Vocal Voices

.... or not.

There is a glut of oil in the region of 3bn barrels. This has forced prices down to well below $50 a barrel, but that has created a demand bubble. Even so the glut will persist all of next year and demand will start to drop, for various reasons. Long-term the drop appears to last as other energies come on line.

However, the best news comes in a study from Cambridge University. It says that stocks could lose 50% of their value if nothing is done to curb climate change. Money talks.

The study looked at three models: Two degree C increase - 2015 will pass a 1ºC average, so we are already half way there. Baseline or business-as-usual, which is how we are going. No mitigation, just let the global economy grow and grow in the hope that something turns up.

The study found that shifts in climate change sentiment could cause global economic growth to reduce over a 5-10 year period in both the Two Degree and No Mitigation scenarios as a consequence of economic adjustment. In the longer-term, however, the study found that economic growth picks up most quickly along a Two Degrees (low carbon) pathway, with annual growth rates of 3.5 per cent not only exceeding the baseline (2.9 per cent), but significantly exceeding the No Mitigation scenario (2.0 per cent).

So there it is. Short-term loss if we do something, but for long term gain, or loss followed by a slow decline.

They are assuming that doing something will required a whole new industry which generates huge volumes of cash whereas doing nothing simply continues the same model which will lead to a slowdown as we reach peak oil and things stagnate.

Sadly the whole economy is not so predictable. More likely the large polluters will slowly ramp up renewable energy whilst emitting way over the BAU model. Leading to a 3C rise by 2100 or a 2C rise by 2050.

Which, in short, is a total disaster in anyone's language.

I don't like these studies which fail to factor in greed and avarice. Our only true route to salvation is to massively invest in renewables then, once they are viable, price carbon out of the reach of all but those who must use it. Sadly that won't happen and by the time they realise it the path will be set on 3C. Or higher...

Just a point to note. Global CO2 will see levels below 400ppm for the last time next year. When the levels fall to September, they will drop to just below 400ppm. When they rise again they will not fall below 401.x ppm and probably not below 402ppm...

How they can even think we'll hit the 2C trajectory is beyond me. 2C is with full mitigation starting right now and with CO2 hitting 450ppm around the 2060's and then falling back. On the current trajectory we'll hit 450ppm by 2040 and heading for 500ppm by2060.

They're kidding themselves....

The last two words of my post should probably read 'quick decline'.

I know what you mean about studies, but this one is a bit of a first, and they have to start somewhere. It is the first one from an independent and respected world renowned university putting the point to the money men. I agree that it does not go nearly far enough, but maybe the authors are thinking 'slowly, slowly, catchee monkey'.

They have at least made the link between climate, economy and investments, and that has largely been missing. What is now needed is for others to join in and keep hitting the nail.

We are now in 2015 and it will be the year we reach 1ºC above long term average. That information needs to be out there for all to see. Then there needs to be close scrutiny of temperatures from 2016 to 2020. If it gets to, say, 1.2ºC and rising by 2020 then the 2ºC target will be hit by 2040 or even earlier. These will be hard facts to work with, not models or predictions, and if nothing then gets done it will goodnight sweetheart.

It's already goodnight sweetheart. The climate mechanisms work on many different cycles but one of the most important in this one is the Ocean heat cycle which released sequestered heat on a 30 year cycle. For the next 30 years the atmosphere is going to be impacted by the heating of the oceans for the last 30 years. The 30 hottest years since the peak of this current interglacial around 12,000 years ago.

Everything they are talking about now is only mitigation of much worse to come and all of the scenario's ALL use the full implementation of Kyoto as a base point. We have fundamentally failed to implement Kyoto. What next?

By 2040 it is so far too late to stop the harsher impacts of Global Warming that it's not even worth talking about in any other terms than species survival. Something nobody wants to talk about. They all seem to think that this is some mental exercise and that we'll just "fix it" when we have to.

The really funny thing is that we have the wherewithal to rapidly mitigate the impact of climate change but nobody wants to talk about it. Simply put we could double the forests of the world using all spare land to do so and using green energy desalination to keep them growing. The resulting carbon sequestration would be bigger than anything we could do in any other way. It would take about two decades but it would give us a breathing space.

Notably nobody is talking about it. Which tells you how they view the problem..... It is a world wide problem and requires a world wide response. Funnily enough doing this kind of work would stabilise many climate impacts in the 3rd world and they have most of the land to grow them too. Sadly, by the time everyone comes to the table and starts to try and do it, the window of opportunity will have passed and it will be too little too late...

This is better news. Especially the values put on it. $90 trillion will draw a lot of interest and a lot of innovation.

Interesting that China is being force, firstly by their own middle class and secondly by the EU's punitive sanctions on solar production from China, to install a massive base of Solar in their own desert regions....

I'm also noting more and more battery technology changes which will reduce the time and energy required to charge our devices, including electric cars. That must be the result of some really serious research funding and the more success that is made, the more money will pour in.

A very faint glimmer of a ghost of light, down the deep, deep tunnel we are in, seems not to be the train coming....

I shall continue watching.