There is a lot of doom & gloom when it comes to climate change
And much of that is waranted, just look at our yearly dumping of CO₂ into the atmopshere
But even here we can see that the last 10-12 years we have been slowing down and leveling off
However even at a stable 37 GtCO₂ we will quickly overrun our carbon budget
[Total carbon budget] in 2024 is estimated at 900 GtCO₂ for limiting warming to below 2°C (>66 per cent chance) and to 200 GtCO₂ to stay below a 1.5°C limit (>50 per cent chance)
An easy way to think of this is that if we reduce our emissions linearly we have: carbon budget / carbon release * 2 -> years to reach carbon zero
| Carbon Budget | Carbon Zero |
|---|---|
| 900 GtCO₂ | 50 years |
| 200 GtCO₂ | 10 years |
However, that is IF we can reduce our carbon emissions in that manner
Already the 10 year scenario is impossible as 2023 carbon release was 37.4 GtCO₂ and 2024 is unlikely to be lower
Hope
Altohough our total carbon release has been stable the last 10-12 years that is not the whole story. Looking instead at per capita is interesting
Here we can see that it leveled of much earlier, and if we look at the last 50 years
It's almost a straight line. Our carbon release is as much a function of the number of people increasing on this planet than anything else
And that is already set to reduce. We see falling birthrates in all developed economies and now only a few places are above replacement level
Throw in recent development in Wind & Solar combined with batteries and we have much of what we need to reduce our emissions longterm together with a falling population
United Nations estimate is a peak of 10.4 billion people in 2086, and they tend to revise that downwards every year
Peak is in... soon
We no longer have a fast growing global population pushing numbers up, and many new developments pushing it down
However, this will still take time. Remember 50 years to carbon zero to keep below 2°C but population peaking is beyond that
At the same time, it's not that far off. One of these years soon are likely to be the peak year before it starts falling
So scenarios of 4°C or above is unnecessarily pessimistic
What will happen?
No self respecting climatologist would ever express certainty about a system so chaotic as the entire planets weathersystem, in fact only a great fool would do so
So here is exactly what will happen!
- World population peaks earlier than expected and lower (<10 billion by 2080)
- Total carbon release starts to go down from 2027
- This is not enough to keep temperature below 2°C, but enough to keep it below 3°C
- In large part due to greater interest and action as we pass both 1.5°C and 2°C, not to mention all the destroyed housing
- We start to talk about the oceans as "dead" (the water absorbs carbon but lowers it's PH value, causing disruptions)
- Geoengineering of releasing particles into the stratosphere as cooling is deployed to reduce 2.5°C to 1.5°C (and people talk about scaling this up but already it's at a scale that's dangerous, altering weather patterns)
- Life goes on
*All graph data is from: Our World in Data