One factor pushing against climate change being a >0.1% existential risk is that >6 degrees of warming would most probably take 150 years+ to happen because the oceans would absorb a large portion of the warming generated. By this time, it’s plausible that we will develop artificial superintelligence, which will have (a) killed us already or (b) will enable us to solve the climate change problem by developing new forms of clean energy and carbon dioxide removal technology. Indeed, we are likely to get the tech mentioned in (b) even if we don’t develop artificial superintelligence. This suggests that inferring from estimates of climate senstivity overstates the existential risk of global warming because it includes warming over 100 year+ timescales.
This suggests most of the risk comes from abrupt runaway irreversible warming. It’s not clear what the risk of that is.
One factor pushing against climate change being a >0.1% existential risk is that >6 degrees of warming would most probably take 150 years+ to happen because the oceans would absorb a large portion of the warming generated. By this time, it’s plausible that we will develop artificial superintelligence, which will have (a) killed us already or (b) will enable us to solve the climate change problem by developing new forms of clean energy and carbon dioxide removal technology. Indeed, we are likely to get the tech mentioned in (b) even if we don’t develop artificial superintelligence. This suggests that inferring from estimates of climate senstivity overstates the existential risk of global warming because it includes warming over 100 year+ timescales.
This suggests most of the risk comes from abrupt runaway irreversible warming. It’s not clear what the risk of that is.