2a. On China, I don’t think population size matters for the carbon intensity of gdp—that should mostly be accounted for in the population parameter. agree that gas and reneawables are cheaper and that might be a reason that emerging economies won’t use as much coal.
b. It doesn’t seem to matter that much that strong climate policy exists in some places, e.g. Sweden. What seems to matter is whether there has been a notable change in global climate policy over the last 5 years that renders just extrapolating from the last 30 years especially unreliable. I don’t see anything that would justify that.
c. Yeah that’s fair. renewables a re a reason to think that intensity might decline below trend.
d. The places where we might get $50 per tonne carbon prices are less than 10% of global emissions to 2050, on current trends. historical experience suggests that some extremely wealthy left wing countries might impose high carbon prices in the next 30 years. Unfortunately, this won’t have much of an effect on global emissions. there might be some places that impose high carbon prices, but they will cover a small fraction of emissions, just following the trend of the last 5, 10 or 30 years.
e. I don’t think they assume zero political coordination. Political coordination would increase on the trend it has been doing over the last 5, 10 or 30 years.
4. It might be that there is cheap negative emissions, but this doesn’t seem to me in the most likely range of scenarios (barring ocean fertilisation or something being good, which I don’t know much about). It’s worth pointing out that median carbon intensity ends up being pretty low on the estimate I give—it is a quarter of carbon intensity today, and the the upper end of the 95th percentile is a tenth of carbon intensity today. This is with climate action proceeding at the same dismal pace as it has over the last 30 years.
5. It would be weird to model geoengineering in this model. It seems to make much more sense to think about geoengineering as one of the solution tools you could use given where emissions might go. If you start thinking about the probability of solar geo in this model, the emissions wouldn’t matter anyway, the temperature would. If you think there is a 10% chance of solar geo, then you would have to model at 10% chance of there being 2 degrees of warming. I think it is much easier to think about solar geo separately from this model.
Re 2a, China, what matters is the degree to which it has influenced global average carbon intensity. It is difficult to think of an event as impactful on global average carbon intensity than the boom of the second largest country population wise fueled by coal, at least as long as the estimate of carbon intensity is global (population and gdp/capita matter here as time increasing weights for carbon intensity).
Re 2b, the state of strong local climate policy matters insofar as it gives reason for global carbon intensity decline going forward and the initiatives of California and EU countries on electric mobility and renewables have been very decisive changes begun the past 20 years but with most of their impact in the future.
Re 4, it seems pretty likely to me that we will figure out some negative emissions options that are cheap, there will be strong reasons to try,
there are many natural and technological approaches and there is still time for progress on that. But can’t offer you more than that as justification, I guess I just have a different prior for that.
Re 5, this might be more about semantics then. I agree it would not be natural to build this into the model (though the way you suggest would work) but I also think that for scenarios with more than 2 or 3 degrees of warming expectations about geoengineering will drive a significant part of the answer to your question of how hot it will get.
2a. On China, I don’t think population size matters for the carbon intensity of gdp—that should mostly be accounted for in the population parameter. agree that gas and reneawables are cheaper and that might be a reason that emerging economies won’t use as much coal.
b. It doesn’t seem to matter that much that strong climate policy exists in some places, e.g. Sweden. What seems to matter is whether there has been a notable change in global climate policy over the last 5 years that renders just extrapolating from the last 30 years especially unreliable. I don’t see anything that would justify that.
c. Yeah that’s fair. renewables a re a reason to think that intensity might decline below trend.
d. The places where we might get $50 per tonne carbon prices are less than 10% of global emissions to 2050, on current trends. historical experience suggests that some extremely wealthy left wing countries might impose high carbon prices in the next 30 years. Unfortunately, this won’t have much of an effect on global emissions. there might be some places that impose high carbon prices, but they will cover a small fraction of emissions, just following the trend of the last 5, 10 or 30 years.
e. I don’t think they assume zero political coordination. Political coordination would increase on the trend it has been doing over the last 5, 10 or 30 years.
4. It might be that there is cheap negative emissions, but this doesn’t seem to me in the most likely range of scenarios (barring ocean fertilisation or something being good, which I don’t know much about). It’s worth pointing out that median carbon intensity ends up being pretty low on the estimate I give—it is a quarter of carbon intensity today, and the the upper end of the 95th percentile is a tenth of carbon intensity today. This is with climate action proceeding at the same dismal pace as it has over the last 30 years.
5. It would be weird to model geoengineering in this model. It seems to make much more sense to think about geoengineering as one of the solution tools you could use given where emissions might go. If you start thinking about the probability of solar geo in this model, the emissions wouldn’t matter anyway, the temperature would. If you think there is a 10% chance of solar geo, then you would have to model at 10% chance of there being 2 degrees of warming. I think it is much easier to think about solar geo separately from this model.
Re 2a, China, what matters is the degree to which it has influenced global average carbon intensity. It is difficult to think of an event as impactful on global average carbon intensity than the boom of the second largest country population wise fueled by coal, at least as long as the estimate of carbon intensity is global (population and gdp/capita matter here as time increasing weights for carbon intensity).
Re 2b, the state of strong local climate policy matters insofar as it gives reason for global carbon intensity decline going forward and the initiatives of California and EU countries on electric mobility and renewables have been very decisive changes begun the past 20 years but with most of their impact in the future.
Re 4, it seems pretty likely to me that we will figure out some negative emissions options that are cheap, there will be strong reasons to try, there are many natural and technological approaches and there is still time for progress on that. But can’t offer you more than that as justification, I guess I just have a different prior for that.
Re 5, this might be more about semantics then. I agree it would not be natural to build this into the model (though the way you suggest would work) but I also think that for scenarios with more than 2 or 3 degrees of warming expectations about geoengineering will drive a significant part of the answer to your question of how hot it will get.