Reducing CO2 emissions to cut global warming? Good luck with that! – Watts Up With That?

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Michael Limburg of Eike, an excellent German environmental consultant, writes to point out that there is no apparent impact in Mauna Loa’s monthly concentration data from a significant reduction in annual CO2 emissions.₂ emissions arising from the Chinese virus pandemic.

18 months from January 2020 to July 2021, during which many countries are on lockdown, shaded on Mauna Loa CO₂– Concentration graph. Although the global CO₂ emissions have dropped significantly by 27% in the first half of 2020 (Le Quéré et al. 2020), an upward trend in CO₂ concentrations remained roughly linear throughout the pandemic and remained unchanged thereafter. The width of the yellow trendline is 1 μmol mol^-first.

A longer term trend since 2015, with trendline width again equal to 1 μmol mol^-first:

The upward trend in total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is also almost linear, despite the significant reduction in CO2.₂ emissions during the pandemic:

These considerations strongly reinforce my recent conclusion about the new Pause that lasts longer than ever (currently 8 years and 9 months and counting) that even if the real world If net zero emissions are reached by 2050, the subsequent reduction in global temperature will be less than one-tenth of a degree:

This table shows how little global warming would be prevented, even in theory, by achieving net zero worldwide and in different territories.

After 2100, very little further warming will be prevented, because existing and predictable oil and gas resources will be significantly depleted and coal reserves will last only half a century. century according to current needs.

It is also possible to calculate how much (or rather, how little) global warming would be prevented if the United States doubled its existing installed wind and solar capacity:

From the above calculation (h/t Douglas Pollock), it is clear that wind and sun by themselves will not be able to bring the United States or the world to net zero. Therefore, the previous table is somewhat more optimistic. Bottom line: turning Western economies into trash to Save the Planet will do no good for the climate.