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Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Carbon Dioxide Emissions Growing More Slowly Than Models Predict


In a Nature magazine 
commentary, 
Zeke Hausfather, 
of The Breakthrough 
Institute, and Glen Peters, 
of the CICERO Center 
for International Climate 
Research, argued that 
fast CO2 growth scenarios
are too often used, when
they re not appropriate, 
for climate projections.

Four drivers 
of CO2 growth are:
(1) 
population growth, 

(2) 
per capita GDP, 

(3) energy intensity 
of the economy, and 

(4) CO2 intensity 
of energy consumption. 

These four factors
are the Kaya identity, 
named after Japanese 
scientist Yoichi Kaya.

Most IPCC CO2 growth 
scenarios  have over-
projected global CO2 
emissions from fossil
fuels.





The divergence between 
real-world observations, 
and IPCC baseline scenarios,
is also expected to widen 
over the next few decades.

Carbon dioxide emissions 
are NOT growing 
as fast as expected 
mainly because 
of  the boom 
in natural gas,
from fracking,
making coal less
competitive.



Many IPCC scenarios 
over-project global 
per-capita GDP growth.

In the real world,
economic growth 
is low in many
developed nations, 
because of a 
low birth rate,
which slows the
labor force growth.



Climate models 
have never 
corresponded 
with the real world.

Yet public policies
are based on them.

That makes no sense !