
Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2 degrees: U.N - clumsysmurf
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-climatechange/governments-not-on-track-to-cap-temperatures-at-below-2-degrees-u-n-idUSKCN1LI03S
======
Discombulator
This is a classical example of a market failure. The issue is that today, when
you you are buying any good, you are not paying for the full end-to-end cost
of the item, which includes the cost of disposal (collection, sorting,
recycling) and the cost of fixing the issues caused by for example, CO2
emitted during the production process. In other words, everyone of us is
enjoying now a large subsidy/handout paid by future generations. This is
called a negative externality.

The straightforward - but not easy - solution is to ask governments to assess
a charge on each sold item that brings the price in line with the full cost to
society.

Note that market failure does not mean that the “market” mechanism is the
cause of the failure - rather the issue is the incompleteness of information.
Markets would solve this allocation problem very efficiently once the subsidy
is removed. I imagine for example that most packaging using non recyclable
plastics would become entirely uneconomical, and the full price of gas would
be so high that industry will be incentivized to look for alternative
technologies and sources of energy.

~~~
bigbugbag
Nuclear plants are a good example of this mentality, cheap power until you
have to decommission the plant and suddenly costs goes through the roof.

But I would not say this is market failure, to me this is market working
exactly as intended and expected: maximizing profit without caring for the
rest.

On the other hand, it is not a question of subsidy/handout paid by future
generation anymore, we're now at the point where it is a matter of going over
the threshold effect where the consequence will be no human life possible on
earth in a matter of decades.

~~~
mirimir
> ... the consequence will be no human life possible on earth in a matter of
> decades.

That is _very_ unlikely. People could have survived just fine during the
Eocene Optimum, ~50 Myr ago. When the entire planet was tropical. Assuming
that they knew what to eat, anyway.

~~~
Vinnl
That is mere pedantry however. Clearly the main point was that the effects
will be undesirable because they will come at the cost of a lot of human life.
Whether humanity as a species will survive is, arguably, of lesser importance.

~~~
chosenbreed
Mmm...if the effects are merely "undesirable" and not existential than I dare
say that the status quo is unlikely to change. I'd go as far as saying that
whatever efforts are being done now might simply be lip-service or at best
token gestures. Perhaps it is the case that there is a considerable asymmetry
in the impact of the effects...

~~~
TeMPOraL
"Undesirable" and "come at the cost of a lot of human life" is technically
correct, but is also a pretty sterile description, that doesn't communicate
the full picture.

The worst-case scenario is a collapse of civilization, which - with or without
wars - means mass starvation (if you live in a large city, you'll die in the
first week). Your grandchildren - or more likely, someone else's grandchildren
- will be living in Mad Max hellscape, desperately trying to stave off
reverting to pre-industrial levels of life and technology.

(And with all the easily accessible energy sources already mined out and gone,
I suspect the next industrial revolution won't be possible for many, many
millennia.)

------
qqqwwweeerrr
I feel somewhat embarassed to talk about this, but does anyone else feel a
sense of dread and depression when reading news like this? I can't seem to
shake it and it's quite strongly affecting my worldview.

~~~
ummonk
Personally, I worry about a lot. Global warming, not so much. It will have an
impact on coasta cities but that aside, it really isn't that big a deal. We
have much bigger risks to worry about (both environmental and otherwise).

~~~
awestroke
Once the permafrost starts to melt, it will cause a positive feedback loop
causing all trapped methane to rapidly be released, doubling the amount of
greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. It's literally a ticking bomb. I worry
about it.

~~~
raverbashing
But then again, methane has a short half life in the atmosphere.

~~~
bigbugbag
then again, this is not a process that can be stopped once started and there
more than enough methane to have dramatic consequences.

then again this is one reinforcing feedback loop among several others.

Are you familiar with the concept of planet albedo, and how it is changing on
earth due to melting polar cap? Ever heard of ocean's anoxic events and their
consequences ?

And the list goes on.

~~~
raverbashing
Yes yes

The reason I'm citing this is not because I think we shouldn't worry, but
because if the methane is released (and this depends on the release speed as
well) we might have a period with an atmosphere with high concentrations of
methane, then a sudden reduction.

Runaway greenhouse gas concentrations and higher temperature might trigger
(the reason being we know some things, but we don't know everything) a runaway
CO2 capture process. It sounds SciFi, and it probably is, and it seems
Nitrogen is a limiting factor. But I wouldn't say it is impossible. Or it
could be possible with human help.

Then at the end of this period we could end up with less CO2 in the
atmosphere, with oil running out and the clathrates emptied.

------
Razengan
Could it be that the human brain just cannot relate to or care about large-
scale and long-term problems without continually making a conscious effort to?

It seems that as long as our immediate lives are good enough, we're fine with
everything.

Does that make our species incapable of expanding beyond our home planet let
alone the solar system? Because those undertakings require a fundamental
reconfiguration of how we operate and interact.

So far the best "hack" we've found for keeping things going is money: Someone
finds a way to make money from projects that may or may not _happen to_
advance the species as a whole, convinces people to work on those projects
with the offer of money, and those people use money to improve their immediate
lives.

So until someone needs to find a way to make money from keeping climate change
in check, there's probably nothing to be done about it until it directly
impacts people's ability to make money and affects their immediate lives.

~~~
munificent
I don't think we've hit a limitation of our brains. We used to be able to
build cathedrals that took dozens of years to complete. Voyager 2 was launched
in 1977 and didn't complete its initial mission until 1989. We planted trees
that we knew would take a hundred years to reach full maturity.

We don't have a cognitive failure. We have an institutional failure. The
corporate system that drives most of human society today is often unable to
deliver long-term projects that benefit society. The tragedy of the commons is
a viable business model — the way to compete is to exploit as much of the
environment as you can before the other guy does.

~~~
rapnie
Implied in your answer is that the root cause of climate change is failed
economic systems. Isn't that what we should address?

~~~
munificent
I believe so, yes.

Capitalism is a very powerful tool, but we've taken it to the point of
religious dogma and its short-comings are very real at the scale of a global
economy.

------
rdm_blackhole
It is not just governments, its people too.

How many couples will have more than one child? How many people eat meat or
fish every day? How many people drive their car to the corner store less than
a mile away? How many people buy huge SUVs and trucks as a status symbol when
a smaller car is all they need?

Governments won't solve this issue. We the consumers have to solve it, the
problem is that nobody gives a fuck.

I have tried to reduce my carbon footprint to the minimum and guess what? It
won't matter because by the time I have saved a few kilos of Co2 there's a
douchebag with a hummer driving down the street sucking gasoline like there is
no tomorrow!

And to top it off everybody thinks that the world's economy can continue to
grow without any limits. I believe that as a species we are simply delusional.

~~~
abyssin
Driving to the corner store isn't the issue. Having a lifestyle that makes you
need a car is the issue. Also travelling in general is a big taboo, because
environnementalists usually love to travel.

Relying on individual's changes will lead to what we've been doing for 30
years. It leads to the current situation of “penny wise and pound foolish”,
saving water when brushing teeth but taking planes.

~~~
pimmen
> Driving to the corner store isn't the issue. Having a lifestyle that makes
> you need a car is the issue.

This. I pissed off my ex's sister once when she said that since she was moving
40 kilometers outside of the city, she and her husband needs two cars. I asked
her why she was moving then, you already have a house with a room for all your
kids close enough to work that you can bike. She answered that she loves
nature, and just going for a run there whenever she wants. So I said "wouldn't
you then say that to go for a run in the woods whenever you want, you'll get
two cars"?

It sort of killed the mood. I'm a monster.

~~~
pendenthistory
I've had these kinds of conversations often with family, and I think it comes
down to them believing in the "right" to live anywhere. They have a right to
living in a house close to nature. This attitude comes up when some parties in
our country want to raise the price of gas or some other way make it more
expensive to drive (to save our planet). The reaction is always the same: "how
am I supposed to bike or walk to work, it would take 10 hours!". Well yeah,
but it's your choice to live so far away from everything, should we destroy
our planet because you want to have a yard and live next to a forest?

~~~
carlmr
>Well yeah, but it's your choice to live so far away from everything, should
we destroy our planet because you want to have a yard and live next to a
forest?

In most cities it's simply unaffordable to live in biking/walking distance to
the city centre. And the jobs are there.

~~~
trashtester
That depends where you are in the world. Some cities are denser than others.
Some places, people are willing to live in smaller appartments, etc.
Adjustments to zoning laws and regulations as well as adjustments to personal
expectations can go quite far.

Also, there are trains, subways, etc, that has a very small environmental
footprint. Bicycles can also take you a fair distance, especially the electric
ones.

If there is a will, there is a way.

------
bigbugbag
Funny that this would be news in 2018 when a year after the paris COP21, at
the 2016 COP22 in Morocco the matter was that we were already past the 1.5°
goal and we were on course for going over 2° faster than expected which meant
a possible increase of 2.5-3°

These estimation were not even taking into account the full picture and things
like positive feedback loops.

------
trashtester
That global warming is man made and likely to produce catastrophic results,
seems well documented now. (possibly 10s or 100s of millions of deaths over
the next 200 years, along with a number of species going extinct).

But any claims of cataclysmic outcomes (collapse of most civilizations or even
extinction) seems unlikely, as far as I can tell. There are other possible
events that are much more likely to produce that kind of results.

Here is my list of fears: 1\. Runaway AI (>40% over the next 200 years) 2\.
Nuclear War (>20% over the next 200 years) 3\. Runaway nanotech 4\. Runaway
biotech 5\. Runaway, cataclysmic global warming effects (full ecosystem
collapse, ice age triggered, >5 degree warming, etc)

~~~
awestroke
You should read the article The Uninhabitable Earth[1] by David Wallace-Wells
on NyMag. It's a good primer on the current information and predictions.

[1]: [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-
change-...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-
too-hot-for-humans.html)

~~~
trashtester
Thanks for the link. I've seen most of these points before, I think. My
impression is that this view is a fringe view within the academic community.
Do you have any references to indicate that this is actually becoming an
academic consensus?

To be clear: I'm all for taking the possible actions in order to slow down the
global warming. Unfortunately, the best replacement we've had to coal up until
now (nuclear) has been unjustly demonized by many of the same people that
claim to be most concerned about global warming.

Even the worst case outcome for nuclear is better than the best case outcome
for coal...

~~~
bigbugbag
> Unfortunately, the best replacement we've had to coal up until now (nuclear)
> has been unjustly demonized by many of the same people that claim to be most
> concerned about global warming.

You cannot fix the issue with a change of paradigm, switching from fossil
fuels to nuclear will not fix climate change simply because if we switched all
plant to nuclear overnight we would run out of fuel in a matter of decades.

The only solution is obvious and it is a decrease of energy use to sustainable
levels. Do not consume more than what we can sustainably produce is the only
possible way.

This means a drastic reduction of population which has only been possible due
to a prolonged lifestyle of overconsumption and it will happen whether we want
it or not.

~~~
trashtester
If we can postpone the problem by decades, I would consider that a huge win.
Maybe we could control fusion by then. Also, nuclear plays fairly well with
renewable energy sources, many of which are also getting cheaper (especially
solar).

If we take global warming serously, I see absolutely no reason that we should
continue to burn coal, except that it is a bit cheaper than nuclear given the
current safety regulations for nuclear.

Let's agree to ban coal, and then we can discuss to what extent we should add
nuclear energy capacity to replace at least some of it.

As for reducing the population, I'm curious about how exactly you think we
could achieve that?

------
zaro
> A promise by rich nations to provide developing nations with $100 billion a
> year to tackle climate change is only one part of the huge transformation
> needed, she added.

This sounds like a joke when the military budgets are in the trillions. But on
the other hand when poor countries become inhabitable and people start moving
military will be needed to push them back .

~~~
onion2k
Unless you're happy to have your sons and daughters kill people fleeing their
uninhabitable countries, military solutions won't help.

~~~
doombolt
There is a case of Israeli-Egyptian border.

Israeli don't have to actively kill Egyptians because they, for almost all
purposes, can't enter.

Nothing much wrong in having my daughter participate in some wall building.

~~~
onion2k
In all current cases there aren't very many people trying to cross the border
at once. If Egypt became uninhabitable there'd be 100 million people trying to
leave. If it was even just 5% of that trying to get in to Israel then a wall
or an army isn't going to stop them unless that army is willing to _actively_
murder innocent people. I don't think any army on Earth would be willing to do
that. Consequently a military solution isn't ever going to work.

~~~
doombolt
You're talking about Egypt suddently becoming uninhabitable. That's not the
case here. The case is that first it will be capable of hosting 100 mln
people, then shrink to 90, then to 80, etc... Each transition will probably
take five years. Of course there's a possibility of disasters there a wave of
"sea people" may hit your wall.

------
TaylorAlexander
And even the agreed upon measures were criticized as hardly enough to affect
the change we really need.

Scientists criticized the governments for making a show out of the agreements
despite them being insufficient, and here they’re not even meeting those
goals.

------
zaroth
Imagine the force required to make governments do their share to prevent >2
degree shift.

There is a cost to compliance. There is a point where the damage is so
incalcuable that you are compelled to force compliance on all other
governments.

~~~
labster
Nuclear winter is a very effective way to reduce global temperature, despite
the initial CO2 spike. Also, the damage is quite calculable.

~~~
bigbugbag
I'm pretty sure a nuclear winter does not reduce global temperature other than
the short term (~10 years). IIRC the hopi prophecies have one such outcome
where all humans die crawling in the dark with no food due to no agriculture
possible without photosynthesis.

------
newnewpdro
The National Geographic film Before the Flood [0] did a reasonably good job of
covering this topic. If you haven't seen it, it's worth a watch.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_the_Flood_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_the_Flood_\(film\))

~~~
rb666
I just can't watch it, too depressing. Especially with the USA actively
steering the opposite direction, I have little hope.

~~~
bigbugbag
If the only way out is to kill everyone in the USA, this is something that may
be attempted at some point. Putin and his new set of weapons could probably
razes every major US cities and put an end to the US nonsense.

One way or the other, most humans are gonna die before the end of the century
and a dramatic reduction of population will happen. The US way of living will
also come to an end, it is simply a matter of doing it voluntarily and aim to
avoid the worst or having it forced on them by powers over which they have no
say and feel the burn.

~~~
newnewpdro
The US has a high footprint per capita, but its population is relatively
small.

Frankly I think the more concerning nations would be China and India. India
still has something like 30% of its population, which roughly equates the
entirety of the US, living without electricity. India's top priority is
development and bringing their people out of poverty, and they have abundant
coal to do it cheaply.

You can beat up the US all you want, but the multiplier is important and a
place like India can easily move the global needle via the slightest
improvements to their average quality of life.

I'm hopeful that China uses its position of control over how everything is
being made and resulting prosperity to pivot from fossil fuels.

Russia's future in the warmer planet is especially interesting. Imagine what
impact Siberia becoming arable land would have on their place in the world.

~~~
mirimir
> Imagine what impact Siberia becoming arable land would have on their place
> in the world.

And after the US Midwest is a desert.

------
wrong_variable
Its most likely we are heading for 4 degree warming, I have very little faith
that this type of collective action problem will be solved in time.

Best way to protect yourself is to invest in real estate up north and in
inland parts of the world.

[

The time horizon is too long though, I wish 4 degree warming happened much
quicker so that I can reap the rewards of my investment earlier. /s.

]

~~~
myrryr
You joke, but I would guess Russia will ultimately be the winner here.

~~~
cperciva
In the 1960s, the idea of deliberately warming Canada's arctic -- in order to
make more farmland available for cultivation(!) -- was a serious policy
proposal.

------
thenewewb
The comments here are so far extremely biased towards panic. It’s worth
considering that perhaps the world’s governments aren’t panicking because it’s
not warranted.

Climate change, while generally “accepted,” has a pretty amorphous definition
and most current research agrees that there has been a pause since 1995 or so.
Given that we are in a 20 year “pause,” it’s not entirely unreasonable -
though clearly heretical - to posit that the alarm is largely unwarranted.

Year after year we see climate predictions fail to come to pass. Good science
is based on hypotheses leading to testable predictions, and global warming
predictions have a really poor track record of accuracy.

It might be time for the more scientifically minded among us to start
increasing our criticism of climate alarmism.

