Letters: Climate goals - Longmont Times-Call
Letters: Climate goals - Longmont Times-Call
Targets set to create climate urgency
Two AP articles in the Dec 1 Times-Call provided further evidence of the refusal of the UN to accept reality regarding fossil fuels. One article reported that pressure is building at the UN sponsored COP 28 on the host country UAE to support the elimination of fossil fuels. The other article noted that the economies of OPEC nations, which includes the UAE, are dependent upon oil income. Expecting the UAE to commit economic suicide is certainly not realistic.
In more UN climate nonsense, the first article said there is an urgency at COP 28 to keep the 1.5 degree Celsius global warming target within reach. But neither the 1.5C target nor the 2.0C target which preceded it has a sound scientific basis as a threshold for danger. The targets were set politically to create the very urgency now claimed. UN annual climate conferences set both targets, the 2.0C target in 2010 and the 1.5C target in 2015 as described in a 2023 paper titled “A history of the 1.5C target” by Béatrice Cointe and Hélène Guillemot of the French national research organization.
Although the 1.5C target isn’t meaningful as a danger threshold, it is of interest to look at when it might be exceeded, and that means exceeded for a time period measured over several years, not just for a few days here or there.
In her book “Climate Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Our Response,” climate scientist Judith Curry takes a hard look at the likelihood of the 1.5C target being exceeded by 2050. Natural climate variability including solar variations, volcanic eruptions and variability associated with ocean circulations all point to cooling over the next 30 years, making it unlikely that the 1.5C target will be exceeded by 2050, even without any serious cuts in CO2 emissions.
Carl Brady, Frederick
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”