
Paris agreement on climate change has come into force - tbarbugli
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37872111
======
zzalpha
And two, five, ten years from now we'll all be talking about how the Paris
agreement failed and how the <insert name of major city> agreement is a major
breakthrough and we'll limit warming to 3-4C this time, we swear!

But good news, while the Great Barrier Reef is now 90% bleached, the
Seychelles are forming a new underwater ecosystem!

~~~
xiphias
The only reason why Paris agreement wont fail is that it now makes financial
sense to use renewable energy even without caring about the environment.

~~~
tzs
In the United State making financial sense is not sufficient. It used to be,
but that is changing.

In 2008, for example, the Republican party platform acknowledged that human
activity was increasing atmospheric CO2, and said that it was common sense
that the US take measured and reasonable steps to address this. They called
for technology-driven, market-based solutions that will decrease emissions and
mitigate the impact of climate change. They said that in the long run we
needed to move to zero emission sources, with fossil fuels being a bridge to
that emissions free future. It said they would aggressively support
technological advances to reduce our dependence on petroleum. It supported
raising gas mileage standards for cars and trucks, and was pro electric
vehicle.

Eight years later, their platform no longer calls for reducing emissions,
calls for forbidding the EPA from regulating CO2, and calls for increasing the
use of coal and oil. Most of the candidates who ran for the GOP nomination
were firmly in the "climate change is not happening camp", and the few who
were not were in the "it may be happening, and we may even be contributing a
little, but it is not anything we need to do anything about" camp.

Unless those Republicans who are not anti-science can somehow move the GOP
back toward their 2008 position, where they acknowledge the problem and the
need to address it and the need to move to clean energy in the future, where
the major difference with Democrats was in how to accomplish these goals
rather than on their necessity, I don't see how the US is going to do much
about climate change.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> In the United State[s] making financial sense is not sufficient

You follow this with three paragraphs, and yet none of them contains one word
in support of this claim. What's standing in the way of people who want to do
whatever is cheapest?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
If a government subsidises the wrong thing, the right thing will no longer
make financial sense. If the government bans the right thing, it no longer
matters whether it makes financial sense.

However, I am slightly optimistic about these things as many city and state
governments as well as private corporations are taking steps to do the right
thing, even as parts of the government and society take the opposite side.

------
vowelless
Slightly off topic:

Is it possible to create technology that can suck out the CO2 from the
atmosphere? If so, what would the back of the envelope costs for this be like?

If this is a viable option, why continuously try to have these large scale
agreements instead of building and selling technology to counter the CO2
emissions?

~~~
DennisP
People are working on that. One option is biochar: burn biomass in a low-
oxygen environment, grind up the charcoal and work it into soil. Generally
improves fertility and stays in place over a thousand years. A Nature study
found that we could absorb about a gigaton carbon (or CO2, I forget) per year
before we start doing serious harm to biodiversity. Our annual emissions are
10 GT carbon, or 30 GT CO2.

There are others involving mineral erosion, or machines that take CO2 out of
the atmosphere. There's a scheme for fertilizing oceans with iron particles,
creating algae blooms that absorb CO2 then die and sink; that one may or may
not work.

The problem is, generally this stuff either has large environmental side
effects, doesn't scale enough to absorb all emissions, is much more expensive
than just reducing emissions, and/or uses a lot of energy, which would have to
be produced by carbon-free sources that could have just replaced emissions in
the first place.

None of it is really available yet, and we're rapidly running out of time.
We're starting to see positive feedbacks where, with higher temperatures, the
planet emits CO2 and methane by itself, taking the temperature even higher
without further help from us.

So our best strategy is to reduce emissions as quickly as possible now. Given
how far along things are, we will probably _also_ need to reduce atmospheric
CO2 levels after we've finally stopped increasing them.

Of course, to whatever extent the negative-emissions techniques become
available, safe, and affordable in the short term, they could definitely help.
Biochar might be the closest to implementation, with no real downside except
at very large scale.

------
Shivetya
What force? It is still fully voluntary and your pretty much on your own in
deciding what to do. If anything it really only is payout scheme to appease
some smaller nations. The emission goals are NON BINDING.

Its worse than no agreement because countries can point to it and declare they
did something whereas they really aren't obligating themselves to more than a
small tax. China has what, said their emissions may slow by 2030?

------
diafygi
I work in cleantech, and it always seems weird how much fatalism I see in the
comments sections of climate change threads on HN. Why are we so hopeless?
Don't be! Be the entrepreneurs you say you are, because there's so much money
to be made here! My favorite joke about climate change: "They say humans won't
act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!"

Here's my list of why we'll fix climate change:

1\. Wall Street is now on our side. Clean energy technologies are now mature
and cheaper without subsidy than fossil alternatives[1], so the clean energy
sector is starting to be viewed by the financial sector more like construction
rather than a tech R&D.

2\. Insurance and Real Estate are now on our side. The effects of climate
change are expected to have a $44 trillion economic downside[2], and that loss
is starting to creep into the depreciation terms and insuring everything from
crops to real estate.

3\. Cleantech now has more jobs. Clean energy now employs more workers
(including blue collar local workers) than the coal industry and the upstream
oil industry[3]. Also, the advanced energy sector (cleantech + energy
efficiency + smartgrid) is now at $1.4 trillion, which is bigger than many
other industries like airlines and fashion, and will soon pass the entire
media industry[4].

4\. Developing countries are now pivoting hard away from fossil fuels. China
has pledged to peak emissions by 2030, but it may be as early as 2027[5].
Also, Africa is expected to leapfrog fossil-based generation and go straight
to renewables (much like how skipped landlines and went straight to
wireless)[6].

Given these allies, who do think is going to win in a policy fight? As
powerful as Exxon and BP are, they don't hold a candle to Fannie Mae, Freddie
Mac, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sacs, China, etc.

So if you were wondering when the turning point for humanity to start taking
action, now is that time. Rest assured, you won't have to do anything if you
don't want. The people making the money will do it for you.

It's really weird to see the HN community (and tech startups in general)
totally not want in on any of that action. Now that the hardware tech is here,
cleantech is now basically a scaling exercise, which means efficiency, which
means software. There are literally trillions of dollars to be made in
cleantech software, yet every time there's a post on climate change on HN it's
all doom and gloom.

Come on! We have to replace 87% of our global energy sources in less than 30
years[7]. That's faster growth than the Internet, and it's time for tech
startups to cash in on it.

[1]: [https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazards-levelized-cost-
of-...](https://www.lazard.com/media/2390/lazards-levelized-cost-of-energy-
analysis-90.pdf)

[2]: [http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/18/cost-of-not-acting-on-
climate...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/18/cost-of-not-acting-on-climate-
change-44-trillion-citi.html)

[3]: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-25/clean-
ene...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-25/clean-energy-jobs-
surpass-oil-drilling-for-first-time-in-u-s)

[4]: [http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2016/03/advanced-
energy...](http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2016/03/advanced-energy-hits-
record-revenue-nearly-1-4-trillion-2015/)

[5]: [https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-pledge-puts-china-on-
cou...](https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-pledge-puts-china-on-course-to-
peak-emissions-as-early-as-2027)

[6]:
[http://news.trust.org/item/20161018065317-ct50s](http://news.trust.org/item/20161018065317-ct50s)

[7]: [http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-
internet/](http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/)

~~~
bumblebeard
I think people are hopeless because while we are starting to move in the right
direction, it's probably too little and too late. Moderation of CO2 emissions
might have been enough 20-30 years ago, but now we need immediate radical
action to prevent extreme changes in the planet's climate and that's not
happening.

Regardless of how much money there is to be made in this market (and you're
right, there's a lot), Earth is going to be a very different place to live in
50 years unless we rapidly make dramatic and fundamental changes to the way we
produce and use energy.

~~~
diafygi
You're right, Earth will be very different 50 years from now, but it's a
matter of degrees (literally).

Here's a good rule of thumb[1]:

    
    
        * Pull up 25% fossil assets - 2°C - Costly, but livable
        * Pull up 33% fossil assets - 3°C - 1 billion fewer people on the planet
        * Pull up 50% fossil assets - 4°C - 1 billion people on the planet
        * Pull up all fossil assets - 5°C - Mad Max
    

So it's all a matter of how fast you can stop pulling fossil fuels out of the
ground. Luckily, oil prices are getting cheaper which cuts out a large chunk
of assets (tar sands, etc.), so we'll likely not hit 5°C. Hopeless ensures
4°C, profit motive makes 3°C possible, smart people working in the field makes
2°C possible.

I'd humbly request that people reading this look into advanced energy software
jobs when they plot their next career move.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_bubble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_bubble)

~~~
maverick_iceman
That's a bit too specific prediction.

------
spodek
> "The Eiffel Tower in Paris is expected to be lit up in green light on Friday
> to mark the entry into force of the historic climate pact."

It would be "greener" not to light it for an evening. And to remind people to
reduce their consumption of things that pollute overall. Obviously not a total
solution, but a start.

~~~
toyg
Proposing buzzkill measures like this is a large part of why green movements
always struggled to get mainstream traction. I call myself a fairly rational
actor and still I deeply resent being forced to separate my rubbish - if green
politicians had put half the effort they put into forcing this issue at
political level, into pushing the disposal industry to come up with better
technological solutions to do that for me, they'd be heroes of the people.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> if green politicians had put half the effort they put into forcing this
> issue at political level, into pushing the disposal industry to come up with
> better technological solutions to do that for me, they'd be heroes of the
> people

The disposal industry already has those solutions, because the error rate in
individually-sorted trash is too high to work with. The point of having you
sort your own trash is to make sure you're committed to the project, not to
save effort for the disposal industry.

~~~
toyg
_> The point of having you sort your own trash is to make sure you're
committed to the project_

I hope you're joking, because that would be mind control on a level not seen
since the Wall came down.

------
anon1253
'It's about a society on its way down. And as it falls, it keeps telling
itself: "So far so good... So far so good... So far so good." It's not how you
fall that matters. It's how you land.' \- La Haine

------
maverick_iceman
We should seriously look into geoengineering. Pious utterances from world
leaders notwithstanding, human behavior is not going to change.

------
douche
So, assuming that average temperatures only go up 2-2.5 C, we'll effectively
be out of the Little Ice Age again, and into the temperature ranges that most
of the golden ages of human society experienced?

~~~
alphapapa
You are a brave man. Don't you know that experts have formed a consensus on
the scientific facts?

