‘People are going to die because of the decision Trump made’ — John Kerry
The United States and Australian environmental policies will lead us to a slightly less deadly 4C warming world above pre-industrial levels. Even Europe will lead us to a 3C world. None of those policy choices will keep us from catastrophic climate impacts by the year 2100. ( I hate hearing about the year 2100 projections of likely climate scenarios because it is the delusional and selfish notion that we can kick this looming crisis down the road for the kids to solve).
The IPCC report states we have exactly 12 years to decarbonize or, it is game over for our civilization. That was the IPCC best case scenario, not the worst.
Dare we hope? 'On Tuesday, a team from China’s Hefei Institutes of Physical Science announced that its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor — an “artificial sun” designed to replicate the process our natural Sun uses to generate energy — just hit a new temperature milestone: 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit). For comparison, the core of our real Sun only reaches about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit — meaning the EAST reactor was, briefly, more than six times hotter than the closest star'. From Futurism: China’s “Artificial Sun” Is Now Hot Enough for Nuclear FusionRecently, the conclusion of a newly released study, published in the journal Nature Communications, evaluates “the relationship between each nation’s ambition to cut emissions and the temperature rise that would result if the world followed their example”. It is not remotely promising.
The Guardian reports: Policies of China, Russia and Canada threaten 5C climate change, study finds:
Among the major economies, the study shows India is leading the way with a target that is only slightly off course for 2C. Less developed countries are generally more ambitious, in part because they have fewer factories, power plants and cars, which means they have lower emissions to rein in.
On the opposite side of the spectrum are the industrial powerhouse China and major energy exporters who are doing almost nothing to limit carbon dioxide emissions. These include Saudi Arabia (oil), Russia (gas) and Canada, which is drawing vast quantities of dirty oil from tar sands. Fossil fuel lobbies in these countries are so powerful that government climate pledges are very weak, setting the world on course for more than 5C of heating by the end of the century.
Only slightly better are the group of countries that are pushing the planet beyond 4C. Among them are the US, which has huge emissions from energy, industry and agriculture somewhat offset by promises of modest cuts and more renewables. Australia, which remains heavily dependent on coal exports, is also in this category.
The wealthy shopping societies of Europe fare slightly better – largely because emissions on products are calculated at the source of manufacture rather than the point of consumption – but the authors of the paper say their actions lag behind their promises to set a positive example.