this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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Failure to agree fossil fuel phase-out at Cop28 ‘will push world into climate breakdown’ (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I'm not seriously expecting to see warming limited to 1.5°C above what it was in the late 1800s, or even a fossil fuel phase-out — Al Jaber, the oil executive presiding over the conference, is likely to threat the rules requiring consensus as meaning "unanimity" which would give OPEC (one member of which employs him) a veto over any agreement to phase out fossil fuels.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Does the atmosphere really feel the difference, whether that flying circus of COP diplomats settle on "down" or "out", except for the impact of planes and hotels for 80,000 people gathering to debate four characters ? Sure, it sends some signal for investment, for those who follow the herd rather than work it out for themselves. I'd say the quantitative NDC targets - next round is due by COP30, and their implementation matter more.
As for the problem of unanimity, indeed it’s crazy - always has been - I remember the absurd discussions about draft rules of procedure back at COP2. So maybe better start by reforming or replacing UN (the time is ripe, given obvious failure in recent conflicts) - on basis that power is rooted in citizens, excluding autocracies where it comes from oil revenue. So if there's no phase-out - it’s not yet climate breakdown, but it could be UN breakdown.