The rise of solar power and China's staggering EV growth may have pushed global emissions into decline
The rise of solar power and China's staggering EV growth may have pushed global emissions into decline
Renewable technologies are gathering speed, putting the world within reach of falling greenhouse gas emissions. Climate experts say they "struggle to wrap their heads around" the sheer size, scale and speed of the current transition.
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/42839371
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The growth of atmospheric CO2 is still accelerating. There has been zero evidence that this has changed.
Yes, renewables. But for every solar panel installed, our civilization’s lust for energy means that most of that added solar power is consumed without any appreciable commensurate decline in fossil fuel consumption.
not to forget, the stupid ai craze is generating crap ton of emissions
But AI does still produce something, cryptomining consume stupid ammounts of energy, and produce nothing usefull.
Oh, sure, we have defined the specific string of numbers that the crypto algorithm generates as important in highly specialized systems, but they are completely and utterly useless in other contexts.
LLMs produce a string of outputs (from numbers) that are sometimes useful in some contexts and utterly useless in other contexts 🙃
But AI does still produce something
I don’t think that wild, uncontrollable hallucinations counts as “productive output”.
Output, yes, but not productive output.
Yes, the atmospheric CO2 is still rising due to emissions from previous decades.
The decline mentioned in the title is the current emmisions. The article goes on to explain it like this:
Locally, Europe and America have lowered their emmisions in the recent years, but global emmisions have still rised due to China emitting even more.
This June however, China's emmisions have also decreased, so it might be a sign of a peak being reached.
Energy consumption is still increasing, but renewable sources provide enough for that, and it's economical the best option, so the rising demand does not cause more emmisions.
Personally, I'm afraid it is too soon to tell. I also wonder where all the drilled oil and mined coal goes, because if there is an actual decline in fossil fuel usage, we'd be hearing from the oil companies and experience lower gas prices etc. Any fossil that is mined or pumped up is going to get burned, so I'd really like to see a decline in fossil extractions before celebrating.
Also, in order to address the atmospheric CO2 levels, we need something entirely different. Forests and CO2 capture etc., which have a long way to go still.
the atmospheric CO2 is still rising due to emissions from previous decades.
Tell me you don’t understand atmospheric CO2 without saying you don’t understand it.
Atmospheric CO2 represents the immediate, real-time, zero-delay composition of the atmosphere. As in, the current value is what currently exists.
And an acceleration curve in that value means that CO2 production is still increasing. if the curve is curving up, more CO2 is being released today than had been released yesterday.
https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/f46a3bf9-388a-4cac-92ff-0604e402c291.png
Once that curve points downwards over more than a year or so, then I will become cautiously optimistic. Until then, I will not submit myself to counterproductive hopium.
There is a slight complexity to this as methane breaks down into CO2 over a period of about 20 years, in the meantime it contributes a higher warming effect. But there is a measure called CO2e which is the equivalent including the other green house gases and it too has been accelerating so it doesn't change the point its just there are some prior emission impacts on current CO2 in the atmosphere.
and it too has been accelerating so it doesn't change the point its just there are some prior emission impacts
Say you don’t understand emissions measuring without actually saying you don’t understand emissions measuring.
Past emissions only place emissions up to a value. Current emissions are what determine whether our emissions output is continuing to accelerate, or are actually slowing down.
And yesterday’s emissions continue to be smaller than today’s emissions. That is why it’s called accelerating emissions.
And yesterday’s emissions continue to be smaller than today’s emissions. That is why it’s called accelerating emissions.
Not necessarily true. According to the article, it's quite possible that yesterday's emissions are the same as today's emissions. Meaning, we've stopped increasing emissions.
Until that graph curves over, it isn’t true.
Evidence trumps wishes and fantasies. I refuse to get ensnared by hopium.
It's a prediction. We don't have accurate data for the current year.
And predictions mean absolutely nothing until the evidence is in.
Problem is, people frequently celebrate predictions, and build policy with those predictions. That’s called jumping the gun.
Keep your panties on, no one is making policy based on this report. At most, people are viewing it with cautious optimism.
Wondering if you read the linked article which presents evidence that this has changed?
But then everything wouldn't be Always Bad All the Time and a bunvh of people here can't handle that.
You really should read the article. The hypothesis is that global emissions peaked last year and so the cumulative emissions graph that you're focusing on would start to curve downward this year or maybe next. We'll "see by the end of the year".
Again, in the article, things are changing wildly fast and you won't see that yet in a lagging indicator like cumulative CO₂.
Until that graph curves over, it isn’t true.
Evidence trumps wishes and fantasies and wild guesses. I refuse to get ensnared by hopium, especially when the hard evidence isn’t even in yet.
The worst effects of climate change haven't happened yet so I guess that isn't true either and you'll go off at anyone who'll attempt to use the best available information and modelling to predict that.
One should not forget that all these things are not produced and manufactured with zero emissions. EV batteries still need huge amounts of CO2 emissions, photovoltaic cells are far from zero emissions and with the huge amounts of untapped potential to make existing stuff emitt less CO2, there will still be a lot of growth in emissions...
And once emissions begin showing a downward-facing curve, indicating decreasing emissions, I will begin to be hopeful.
But when emissions are still curving strongly upward, with no hint of even a straight trend line (indicating that emissions growth has halted), I continue to be brutally and hyper-realistically pessimistic.
