A better argument against climate change as an EA cause is basically that climate change is solving itself in this century, with clean energy in the entire world by the end of the century nearly guaranteed due to Capitalism (specifically, solar/wind/batteries) at 2C, which is far less of a problem than any GCR. 2C definitely is a problem for moral reasons, but it is very unlikely that it will get to a GCR state.
FIrstly, generally roughly 3C is considered the likely warming if policies continue as they are,not the 2C that you claim. If the world achieves decarbonisation leading to 550PPM (in line with current policies, although 3C rather than the 2C you claim), there is still a fat tail risk, and in fact there is about 10% probability of 6C warming, due to our remaining uncertainty of ECS. This doesn’t meaningfully account for tipping points either, which if we got such warming we would be very likely to hit. If you want to read more on this, either read Wagner & Weitzmann 2015 (its a little old but still very relevant) or just read some of the literature on fat tailed climate risks. 10% chance of above 6C in a very plausible scenario seems an unacceptably high risk. This doesn’t even account for the possibility(although small, nonetheless very far from non-negligable) that we end up following an RCP8.5 pathway, which would be considerably more devastating.
Even if we do end up reaching the agreed upon target of roughly 450PPM (2C levels of CO2 concentrations), there is still a 5% chance of 4 degrees warming and a 1% chance of 5 degrees warming. |The fat tails really magtter (data from Quiggin 2017)
Moreover, to suggest 2C is “very unlikely” to lead to a GCR state perhaps somewhat ignores some of the problems I say in the above response, that the chief issues of climate change are its increase in societal vulnerabilities, possibility of triggering cascading failure, and of converting civilisational collapse to irreversible civilisational collapse. Obviously a lot of this rests on what probabilities you mean; for instyance, if you mean “very unlikely” in the IPCC sense that would imply 0-10% chance, which seems awfully high. I may put 2C being highly significant in leading to a GCR in roughly 1% territory, but certainlyt not terretory that it can be ignored, although I do think most of the GCR risk comes from heavy tailed scenarios detailed above
A better argument against climate change as an EA cause is basically that climate change is solving itself in this century, with clean energy in the entire world by the end of the century nearly guaranteed due to Capitalism (specifically, solar/wind/batteries) at 2C, which is far less of a problem than any GCR. 2C definitely is a problem for moral reasons, but it is very unlikely that it will get to a GCR state.
There are various problems with this.
FIrstly, generally roughly 3C is considered the likely warming if policies continue as they are,not the 2C that you claim. If the world achieves decarbonisation leading to 550PPM (in line with current policies, although 3C rather than the 2C you claim), there is still a fat tail risk, and in fact there is about 10% probability of 6C warming, due to our remaining uncertainty of ECS. This doesn’t meaningfully account for tipping points either, which if we got such warming we would be very likely to hit. If you want to read more on this, either read Wagner & Weitzmann 2015 (its a little old but still very relevant) or just read some of the literature on fat tailed climate risks. 10% chance of above 6C in a very plausible scenario seems an unacceptably high risk. This doesn’t even account for the possibility(although small, nonetheless very far from non-negligable) that we end up following an RCP8.5 pathway, which would be considerably more devastating.
Even if we do end up reaching the agreed upon target of roughly 450PPM (2C levels of CO2 concentrations), there is still a 5% chance of 4 degrees warming and a 1% chance of 5 degrees warming. |The fat tails really magtter (data from Quiggin 2017)
Moreover, to suggest 2C is “very unlikely” to lead to a GCR state perhaps somewhat ignores some of the problems I say in the above response, that the chief issues of climate change are its increase in societal vulnerabilities, possibility of triggering cascading failure, and of converting civilisational collapse to irreversible civilisational collapse. Obviously a lot of this rests on what probabilities you mean; for instyance, if you mean “very unlikely” in the IPCC sense that would imply 0-10% chance, which seems awfully high. I may put 2C being highly significant in leading to a GCR in roughly 1% territory, but certainlyt not terretory that it can be ignored, although I do think most of the GCR risk comes from heavy tailed scenarios detailed above