Net Zero Angers Me

Net Zero Emissions is mostly used by people who haven't got a clue as to what it is and what it will do, but they use it like it is some sort of magic that will fix this climate chaos. So here are some vital clarifications.

Emissions are a mix of all sorts of mostly gases, but the only one that really matters is carbon dioxide. Methane is second on the list but a long way back as it is growing at a much slower rate and there is a massively less of it. So carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and forests is what matters.

Then we have Net Zero vs Neutrality. These are both the same globally, but for each country Net Zero ignores exported emissions. Neutrality includes all those emissions produced when manufacturing imported goods, Net Zero doesn't. So for the rich and powerful nations Net Zero allows them to look better when actually doing worse. Closing down the Port Talbot steel furnaces and replacing that steel with imports is a classic example. Imported steel will still cause emissions from foreign furnaces, plus emissions from transporting the steel to the UK. Net Zero emissions goes down for the UK while emissions Neutrality goes up. UK politicians don't mind that global emissions have been increased because UK Net Zero emissions have fallen: a political trick.

The other trick is to pretend that achieving Net Zero requires difficult and expensive human run capture of atmospheric carbon dioxide. It doesn't. Human activity has increased carbon dioxide levels from about 280 ppm to 420 ppm. This is so different from the preindustrial stable levels that carbon dioxide is being naturally sequestered at a far greater rate. This extra removal amounts to about half the emissions caused by human activity. In other words, the natural world by storing extra carbon dioxide in the oceans and slightly increased plant growth is doing half the job of reaching Zero emissions, never mind Net Zero. Net Zero can be reached by cutting global emissions in half. If we go further than half then we move into Net Negative territory and start reducing levels of carbon dioxide, which reduces temperatures and starts to fix the climate crisis.

And in case you haven't noticed, global Net Zero only balances what goes up with what comes down, so what is already up there stays up there. In other words achieving Net Zero globally keeps all that increased temperature and climate chaos in place. It doesn't fix anything. It only stops it from getting any worse. Which is why the world needs Global Net Negative emissions.

Fixing Climate in Plain Language

Reversing Climate Change isn’t easy, or we’d already have done it. After years of sifting through the science, turning raw data into climate models, and rethinking basics: I’ve concluded that we need to look at the problem from a completely different perspective. We need to turn climate change on its head. We need to change our focus away from limiting emissions by people and concentration on limiting fossil fuel production by companies.

If fossil fuels stay in the ground they never become emissions. So let’s ration the global total of carbon extracted by big business. This carbon ration would have to start at current levels and be reduced steadily to sustainable levels as quickly as possible, while still leaving time for alternative forms of energy to be developed.

Note that this carbon ration or quota has to be a global total because we are fixing a global problem. The question then becomes how does the carbon quota get allocated to those big businesses? The rule has to be that no business is allowed to extract carbon from the environment without having an appropriate matching amount of quota. The big businesses will have to acquire a tonne of carbon extraction quota before they can extract a matching tonne of real carbon. So this quota has value.

My proposal is that big carbon extraction businesses would have to buy this quota on the open market. If they can afford to buy quota they can extract carbon. If they can’t buy matching quota then they can’t extract carbon.

Obviously this proposal will have to be agreed by all countries and appropriate laws adopted by them. But why should countries bother? They will want to because they will be allocated the quota free, which they can then sell on the open market. Countries stand to make a lot of money.

I suggest that countries be allocated their split of the quota based on their population. This would not only be the fairest way of allocating quota, it will also move wealth to developing countries.

Climate Science Split

 It seems to me that respected climate scientists are split into two camps. Am I wrong?

I think of them as Old School and New School. 

The Old School says that because CO₂ (Carbon Dioxide) does not react in our atmosphere with any other gases, all the CO₂ added by burning fossil fuels stays up there nearly forever. This means that there is a fixed budget of how much CO₂ can be produced before the blanket of CO₂ gets thick enough to raise temperature above the Paris Agreement limits. The speed at which CO₂ is added doesn’t matter, only the total added. Hence the fixed Carbon Budget.

The New School says that if that was the end of the story a fixed budget would be true, but there is Natural Sequestration that needs to be added, or rather subtracted, from the equation.

To use the well-worn bathtub analogy. The Old School says that there is only a fixed amount of CO₂ that can be added before the bathtub overflows. While the New School says that the bathtub has a drain, and the bath plug isn’t blocking it. The drain is only removing half the amount of CO₂ being added by the taps, but this has a dramatic effect on how quickly the bathtub fills. It also means that if the CO₂ taps are turned off then the bathtub will start emptying and drop to the old level.

This is a simplification since the drain doesn’t quite work like that and will not work as efficiently in future. The Natural Sequestration drain is roughly half CO₂ removal being by ocean absorption, the other half by plants. Both of these mechanisms will probably become less efficient, but not stop completely.

This split has resulted in both versions being included in the IPCC Assessment Reports. It also seems to have resulted in Climate Change models some of which include Natural Sequestration, but some don’t. Since Natural Sequestration amounts to an amount just over half of annual CO₂ emissions, this is a major omission.

Deadly Disinformation - The Lethal Climate Lie of Net Zero Carbon

 

Net Zero Carbon will destroy the planet. Not because it is better than doing nothing, but because we think it is enough. By thinking that it is worth striving for we don’t question the fundamentals.

It is like driving down the motorway in a borrowed car that has been rigged. We think that the accelerator and brake will allow us to control things in an emergency, but… When we take our foot off the accelerator the car carries on going at the same speed, and the brake does nothing. There is trouble ahead on this road and we can do nothing to avoid it. We will crash and die.

Net Zero Carbon is exactly the same. We are fooled into thinking that this difficult global objective is worth striving for because it is sufficient to save us. It won’t. Net Zero Carbon is the point where greenhouse gas emissions are balanced by sequestration. Emissions minus sequestration equals zero. Everything stops. But it stops at a new high level of overheating. If we are lucky that will be only +2°C, (the better +1.5°C is already lost). But that new elevated overheating stays. It is locked in. That is the accelerator pedal which keeps the car travelling just as fast. There are no brakes, so overheating still carries on trashing the planet. Ice melts, seas rise, storms, droughts and wildfires rage. And there is no way to put the demons back in the box.

Only Net Negative Carbon applies the brake. If more carbon is sequestered than emitted then greenhouse gas levels falls, as does overheating.

But everything I hear on the media only talks about Net Zero Carbon. That’s because Big Oil lobbyists have polluted the Paris Agreement and COPs as well as our atmosphere. The real science has been muzzled. And that will drive the planet we’ve borrowed to destruction.

Climate Correction 80:20

 The outline of a new piece I'm working on. What's missing?

The 80:20 Rule of Thumb

Correcting the climate is a huge project that no one can plan out completely, but the 80:20 rule of thumb applies and keeps on turning up in my exploration of solutions. The rule of thumb that any project can be 80% completed with 20% of the total effort, but the remaining 20% will take 80% of the effort fits in many ways. This paper probably covers only 20% of what needs to be done, but probably solves 80% of the problem.

Define the Problem

The 80:20 ratio crops up again. It turns out that when all the contributing factors producing the overheating and stressing the climate are compared, about 80% is down to just carbon dioxide.

Why Can’t Current Policies Work?

Flawed Objectives

The objectives of the Paris Agreement are fundamentally flawed because they lack ambition. They do not aim to return temperature rise and climate to what it used to be before industrialisation. The Net Zero Carbon objective will balance carbon dioxide levels at a new high level and a new high temperature. Even if the more difficult +1.5°C target was attained, it will be maintained. So the ice in Antarctica and Greenland will still carry on melting which will eventually flood all coastal cities. The objective should be more ambitious and say that the temperature increase should peak at +2°C (preferably +1.5°C) and then decrease back to the stable preindustrial levels by Net Negative Carbon.

Disunity

The climate change problem is global so needs a global solution. Current outcomes from the various COPs trying to stick to the Paris Agreement objectives fragment global efforts into national efforts. And the brutal fact is that each nation has to compete with its rivals with the winner being the nation still using the most fossil fuel.

State the Objective

We will return the global climate to preindustrial ranges. That is the climate that has been relatively stable for about 10,000 years, allowing human civilisations to thrive. Part of this objective would be to stop global overheating peaking above the Paris Agreement of +2°C and preferably below +1.5°C.

Copy What Works

Our ozone layer used to have holes poked in it by CFCs. This would have allowed ultraviolet radiation to beat down unfiltered, causing a lot more than deeper suntans.

Plan the Solution

80% turns out to be roughly the amount our carbon dioxide need to be reduced by.

Where Does This Get Us?

This will get us beyond Net Zero Carbon into Net Negative Carbon territory. But even by 2100 we still don’t get back down to preindustrial levels of carbon dioxide. For that we need another 20%, which will probably take another 80% of effort.

Geoengineering

This is tempting, but dangerous. Imagine a seesaw or a balance, with all the weight of the imbalance caused by excess carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases on one side, and geoengineering on the other side. If the pressure from geoengineering is caused by a process that is temporary, such as pumping gases or aerosols into the atmosphere, that pumping has to continue forever. Because if geoengineering ever stops the effect of the greenhouse gases will be uncontrolled and will rapidly push temperatures to dangerous levels.

There is another example with rivers. We have found that the engineering of rivers by straightening them has caused flooding problems. To stop flooding more engineering has been required to store floodwater. So these days rivers are having the old meandering riverbeds restored so that the natural processes can turn the river into a self-managing stable system.

XR Disruptive Action or Not?

Obviously the global problem needs a global solution. That requires diplomacy but even more so, it requires political will. China would actually be one of the first to climb on board as they are taking climate change seriously: many would say not seriously enough. XR's first demand is to Tell The Truth. This is because the Big Oil camp are still peddling lies and distractions. The various COPs trying to implement the Paris Agreement are battles between climate activists and Big Oil lobbyists. They should be following the science, but that gets obscured. The current agreement is that each country will do what they can to achieve Net Zero emissions by whatever date they choose. The current plan is not working: it never would. Even if achieved, Net Zero leaves temperatures elevated and ice melting, so we need the target to be Net Negative.

Then comes the other bit of truth that is hidden. Natural Sequestration removed a lot of CO2, slightly more than half of what we emit. So Net Negative is achievable by reducing emissions to somewhat more than half. I say 75% others say 80%. Obviously not immediately but in a steady managed way.

Then the scheme that worked before needs to be copied. CFC production was phased out to save the ozone layer. Similarly fossil fuel production needs to be phased down to sustainable levels. When done globally country won't be pitted against country in keeping fossil fuels going.

All this needs political commitment, which needs minds to be changed. Disruptive protests do at least stop people ignoring the issue and pretending that everything that needs to be done is being done. It isn't.

IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report

 The IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report is due to be issued tomorrow. 

I predict that it will not say the following headline truths that desperately need to be understood.

1) Neither Net Zero Carbon nor the tougher Carbon Neutrality will stop the ice melting. If achieved they will leave any Carbon Dioxide we have added to the atmosphere up there. So average temperatures will stay at the elevated level that is melting Greenland and Antarctica. So we need to achieve Net Negative Carbon aka Carbon Negativity in order to reduce Carbon Dioxide level back to near normal.

2) Trying to control emissions isn't working and is highly unlikely to ever work, because it is the wrong end of the supply chain. We should be concentrating on controlling, rationing carbon extraction: limiting the global total of carbon extracted and burned. This ration needs to be steadily reduced down to sustainable levels.

3) Because currently the oceans and land naturally sequester about half the Carbon Dioxide we emit, the sustainable level of globally extracted carbon is not zero, but about a quarter of current levels. This is a level that fossil fuel and Big Oil should be able to live with. They might even increase profits because supply and demand will increase prices.

Martin Corney