1 tonne of co2 equals 0.0000000000015 °C of global warming

From my unscientific understanding, if the latest findings of Damon Matthews, a professor in Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning and the Environment bear out, then the public understanding of AGW will have it's smoking gun. Matthews and his colleagues claim to have found a direct relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming.

The latest edition of Nature, June 11, 2009, published the findings from a combination of global climate models and historical climate data to show that there is a simple linear relationship between total cumulative emissions and global temperature change.

Science Daily reported:

Until now, it has been difficult to estimate how much climate will warm in response to a given carbon dioxide emissions scenario because of the complex interactions between human emissions, carbon sinks, atmospheric concentrations and temperature change. Matthews and colleagues show that despite these uncertainties, each emission of carbon dioxide results in the same global temperature increase, regardless of when or over what period of time the emission occurs.

These findings mean that we can now say: if you emit that tonne of carbon dioxide, it will lead to 0.0000000000015 degrees of global temperature change. If we want to restrict global warming to no more than 2 degrees, we must restrict total carbon emissions – from now until forever – to little more than half a trillion tonnes of carbon, or about as much again as we have emitted since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

"Most people understand that carbon dioxide emissions lead to global warming," says Matthews, "but it is much harder to grasp the complexities of what goes on in between these two end points. Our findings allow people to make a robust estimate of their contribution to global warming based simply on total carbon dioxide emissions."

Here's the Abstract:

The proportionality of global warming to cumulative carbon emissions

H. Damon Matthews¹, Nathan P. Gillett², Peter A. Stott³ & Kirsten Zickfeld²

Nature 459, 829-832 (11 June 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08047

Abstract: The global temperature response to increasing atmospheric CO₂ is often quantified by metrics such as equilibrium climate sensitivity and transient climate response¹. These approaches, however, do not account for carbon cycle feedbacks and therefore do not fully represent the net response of the Earth system to anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. Climate–carbon modelling experiments have shown that: (1) the warming per unit CO₂ emitted does not depend on the background CO₂ concentration²; (2) the total allowable emissions for climate stabilization do not depend on the timing of those emissions^{3, 4, 5}; and (3) the temperature response to a pulse of CO₂ is approximately constant on timescales of decades to centuries^{3, 6, 7, 8}. Here we generalize these results and show that the carbon–climate response (CCR), defined as the ratio of temperature change to cumulative carbon emissions, is approximately independent of both the atmospheric CO₂ concentration and its rate of change on these timescales. From observational constraints, we estimate CCR to be in the range 1.0–2.1 °C per trillion tonnes of carbon (Tt C) emitted (5th to 95th percentiles), consistent with twenty-first-century CCR values simulated by climate–carbon models. Uncertainty in land-use CO₂ emissions and aerosol forcing, however, means that higher observationally constrained values cannot be excluded. The CCR, when evaluated from climate–carbon models under idealized conditions, represents a simple yet robust metric for comparing models, which aggregates both climate feedbacks and carbon cycle feedbacks. CCR is also likely to be a useful concept for climate change mitigation and policy; by combining the uncertainties associated with climate sensitivity, carbon sinks and climate–carbon feedbacks into a single quantity, the CCR allows CO₂-induced global mean temperature change to be inferred directly from cumulative carbon emissions.

More about Damon Matthews' work: Chasing climate change

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Australia's climate bill may be scuttled

The ETS circus plays on:

Australian Greens climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne said the Government would also have no alternative but to reverse its plan to link passage of the emissions bill to renewable energy measures.

"The [emissions trading] bill will be defeated. There is no question about that," she told ABC Television.

"The Government hasn't been able to reach a compromise with the Coalition and in terms of the Greens, the Government has not come back with more ambitious targets on the table.

"We are determined that Australia plays its fair share internationally."

Senator Milne said the UN meeting in Bonn was now declaring that the main roadblock to a global agreement at the Copenhagen climate change conference later this year was the lack of ambition from developed countries.

She said emissions reductions targets between 16-24 per cent were on the table and that was nowhere near the 25-45 per cent needed for developed countries.

Senator Milne said the Government had added a complication by tying renewable energy target legislation to passage of the emissions reduction scheme.

"The Government is going to have to back down on that because so many businesses around the country are desperate to get going with expanding renewable energy."

As we know, Family First's Stephen Fielding has been blinded by staring at the sun for too long when hanging out with fellow gullibles at the Heartland Institute of Kitchen Science and Propaganda. He's no bloody use to Labor (but at least he is more honest and open in his denial than the damned Liberals), so if Big Kev wants to get his second-best emissions scheme though, he's gonna have to bite the bullet and turn it into the first best plan.

Hey Kevin, as still per the last election, Aussies want to be world leaders in the new carbon economy, starting today; if you won't give us that chance, we'll find a leader who will.

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Crime will organise to go green

So suggest sooths spotted by Desmogblog.

Just in time for the rocked Australian biker club scene, desperate as they are to rehabilitate their public image after the Sydney Airport brawl showed them up to be the mongrels they are.

Future Banditos and Notorious meetings to resolve grievances will be so much more in line with public sensibilities: The fat biker wog turns to the skinny biker wog, "You fucked with my cousin's carbon credits." And the other says, "I didn't for shit, hey", and he pulls out an ETS: CHK CHK BOOM.

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Fielding staring at the sun for too long

My reaction to the news of Senator Stephen Fielding coming back from attending an AGW denier's conference hosted by the Heartland Institute, is that he seeks to betray the path of ETS legislation for thirty pieces of Big Fossil-Fuel silver. My evidence? Simply that Fielding is replaying their great canard, 'It's the sun, stupid'.

Professor Barry Brook's reaction is to patiently explain why the peer-review science says Fielding is wrong. He sets out thus:

‘Solar variability does not explain late-20th-century warming’, says the title of a short paper published earlier this year by Philip Duffy, Ben Santer and Tom Wigley in Physics Today. The reason I bring up the topic of the sun and climate now is that an Australian Senator, Stephen Fielding of the Family First party, has recently been concerned that the solar variability could be a cause of recent warming, as the vote for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme comes before the Upper House. Apparently, he got this information from the American Heartland Institute. Well, let me put the good Senator’s concerns to rest.

He puts mine to rest... read it... leaving only concerns about Fielding himself.

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Punters and pundits call the Arctic Summer Melt

It's that time of the year, when types that think about these things, turn their attention to predicting what this year's lowest Arctic sea-ice extent will be. Eli Rabbet kicks off with a rough round-up of pundits and early predictions. There are rumours of money changing hands.

If none of this makes sense to you, here's the good oil from a Kiwi called Gareth of Hot Topic. And, as a GWW service to the AGW denier trolls who pop in to post, here's your side of the story.

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US Emissions Talks With China Hit Great Wall

Five months ahead of the Copenhagen talks, a round of climate talks between the world's two biggest polluters has stalled, reports the Financial Times:

Chinese officials maintained that the two countries should have a “common but differentiated approach” – code for Beijing’s reluctance to adopt a formal domestic mandate to reduce its carbon emissions. The US Congress is considering a bill that would reduce US emissions to 83 per cent of 2005 levels by 2020. China wants the US to cut its emissions to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 – a different order of magnitude. It also wants the US to pledge up to 1 per cent of its gross domestic product to pay for clean technology in China and elsewhere.

“It is going to be really tough to get the Chinese to make significant concessions by Copenhagen,” said Bruce Braine, a board member of the International Emissions Trading Association. “There seems to be a lack of realism in ... the developing world about what the US can achieve at home.”

It can be argued that there seems to be a lack of realism in the developed world about who has emitted most of the greenhouse gasses that have created the global warming we have consequently experienced to date. Nevertheless, the US and China are in this together, as we all are. The more united we are, the better off we will be; just as, the sooner we move, the better off we will be.

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Turnbull hands Rudd ETS early election trigger — Chk Chk Boom

IMHO, everything that has gone wrong with the Liberal party has to do with their inability to maintain the bipartisan approach to a carbon cap and trade system. Turnbull used to be the one who seemed to be across the issues, but what a flip-flop, opportunistic waverer he turned out to be. How's that holding Rudd accountable?

Now we got a damn election to get through. Liberals are going to get hit hard for this.

THE Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme is headed for defeat as a result of a Senate stand-off, handing Labor a trigger for an early, double dissolution election.

The scheme is set to be voted down by the Senate next month, despite the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, announcing yesterday the Coalition wanted to delay a vote until early next year - after the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.

The Coalition would then demand that the scheme be radically remodelled along the lines of the scheme proposed by the United States President, Barack Obama, which is now before Congress and is far more generous to heavy polluters.

Mr Turnbull said that Labor's scheme should meanwhile be subject to another inquiry, this time by the Productivity Commission. But the Government flatly rejected the call and said it would put its scheme to a vote in June as scheduled.

A double dissolution can only take place if a bill is rejected twice by the Senate, three months apart.

If the bill is defeated or deferred next month, it will count as the first rejection. Labor could put the bill up again in October, and if it were again defeated or deferred, the Government would have a trigger for an election.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, accused Mr Turnbull of a failure of leadership by constantly putting off a decision on whether to placate right-wing Liberals and the National Party .

"What we have here is a series of excuses to underpin the fact that the Leader of the Opposition has not had the courage to take on the climate change sceptics in his party," Mr Rudd said. The same attitude had cost Brendan Nelson the leadership of the Liberal Party, he said.

Too right. How ironic.

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Australia coping best with global recession

Top 10 recession refuges:

The top countries best surviving the global recession, according to a survey of 7500 businesspeople from 24 nations.

1st - Australia
2nd - China
3rd - India and Singapore (equal)
5th - Hong Kong
6th - Canada
7th - Japan and Qatar (equal)
9th - New Zealand
10th - Malaysia, Sweden and Vietnam (equal)

Source: Servcorp International Business Confidence Survey.

Well, there you go, who would have thought it? It's not like we didn't binge out on credit like the rest of the world. One saving grace is our system of prudential banking regulations. Another, the four pillar policy, I dare say.

I don't know if it's too early to claim that Rudd's stimulus has worked or not, but there have been signs to encourage this thinking... retail figures are holding steady, the housing market is holding, and we have yet to experience mass sackings. Though my company they are trimming the sails here and there, so to speak.

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Do future generations have rights to a stable climate?

Recalibrating the Law of Humans with the Laws of Nature: Climate Change, Human Rights, and Intergenerational Justice

High ambition deserves a lofty title. The paper is the product of the University of Iowa's Centre for Human Rights and the University of Vermont's Environmental Law Centre having jointly started an initiative to seek legal protection for future generations. If today's unborn have rights, why not tomorrow's? If the yet to be born have rights we have a duty to respect these rights.

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The history of the politics of the theory of evolution

Darwinania: n. If your "interests include Darwin, politics involving Victorian-Era scientists, public perceptions of evolution, anti-evolution movements, and the history of paleontology, especially the presentations of dinosaurs in museums and scientific literature from the 1800s on", you have Darwinania.

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Obama's Bush holdovers attack EPA co2 ruling

An interesting insight into how the Bush government used to play its cards in thwarting EPA global warming legislation is provided by Jim Tankersley of the L.A Times:

The agency's declaration that emissions pose a health danger could have 'serious economic consequences,' Bush-era holdovers in the Small Business Administration assert.

Reporting from Washington -- In ruling last month that greenhouse gases posed health and safety risks, the Environmental Protection Agency brushed aside warnings from Bush administration holdovers who said the move was "likely to have serious economic consequences" for small businesses and the economy overall, according to documents obtained Tuesday.

Obama administration officials said the warnings, contained in memos from the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy, didn't reflect current White House policy. The office is still stocked with Bush appointees, the administration officials said.

Good sign that Obama's staff jumped on it.

The critique was the work of "someone who didn't get the memo that the old administration has come to an end," said David Doniger, policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center.

...along with the kitchen science that informed them.

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AGW denier says peer-review is a public enemy

James Dellingpole plumbs the depth of his intellect in The Spectator:

I don’t bait greens only for fun. I do it because they’re public enemy number one

How so?

Here is what’s so terrifying about the modern green movement: its complete refusal to accept that anyone who disagrees with it can be anything other than wilfully perverse, certifiably insane or secretly in the pay of Big Oil.

Or stupid and easily influenced. Even if, for arguments sake, this really is what the MGM thinks, why would that make them public enemy number one unless you were perverse, certifiably insane or secretly in the pay of Big Oil? Deep down Dellingpole declares the fear that drives him to bait greens.

Indeed, it doesn’t even think of its ideological position as an ideological position any more, but as a scientific truth so comprehensively proven that there is no longer need for any debate.

There isn't any need for a debate about whether mankind's emissions cause global warming an will cause climate change. It's over. Dellingpole just does not like the inescapable conclusions of the body of peer-reviewed science. He wants a second opinion... from sources used by those secretly in the pay of Big Oil.

But what if they’re wrong? What if climate change is normal? What if the new hair-shirt chic is holding back economic recovery? What about the Kenyan green-bean growers — don’t they deserve to make a living too? What if the billions and billions of pounds being stolen from our wallets by our governments to ‘combat climate change’ are being squandered to no useful purpose? What if instead of alleviating the problem, misguided eco-zealots are actually making things worse?

That’s what I believe, anyway, and if there were space I’d be more than happy to explain why in lavish detail using all sorts of highly convincing evidence provided by top-notch scientists. Unfortunately, there isn’t, so you’ll have to go somewhere like www.ClimateDepot.com, or the hilarious Planet Gore at National Review Online or the Watts Up With That blog for your ammo.

Climate science by fossil-fuel funded public relations, as opposed to peer-review publication, that's what Dellingpole roots for. And this is a guy who wants to believe he is rational. Truly:

...that the vast majority of so-called ‘deniers’ are motivated by a love of the planet every bit as intense as that of the ‘warmists’. It’s just that our love is maybe tempered with a touch more rationalism, that’s all.

As rational as deriving joy from baiting people because you don't like them facing realities that science informs about?

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Is Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth a sell-out?

Well yes, considering he challenges the fundamentals of the spectrum of multidisciplinary sciences making up the body of climate science. Problem is, he won't do this in the peer-reviewed literature.

But has it really sold out of its 25,000 print run, as claimed by Andrew Bolt? Not according to Tim Lambert of Deltoid, whose mate reckons it's more like probably around~3700.

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Reduced emissions with increased productivity

In the search for every-day global warming solutions, Eli of Rabett Run suggests that cheap is good. Think low-tech solutions for everyday tasks.

Consider where the costs and problems associated with reducing carbon emissions comes from, from having to transform a dispersed, costless source of energy such as wind or solar or geothermal, into a form which can be centrally distributed to cover all needs. For that we need efficient and elegant. On the other hand there are applications where cheap by itself would do the job, such as an inefficient small windmill or a solar array you could hang out the window which would generate enough electricity to recharge all your Ipod, Iphone, Inks (a very old device made by Apple for taking memos), etc. and run the standby power for your TV. Eli remembers some awkward windmills that used to pump well water on farms. Same sort of thing. The ultimate example is drying clothes on a clothesline.

Dave Sag of Carbon Planet has turned this into a fetish.

HowTo: Make a simple hand-cranked device recharger

And Get Energy Smart Now looks at carbon-friendly approaches to Lighting up the Developing World.

PowerMundo seeks to create a global business network, marketing products that might represent an upfront capital investment for sustainability but long-term efficiency and cost-effectiveness by either drastically cutting polluting energy use or a total reliance on renewable power. Their products include solar powered lighting, efficient wood stoves, and renewable energy radios.

D-Light design focuses quite specifically on the lighting arena and has received serious start-up money. Their target is quite explicitly the 1 in 4 people on earth who do not have reliable access to electricity and who rely on kerosene for lighting at night. The concept is to set up micro-loans, enabling people to buy their solar energy, battery, light combinations (ranging in price from $12 to $30) that will then be paid back due to no longer having to pay for that kerosene. D-Light is focusing on India and has, in fact, lit up an entire (even if small) village with renewable systems

With the world saved for another day, sometime in the future, I'm off to bed.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Government ETS delay: A back-flip to the future

I don't know what to think about the Australian Government's 2011 back-flip on the starting date of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

The economy is going sideways. This means fewer carbon emissions caused by lower productivity. A delayed introduction will help businesses by delaying compliance costs, but it is only a delay. And, we miss the chance to go to Copenhagen and negotiate with more leverage. I do think this is a big-picture mistake because Australia's (or any country's) best shot at mitigation is as part of a global effort.

In what's becoming a knack of this government, it's a back-flip with a twist. In the following case, for the greater good:

The government has delayed its emissions trading scheme (ETS) a year to July 2011, citing the global economic crisis.

But Labor has also pushed up its emissions reduction target to 25 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020 - up from a maximum of 15 per cent - depending on the strength of an international agreement. The bottom end of the target range is still five per cent.

They sneaked that in without much protest. Wong and Co also neutralised one of the criticisms of the pollution reduction scheme — that carbon emissions savings by conscientious households would allow business more ceiling to pollute in. Well, Rudd's mob seem to have thought about that.

Concerned householders will be able to calculate their carbon output and buy permits to pollute, effectively taking these permits out of circulation.

Because the scheme will have a set number of permits for trading, permits bought in this way will not be available to polluting industries, thus reducing the amount of pollution able to be pumped into the atmosphere.

These permits will be bought by a new Australian Carbon Trust – Energy Efficiency Savings Pledge Fund, which will pool donations to buy the permits.

Seems like they have been consultative, which is a good sign. If I could say anything to them, my echo in the blogiverse would be to take heart from the British Colombian government's recent victory.

The only government in North America to implement a carbon tax to fight climate change has been re-elected handily in British Columbia.

And to take heed.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy