Greenhouse gas emissions might have already peaked | Hacker News Reader

Greenhouse gas emissions might have already peaked

vox.com

35 pointsdivbzero10 comments

Is anyone familiar with the methodology used by Climate Analytics to create this projection? I find it really hard to believe that there is a 70% chance that in 2024 the world will peak in GHG emissions when at the same time CO2 measurements show a clear straight line:

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

NOAA Research doesn't seem very positive either: https://research.noaa.gov/2024/04/05/no-sign-of-greenhouse-g...

Our current levels lead to accumulation. So if we release identical amounts every year from here on out, we will continue increasing amount of co2 in atmosphere.

Sorry the use of "peak" in the article and my comment implies a reduction right after (not a plateau):

> “We find there is a 70% chance that emissions start falling in 2024 if current clean technology growth trends continue and some progress is made to cut non-CO2 emissions,” authors wrote. “This would make 2023 the year of peak emissions.”

Yes, a reduction in yearly emissions. But that doesn't mean that the CO2 in the atmosphere suddenly disappears. We're still adding to it, just not as much as before (hopefully).

But that's the thing: if we are not adding as much as before then we should observe NOAAs chart curving, instead it still looks like a straight line (of course, it could also be that this reduction is so small that is not visible on the chart)

Nice to read a non doom and gloom article once in a while on climate.

"India, the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter, may see its emissions grow until 2045."

not another mention of the elephant in the room...

The other elephant is mentioned: "Last year, more solar panels were installed in China — the world’s largest carbon emitter — than the US has installed in its entire history."

And that says nothing about China's emissions, if e.g. they continue to build coal power plants.

Also frankly speculating about having hit a peak seems silly even when just looking at the addition of fossil power plants. Even if we ignore that all the manufacturing and mining that goes into producing the replacement technologies produces emissions, the interesting thing to look at would be how many fossil power plants are shut down, not how many renewable energy power plants are added to the mix.

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