Actual Carbon Emissions vs. IPCC Scenarios - how far away is safety?

[OKIsItJustMe]

29. That’s worse!

You chose 1990 rather than 1980 or 1985, because that gave you a worse result.

This is the sort of game that the “skeptics” like to play, choosing their starting points to produce a result they like.

It’s also the sort of game that some proponents of solar and wind like to play, suggesting that an apparent geometric increase extending over a few years will continue indefinitely.
http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/refsys/pdf/PV%20reports/PV%20Status%20Report%202012.pdf

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Fig. 1: World PV Cell/Module Production from 2000 to 2011
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(It would be wonderful if it did, but such a trend is virtually impossible to maintain indefinitely.)


However, I think it’s reasonable to assume that as we use more and more of our fossil fuel reserves, fossil fuels will continue to become more and more expensive. As a result we will use less of them.

I like to point out to people that we didn't just discover oil in the tar sands of Canada or have some technological breakthrough. Why are we doing it now then? Because the easiest stuff to get to is (essentially) gone. So, now, we’re going after the harder stuff, even though it’s more expensive to produce. The cost of fossil fuels has finally risen high enough to make “unconventional” sources like tar sands, deep ocean drilling & high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing profitable.

At the same time as fossil fuels are becoming more and more expensive, the cost of renewable energy is coming down. Whether people believe in anthropogenic climate change or not, financially, they will be driven to pursue alternative energy sources, which will increasingly be renewables.

So, I simply don’t believe that smoothly increasing emissions curve is real.