Transition to renewable energy

[Jamie in Chile]

I read through today's IPCC summary, well the 40 page summary for policymakers, not the thousands (!) of pages in the full report.

They have the total temperature increase so far at 1.1C
of which about 0.5C has come from methane (although could be 0.3C or 0.8C)
and about 1C has come from carbon dioxide (although could be 0.5 or 1.25C)
and about minus 0.4C (although could be double that or zero) has come from a cooling affect of aerosols, especially sulphur dioxide

This is covered here: There’s Already Enough Greenhouse Gas in the Air to Heat the Planet by 1.5°C

My main takeaway from today's report is that it's just a confirmation of previous scientific findings

I couldn't find one single really big change

And the situation is neither substantially more positive nor more negative than we would have judged yesterday....

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Climate change: Curbing methane emissions will 'buy us time' is a short, easy to read article on the methane question.

I've thought about the recent IPCC report a little more and I think perhaps the key news is that the amount of scientific certainty has increased. Scientists are now more confident that x amount of CO2 will lead to y amount of warming. i.e. the margin for error on y has decreased.

This means that limiting warming to only about 1.5C is less likely than ever.

But it also means that the scenarios of runaway climate change leading to billions of people dying and civilization collapsing are less likely as well.

See here for more:

Diagnosing Earth: the science behind the IPCC’s upcoming climate report

The first assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change in eight years will sound the alarm on soaring temperatures, rising seas and extreme weather.

www.nature.com

 

[Lou]

This means that limiting warming to only about 1.5C is less likely than ever.

I would put that in the bad news category.