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

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

> that means the average person can emit about 5.4tCO2/person/year from here on out. This is what emissions look like currently

Using a world average target number and then presenting a list that leads with world outliers is misleading. This is the kind of statistical sleight of hand that climate skeptics seize upon to dismiss arguments.

The world average is currently under the target number:

> World average 4.7t

I think you meant to imply that the CO2 emissions of poor countries were going to catch up to other countries, but I don’t think it’s that simple. The global rollout of solar power, battery storage, and cheap EVs is exceeding expectations, for example.

I don’t want to downplay the severity of the situation, but I don’t think this type of fatalistic doomerism is helping. In my experience with people from different walks of life, it’s this type of doomerism that turns them off of the topic entirely.

I believe the causation runs the other way. The IPCC was founded in 1988, when CO2 emissions were 22 gigatons per year. Nearly four decades later it's 40 gt/y, and continuing to rise.

Doomerism is the reaction to our utter failure to even pretend to try. It did not cause that failure. Nor are people looking at the data and going, "yeah, I ought to do something, but people on Hacker News were gloomy so I'm going to buy a bigger SUV instead." EVs and solar and suchlike are much, much, much too little and much, much, much too late.

Doomerism doesn't help, except in the extremely limited sense of helping someone express their frustration. But it also isn't hurting because we'd be doing exactly the same nothing if they were cheerful.

Global warming will cause suffering, but extreme poverty was worse for billions than any projections from 2.0C above baseline. The global population grow by 3 billion people since 1988 yet extreme poverty is way down.

What nobody talks about is there’s not enough oil and natural gas left to miss 2C by much. At current consumption rates we run out of both in ~50-60 years. Coal isn’t competitive with renewables and as soon as we stop pumping hydrocarbons the associated influx of Methane also stops. So we’re almost guaranteed to miss 2.5C of global warming, and stopping at 2C is likely.

So congratulations humanity, all that money spent on R&D instead of directly cutting emissions without any solid alternatives actually worked!

Humans can be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.

Except we actually did do the right thing.

US CO2 emissions in 2007 peaked at 6,016 million metric tons before consistently falling since down to 4,807 in 2023.

Per capita numbers are even better, but everyone assumes its from imports seemingly ignoring the massive reduction in coal use and vastly improved efficiency of just about everything. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon...

Oh, I agree on this. People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards. New technology is the way to make people's lives better while also reducing global warming.

I just got back from a off-grid island here in New Zealand - 20 years ago, generators were everywhere and as soon as it got dark you'd hear nothing but the buzzing of running them all around you. Now there is solar everywhere and it's completely silent.

>Oh, I agree on this. People were never going to accept, nor IMO should they have, a massive reduction in their living standards.

I don't even think a massive reduction is necessary, though. Just stop driving, and your carbon footprint shrinks massively. I bike everywhere, and I don't consider it a sacrifice at all. Obviously, there still needs to be commensurate increases in funding for public transit to match the decrease in driving, but most people would still save money by not having to buy gas anymore. Really, I think that living an eco-friendly life would mean improving life, not worsening it.

You not driving requires other people to move everything you need very close to yourself. It doesn’t work for people farming corn/rice etc because that inherently requires lots of land which means everything can’t be close to them.

I'm in farming, mineral exploration, mining.

"People farming" aren't expending fuel for personal use (save that which they are consuming for personal use) they're expending fuel on behalf of some {X} number of people who consume the produce.

We have farmers here (I kid you not) who live in a rural town centre and ride electric bikes to their work place, 4 thousand acre farms, upon which they operate giant machines for turning, seeding, and harvesting (and others for fire control, etc).

Personal fossil fuel usage should be reduced, it's just wasteful and counter productive, production fossil fuel usage needs to be made moe and more efficient an replaced to whatever degree possible (Agbots are a booming field).

I’m wondering how viable you think it is to do that 7 days a week with a farm 60+ miles from the nearest town? Much of the midwestern US is really empty.

It's viable to minimise personal use.

It's viable to live on a farm and rarely leave it, many do and many enjoy that lifestyle.

It's viable to have shopping and personal items shipped in with larger supply deliveries and fold that personal usage into the neccessary usage for production.

FWiW I grew up on a cattle station in one of the more remote parts of the planet, no proper roads, TV, shops, etc and somehow still managed to get a good education and write a few million SLOC of mapping, geophysics, and asset managent code in the 80's and 90's.

So yes - I do think its viable ( QED ).

So, no. But you don’t want to actually say no.

Look we’ve got larger form factor EV’s, but suggesting electric bikes as a viable alternative when it’s clearly a niche case for rural commuters is pointless.