Without Further Intervention 3 Degrees is Worst Case 2100 Climate Warming

Assessment of current policies by two researchers published in the journal Nature suggests that the world is on course for around 3 °C of warming above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1 °C of warming above pre-industrial levels.

The RCP 8.5 degrees scenario assumes that things like coal usage will go up 5 to 6 times from today’s levels. Coal use has been flat or declining since 2013. RCP8.5 was originally created as an unlikely high-risk future. Experts, policymakers and the media have pitched it as the likely ‘business as usual’ outcome.

Electrifying all cars, trucks and other transportation using non-fossil fuel electricity would remove 26% of the CO2 problem.

Solar power electricity for home power and heating would take out another 15%.

Electrifying most of the power grid with solar, wind, hydro and nuclear would remove about half of the rest of the problem.

The remaining industrial portion would be best handled by offsetting CO2 production.

Cheap CO2 offsets from growing a lot more trees or algae could offset a ton of CO2 for less than $1. This could be done far faster and cheaper than decarbonizing transportation and the entire grid.

We are going to electrify all cars and trucks anyway because electric cars and trucks will be cheaper to operate. The Tesla Semi has about half the project operating cost of a diesel truck.

The 2.5 degree celsius scenario by 2100 is the likely scenario where all cars and trucks go electric by 2060 and where solar and wind and battery power get to 50% more more of power generation.

Globally, fossil fuels account for a much smaller share of electricity production than the energy system as a whole. In 2019, around 64% of our electricity came from fossil fuels.

SOURCES – Nature, Our World in Data
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

13 thoughts on “Without Further Intervention 3 Degrees is Worst Case 2100 Climate Warming”

  1. The left are surely the reason for most of the globes warming, but your type of right wing propaganda is not helpful either.
    I agree that Biden is dangerously incompetent,but I want a type of Republican that will use prices to force less Carbon emitted,our quickest way to lowering warming is either biological warfare ,unleash a much more deadly virus ,with the antidote given to our citizens and allies,or a nuclear first strike on China,both would be effective means of lowering Carbon emissions.

  2. By far the most important action have just been taken by China ,allowing power producers to charge market rates, this will increase coal more than offsetting all the good soalr and wind have ever done.
    The world needs to limit China's exports if need be we should embargo.
    But if Biden can't invade Iran to stop their acquiring nuclear weapons, he certainly can't and won't propose any tariffs on China to reduce coal use, the Europeans regard all coal miners and gas drillers as heros,they don't care about the climate, only the cost of their power.

  3. Texas seems to have a very good energy system, when the next cold snap strikes, price jumps will be a hundred times less. They have nuclear, wind and solar,we need Carbon taxes.

  4. If you look at the Greenland ice cores going back couple hundred thousand years we have been cooling for the last 11 to 12 thousand years.

  5. Agreed. When we were freezing in Texas back in February, that doesn't mean thr planet isn't warming overall and that we aren't contributing. If anything, it happened because the ice that would usually block that harsh chill from getting here, isn't there to block it anymore (if I've got that wrong, please let me know, because it's still a bit confusing to me).

    We still need to look at a way to stop pouring carbon into the atmosphere, reforest, etc. It's not enough to stop doing damage; we need to undo what we've already done.

  6. I don't believe you can debunk the changing climate trending warmer by a few recent events. You will need to look at the trend over a longer period of time in my opinion.

  7. Hate to spoil anyone’s indoctrination, but we just had the coldest winter in recorded history at the poles. That casts a huge shadow on the Man-Made-Global-Warming notions. https://www.fox5ny.com/weather/antarcticas-2021-winter-was-among-the-coldest-on-record
    BTW, during the year of Covid Lockdowns, CO2 levels actually continued to increase… They should have dropped, yeah?
    Even if we wanted to, we can’t change the weather, and we might not want to.
    However, this had never been about global temperatures. It is all about hurting the U.S. economy so America’s enemies can catchup…
    TC

  8. trmutOf course, it's important that we develop strategies not to pour infinite amounts of carbon into the atmosphere; but on the other hand, it's also important to develop climate models which are able to accurately predict the recent past so we can confidently predict the near future.

    That being said, if it is truly the case that we will only warm another 2°C, it takes a good amount of wind out of the sails of certain groups (which I remember used to be really strong back in the 1990s) that we had to cut our own flesh to contain the damage. Taking the absolute-worst-case 8.5°C and treating it as the most likely scenario is borderline criminal, if true.

  9. "The world is already at 1 °C of warming above pre-industrial levels."

    So, by "3 degrees of warming", what is actually meant is "2 degrees of warming". Because when you predict 3 degrees of warming, most people won't interpret you as predicting 3 degrees relative to a century ago, they'll interpret you as predicting warming relative to today.

    By the way, nice to have the comments back. Hope you can recover the old ones. You seem to have an amazing amount of trouble with the commenting, I've been at sites that had comments for decades without a glitch. Maybe this isn't the aspect of the site you want to be bleeding edge?

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