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Humans have caused 1.5 °C of long-term global warming according to new estimates

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399 points gmays | 2 comments | 17 Nov 24 18:49 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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abdullahkhalids ◴[17 Nov 24 19:21 UTC] No.42166327[source]▶
The last IPCC report estimates that to limit warming to 2C, humans can only emit at most 1150 GtCO2 (at 67% likelihood) [1].

There are 8.2 billion humans, so about 140tCO2/person left on average. If we assume that we get to net zero by 2050, that means the average person can emit about 5.4tCO2/person/year from today to 2050 (hitting 0tCO2/person/year in 2050). This is what emissions look like currently [2]

    Top 5 countries > 10m population
    Saudi Arabia  22.1t 
    United Arab Emirates 21.6t  
    Australia            14.5t 
    United States  14.3t
    Canada          14.0t
    Some others
    China           8.4t
    Europe 6.7t
    World average 4.7t
    Lower-middle-income countries of 1.6t
    Low-income countries 0.3t
Guess what's going to happen and who is going to suffer, despite not doing anything.

[1] Page 82 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6...

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics

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zahlman ◴[17 Nov 24 20:46 UTC] No.42167078[source]▶
>This is what emissions look like currently [2]

So, the world average is currently below the ration, and thus as long as we're actually headed for that net zero we're going to be in reasonably good shape?

>Guess what's going to happen and who is going to suffer, despite not doing anything.

Oh, this is actually about calling people bad because of what country they live in, never mind where the innovation is going to come from that would actually make net zero possible (assuming it actually is).

Carry on, then, I guess.

Russia is not far behind that top 5 list, at 12.5t/person/year, by the way.

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1. teamonkey ◴[17 Nov 24 21:49 UTC] No.42167626[source]▶
2 degrees C is not a good outcome for the world, it’s just a moderately aggressive target that we might be able to hit. The world will still be changed significantly if we do manage to hit the 2C target (which isn’t a given). Working to reduce our output more before then would certainly be better.
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2. zahlman ◴[17 Nov 24 22:09 UTC] No.42167788[source]▶
I mean "good" in the sense of long-term achievement of reasonably high quality of life for humanity, without a collapse in human population. (My understanding is that if there are no catastrophes, the current trajectory is expected to level out somewhere around 11 billion. Of course, if we also happen as a species to make radical progress on life extension, that will also have to weigh in to long-term changes in reproductive behaviour, etc.)

Of course we should all do what we can. (I eat less meat than I used to, and don't drive.)