{"id":6300,"date":"2015-04-22T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T07:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6300"},"modified":"2015-04-22T07:00:10","modified_gmt":"2015-04-22T07:00:10","slug":"2014-and-all-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/04\/22\/2014-and-all-that\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 and all that"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It turns out that 2014 may have been\u00a0a unique year as it seems to have been the first on record where economic growth took place with no increase in carbon emissions.<\/p>\n<p>I've read two articles on this phenomenon recently. \u00a0One, by Kurt Cobb, in <a href=\"http:\/\/steadystate.org\/the-puzzling-flattening-of-carbon-emissions-and-the-problem-of-global-growth\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DalyNews+%28The+Daly+News%29\"><em>CASSE<\/em><\/a>, casts some doubt on whether this actually happened, saying it's too soon to tell. \u00a0He also brings in a number of different perspectives to the debate, mostly from a steady-state perspective. \u00a0He also cites an article in\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/2015\/3\/16\/8224915\/economic-growth-carbon-emissions\">Vox<\/a><\/em> which has some nice graphics on all this.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/science-and-technology\/21646716-ray-hope-debate-about-climate-change-flatlining\">Economist<\/a> had a parallel piece, quoting the IMF and the\u00a0International Energy Agency [IEA]. \u00a0Clearly, we should not read too much into these data, or get too euphoric, too soon. \u00a0This is how the Economist ends its piece:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"The flattening of global emissions will not of itself make much difference to the climate. Though the quantity did not increase, people still threw a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere last year. \u00a0The standard measurement of atmospheric CO2\u00a0concentration, taken at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, has therefore barely flickered in its upward rise. \u00a0Though it ebbs and flows on an annual cycle which matches the growth and dormancy of the great forests of the northern hemisphere, it passed 400 parts per million this January, the earliest in the year it has exceeded this benchmark. \u00a0Even if emissions stay flat, the world remains on course towards a temperature rise of around 3\u00b0C by 2100, compared with pre-industrial levels. \u00a0To keep the rise to 2\u00b0C (which most climate scientists think is needed) would require emissions to fall.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>All the same, the IEA\u2019s finding is remarkable. It happened without either a climate-change treaty or a global carbon price. \u00a0And, by providing evidence emissions can actually be reined in, it might make the successful negotiation of a new climate treaty in Paris at the end of this year a bit more likely. \u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Fatih Birol, the IEA\u2019s chief economist says,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThese numbers make me hopeful for Paris, full stop. \u00a0But if nothing comes of those talks, the targets scientists set for us [a 2\u00b0C rise] may well be out of reach.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It turns out that 2014 may have been\u00a0a unique year as it seems to have been the first on record where economic growth took place with no increase in carbon emissions. I've read two articles on this phenomenon recently. \u00a0One,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}