Reply to Robert Chris
Dear Robert,
Thanks for these comments. On the thread status, I felt Dan Galpern
was unfair in accusing me of calling interlocutors insane. My comment
about not repeating mistakes was mainly intended to say the Emission
Reduction Alone viewpoint is not scientific. No interlocutors here
advance that ERA view. And on his other point about weasel words,
you (Robert) accepted that it is a weaselly argument that ERA “might
still not be enough” when data shows it definitely will not be enough
to stop dangerous warming. Saying ERA might not be enough leaves open
the weasibility (weasel possibility) that it might be enough in some
unlikely scenario. Modern science shows we need to do far more than
ERA to achieve a reasonable climate security timeline.
Further responses below as dot points.
Robert Tulip
*From:*[email protected]
[email protected] *On Behalf Of *Robert Chris
*Sent:* Saturday, 4 June 2022 4:06 AM
*To:* Kevin Lister [email protected]
*Cc:* [email protected]; [email protected]
>> Robert Tulip [email protected]; Dan Galpern
[email protected]; 'Planetary Restoration'
[email protected];
'healthy-planet-action-coalition'
[email protected]; 'geoengineering'
[email protected]; [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [geo] Re: [CDR] Climate Security Timeline
Hi Kevin
Greg Rau has asked us to terminate this thread but since you've
re-engaged with its CDR origins, perhaps he'll forgive us. Your take
on Robert Tulip's position does not accord with mine. He is certainly
implying that 'It's AM or death for us all' (although I'm not keen on
the hyperbole) but he is also saying that emissions abatement cannot
be sufficient. I take issue with that on the basis that the modelling
indicates that net-zero by 2050 is sufficient.
* Kevin’s _paper
<https://www.globalcoral.org/submission-to-the-un-talanoa-dialogue-the-essential-role-and-form-of-integrated-climate-restoration-strategy-the-setting-of-targets-and-timescales-the-methodologies-and-funding-options/>_
for the Talanoa Dialogue with Mike MacCracken and others including
Eelco Rohling and Tom Goreau explains some of the limitations of
emission abatement, noting it cannot prevent significant
temperature overshoot. They say “increasing planetary albedo
through low risk marine cloud brightening … could substantially
cancel out the increase in global heating caused by a doubling of
atmospheric CO2 from preindustrial levels.”
* The paper you referenced, /Is there warming in the pipeline? A
multi-model analysis of the Zero Emissions Commitment from CO2/,
by MacDougall et al, Biogeosciences, 17, 2987–3016, 2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-2987-2020 has as I understand it
been accepted as heralding a new consensus by climate heavyweights
like David Keith
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/opinion/climate-change-geoengineering.html>,
with his claim that ‘average temperatures will stop increasing
when emissions stop” and Michael Mann
<https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=694563648110274>, who told
Sixty Minutes “if you stop burning carbon right now … temperatures
remain pretty much flat. We are only committed to the warming that
has happened already.” This view has been rebutted by Ye Tao,
Brian Von Herzen and others. It is incompatible with Rohling’s
analysis of committed warming in /The Climate Question
<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-climate-question-9780190910877?cc=au&lang=en&;>/.
Committed warming means the planet would continue to warm after a
hypothetical end to emissions because the earth system is not in
equilibrium, and temperature and sea level would continue to rise
until equilibrium is reached.
I expanded on this in another posting in this thread that was skipped
below and not sent to all of the listservs on this post. For
convenience it's copied here.
Hi Robert, The fundamental issue here is the extent to which emissions
abatement supported by greenhouse gas removal (GGR) can take us down
the 'path back toward Holocene stability, removing the drivers of
tipping points, stepping back from the current hothouse precipice'
without recourse to AM.
* The decision to have no recourse to AM is foolhardy. Albedo was a
big driver of ice age temperature reversals
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987116300305>,
and can be harnessed to stabilise the climate now. Increasing
ocean brightness can give breathing room for the planet, providing
more time to lower GHG levels.
The UNFCCC process is driven by the notion of net zero by 2050 being
sufficient to deliver that objective, and that is based on MacDougall
et al (2020) who concluded that at net zero surface temperature
quickly (<20 years) stabilises at the level then reached.
* UNFCCC analysis has systematically ignored potential of direct
cooling methods. A carbon-driven cooling policy is too slow,
risky, expensive and contested to remain the immediate climate
priority. A new consensus on direct cooling can challenge the
flawed science of MacDougall et al.
Moreover, even without any help from GGR, within a century,
atmospheric CO2 drops by ~100ppmv. The 2050 timeline comes (for
example) from IPCC AR6 WGIII that states: Global net zero CO2
emissions are reached in the early 2050s in modelled pathways that
limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot.
* ERA is a bit like balancing plates on sticks in the circus trick
and claiming the plates are stable. All they need is ongoing
twirling of the sticks. Such a slow drop in CO2, allowing a rise
above 600 ppm CO2e without any balancing AM, gives too much
impetus for dangerous tipping points to offer a reasonable path to
climate stability. Cutting the forcing from albedo and radiation
can provide a gradual climate landing path toward restoration of
Holocene stability, giving time for GGR to ramp up.
In short, net zero by 2050 gives a better than evens chance that by
2100 the temperature increase will not exceed 1.5degC with no or
limited (<0.1degC) overshoot. That's the justification for emissions
abatement. GGR is necessary to deliver the 'net' because we can't get
to 'zero emissions' in the foreseeable future. We don't need AM. So
sayeth 'the experts'.
* This analysis of whether we need AM begs the question of whether
we want AM. Governments should want AM. They should welcome
opportunity to prevent climate damage by restoring planetary
albedo, as a way to cooperate for international peace and
prosperity and stability. Safeguarding biodiversity, and
mitigating sea level rise, extreme weather and heat, are
objectives that albedo increase will support. GGR is not enough.
Perhaps the place to start is to explain what the IPCC and its cadre
of scientists have got so wrong.
* The politics of the IPCC process began from the assumption that
cutting emissions was the best way to mitigate climate change.
This presupposition has excluded geoengineering advocacy, such
that there has been a scientific failure to analyse or test
geoengineering models. It remains difficult to get serious
conversation about rival climate paths prioritising albedo in any
public forum.
For better or worse, the UNFCCC supported by its IPCC inputs, drives
global climate policy.
* Yes, and this means a UN study of geoengineering, as scotched by
Trump and the Saudis
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/18/us-and-saudi-arabia-blocking-regulation-of-geoengineering-sources-say>,
is urgent. The irony of this study rejection was that the fossil
fuel advocates thought discussion of geoengineering might harm
their business model, when in fact it is essential for them to
create a feasible transition strategy.
Without shifting them from their fixation with net zero by 2050, the
prospects of getting governments to get behind AM are probably close
to zero. They've only just woken up to the essential role to be
played by GGR in the net zero scenario, so getting them to abandon all
that in favour of AAM (_accelerated_ albedo management!) is going to
be quite a challenge.
* People have not woken up to the role of GGR, which has to be the
80 in the 80/20 Pareto balance with decarbonisation as the 20,
after AM has taken the edge off the risk. There is widespread
disquiet that NZB2050 is unworkable and lacks a critical path. I
think it is likely that conservative political parties will come
to see a focus on albedo as an attractive alternative climate
strategy, enabling a rapid switch away from the current IPCC
consensus.
How would you feel about a global cancellation of all fossil fuel
subsidies throughout the production and consumption chain by, say,
2025? That would put fossil fuels on a level playing field with
renewables. This could be done very easily and equitably. The $6tr/yr
<https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies> that
would be saved could be distributed back to households (on a per
household or per capita basis) to compensate them for the likely
increase in energy prices, but so as to be revenue neutral for
governments. Robert Chris
* Cancelling fossil fuel subsidies faces enormous political
obstacles and is highly disruptive. Removing subsidies by 2025
has big opportunity cost. Investing this political energy in
albedo enhancement would bring far better climate return. And ‘a
level playing field with renewables’ would do little to affect the
climate for decades, whereas AM can bring near-immediate results,
for example by regulating ocean surface temperature.
I'd welcome a substantive response to the points made in that post.
Also, with regard to the point about governments being led by the
IPCC, the next Assessment Report will not be for another 5 years at
least, so unless a way can be found to move international policy in
line with science emerging after AR6 but before AR7, there's little
reason to suppose that there'll be any imminent change from the net
zero by 2050 policy. Which means that for the foreseeable future
we're stuck with emissions abatement goals that are challenging to
meet, an unspecified amount of GGR and no AM.
* Great summary of the situation! I don’t think AM needs immediate
IPCC endorsement. Governments can agree on field trials such as
MCB in the Southern Ocean through processes such as suggested by
GESAMP <http://www.gesamp.org/work/groups/41> that will inform the
next IPCC assessment. In the meantime, techno-economic analysis
of the comparison between climate paths focused on albedo and
those focused on emissions and GGR would put the debate on a more
quantitative empirical basis.
As regards your comments on the probability of reaching a climate
change agreement being vanishingly small, why would that not also
apply to an agreement to deploy AM at climatic scale, or are you
suggesting that those with the capacity to undertake it, just get on
with it, without seeking international agreement?
* I’m not sure the probability of reaching a climate change
agreement is vanishingly small. After all, governments reached a
climate agreement in Paris, even if many had little intention of
honouring it.
* AM can be tested at regional level where interested governments
agree. Intergovernmental processes to manage scientific activities
in the Southern Ocean are well established and could provide
governance for no-regrets MCB field trials. The geopolitics of a
focus on cooling Antarctica is attractive, given the difficulty of
cooperative action in the Arctic.
The idea of AM being a key component of a comprehensive approach to
climate change dates back many years. In 1965 it was the only idea
on the table (report commissioned by President Johnson).
* A Shell blog presents this 1965 report to President Johnson -
https://blogs.shell.com/2013/03/22/1965geo/
More recently it has been presented as a means of capping the surface
temperature increase while emissions abatement and GGR take effect.
* It is not just capping surface temperature increase; AM can
refreeze the poles to reduce surface temperature, with numerous
co-benefits.
How much AM would be needed would clearly depend on how fast and deep
the emissions reductions and GGR growth were.
* The converse is also partly true: How much emissions reductions
and GGR growth would be needed would depend on how fast and deep
AM is implemented.
But certainly since the Royal Society report in 2009, it has been
recognised that AM cannot be a comprehensive 'solution' to climate change.
* I agree AM cannot be a comprehensive 'solution' to climate change.
Like a tourniquet, AM is an emergency response, requiring
follow-up with GHG cuts. Both are needed.
The fundamental problem here has little if anything to do with the
science and technology. We've known enough about the science for more
than three decades and if we'd started acting then, the technologies
then available would have been sufficient as a basis from which to get
the problem cracked. Procrastination and prevarication, particularly
the latter, have meant that the problem is now an order of magnitude
greater than it was in 1990 and that means that the remedies have to
be commensurately more powerful. That's very scary.
* Your comment here is based on flawed arithmetic. Committed
warming, not new emissions, has been the main cause of radiative
forcing since the Industrial Revolution. Zeroing emissions would
stop only the 2% increase in radiative forcing each year, leaving
the 98% of past forcing in place. Emission reduction can do little
about previously committed warming. In any case, the scale of
economic disruption involved in decarbonisation is so great that
imagining it could have happened faster is a counterfactual that
is open to challenge.
* I don’t find it scary that powerful remedies are needed. It is
possible to be optimistic about the potential for AM to anchor an
effective climate strategy.
We can argue about whether we need more emissions reductions or GGR or
AM, but at the moment we're doing precious little of any of them and,
at least from where I'm sitting, it doesn't look like that's going to
change any time soon.
* Climate politics suffers from a ‘learned helplessness’ due to the
view, as noted by Trump in his Paris withdrawal speech
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/02/full-text-of-trumps-speech-draconian-paris-accord-dumped>,
that current Paris pledges would barely cut the projected
temperature increase. Trump said “Even if the Paris agreement were
implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is
estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree Celsius
reduction in global temperature by the year 2100” compared to
business as usual. Discussion of albedo modification can be a
circuit breaker in this debate, putting options on a better
empirical footing.
* I will comment later on points below as this post is long enough.
Robert Tulip
