Buying Political Time for Climate Action
Over at Real Climate, Ray Pierrehumbert has a meaty post that takes up this assertion by Ramanathan and Victor in their recent NYT op-ed:
Reducing soot and the other short-lived pollutants would not stop global warming, but it would buy time, perhaps a few decades, for the world to put in place more costly efforts to regulate carbon dioxide.
This notion of buying time was, in fact, the main question I had from the op-ed and which I had posed to the Climate Science Rapid Response Team.
The RC post addresses it in full and argues effectively in support of its headline, that defraying action on carbon dioxide for decades amounts to
Losing time, not buying time
But in making his case, Pierrehumbert stretches Ramanathan and Victor’s “perhaps a few decades” (which I take to mean two decades) to this hypothetical (my emphasis):
Let’s suppose, however, that we decide to go all-out on methane, and not do anything serious about CO2 for another 30 years.
Personally, I would be more interested if his post addressed a 10-15 year window. It might also be more useful to the larger climate policy and political debate. Climate activists and establishment influentials might be inclined to get behind a change in strategy if they knew “buying time” meant a decade or so, not 30 years.
Anyway (and I wrote this over at RC, as well), I doubt that Ramanathan and Victor are suggesting that carbon reduction efforts be put aside for three decades. Here’s the relevant point I wanted to make, which has been said best by Andy here on a previous thread:
The fact is that political capital does not exist to implement carbon reduction policies. That simple reality can’t be wished away. The goal should therefore be to build capital which, IMO, requires time and continuous effort. Incremental success on secondary and tertiary issues will help. Success in those areas will not only build political capital but will also improve the chances for some kind of carbon reduction scheme. The reason is that if you can demonstrate, for instance, that methane reduction or whatever policy is workable, then carbon reduction doesn’t look so scary to people which lowers the political capital necessary to bring that about.
As I wrote at RC: It’s all well and good to remind people that carbon dioxide pollution is climate enemy number one, but I think the post by Pierrehumbert (while understandably science-based) ignores one of the main rationales for focusing”“temporarily, not 30 years”“on those secondary climate forcings:
It’s to “buy time” while building momentum toward the necessary political conditions to tackle carbon emissions.
UPDATE: Ray Pierrehumbert responds to my comment over at RC.
Keith – Not sure why you would take “a few decades” to mean to two. If Ramanthan & Victor meant two decades, why wouldn’t they use the word two. For many, the word few connotes a small number more than two (e.g., 3 or 4) so Pierrehumberts use of 3 decades doesn’t seem unreasonable given R&V’s language.
Nonetheless, I fully agree that what many of RC crowd is doesn’t seem to want to accept is that there is currently absolutely no political will to implement strong carbon regulatory schemes, either in the US, Europe, and especially globally. Perhaps if we focused on the other issues mentioned along with a very agressive program for developing alternative energy sources, there will be a stronger political will at some time in the future, be it 10, 15 or 30 years.
Fair enough. I think Ramanthan & Victor should have used more precise language.
I will say that I don’t think a good argument can be made for more than ten to 15 years. I’d even shorten it to 2020.
Dear Keath,
Whether “few” means two or 3 decades is, IMO, irrelevant in the discussion and it seems like nit-picking to me. At current emissions, waiting 2 decades would add 600Gt adding a approximate temperature increase of +- 1C (according to the RC post 1000 GT is expected to lead to +- 2C temperature increase, of course the error margin is huge here but it gives an idea). At the other hand, the RC post makes very clear that actually all “low hanging fruit” as you describe it, is not so relevant, because we can tackle those any time and still get the same gain. So what exactly do we gain by waiting 2 decennia?
Furthermore, I have seen no convincing arguments that tackling LHF first will indeed increase the support for cutting CO2 emissions in the near feature. I can easily envisage the opposite, that a temperature decrease caused by tackling the LHF would lead to stronger opposition against tackling CO2.
The world needs more energy and right now 85 % is produced with fossil fuels.
Wind and solar are expensive and intermittent sources and require special grids and power storage or reserve power. Biofuels can’t hack it. We need both fuel and food.
Nuclear energy might provide the solution. In 1980’s they built up to 30 reactors (about 30 GW) of nuclear power per year. I’m sure that rate could be improved nowadays.
Nuclear is problematic (waste, accident risk) but it is available, it is dependable and can be built almost anywhere. However, many environmentalists seem to regard it a worse threat than global warming.
Perhaps a risk re-analysis is required?
In the previous thread, I tried to make the case that the “other-things-first” approach really does not “buy time” in terms of addressing CO2 emissions. Rather, it just kicks the can down the road, so that when we DO start addressing CO2 the cuts will have to be faster and steeper.
I referenced Fig. 22 in the Copenhagen Diagnosis which shows that if we start reductions in CO2 now, we have to decline by 3.7% per annum, whereas if we continue to rise until 2015, it is 5.3% p.a., and if we wait to 2020 then the required decarbonization rate is closer to 9% p.a. – the last an almost impossible ask.
From a physical perspective, this is all that delay “buys” you: A much tougher timetable and emission reduction path. And that, with all the attendant problems of increasingly chaotic markets as more and more things have to happen all at once.
I bodged up the link for TrilionthTonne.org last time, but it helps bring home the point that it’s not primarily a timeline we are dealing with, but rather a remaining budget of carbon emissions. If we burn more early (i.e. delay), then we have to cut harder, faster when we do. That’s all. (Schellnhuber refers to the “area under the curve” implications of all this as “vicious integrals” – rather apt, I think.)
For me, this is why the “let’s do the other things first and bide our time on CO2 while we wait for political will to build” seems rather muddled. It seems to me to fly in the face of physical reality.
Now, fair enough, one can argue that we need to deal with political reality too, but one is immovable and the other is not. It may come as a surprise to some, but it’s the physics and mass that are more unyielding…
I am glad that Ray P. and RealClimate are addressing this, because the “methane-ozone-Montreal gases-soot-first” strategy has to be placed in a context that deals with the physical reality of the dilemma. Sure, let’s do whatever is easiest first (note: a price signal on carbon is designed to encourage exactly this), but let’s not get confused about objectives and constraints…
It continues to amaze me that seemingly rational and educated people continue to fantasize that the governments of the world’s largest economies will ever implement the CO2 suppression policies that are discussed in ever so fine detail here. There were and are governments in Europe who, to one degree or another, crippled their own economies and hurt their poorer and often older subjects by making it difficult to pay for warmth in the winter. That those governments acted is not to their credit and the suffering and lost opportunity they caused will never ever make the slightest difference in the global climate or temperature, except that apparently the temperature inside the homes of the poor is cold enough to cause increased death and disease.
The increase in CO2 emissions in China alone will far exceed any ‘savings’ in Europe. There is zero probability that China, India, and the rest of the third world will do without carbon based energy needed to improve their standard of living. All this talk of whether mitigation will start this decade or next is simply delusional.
Even if the catastrophic predictions so dear to CAGW true believers actually come to pass, which I think is uncertain at best, nothing will change until and unless a better energy source is developed. No third world country is going to waste their own money on what is charitably called alternative energy sources now. Money spent on windmills and the like is nothing but government enrichment of the operators of these wind machines; the machines themselves reduce CO2 only marginally, if at all, and the money to subsidize them usually derives from harm done to rate payers.
Does fervent belief in CAGW somehow excuse believers from accepting the world as it exists? Do you get a reality pass because you say you are trying to save the world? These policies of mitigation are doing serious harm to the people who live in the countries that implemented them. Do any of the perpetrators of these policies care to accept responsibility for the harm that has been done and continues to be done to the poorer people who are going to have trouble keeping warm this winter?
#3: “Furthermore, I have seen no convincing arguments that tackling LHF first will indeed increase the support for cutting CO2 emissions in the near feature.”
Of course you haven’t, because it hasn’t been tried yet. But you do have pretty convincing evidence that the CO2 first strategy pursued for the past 20 years has been an utter failure.
We had this discussion on a previous thread, and again it was said best by Andy:
“We are, in a way, trapped between the immovable object of political reality and the unstoppable force of nature’s timetable. I guess if I had one overarching point in all this it’s this question: What strategy is likely to bring about co2 reductions the soonest? My basic premise is that continuing to spend political capital pushing for co2 reductions now is only going to result in more failure and an even longer delay than what we’re already facing. If my premise is correct, then it makes sense to alter the strategy (not the goal) and take a more indirect approach.”
“It continues to amaze me that seemingly rational and educated people continue to fantasize that the governments of the world’s largest economies will ever implement the CO2 suppression policies that are discussed in ever so fine detail here.”
Well, if it isn’t possible to do that, why all the rage of so many global warming sceptics that are afraid that such policies will actually be implemented?
rustneversleeps,
+1 Your last paragraph, IMO, sums up a very reasonable response to this proposal. Yes, we should get any ‘low hanging fruit’ we can, but lets keep our eye on the ball. (At least thats what I’ve taken away from the debate) The point (I think) that Keith is trying to make is that we’re, unfortunately, pretty likely to see 10 to 15 years of no action on a global scale (or in the U.S.) and we should at least try and do something rather than put all our eggs in the U.N. basket. I don’t think anyone reasonable really disagrees with this, they just fear taking emphasis away from CO2 will lead some to believe that the problem can be solved with these initial ‘baby steps’.
To me, this is starting to feel like arguing for arguing sake (the monty python “I’m here for an argument” sketch comes to mind;) no one reasonable thinks we can ignore CO2, and no one reasonable is opposed to tackling these other issues.
And, yes Keith, I would also like to see an estimate for 10-15 years from Ray, I think that is more realistic. (hopefully)
I was going to do a separate post on this but time is in short supply this week, so let me just elaborate a bit on another comment I left at RC, and that is one of the key arguments made on behalf of the failed (and deeply flawed) Waxman-Markey bill: that it was a starting point.
This is from a 2009 Yale 360 article:
“A majority of the environmentalists said they supported the bill “” despite its many flaws “” because it represents the beginning of an effort to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.”
(BTW, just for kicks, check out Joe Romm’s next to last paragraph in his part from that article.)
My point is that many enviros (and probably many climate scientists, too) held their noses and supported Waxman-Markey on the premise that it would at least get the ball rolling.
I see a similar intellectual rationale underlying the suggestion that the world would be better off at this time focusing on short-term climate pollutants, but not similar buy-in from the climate concerned.
What’s the difference?
IMNSHO, all this discussion about buying time is completely irrelevant.
The time scale of the processes that CO2 could set in motion (most dangerous are Greenland ice melt and permafrost methan release) is way beyond decades that we are discussing. The time scale where we could see our policies to substantially reflect on CO2 concentrations (vs. BAU) is also beyond a few decades. In the grand scheme of things, there is no such thing as buying time.
The real questions are whether we can stabilize the population sooner rather than later (that’s the real elephant in the room) and whether we can radically improve energy efficiency and switch from fossils to nuclear, solar or something else.
It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t reach to LHF like BC or methane. It’s a good thing but not very important.
BTW, the effect of permafrost methanerelease depends a lot more on the rate than the amount as it should be clear from Ray’s post. We don’t have a very good idea how it will go.
Over at RC, in a response to my second comment, Ray Pierrehumbert explains what he considers to be the difference between one of the main rationales for Waxman-Markey and the similar one I identified for turning the focus to secondary climate pollutants.
“for the world to put in place more costly efforts to regulate carbon dioxide.”
Coal at $110/ton, the current global price, is not a ‘cheap source of energy’ by any stretch of the imagine.
Unless one lives relatively close to Wyoming where coal is $15/ton it is no longer a question of ‘putting in place’ more expensive alternatives.
It is simply a case of getting to the point that replacement generating capacity is needed and the availability of the human skill sets and the industrial capacity to replace generation by fossil with something else.
The ability to properly staff nuclear power plants is a global problem, the existing workforce is nearing retirement and there are many ‘new recruits’ in the pipeline. It’s going to take at least a decade to remedy the situation.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Special_Report_-_Nuclears_lost_generation.html?cid=28905400
The only thing that will change the political climate on CO2 reductions in the next 10-15 years will be compelling evidence that temperatures are actually rising as fast as predicted (evidence that is not corrupted by the dubious adjustments that scientists keep applying to historical datasets when the data does not cooperate). If current trends continue the CO2 will be dead issue in 5 years because no one will take the IPCC projections seriously anymore.
A lot of this is predicated on the assumption that there has been “no action” for the last 20 years. That’s not really true- we’ve learned quite a bit about action proposals. We learned that bio-fuels don’t work – in fact were a disaster of unintended consequences. We learned that wind and solar are expensive and ineffective ways to get marginal reductions. We learned that cap-n-trade doesn’t reduce emissions (but does increase corporate welfare and corruption). We learned that there is no political will for a wholesale wealth transfer from the west to developing nations. We learned that contrary to the claim that costs would be “a postage stamp a day,” the truth is that this is very difficult and expensive. And we learned that, despite all the huffing and puffing about the need to hurry up, the green movement remains strongly opposed to the only alternative that reduces emissions- nuclear.
The shift in strategy is really a move away from the green movement’s twin set of fantasies- the notion of halving the world’s population over the next 10 years by government diktat and/or a global decision to abandon both capitalism and democracy. In other words, you’re being asked if you have any interest in actually cutting emissions rather than dreaming of social revolution on the beach in Cancun.
#9: “And, yes Keith, I would also like to see an estimate for 10-15 years from Ray, I think that is more realistic. (hopefully)”
Here’s your answer:
“And the right answer would still be that “other things first” even for just a decade, would not buy time in any sense.”
I guess muddling along indefinitely on the present course (in which nothing happens) is somehow seen as preferable to taking a different route.
I read the exchange over at RC.
This scientist also seems locked into an almost ideological frame of mind. UN climate negotiations specifically targeting CO2 emissions by imposing fines unfairly on some countries was rightly rejected. As the WikiLeaks reveal, climate negotiations revolve around global politics, rather than collaborate on effective strategies to reduce the amount of GHG in the global atmosphere. Just basic common sense is all that’s required to reject this scheme. It’s interesting how the author dances back and forth between endorsing carbon-pricing policy while he abstains from opining whether starting with LHF would be a step in the right direction. He uses the trademark scientist’s argument that Keith has no evidence supporting this premise. OTOH, we do have plenty of evidence that no one is willing to agree to unfair carbon pricing.
Currently there is a fight within our own US Congress over whether to extend the Bush tax cuts for those in the highest income bracket. Good luck with getting carbon pricing through the Senate!
It was easy to see how abstinence-only sex education was rooted in ideology, not reality. Teaching kids about methods of protection and contraception implies that teens ought to be having sex. None of these other methods are 100% effective. Abstinence is the scientifically-proven best practice for preventing both pregnancy and STD’s. The climate hawks opposed to attacking the LHF are using the same justification, as the idealistic conservatives who think that teaching kids about protection encourages teens to have sex. We can’t realistically expect human beings not to have pre-marital sex, nor can we realistically expect them to use mass transit, drive hybrids, or any other self sacrifices. Abstinence only did not decrease teen sexual activity, some studies claim it actually increased. Carbon pricing will also fail. If you pay this “price” for your carbon emissions, then you feel entitled to get your money’s worth. Gas prices are just about as high as they were after Katrina. But people have just gotten used to them, it seems.
To your larger point, laursaurus, there is an ideological purity that seems to be exhibited in the CO2-first approach.
In 2020, we may be exactly where we are today, but hey, at least we didn’t waste any time trying a new approach.
Look, the 1990-th was a very worrisome decade with global record temp record broken several times. In spite of that, we are exactly at the same spot today as we were in 2000.
In contrast, the last decade was completely uneventful with 1998 record still standing. All but nutsiest of alarmists admit that we have a temp plateau which of course proves nothing (at least not to them). Add the climategate to the mix and the failure of Copenhagen and you have a pretty decent forecast in terms of policy for 10 years forward.
Keith – the point is that it isn’t buying any time. If in a relatively short period of time, it helps to change the political framework to make strong action on CO2 possible, then that is worthwhile. We can debate endlessly whether it will change the political dynamic, but I think your point is that if that’s all we can do at the moment, let’s do it. Okay – but let’s not oversell it on what it represents.
Sashka – What happened in the first decade of the 2000’s is that we stayed at or near the record levels of the previous decade. It would be one thing if temps had dropped significantly. But what happened is that the records that were set previously were sustained.
Last year, the town I lived in had a heat wave and at it’s peak, it matched our all-time record for the high temp two days in a row. Was the heat wave over on that second day because it only matched the previous day’s record-matching temp of 106? I think the attitude for those of us sweltering was that we were still in a heat wave even though we didn’t set a new record, we only matched the old one.
Keith,
Ray is arguing that for the long term effects, CO2 reductions are necessary. It’s hard to argue with that and it has nothing to do with “ideological purity”. Those kinds of digs are better left out if you want to engage with scientist and their supporters.
He’s also saying that a focus on BC would be good, as it a) offers strong anciliary health benefits and b) is often connected with CO2 emissions, so it would also help with the prime long term forcing (though it is also often associated with reflecting aerosols, so that’s a caveat to be taken into account). One could add c) it has the shortest lifetime so it has the quickest effect, d) it has a disproportionately large effect on the melting of snow and ice in some of the more vulnerable areas of the world, and e) some of its sources are relatively easy to tackle (cf. CO2 and CH4).
That makes soot a very different cup of tea than methane.
Bart,
I view Ray’s post and his responses to me as a rebuttal to the underlying rationale for switching the singular focus off CO2 reductions to the secondary pollutants. It seems to me that he’s using the methane example to argue against the argument made by the NYT op-ed authors.
The op-ed did not argue that long-term CO2 reductions are not necessary. It merely argued that the obsessive focus on was counterproductive.
In this particular debate, people seem to focus on the aspects that fit their own perspective. We’ve been round and round on this. I can’t imagine there’s any new constructive ground to tread.
isaacschumann Says:
December 7th, 2010 at 10:40 am rustneversleeps,
“we’re, unfortunately, pretty likely to see 10 to 15 years of no action on a global scale”
The Chinese just plopped $511 BILLION into a nuclear power budget for 245 nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, it will take them until 2030 to build and staff them all. I hardly think half a trillion dollars is ‘no action’.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/china-nuclear-boom-sees-reactor-builders-risk-know-how-for-cash.html
But Bart @21 Ray is arguing that for the long term effects, CO2 reductions are necessary. It’s hard to argue with that and it has nothing to do with “ideological purity”.
Why are they knit-picking over the term “buy us time?”
We need to convince the public to do something rather than nothing. Is there a way to frame the discussion between scientists and the public? Insisting that we do nothing short of carbon pricing does not resonate with the public, especially during this period of economic hardship. Just the threat of increasing energy prices sends people into spirals. When the gas price suddenly tripled after Katrina, it was the catalyst that ignited the subprime mortgage meltdown. The cost of everything soared except for the housing bubble that burst.
Just like the phrase “buying time” sets the climate hawks off, “carbon pricing” rubs the average Joe the wrong way. We have to be savvy about climate policy. I anticipate a slippery-slope argument from the opposition. Skepticism about government ineffective and oppressive government intervention and appetite for tax revenue to balance the federal budget has been a huge road block toward making progress in the policy arena. We wind up back at doubting the science of climate change when the same scientists are fixating on carbon pricing.
If we inflict a carbon tax on the US, what’s the use if China and India can thumb their noses at the imperialist attitude of the West?
Ray’s prime argumentis that for long term climate stabilization, any delay in starting to curb CO2 reductions is time lost.
Which is true.
But then it gets complicated/political/value-laden: Are you mostly worries about long term climate, or short term climate, or health? How to deal with the gridlock? Does temporarily shifting the focus increase our chances for CO2 reductions thereafter?
Ray is staying with the science, though he clearly is mostly concerned about long term climate (as most “climate concerned” are I think, myself included). He doesn’t address the latter two questions, whereas you don’t seem to address his major point (my first sentence here). Hence, you’re talking past each other.
@ Dean
You are quite right. If the temps dropped (as opposed to staying flat) we won’t have this conversation today. Some scientists would look for creative explanations of the unexpected cooling. Others would work on the theories of the upcoming ice age. Haven’t we seen this before? Surely CO2 reduction won’t be on the agenda at all.
All I’m trying to say is that flat temp curve is not that scary (even at near max levels) compared to mini the hockey-stick of 90-s.
@ hurrywr2
245 new reactors to be built in 20 years. Just fabulous. Have anyone heard about big leap?
Dean:”Last year, the town I lived in had a heat wave and at it’s peak, it matched our all-time record for the high temp two days in a row. Was the heat wave over on that second day because it only matched the previous day’s record-matching temp of 106? I think the attitude for those of us sweltering was that we were still in a heat wave even though we didn’t set a new record, we only matched the old one.”
Weather is not climate unless it’s hot weather. I live in Southern California and this was the 3rd time I’ve made it through the summer without turning on the AC. But that same heatwave in September set records in Los Angeles and despite my husband’s nagging, I turned it on. This was an anomaly we called “Indian Summer” growing up in the Midwest (maybe that term is no longer PC?) From where I live, the summers are cooler and the late heatwave was a fluke. Why do people keep using every record-breaking high as proof of global warming, and then mock skeptics for talking about how high the snow levels go?
There are more bees buzzing around my roses than I can remember. In the spring, my neighbor witnessed the dramatic swarm as they reclaimed their favorite hollow in the same oak tree. If my anecdotal data was an accurate indicator of the bigger picture, I’d swear that colony collapse was an alarmist hoax.
My point is that we are never going to approach our energy efficiency or CO2 reduction goals using the same failed rhetoric. There are plenty of measures the public is willing to take regardless of whether they believe the science. Why not take what you can get before it’s supposedly too late?
@ laursaurus
When the gas price suddenly tripled after Katrina, it was the catalyst that ignited the subprime mortgage meltdown.
Sorry but this is a fantasy.
@ laursaurus
Why do people keep using every record-breaking high as proof of global warming, and then mock skeptics for talking about how high the snow levels go?
Because they don’t have better arguments, of course. Or was it a rhetorical question?
@ Sashka. Per NOAA, the average annual temperature for every year in the 2000’s was greater than the average temperature for the decade of the 1990’s, which at the time was the warmest decade on record. And when 2010 is done, the little “+” that will be added after 2009 on that graph will be up right there with those of 1998 and 2005… It’s inexorably getting warmer, amigo…
Bart (25):
I don’t think Ray and I are talking past each other at all. Ray consciously decided not to engage the NYT main point/message: that turning attention to secondary climate forcings could pave the way for the more difficult action on CO2 emissions. Ray’s post was framed around making this argument:
“But still, these proposals tend to convey the impression that dealing with the short-lived forcings now will in some way make it easier to deal with CO2 later, and that’s wrong.”
Why is it wrong? Not because of any political reasons, or real-world global realities, because Ray didn’t address those, which BTW, happen to be the precise reasoning behind the Op-ed authors argument.
Instead, Ray constructs this strawman:
“Let’s suppose, however, that we decide to go all-out on methane, and not do anything serious about CO2 for another 30 years.”
Now I’m going to be charitable and assume that’s not what the op-ed authors are saying at all. They’re saying let’s take some modest steps to build some success and political capital in order to get to the point where we can get serious about tackling carbon reductions.
Because again, the whole point here is that nothing serious is happening now and nothing serious appears to happening in the foreseeable future. We all agree on that much, right?
What’s Ray’s counter argument to taking the modest steps that could help the world finally get serious about reducing carbon emissions?
He doesn’t have one. But he does offer this:
“Suppose instead that you had focused all efforts on reducing the growth rate of CO2 emissons…”
Ah yes, suppose we did? Well now, if we did that, if there was even the slightest chance of that happening anytime soon, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, would we?
And round and round we go.
@ rust
I didn’t say anything about average temp over the decade vs decade. I said the temps reached a plateau.
@26 Sashka
You said “the last decade was completely uneventful with 1998 record still standing.” First of all, whether the 1998 record still stands depends on which temperature record you use.
But I don’t consider maintaining record heat to be uneventful. Ask Muscovites about last summer. They reached their all-time record, and stayed at or near it for some time (weeks). They didn’t consider the continuation of the heat (nor the fires it caused) uneventful. The plateau of heat was still a huge event. Only when temperatures went back down could it be called uneventful.
You really don’t understand the difference between weather and climate or just pretend for lack of better arguments?
I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading NOAA report on Russian heat wave of 2010:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/csi/moscow2010/
“Despite this strong evidence for a warming planet, greenhouse gas forcing fails to explain the 2010 heat wave over western Russia. The natural process of atmospheric blocking, and the climate impacts induced by such blocking, are the principal cause for this heat wave. It is not known whether, or to what extent, greenhouse gas emissions may affect the frequency or intensity of blocking during summer. It is important to note that observations reveal no trend in a daily frequency of July blocking over the period since 1948, nor is there an appreciable trend in the absolute values of upper tropospheric summertime heights over western Russia for the period since 1900.”
I never said that the Russian heat wave was definite proof of global warming. I used it as an example that a plateau of temperatures in no way indicates you have normalcy. You’re just changing the issue to avoid dealing with decades of high temperatures and they proof that they represent for AGW.
I’m not sure what you are trying to dispute. I didn’t say anything about normalcy. I said the last decade was uneventful compared to the previous. By events I mean not the weather events but something that could register as relevant to climate. Breaking all time global high would be a good example.
Weather plateau and climate plateau have nothing in common with each other.
KK:
I’m wondering if your not making this analysis a lot harder than it needs to be.
1. There’s a considerable group of scientists and activists who believe that in about 30 – 50 years from now the global climate will become substantially worse for H. sapiens than it is now if we maintain the status quo on carbon emission.
2. This group is faced by opposition which breaks into 2 large groups: (a) the scientists are wrong, and (b) who cares.
3. Dealing with the objections of Group 2(b) was always going to be a longshot — H. sapiens is not exactly known for its long-term planning, especially when the experts are saying that a whole bunch of money needs to be spent without visible improvements in existing services.
4. Since the who-cares group has prevailed for now, as a global community we’re now heading into mitigation/adaptation. We might as well be honest about it.
5. But the idea that the global community needs to focus on carbon black or aerosols or methane as a kind of confidence-boosting measure as a prequel to the hard decisions makes about as much sense as the various confidence-boosting measures proposed as part of the Israel-Palestine peace talks. They’re a neat idea, and might help some people at the margin, but the idea that these small steps will make taking the big steps easier is, to be polite, unsupported by the evidence. And it’s worth noting that these small steps can make the decisions on the big steps harder, because (a) they lock in certain decisions and (b) people can come to believe that the small steps are an adequate substitute.
(And anyone who thinks that these small steps are easy because California has managed to take them or the equivalent doesn’t know the first thing about California’s regulatory environment.)
It seems to me that what Raypierre is saying is that a lot of people, you included, are fooling themselves.
The arguments against the horribly named OTF ignore the point that it is a matter of timing, not emphasis. They assume that OTF means no action will be taken on CO2 for upwards of 30 years , that the only way to cut CO2 is the top down approach and that a political solution is somehow still available just around the corner. These are not quality premises.
Keith,
Indeed, Ray tried to steer away from the political argument of “paving the way” and instead focuses on the scientific aspect, which is his area of expertise and comfort. However, he did adress the issue of paving the way in e.g. the quote you gave and in a reply to you, where he wrote:
“(…) If you want to make the politically based argument that any international agreement bearing on climate breaks the ice and gets things moving (a dubious argument, in my view, but that’s just an amateur opinion) you could make that argument just as well for things that have co-benefits in reducing the growth rate of CO2 emissions — as some soot proposals do. –raypierre]”
I.e. he sees more in soot reduction than in methane reduction, for the reasons I outlined above. Plus he doesn’t see how or why a shfit in focus away from CO2 and to shortlived forcings would make it easier down the road to tackle CO2. That is a prime point, and I’m also skeptical of that. Similar as with the breakthrough idea of focussing on innovation, what’s lacking is the part of how would this conceivably work? Though I’m somewhat sympathetic to the idea of “it’s going nowhere at the moment, so let’s try something different, anything!” it would be really useful to try to give these ideas some more hands and feet. Otherwise it rings more like an act of desperation than a well though out strategy.
#37 – Francis
You make some good points but you are too dismissive of the 2b) group. Many people who fall into this category have seriously looked at the mitigation option and concluded that it is not technically feasible at this time and they are not willing to divert limited public resources into projects that will ultimately fail. This means adaptation as required ends up being the only viable policy option.
You may disagree with the opinion that mitigation is not technically but it is unfair to charactize people who have that opinion as people who do not care about long term planning.
“Reducing soot and the other short-lived pollutants would not stop global warming, but it would buy time..”
“The RC post addresses it in full and argues effectively… that defraying action on carbon dioxide for decades amounts to ‘Losing time, not buying time’..”
The issue and problem are that the argument is mute and it’s an academic waste of time and spit to continue to argue on campus or on a blog. We’ve moved out of the classroom of “RealClimate” and into the “Real World” of dirty cutthroat politics. Getting a reduction of any meaningful scale in soot and the other short-lived pollutants will be hard enough; indeed, it may be impossible.
Worldwide CO2 reduction AIN’T gonna’ happen! Not in 10, 15, 25, or 30 years. It’s a Cold, Hard, Dirty, Smelly, Sour fact of life that isn’t going to change and isn’t going to go away. Our technology just never seems to catch up to our daydreams. Why is that?
Pascvaks 41 says: “Our technology just never seems to catch up to our daydreams. Why is that?”
Great concluding question. The answer is that our bodyes cannot feel enough difference between what we dream we do, and what we actually do to make the sacrifice necessary to impliment what we profess we want, to be worth the effort . . . until it is too late. We are (take your pick): lazy; hopelessly hedonistic; immature; insufficiently evolved relative to our technological prowess; enslaved to debt; religiously devoted to fear as greed.
If we had let the too-big-to-fail banks fail and allowed global capitalism to collapse (rather than temporarily flash freeze that collapse), the consequential social chaos might have been sufficient to tip us back out of our tip into CAGW. That was not chosen, so only an immediate aligning of greed with need via a constitutional currency coined in sustainable CO2e credits concurrent with writing off at zero all existing, but unsustainable ‘wealth’ can give credence to any ‘positive’ messaging. Any delay, with the Arctic slowly increasing its contribution of methane to the atmosphere over the past decade (as measured with the limited means of doing so), define just how lazy; hopelessly hedonistic; immature; insufficiently evolved relative to our technological prowess; enslaved to debt; religiously devoted to fear as greed we are.
Keith,
It seems to me that Ramanathan & Victor gave a number of good reasons why we should use Cancun to do something about pollution, so Raypierre’s response was a straw man argument in more ways than just his stretch of ‘a few decades’ to mean ’30 years’.
Best, Alex
I actually think Ray makes some good points in his responses to you Keith and I now think “buying time” is probably not the best choice of words to convey the argument we’re trying to make. It might be better to say that the “time” has already been “bought” and paid for – absent some clear and present crisis there is going to be a period of at least several years, probably longer (I agree it’s likely to be between 10-20), with no possibility for major co2 reduction legislation like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade. So, rather than “buying time” what we’re really arguing about is what do we do with the time that’s already been bought.
Ray seems to be suggesting that efforts can be put into secondary measures that are still related to CO2:
“The sort of thing that does set you on the right path are global power plant efficiency targets, which directly get at the CO2 problem, but also can be justified for human health co-benefits, and possibly for climate side-benefits through absorbing aerosols as well (depending on how much of that is offset by loss of reflecting aerosols)”
At least I think that’s what he’s suggesting. If so, it strikes me as a reasonable argument and a potential avenue for building a compromise strategy among those concerned about CC (instead of the circular firing-squad we have now).
Also, Ray seems to be focusing on international agreements which is understandable given the problem. Of course, that makes the political obstacles much more substantial.
I do agree with you, Keith, that his focus on the time horizon in the article is a bit of a strawman. No one can predict with any certainty what the political landscape will be in 2 years, much less 30. One can’t plan with any certainty when major CO2 reduction initiatives will be politically possible again – the point is to be prepared when they are and to try to bring about such change sooner rather than later. Personally, I think 10-20 years is a reasonable estimate simply because that is about the time interval between major initiatives in other policy areas (health care, entitlements, regulations, etc.).
Andy,
I agree with your point. However I do not see the 30 years picked by Ray Pierrehumbert is a straw man. I think the only difference between 30 years and 15 years is only quantitative. A factor two more CO2 will be emitted in the first scenario, but his argument really does not depend in any way on the precise numbers. His argument is that focusing on short-lived GHG first does not buy time, but costs time, whether you do that for 10, 20 or 30 years seems to me somewhat besides the point.
Anyway, it might be a good strategy to focus more on policies we can all agree on, such as energy efficiency. Secondly, although global agreements are not likely in the short term, locally, at least in Europe, I do have the feeling some progress is being made. There are some countries that in recent years have formulated pretty ambitious reduction goals (e.g. Britain).
Now some years ago one of the low hanging fruits dropped off the tree.
Post Montreal the rate of rise (not the absolute amount) of GHG forcings should have taken a knock due to the phasing out of certain CFCs.
Now did that, or didn’t that have an affect on the commensurate rate of rise in global temperatures. Has that rate of rise take a knock since around 1995?
It puzzles me, that we never sing loudly the AGW success story that Montreal should or did bring about. Why is that?
If Montreal had no effect then GHG/AGW theory has a big problem. If it did have an effect then it is BIG political capital for showing that we understand the problem, the ship of climate responds to the helm, e.g. that Climate navigation is a possibility.
I would wish for all non-CO2 emissions to be reduced as a priority, including sulphates. Sulphate effects fall out of the system as soon as the skies clear which is weeks or months. Deciding the issue of whether or not sulphates are all that stands between us and dramatic temperature rises is I think something better discovered now rather than when we do start to phase out coal.
We can learn whilst doing and we have an opportunity to do to learn.
And I do think that we need to make sensible proposals about fossil fuel consumption and take action upon them. By sensible I think I just mean plausible.
Currently we are limited by the art of the possible. I believe we can raise the industrial and political capital to move rapidly on all non-CO2 AGW pollutants.
Alex
Ozone is a strong heat-trapping gas. In theory, Montreal helped warming the planet. Of course, the overriding concern was health so warming effect of Montreal is irrelevant.
Sashka,
1) The Montreal protocol was about protecting the stratospheric ozone layer. That’s different from the increase in ozone in the troposphere.
2) CFC’s are greenhouse gases, so decreasing them helps to avoid some warming.
I agree with your point. However I do not see the 30 years picked by Ray Pierrehumbert is a straw man.
The strawman isn’t that he picked 30 years. The strawman is that, in addressing the argument about “buying time”, he compared
a) temperatures if we control CO2 now and methane later to
b) temperatures if we control CO2 later and methane now.
In that case, we aren’t ‘buying time’. But the actual proposition is that it appears we cannot get agreement on controlling CO2 now. We’ve tried for over 20 years with little progress. The political climate suggests the probability of getting agreement to reduce CO2 at Cancun to be close to zero.
So, if we think the probability of reducing CO2 now is zero, then what? Maybe the politicians should at least try to reduce Methane. In which case, we “buy time” relative to the strategy of insisting on ignoring methane until after we get an agreement on CO2– which might not happen for several decades.
From this point of view, RayPierre’s “science” graph is wrong because it leaves off the proper comparison which is between the temperature trajectoris of (a)”reduce methane now, defer action on CO2″ to vs (b) defer action on CO2 and worry about methane only after acting on CO2.
I sketched my guess of that comparison here: http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Alternative2.jpg
@ Bart
1. I am well aware of that. Did you mean to object to something I said or implied or an attempt at educating me (thanks you)?
2. I was told in the class that the net effect of Montreal was warming because CFCs are incredibly effective at destroying stratospheric ozone. I never checked this claim. If you think this is incorrect feel free to quote your sources.
Re #34/5: Dean, Trenberth had to publically correct the ESRL scientists. Sashka is likely quite aware of that. Debating rules apply.
Re #49: Gotta love those strawmen, Lucia. What Ray is criticizing is the “delay pushing for/working on CO2 reductions to instead reduce other forcings,” that being a horrible mistake. Starting to reduce BC or methane immediately (as opposed to *first*, which implies a decision to delay CO2 reductions) has no opposition from climate advocates. In focus terms, this is called broadening.
The bad news is that going after the secondary forcings has been on the table for some years now and seems to have run into the same brick wall as CO2 reductions. Notwithstanding the push to get action on the secondary forcings at Cancun, it seems we’re getting nothing. Next step, Keith?
Steve Bloom–
That there is “no opposition from climate advocates” for reducing methane now as long as we also reduce CO2 now is irrelevant to the argument over ‘buying time”. The question is: What do you devote time too during negotiation given that, as a practical matter, you simply can not get an agreement to reduce CO2? Do you stomp your little feet and refuse to negotiate methane reductions because you aren’t getting CO2 also? Or do you go ahead and push for the methane reductions?
Feel free to repeat that you are happy to reduce methane as long as you reduce CO2 too. We all understand some endorse the “all or nothing” position. But bear in mind, by refusing to negotiate for the things for the things you can conceivably get, you can end up with nothing.
Notwithstanding the push to get action on the secondary forcings at Cancun, it seems we’re getting nothing.
Has that been the focus? As in: They have actually set aside the push for reducing CO2 emmissions? Honest question because I haven’t been following it. But unless the secondary forcings have been the focus with discussion of CO2 set aside and deferred to a later time, then the strategy Keith is discussing in his post still hasn’t been tried. If it hasn’t been tried, it can hardly be said to have failed.
Hansen put forward a mild CO2 strong non-CO2 mitigation strategy in 2000 and it appears that it was not well received:
Global Warming in the 21st Century: An Alternative Scenario:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/200111_altscenario/
Here is a quote from this paper:
“A corollary following from Figure 1 is that climate forcing by non-CO2 GHGs 1.4 W/m2) is nearly equal to the net value of all known forcings for the period 1850-2000 (1.6 W/m2). Thus, assuming only that our estimates are
approximately correct, we assert that the processes producing the non-CO2 GHGs have been the primary drive for climate change in the past century.”
If this conclusion by Hansen is still held to be true it indicates that had we not had the increase in non-CO2 forcings it is unlikley we would have spotted a significant temperature rise in the 20th Century. This is essentially the exposed tip of the iceberg argument that about 2/3 of all warming is counteracted by sulphate emissions.
Hansen’s Resopnse to criticism:
Open Letter: http://naturalscience.com/ns/letters/ns_let25.html
Unfortuantely I cannot find the criticism but he comments on a UCS Information Update as follows:
The essence of their discussion seems to be that our paper is controversial, potentially harmful to the Kyoto Protocol, and not a helpful contribution to the climate change discussion as it “may fuel confusion about global warming among the public”.
The idea that Hansen was unhelpful to a strong environmental position makes me to smile a little.
It was an interesting paper and worth reading. For those that may doubt that the reduction in CFC emissions and also CH4 should have had a material effect these are dealt with in the paper. The sulphate effect acts to amplify the reduction in the rate of temperature increase of temperatures that should have occurred post 1995 and perhaps should have lead to a noticable decrease in the temperature gradient.
Alex
@ Alex
Thanks for reminding about that paper of Hansen. Hard to believe that it’s the same person who is now trying to boil the oceans in his models trying to prove something evil about CO2. Clinically, this is a very interesting case.
” negotiate for the things for the things you can conceivably get”
evidence?
anyone who thinks that international negotiations on black carbon would be any easier than traditional GHGs hasn’t been paying attention (hint: google marine diesel and sulphur standards). negotiating anything at the international level is a difficult, slow process. Which of course doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it. But lets at least be honest and reasonable about our expectations.
Sashka:
You are welcome.
I think I may have found the UCS commentary that miffed Hansen:
http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/archive/ucs-review-for-alternative.html
Here is an extract, it is hardly a blast but I guess that it must have made him smart a bit.
“The article has already received press coverage in major national papers, is causing a significant stir among climate contrarians, and is likely to fuel greater confusion about global warming among the wider public. Climate skeptics, using their usual tactics of selective quoting and misleading interpretation of the findings, claim that Hansen, the scientist who first put global warming on the political agenda before the US Congress in 1988, now admits that CO2 is not the major culprit.”
Alex
Marlowe
evidence?
If you think we can’t get action on methane now either, that’s a counter argument to taking the strategy of pursuing that agreement.
But that’s not the argument RayPierre advances, which is that getting action on methane doesn’t “buy time” before we hit 2C. But to make his “scientific” argument, RayPierre distorts what the “buy time” argument is and presents results that are correct but irrelevant to the “buy time” argument.
If we assume that we can’t get action on CO2 now, getting action on methane would “buy time” before we hit 2C relative to not getting action on methane. That’s what the physics says about the idea if you apply it to what the “buy time” argument really suggests.
Mind you: it’s perfectly fair to say you think we should drop negotiating for CO2 limits now because you think we can get them now. But in that case, you should just say why you think we can get them now.
Or, it’s fair to suggest that you think getting action on methane is no easier– in which case, explain why.
But neither of those things address the way in which RayPierre’s discussion is “wrong” with regard to assessing the “buy time” argument. His discussion is wrong because he hides the fact that he assumes that our alternatives are (Reduce CO2 now, Reduce Methane later) vs (Reduce methane now, reduce CO2 later.) The first option is assumed impossible in the “buy time” argument.
Lucia the point I’m making is fairly simple. There isn’t much evidence to support the idea that international negotiations to limit other GHGs (black carbon, methane) would be any easier than the traditional Kyoto gases. I’m not against trying. But don’t expect me to believe it would be easier in the absence of a credible argument. Wishing does not make it so.
@58
Seen any good deals on tinfoil hats lately? 🙄
sorry that should read @54.
Marlowe–
That’s a fair enough argument. For all I know you are correct that getting methane agreements is also impossible.
My comment was on RayPierre’s discussion of the “physics”, where he suggest that achieving methane reductions would not “buy time” He is incorrect and mislead people by comparing a “reduce methane now” example to one that is irrelevant to the “buy time” concept.
So, my point is: We need to ignore RayPierre’s misleading “science” when assessing the “buy time” argument. His “analysis” gives the wrong answer. The truth is:Reducing methane would “buy time.”
Once we realize RayPierres answer claimed to be based on “physics” is wrong when applied to the “buy time” concept, we can focus on the sorts of political arguments you are making. Then people who think they have some insight into the political situation can argue about the political assumptions in the argument that we should focus on controlling methane now. I think that would be a useful argument which should not be derailed by RayPierres misleading claims about “physics”.
Marlowe Johnson Says:
December 9th, 2010 at 12:20 pm There isn’t much evidence to support the idea that international negotiations to limit other GHGs (black carbon, methane) would be any easier than the traditional Kyoto gases.
15% of US coal fired electricity generation capacity would become ‘economically non-viable’ and retired if we regulated more stringently for emissions other then CO2. The case for regulating for ‘other then CO2’ is significantly stronger as it includes immediate impacts on health.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B82UI20101209
Harry-coal-bot 🙂 I agree with you. But that doesn’t make international negotiations any easier.
Marlowe Johnson Says:
“But that doesn’t make international negotiations any easier.”
Let’s look at the case of India.
Due to a little misunderstanding over their testing a nuclear bomb the ‘Global Community’ cut off their uranium supplies.
Obviously, if their uranium supply is cut off they are going to burn more coal and jack up their CO2 emissions.
The Uranium Embargo on India was just lifted this year.
Having had the experience of having their Uranium cut off, would they agree via treaty to forego ‘Plan B’?
In the US we had a similar experience with oil in the 1970’s. OPEC cut us off. Burning petroluem oil in our vehicles produces less CO2 emission then burning Coal Oil produced via Fischer-Tropisch.
The US ‘Plan B’ in the event someone cuts off our oil imports is Coal Oil via Fischer-Tropisch.
Would we willingly negotiate away our ‘Plan B’ having had the experience our oil supplies being cut off?
Like it or not, a Climate Treaty with legally binding emissions caps has negative energy security implications for India,China and the US.
The US,China and India are vulnerable to a cutoff in oil supplies. China and India are additionally vulnerable to a cutoff in Uranium supplies.
Limiting black carbon, so2 and Nox emissions makes the economics of using coal less then favorable. It doesn’t preclude a country from using coal in the event that ‘international relations’ left them with no viable alternative.
“Limiting black carbon, so2 and Nox emissions makes the economics of using coal less then favorable. ”
True.
“It doesn’t preclude a country from using coal in the event that “˜international relations’ left them with no viable alternative.”
Also true. But the whole point of C&T is that it provides a degree of flexibility that you simply don’t get with end-of-pipe solutions. Don’t want to shut down your coal plants? Or, more likely, have to run them harder because hydro/nuclear output is lower this year? Fine. Get your utilities to buy credits from rural biogas producers that are generating offsets. Or worst case, buy on the international market.
The other thing I’d add is that your suggestion that a cap would prevent a Coal-to-liquids response in the face of an oil shock simply isn’t credible. If there is indeed an oil shock then prices would likely rise to such an extent that domestic oil consumption would drop considerably (look at what happened in 2008). Emissions would also of course drop, thereby providing ‘space’ under the cap to pursue things like CTL…you can’t have it both ways. Incidentally a paper just came out that purports to show that CTL+CCS is a cheaper mitigation option than cellulosic ethanol…
Marlowe,
I think the concern that India, China and the US have is the case where the ‘international markets’ have become closed.
I.E. India has nuclear power plants that have been running at less then 50% capacity for a decade because they couldn’t buy Uranium on international markets.
Carbon caps represent a ‘double jackpot’. For some reason if they are again not allowed to buy Uranium, not only would they have to pay for coal to replace lost nuclear capacity , they would have to pay for permits to burn it.
CTL with CSS is still in ‘demonstration mode’. it’s 10-20 years out from being anything more then a ‘demonstration’ project.
My overall point is that there are geopolitical reasons why someone might be ‘hesitant’ to agree ‘binding carbon caps’.
In the US one needs 67 votes in the Senate to ratify a treaty.
The votes are never going to be there as long the ‘National Security Hawks’ see it as limiting our ‘energy security’ options. The same will be true of China and India.
We can’t even get the Start Treaty thru the Senate despite unanimous support within the Department of Defense and a long list of former Senior defense officials.
The “buying time” argument has been strongly made by advocates of action to address halocarbon emissions, and I just don’t get why discussion of this is conspicuous by its absence from the discussion thus far. Taken together, the CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, PFCs & SF6 (and a quite a few others) are the third largest contributors to radiative forcing, twice that of NO2. There has been an accidental massive climate benefit from phasing out CFCs, which will be lost if the developing world follows developed countries in going down the HFC path, and this debate will be won or lost in the next few years. We’ve just lost a major opportunity to get the UNFCCC to instruct the Montreal Protocol to adopt amendments to address HFCs, proving the point that getting agreement on any source of emissions is politically tricky. Yet phasing out HFCs (and HCFCs, and recovering the ‘banks’ of ODS) and replacing them with readily available natural refrigerants has got to be the most affordable and effective fast acting emissions mitigation tool we have in the shed.
I accept Ray Pierre’s concern that we can’t do this at the expense of pulling all stops out to prevent the CO2 genie from getting out of the bottle, and he does identify long-lived halocarbons as being worthy of attention, but like too many others, the near term, fast-acting climate benefits to be derived from deciding to move beyond HFCs are largely overlooked.
Ironically, the US (along with Canada, Mexico and the Small Island States) has been pushing for action on HFCs at the Montreal Protocol even though the industry there lags far behind Europe in accepting natural refrigerants. Now that the global commercial refrigeration industry under the umbrella of the Consumer Goods Forum have announced at day 1 of Cancun that they want to move beyond HFCs by 2015, it might be time for the scientific community to become more vocal in helping to decipher the alphabet soup of C’s and F’s and H’s and GWPs to policy makers and the public? While the details are complex, the message needs to be made clear that we can no longer afford to ignore the opportunities to harvest low hanging fruit outlined at beyondhfcs.org.
Alex @53 – Many and profound thanks for drawing attention to this Hansen paper, wish I’d seen this at the time!
His observations on halocarbons are highly relevant to the current debate on HFCs – “Chlorofluorocarbons. If CFCs are phased out according to the Montreal Protocol the forcing by controlled gases will be about 0.15 W/m2 less in 2050 than at present. Uncontrolled gases, some of them substitutes for ozone-depleting chemicals, are likely to increase and cause a positive forcing of about that same magnitude, with the largest contributor being HFC-134a. The Protocol, which has been a model of international cooperation, recently approved $150M for China and $82M for India, the two largest remaining producers, for complete phase-out of their CFC production. This should make the net change in climate forcing by these gases over the next 50 years about zero. If the phase-out were extended to include additional gases, such as HFC-134a, and destruction of the accessible bank of CFC-12, a negative forcing change of -0.1 W/m2 seems possible.”
Unfortunately Montreal Protocol policy makers did not heed his advice and have actively promoted HFCs in the ensuing decade – and as a result their atmospheric concentration is increasing at 10% p.a. according to the forthcoming Scientific Assessment Panel report.
Even the North American and Micronesia & Mauritius Montreal Protocol HFC amendment proposals to “phase down” HFCs do not go far enough, but they would be a good if belated start towards the imperative HFC phase out. Hansen’s work is strongly vindicated by Velders et.al.’s 2007 and 2009 PNAS papers on the magnitude of avoided emissions from the CFC phase out the projections of the large climate impact of unabated growth of HFCs.
Last week in Cancun certain Parties succeeded in obstructing agreement to have HFCs addressed in the Montreal Protocol basket, but the text remains for further discussion next year. However much work remains to be done to convince many Parties of the environmental, economic and energy efficiency benefits of the much needed transition to genuinely climate friendly natural refrigerant solutions.
PS – actually, Velders et. al. 2009 projects HFC forcing of 0.25-0.4 W/m2 by 2050, or up to around 9 GtCO2-eq yr. If pursued, policy responses available now could almost entirely avoid these emissions.