For the past nearly three and a half decades governments have pushed the lie that reductions in anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gas (GHGs), referred to as “mitigation” have been Plan A to stop the Earth System tipping over into a period of abrupt and discontinuous climate change that will endanger modern human societies. The reality was that there were, and are, just too many entrenched interests that would lose very significant amounts of wealth and power if such a Plan A was implemented. As each year passed with another increase in anthropogenic GHG emissions, and a concomitant increase in atmospheric GHG concentrations, the speed and scale of the changes required for that Plan A became greater and greater; threatening even greater losses of wealth and power for the entrenched interests. Delay fed more resistance which fed more delay.
Now you may say “but emissions may actually fall in 2024 due to China!” and you would be correct, but the scale of that fall will be trivial versus the scale of yearly reductions actually required. A first important point is that a reduction in emissions only slows the rate of increase in atmospheric GHG concentrations, its as if we slightly reduced the flow of bath water into a bath tub. But there is also another issue, the drain from the bath is getting clogged up due to the effects of the increases in global temperatures and human actions; reducing the effectiveness of the Earth System carbon sinks. In some cases even changing sinks to sources, as with the Amazon Rain Forest; some water is now flowing into the bath from the drain. This increases even more the scale and scope of GHG emission reductions required. An extremely worrying possibility is that those sinks become net overall sources on a global level, which would mean that atmospheric concentrations of GHGs would keep increasing even if all anthropogenic emissions were removed.
At the same time we are seeing that parts of the Earth System are much more sensitive to climate change than previously assumed. An excellent example is that of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, where changes are tending to support theses that such ice sheets may be prone to rapid deterioration once a given point is reached. Not good for beach front property, especially in the Northern Hemisphere.
As GHG emissions were not reduced governments, and the fossil fuel industry, proposed the chimera of carbon capture and storage (CCS) or even carbon capture use and storage (CCUS). The large-scale use of such technologies would be a boon for the fossil fuel industry as it requires many of the same technologies that are used in that industry. This avenue has been an utter failure, better known for the shovelling of subsidies to the fossil fuel industry than any significant capture of carbon dioxide. All global carbon capture plants combined currently capture 0.1% of anthropogenic carbon emissions. And that’s carbon, not methane - the levels in the atmosphere of which have been increasing more rapidly in the past decade.
When even a mainstream media outlet like DW is questioning the viability of carbon capture you know that it is in severe trouble. Of course, DW has to ignore all the evidence and try to paint a rosy picture at the end; that’s the mainstream media for you.
So, if Plan A is not reducing anthropogenic GHG emissions, and its not carbon capture, what can it be? Geo-engineering of course! How else will industrialized nations be able to continue on their fossil fuel energy binge, and the current wealth that is based on future fossil-fuel driven growth be protected? So now we see more and more news of geo-engineering projects, and scientists calling for them. What was supposed to be the contingency plan is now Plan A.
From plans to refreeze the Arctic ice to partially blocking the Sun or fertilizing the oceans; its even being pushed on the pages of the Financial Times. Of course the FT has to add some blather to cover the fact that this is the new Plan A
For this gamble to work, some firm principles are required. SRM should not be regarded as a replacement for cutting emissions and should only be considered after thorough research and careful governance.
Yeah, bullshit! Of course it will be regarded as such, perhaps not publicly at least. Just imagine if Solar Radiation Management was put in place and it dropped global temperatures by half a centigrade, would the politicians and corporations then feel any pressure to really cut emissions? They don’t now, even without SRM.
Now about that reduction in Chinese GHG emissions. China has an extremely successful industrial policy aimed at a technology upgrading and domestic control of the supply chains that capture the majority of the productive value add. Less producing phone for an Apple who takes the vast majority of the value add for itself in the US, and more a BYD or Huawei where the value add stays in China. The whole “green” sector of electrified transport, solar panels, wind turbines, smart electricity grids, and nuclear power etc. has offered the chance for China to leapfrog and bypass its competitor nations in controlling those supply chains and the related intellectual property; and China has leapt at the opportunity. In addition, China is highly motivated to both reduce local air pollution (coal-fired power stations, coal-fired industry and space heating, and internal combustion engines) and to remove its dependence on seaborne oil imports. Both of these objectives are aided by a move to low-carbon energy generation and usage.
With the usual panache, China has massively outdone the West in the green sectors and is now starting to see an actual reduction in GHG emissions. The rate of reduction will increase as China’s green move continues to gather pace, and China will be the world’s green energy leader and concomitantly a climate change mitigation leader as well.
But even such reductions will not follow a path of reducing global emissions by up to 10% year; a path required to limit the possibility of catastrophic climate change. So all roads lead back to geo-engineering. The next UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in November and the one after will start being focused on Solar Radiation Management (SRM) as a relatively cost effective way of reducing global temperatures; as the world’s capitalist elites increasingly gain consensus on this. The move to delegitimize anyone in opposition to this still risky technology, which will change global weather patterns, has already started with the New York Times (all the establishment lies fit to print) already blaring out:
Conspiracy Theorists and Vaccine Skeptics Have a New Target: Geoengineering
Around the country, people with a deep distrust of government want to preemptively ban the use of aerosols to reduce heat from the sun.
Get ready for government ministers, “experts”, and industry leaders pushing the “inevitability” of having to use Solar Radiation Management, which will require a global level of oversight and cooperation; while many of the same people beat the drums of global conflict. The US establishment consensus is still being solidified, with the usual foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Kellogg etc.) and think tanks (Carnegie, Brookings, Aspen, CSIS, Atlantic Council, Council of Foreign Relations etc.) acting as consensus building facilitators. Here is part of the consensus sausage being made, in this case by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (a very Orwellian title) a few days ago:
And here by the Council of Foreign Relations in 2022. You will notice how up beat both of the videos are, and how much they push the “of course SRM would not be used just to allow us not to reduce emissions!” line.
These videos represent the discussions that are happening behind closed doors as such groups pull together members of the oligarchy, politicians, state functionaries, media leaders and other corporate leaders. Solar Radiation Management allows the oligarchy to protect their wealth by facilitating ongoing fossil fuel driven growth. With the failure of CCS, SRM becomes the oligarchies Plan A; and therefore our Plan A. As the Economist put it “Solar geoengineering is becoming a respectable idea”, or at least the oligarchy have decided that it should now become a respectable idea after the CCS gambit failed.
The problem is capitalism- a mode of production in which a tiny elite, amazingly but undoubtedly uttterly indifferent to the effects of their actions on the bulk of humanity or even the planet itself, organise society in the interests of their own greed: capitalism exists to make profits for capital, not to produce food or raiment, to provide employment or to prevent catastrophes.
The question of how to address the threats to our environment can only begin with our taking control over the economy in all its aspects and directing it in the interests of earth and its inhabitants.
It doesn't matter what 'our' governments, academics or scientists propose, what matters is that they begin by assuming the preservation of a capitalist system. Suffice it to say that regardless of the measures that capitalist controlled governments may take to mitigate them the degeneration and eventual destruction of the environment is haed wired into the system.
Capitalist industry began with the holocaust of working class lives that allowed the accumulation of great profits by devouring the unreplaced labour of, inter alia, young children, its entire history has been a succession of acts aimed at impoverishing through the exploitation of human labour and natural resources without any attempt to understand or control the impact.
Our first need is to seek to understand, through scientific enquiries uncontrolled by capitalists, what the problems facing us are and how best to solve them. This cannot be done in a world in which those who cause the problems control not only the governing structures which will have to be employed to deal with those problems but also the intellectual infrastructure which is needed to assist in establishing the truth about what requires to be done in the interests not of tiny cliques of capitalists blinded by greed and their apologists but of humanity within its sustaining environment. We have to choose between capitalists and insects. And the choice is very easy- the insects play an important role in the ecosystem, the capitalists do not.
Is anyone analyzing the emissions produced by recent military operations, Roger? I think there's a compelling argument for peace around climate change, but I haven't found great information on this.