Upcoming IPCC report leaked:
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1L_IXyVOeKetQbGXxTopQwhKrTIFr-usc?usp=sharingFor those who don't have the time to read it all, I have some highlights for you:
Current fossil fuel stocks ready to pump and burn are more than double the amount needed to get the Earth to al dente, so the IPCC is finally stating clearly that, yes, all survivable scenarios entail stranding trillions of "assets" where they are. Sorry oil barons, you have had your time and far more.
Current emissions in GtCO2eq are now in the ~60 range annually, 11% above 2010, and 51% above 1990. In every way possible, we have completely failed. Currently 23.7% of our emissions come from power generation, and that helps put the problem into perspective: industrial and land usage make up more than double the combined share of emissions, but electrical technology gets most of the press coverage. Your electricity usage is not, and has never been, a primary driving factor, and that remains true now- consumerism and poor land use policy are a much more prominent factor.
Current total public and private spending on climate mitigation and green tech is in the realm of $500B annually. The IPCC helpfully sets the tone by stating with strong certainty that this must increase by, at minimum, a factor of five. That does not include the value on paper of the factories, mines, drilling platforms, and other polluting assets that will have to be decomissioned early. They crunched the numbers, and stated that the average lifetime of coal and gas power plants has to be cut from 30 and 36 years, to only 9 and 12, respectively. That is just to have a good chance at missing 2C, not even a strong or comfortable margin. It also does not include multiple factors that the IPCC specifies but does not quantify, notably those feedback loops.
Tragically, though, the sheer amount of time required to produce these reports is now also a problem. The table SPM.1 includes a line for "peak emissions year" for various pathways, based on modeling from 2018. You can guess where this is going- the shark has been mostly jumped in the years since.
To have a good chance of staying below 2C, we need peak GHG emission year to be 2020-2025. Then, emissions have to fall to just 44Gt by 2030 (that's cutting nearly 27% in only eight years), 28Gt by 2040, and 19Gt by 2050, a full 68.3% reduction in just 28 years, when only about 1/5 of our emissions even come from sources that are easily electrifiable with real, existing technology. Seems unlikely.
Okay, well, what about 3C? 3 is bigger than 2 after all, so it is likely to be the next "red line we can't cross" now that 1.5C and 2C are not realistic anymore!
The "good news" is that the fossil fuel companies that run the planet won't have to peak emissions until 2035 under this new target! Imagine how many trillions of dollars could be made in profits at the cost of only perhaps four to six billion lives?
To miss 3C (again, assuming no feedback loops, which is fucking bonkers), we need only get our emissions down to 56Gt per year by 2030, keep them there by 2040, and drop to 52 by 2050! So achievable and easy!
All jokes aside: the important takeaway from this is that 2C is not going to happen, and once feedback loops, albedo, etc are counted, that really means we will at least pass 3C for a few decades, if not longer. If that does not trigger feedback loops, a peak GHG emissions year sometime this decade with reductions afterward is a path that leads to likely billions dead from famines over the century, but potentially the survival of some civilizations, albeit in a drastically abbreviated and different form. The Earth's coastlines will change, plants will adapt, and humans could probably re-expand slowly and more sustainably over the next few centuries.
If any strong feedbacks are tripped, or we somehow manage to keep increasing emissions over the next 3-5 years towards the 70Gt+ mark, or the models are off, etc: the above window closes pretty firmly, as we go well above.
The IPCC tells us how to get there: a 91% reduction in indirect emissions, and an 80% reduction in point-of-use emissions, period. That means, per capita, every human being must give up four-fifths of every manufactured good, provided service, and energy expenditure they own or use. Oh, and the Global South doesn't much count. This is the Western upper classes losing everything, and the middle classes reverting to a much lower-class lifestyle along with everyone else. Most material comforts not needed for survival will have to go away until people invent carbon-free, sustainable ways to make them.
The IPCC does not clarify precisely what an 80% reduction in point of use emissions would mean in real terms, but I absolutely can. Moreover, this has to happen at the same time as we transfer trillions per year out of Western economies around the world for various remediation and redevelopment schemes. In order for the global order to survive, the imperial core has to renounce it's wealth, turn off it's factories, and impoverish itself while giving away much of what remains to the people it has spent centuries deriding as inferior, then dominating via military and economic means. This isn't my opinion, it's a literal translation of the IPCC's dry science-speak. Our lifestyles as we know them have to end more or less immediately and with as little lubricant as possible, and that is the only point that matters.
They are abundantly clear. Radical demand reduction is the only plausible way we can cut our emissions. There is no chance at supporting more than basic standards of living for everyone who doesn't go to a pandemic, heat wave, or famine. 80% reduction of usage. Calculate your footprint, and then try to work out what living on 10-20% of it looks like.
Sadly, I think that either this wording will be changed prior to release, or it won't, because the IPCC knows nobody would possibly take these suggestions as the utterly horrifying admissions they are. A collection of the world's best experts has told us in no uncertain terms to dismantle most of modernity and ship the pieces around the world so they don't burn coal and fuck us over, so we can possibly have a chance at survival for the next few centuries. This isn't fictional, but it sure won't be taken at face value by anyone with power.
Welcome to the here and now.
