CO2 Emissions from Electrical Generation: 1980 to 2030

[kristopher]

6. You're right.

You've largely addressed my criticisms from the earlier discussion and you do, in fact, appear to be in line with median values in the studies the IPCC reviewed. You are to be commended for the work and the good faith you brought to the effort tonight.

Two thoughts for your consideration. Like most studies of this kind the raw data tends to be a bit stale. The latest numbers they post in their description of our current status are for 2008 and I'm inclined to think none of the underlying studies are more recent than 2009 meaning they are not capturing the full impact of China's policies.

I also think the distribution of the projections on pg 136 is interesting, don't you think? The median is extremely close to the low end of the range with distribution above median accounting for a significant portion of the entire range of estimates.
Simply put the more conservative projections are clustered together while the optimistic projections tend to be more spread out.

What do you believe accounts for the difference in distribution? What assumptions are at play here?