, while exporters like China bear the burden in their emission figures.

China is the elephant in the room

But let's not start feeling sorry for poor China. Yes, China can rightly expect an adjustment in their emission rates for the impact of exports, and it is not insignificant. It amounted to some 22% in 2005 and would, I guess be similar today (see my earlier post Seeking a fair GHG reduction target - Part 5: Who is responsible? which presents some of these figures with sources). However, even after adjusting for the exports error, China remains the largest annual emitter, by far.

In any case, China has virtually opted out of any reduction commitments. It has agreed to decrease the carbon intensity of its economy by 60-65% by 2030. But it had already committed to a 40% reduction by 2020, and it seems its extended commitment is really 'Business as usual', requiring it to simply continue along its current path of building more gas/nuclear power stations than coal fired ones.

China has justified its stance on the basis that its industrialization is relatively recent and that it should be accorded the same 'free emissions ' that the rest of the industrialized world enjoyed over the decades. That too may sound like a reasonable argument, but the figures don't stack up. China's Emissions per capita is already equal to that of Europe and also rising fast. So it should increase the standard of living of its citizens as is the case for Europe with no greater emissions than Europe's.

So like many arguments posed in this messy battle for the moral high-ground, it is self-serving, deceptive and false.

What is the fair share?

The fair share of global warming mitigation is for each country to clean up their own mess.

In other words their emissions reductions should be related to their historical contributions NOT their current emissions.

On this measure Europe, the US and China are not doing their fair share and have hoodwinked the rest of the world to contribute disproportionately to the global mitigation effort. Shame on them!

The Great debate

The great debate

Without doubt one of the most significant challenges for humanity is how it faces the limitations of a finite planet. Rising population is causing the rapid depletion of natural resources as well as the pollution of our land, sea and air, and forcing us, for the first time to face such limits. Climate Change, whether man-made or not, is perhaps the area of greatest controversy. This is not surprising given the prominence that it has gained in the allocation of financial resources across the globe. 

Arguments about Climate Change span the whole gamut from total denial to those who portend global catastrophe once the world passes an "imminent tipping point".  

It is a compelling debate with passions running high on both sides. I have ventured into this debate with a number of posts and collected them some time ago into a single web Page titled Climate Change. But of course I have only offered a small glimpse of the prevalent arguments. In order to provide broader coverage from now on the Climate Change page will also include external links to articles and videos that provide a wide range of views.

It is well worth a visit. My guess is it will challenge your own position, irrespective of where your views fall on the Climate change spectrum.

Seeking a fair GHG reduction target:part 6- Equitable Reduction Targets

This is the 6th sixth post in the series: "Seeking a consensus on GHG reduction targets".

In earlier posts we suggested 4 propositions to derive 'Equitable Reduction Targets', ETR's for each country.

1. Each country has to mitigate their own contribution to CC.

2. If global emissions are projected to produce global warming beyond the 2C degree target, then all countries have to reduce their emissions in the same proportion that they contributed to CC.

3. Developing countries are allowed a proportionate quota of 'free emissions'.

4. Countries which face the burden of climate change have to be compensated by those who caused it.
(For the full story so far see parts 1,2,3,4,5.)

In this post we will look at the implications of Proposition 2 and derive the Equitable Reduction Targets for the leading emitters.

Proposition 2: What rate of abatement to target by 2030?

The ceiling on 'acceptable' global warming has generally been set at 2 C degrees by the end of the century. This in turn puts an upper limit on the global emissions acceptable throughout the coming 85 years.

IPCC estimates that since the industrial revolution (~1880) up to 2013 about 2035 Gt CO2-e were emitted into the atmosphere. Given the vagaries of climate models the acceptable global emissions rate to achieve this limit is not certain. IPCC has set a Carbon budget of 3,700 GtCO2-e to limit warming to the desired 2 degrees with a 67% probability (See Reference 3 for a discussion.)

Extrapolating to 2015, the budget for the coming 85 years is 1570 GtCO2-e. This averages to ~18.5 GtCO2-e/yr over the coming 85 years.

Given a global emission rate of 46 GtCO2-e pa (see Globe nears peak greenhouse gas emissions, says report), clearly continuing emissions at the current rate is not an option and would have us consume our 85 year budget by 2049. Global emissions must be reduced so that over the next 85 years the average per year is ~18.5 Gt CO2-e.

 To limit global warming to 2C the average global emissions per year over the next 85 years has to be less than half the current rate

This is no easy task. 

Global emissions have been increasing at ~2% per year over the past decade. This is despite efforts by  many developed countries. The biggest problem today is China. China is by far the largest emitter and continues to increase its emissions year on year. Indeed in its pledge to the Paris Climate Change conference it has only committed to 'peak' its emissions in 2030.

After China, comes India, another country with a large population which is only now entering its 'industrialization' phase. This is likely to lead to much greater emissions over the coming decades. Then of course come the rest of the developing world, each trying to lift the standard of living of its citizens, through industrialization, and leading to ever greater consumption of energy.

Without doubt there are real challenges here. On the other hand there are some small reasons for optimism. The most recent update on global emission rate projects a drop in global emissions(see Global Emissions Decline in 2015 ) It is most likely due to the slowdown in the world's economy, reflected in a reduction in China's output. If so it is but a small respite as the US is starting to really speed up after the GFC and will again re-start China's engines.

What is the target by 2030

If we are to achieve the emissions budget what is a reasonable target for 2030?

Figure 1 illustrates various paths for achieving our overall objective. Each curve represents a possible global emission rate over the next 85 years that will ensure Global Warming is limited to 2C.

Figure 1 Potential abatement curves restrictng CC to 2C 

Blue - Uniform fixed reduction in annual emissions of 0.67 GtCO2-e

Red- Fixed 2.7 percent decrease in annual emissions year on year

Yellow - Rise at 2% to 2030 then Fixed 7.5% decrease in annual emissions yoy

Of course the choice of a path is open to debate. One could argue that over the next 20 years new technologies will significantly reduce the costs of renewable energy, making abatement much easier in the future. This favors postponing emissions reductions to later. On the other hand it would entail higher risk, as rapid reduction without the desired new technology would be expensive and disruptive.

Without asking for miracles in technology I suggest a simple straight line. The advantage of this scenario is that it has a uniform decrease in world emissions stretching from now till 2100.  So year on year the reduction is the same. Given the relatively high global emission rate it does have the unfortunate property of requiring negative emissions for approximately 15 years. While that seems most unlikely today it is far from impossible in a future world. A world which has learned how to manage the carbon cycle to absorb more CO2 than it emits. There are many options for doing this including re-forestation of the earth, feeding phyto-plankton to increase their absorption rates, or indeed other active management processes.

If we take this uniform decrease model the reduction in the global emission rate required by 2030 is 10 GtCO2-e pa, reducing the current annual global emission rate from 46 GtCO2-e today to 36 GtCO2-e pa by 2030.  

I have used this as the Equitable Reduction Target for the following calculations. This is not to single it out in any way as the best solution. It simply represents the minimum consistent rate at which emissions can be abated and still achieve the 2C limit. If this is not achieved in any period then future periods must have greater reductions. In this sense it sets a threshold.

What does this mean for world emitters?

As covered in earlier posts, each country is responsible for abating their own emissions.  Equitable reduction targets are set in accordance with each country's historical contributions to CC.

So what ever the global reduction target it needs to be distributed across countries in the ratio of their historical emissions.

With a global annual emission rate today of  46 GtCO2-e and a target emission rate by 2030 of 36 GtCO2-e pa, each country has to reduce their historical emission by ~22%. Note this is a reduction not on their current emissions rate but a reduction based on their historical total emissions.

Table 1 presents the ERT of the 20 countries that have been responsible for the majority of global warming to date. The ERT was calculated by apportioning the required 10GtCO2-e reduction in global emissions over the top 10 emitters in the ratio of their cumulative historical emissions. The reduction target is shown in MtCO2-e pa as well as the % reduction required from the 2015 emission rate. (Note that the 2015 emission rate is not yet available so it was estimated from 2012 emissions with an uplift of 6% to represent the ~2% increase pa since then.)

Top 20 Countries' equitable targets
Rank	Country	Historical contribution to CC			Equitable Reduction Target
		C	GTCO2-e[3]	% of total	Current Emissions (4) (MTCO2-e)	Reduction Target (MTCO2-e)	ERT % from 2015
1	United States	0.160	370	22.9	6,609	2,287	35%
2	Brazil	0.056	129	8.0	1,074	798	74%
3	China	0.052	119	7.4	10,704	738	7%
4	Russia	0.045	104	6.4	2,461	641	26%
5	India	0.043	99	6.1	3,195	611	19%
6	Germany	0.041	95	5.8	936	585	62%
7	United Kingdom	0.035	81	5.0	579	498	86%
8	France	0.020	47	2.9	452	288	64%
9	Japan	0.016	38	2.3	1,426	234	16%
10	Indonesia	0.014	33	2.0	807	204	25%
11	Canada	0.012	27	1.7	757	165	22%
12	Mexico	0.009	22	1.3	767	134	17%
13	Thailand[2]	0.009	21	1.3	399	129	32%
14	Columbia[2]	0.009	21	1.3	163	129	79%
15	Argentina[2]	0.009	21	1.3	358	129	36%
16	Nigeria[2]	0.007	16	1.0	315	100	32%
17	Venezuela[2]	0.007	16	1.0	301	100	33%
18	Poland	0.006	14	0.8	367	84	23%
19	Australia	0.005	11	0.7	725	71	10%
20	Netherlands	0.004	10	0.6	195	59	30%
	Top 20 total	0.559	1,292	80		7,981
	Global total	0.700	1,619	100		10,000
Notes
1 http://climateactiontracker.org/
2 No trade data
3. Using 1.6deg per 3,700 GTCO2-e
4. From WRI site for 2012 pls 6% to cover growth for periods 2013,14,15
5. Germany, France, United Kingdom, Polan, Netherlands, from http://unfccc.int/files/ghg_emissions_data

Table 1 Equitable Reduction Targets 

The % ERT varies greatly across these countries because they have different historical contributions to the problem. The US which has been responsible for 22.9% of global warming to date, and threfore has to contribute 22.9% of the reduction by 2030. Given a global reduction target of 10 GtCO2-e pa , the US has to reduce its annual emissions by 2.9 GtCO2-e by 2030. Since its emissions in 2015 are 6.6 GtCO2-e pa , the reduction is equivalent to 35% of its current emission rate. The calculation is similar for all the other countries.

Table 2 compares these required reductions to the pledges made at the recent Paris Climate Change conference.

Rank	Country	Equitable reduction target			COP21 Pledge
		Current Emissions (4) (MTCO2-e)	Reduction Target (MTCO2-e)	% decrease
1	United States	6,609	2,287	35%	reduce net GHG emissions by 26–28% below 2005 in 2025
2	Brazil	1,074	798	74%	reduce net GHG (LULUCF), by 37% below 2005 levels by 2025
3	China	10,704	738	7%	peak CO2 emissions by 2030, lower the carbon intensity of GDP by 60% to 65% below 2005 levels by 2030
4	Russia	2,461	641	26%	reduce its emissions of net greenhouse gases (GHG) by 25% to 30% below the 1990 level by 2030
5	India	3,195	611	19%	lower the emissions intensity of GDP by 33% to 35% by 2030 below 2005 levels, to increase non-fossil power generation capacity 26–30% by 2030
6	Germany	936	585	62%	European target of at least 40% domestic greenhouse gas emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2030
7	United Kingdom	579	498	86%
8	France	452	288	64%
9	Japan	1,426	234	16%	emissions reduction target of 26% below 2013 emission levels by 2030
10	Indonesia	807	204	25%	29% below business-as-usual (BAU) and a conditional 41% reduction below BAU by 2030 (with sufficient international support).
11	Canada	757	165	22%	reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30% below 2005 levels in 2030
12	Mexico	767	134	17%	reduce emissions GHGs and black carbon by 25% below baseline emissions in 2030.
13	Thailand[2]	399	129	32%	20% by 2030 upto 25% with international support
14	Columbia[2]	163	129	79%	20-30% reduction on BAU by 2030
15	Argentina[2]	358	129	36%	reduce GHG emissions (LULUCF) by 15% below its BAU scenario by 2030
16	Nigeria[2]	315	100	32%	N/A
17	Venezuela[2]	301	100	33%	no pledge
18	Poland	367	84	23%	N/A
19	Australia	725	71	10%	26-28% below 2005 by 2030
20	Netherlands	195	59	30%	European - at least 40% below 1990 by 2030
	Top 20 total		7,981
	Global total		10,000

Table 2 Comparison of ERT against Paris climate change conference pledges

Green indicates that the pledge is > requried by ERT and Red indicates  the pledge is < required by ERT

The %ERT colour indicates whether the pledge is higher than required by the ERT (green) or lower than required by the ERT (red). For the countries where no pledge was readily available, it was assumed reductions would be less than required by ERT and therefore are shown in Red.

It is clear that the largest emitters, US, China, Brazil and the European countries have made pledges which fall short of their equitable reduction target. In other words they are shirking their duties.

Perhaps surprisingly India and Russia, two of the top emitters have made pledges in line with the ERT. So too have mid-range large emitters, Japan, Indonesia, Canada and Mexico. Closer to home Australia by committing a 26-28% decrease over 2005 levels is committing to significantly greater reductions than required by the ERT.

How correct are these figures?

It has been a long road getting to these results. So, are they accurate? Believable?

They are certainly not accurate in a technical sense. I have taken several shortcuts, estimates and made some extrapolations when data was not readily available. These have been done explicitly, so one can revise the calculations when more data is available.

Despite this I believe the overall import is reasonable and appropriately gauges the required reductions by leading emitters. This is subject to the proviso that so far we have only considered Propositions 1 and 2, and the ETR's require some adjustment after Proposition 3 is taken into consideration. These will be covered in the next post in this series.

The core propositions and the process for deriving the ERT, however, are more important than the numbers themselves. These I believe will withstand scrutiny. From the outset our objective was to derive a process for setting GHG reduction targets that would achieve consensus. Given what we have seen in Paris, the long-winded machinations, the verbiage, the convoluted wording, the limited binding commitments it is clear that the existing processes are not working. I write this despite the great fanfare with which the final announcements have been announced. That is all show,. Watch the news articles in the next few weeks. So I am confident that the process used to derive these ERT figures is a much more equitable than the prolonged and messy process used at Paris 2015.

What about the Paris conference?

The conference has now concluded with great fanfare. Pledges have been accepted and are to be 'legally enforceable'. Really? Well so it is said. I am sceptical.

Be that as it may, what are we to make of the pledges and the Paris conference. I believe the current set of pledges are nothing more than negotiated compromises. The largest emitters due to their bargaining power have managed to force the smaller emitters to accept a disproportionate burden in effect cleaning up emissions they did not cause. Not a very satisfactory outcome. The US, Europe and China should be ashamed of themselves!

References

1. Global Carbon Budget - http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/14/hl-full.htm
2. The Carbon Budget - http://www.wri.org/ipcc-infographics
3. The Climate Change Authority - Chapter 3, Box 3.2, http://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/chapter-3-global-emissions-budget-2-degrees-or-less
4. Emissions 2012 - http://cait.wri.org/historical/Country%20GHG%20Emissions?indicator[]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Excluding%20Land-Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&indicator[]=Total%20GHG%20Emissions%20Including%20Land-Use%20Change%20and%20Forestry&year[]=2012&sortIdx=1&sortDir=desc&chartType=geo