Manchester Academic Slams IPCC “Smoke and Mirrors” Carbon Budget Claims
13 hours ago Eric Worrall 22 Comments
Essay by Eric Worrall
According to University of Manchester professor Kevin Anderson, “IPCC science embeds colonial attitudes”.
IPCC’s conservative nature masks true scale of action needed to avert catastrophic climate change
Kevin Anderson
Professor of Energy and Climate Change, University of Manchester
Published: March 25, 2023 12.27am AEDT
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The new report evokes a mild sense of urgency, calling on governments to mobilise finance to accelerate the uptake of green technology. But its conclusions are far removed from a direct interpretation of the IPCC’s own carbon budgets (the total amount of CO₂ scientists estimate can be put into the atmosphere for a given temperature rise).
The report claims that, to maintain a 50:50 chance of warming not exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, CO₂ emissions must be cut to “net-zero” by the “early 2050s”. Yet, updating the IPCC’s estimate of the 1.5°C carbon budget, from 2020 to 2023, and then drawing a straight line down from today’s total emissions to the point where all carbon emissions must cease, and without exceeding this budget, gives a zero CO₂ date of 2040.
Given it will take a few years to organise the necessary political structures and technical deployment, the date for eliminating all CO₂ emissions to remain within 1.5°C of warming comes closer still, to around the mid-2030s. This is a strikingly different level of urgency to that evoked by the IPCC’s “early 2050s”. Similar smoke and mirrors lie behind the “early 2070s” timeline the IPCC conjures for limiting global heating to 2°C.
IPCC science embeds colonial attitudes
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/25/manchester-academic-slams-ipcc-smoke-and-mirrors-carbon-budget-claims/
