No emissions can't go negative. It doesn't matter what India says. That's a comically unrealistic claim, especially given we're heading to 10 billion people.
India, China and Africa's emissions expansion over the coming decades guarantee that if the popular climate scientist claims are correct, there is only a dire outcome possible at this point. You can take the developed countries to zero and the world (as we know it) still ends the same.
The developed countries - which it's important to note are a small, nearly contracting minority share of global population - are never going to zero (much less negative). So the realistic scenario is actually far worse than any fantasy zero scenario would indicate.
Just China and India alone will be enough to destroy the planet when it comes to emissions. In the next three decades, their emissions will not contract, they will expand massively. The developed countries as a whole will struggle to significantly reduce their emissions from where they are now. And that's that, the end.
Everything else about how developed nations should immediately cut back while eg China pushes the planet off a cliff, is nothing more than virtue signaling on the way to the graveyard.
And if you ask the virtue signalers for math to show how China can keep rapidly expanding its emissions and everything is going to work out fine, they will immediately turn tail and run away as fast as they can, or otherwise desperately change the subject. I've been trying for years to get anyone to demonstrate how China can continue to expand so fast that it ends up having 3x or 4x the emissions of the US, and how that can be defeated as a problem. Nobody dares to engage the actual conversation, because they know what it means, they know the virtue signaling premise (the world can still be saved, if only the developed countries fall on the sword) is a giant lie.
The virtue signaling fake-save-the-world-go-to-zero premise is so laughably absurd at this point, that what we're going to see next will be extraordinary fantasy elements come into play. They'll start talking about increasingly dumb solutions, like that we'll magically warp China's emissions away using quantum AI buzz-word buzz-word buzz-word technology (and we'll do it within just a few decades). The years will keep sliding by, China's emissions will keep soaring higher, the save-the-world fantasy ideas will keep getting dumber.
If the climate scientists are right, the outcome is already set, short of utilizing a fantasy premise to get to zero or negative net for the entire globe very rapidly (none of which is feasible).
A wildly optimistic outcome would be for the developed nations overall to cut emissions by 1/3 in the next ~30 years. That's not going to happen, but let's do a little bit of pretending for fun. China is set to fill that in all by itself over those decades. Now add in the rest of the developing world and three billion additional people hungry for an affluent lifestyle.
But one might say: I'm not proposing any solutions! That's right, there aren't any. Unless China can be convinced (they can't be, see: coal power plant construction) to immediately stop its emissions climb, while everybody else in the developing world also immediately gives up chasing a first world lifestyle (which I also don't fault them for in the least, they should pursue that) and combined with somehow that magically the developed world instantly slashes its emissions output by an impossible amount in the span of a few decades. All of those things has to happen, you need three fantasy outcomes to happen simultaneously to avoid the dire outcome.
Unlike the climate hypocrites on both sides, I'm not asking the developing nations to not seek a developed lifestyle (as a solution). I'm not saying they should fall on the sword either. I'm not asking them to want anything less than what developed nations want. I'm recognizing reality for what it is: there is no positive outcome possible, if the climate scientists are right about their increasingly dire models.
I don't understand this. Your claim is that it's literally impossible to complete industrialization with non-polluting technologies? Why? Is there something inherent to the energy that fossil fuels provide beyond their cost and ease of access?
> they know the virtue signaling premise (the world can still be saved, if only the developed countries fall on the sword) is a giant lie.
If it's cost alone, the answer is straightforward, especially as your premise already includes the developed world "falling on its sword": countries that polluted their way through industrialization heavily subsidize the clean version of that economic process in countries that have yet to do so.
This is obviously devilishly complicated from a geopolitical perspective, and I'm not necessarily recommending it. But the idea that the developed world has no levers to pull here is nonsense.
If it comes to it, if we overcome the greedy capitalist and nationalistic, imperialistic hangups, we could do it at cost in our best self interest to educate and industrialize the global south cleanly. Prevents war there, poverty, hunger and all sorts of refugee problems.
With their own hands, them owning the fruits of their labor.
My optimistic side agree with you but my inner cynic thinks that’s equivalent to saying “if we just get past our human hangups we could do it”. While being technically true, it’s hard to see a likely path given the current state of human affairs.
Twitter would also stop being a cesspool and start betting a forum of enlightened discourse if we could just put aside out psychological flaws but I’m not holding my breath for that, either.
India, China and Africa's emissions expansion over the coming decades guarantee that if the popular climate scientist claims are correct, there is only a dire outcome possible at this point. You can take the developed countries to zero and the world (as we know it) still ends the same.
The developed countries - which it's important to note are a small, nearly contracting minority share of global population - are never going to zero (much less negative). So the realistic scenario is actually far worse than any fantasy zero scenario would indicate.
Just China and India alone will be enough to destroy the planet when it comes to emissions. In the next three decades, their emissions will not contract, they will expand massively. The developed countries as a whole will struggle to significantly reduce their emissions from where they are now. And that's that, the end.
Everything else about how developed nations should immediately cut back while eg China pushes the planet off a cliff, is nothing more than virtue signaling on the way to the graveyard.
And if you ask the virtue signalers for math to show how China can keep rapidly expanding its emissions and everything is going to work out fine, they will immediately turn tail and run away as fast as they can, or otherwise desperately change the subject. I've been trying for years to get anyone to demonstrate how China can continue to expand so fast that it ends up having 3x or 4x the emissions of the US, and how that can be defeated as a problem. Nobody dares to engage the actual conversation, because they know what it means, they know the virtue signaling premise (the world can still be saved, if only the developed countries fall on the sword) is a giant lie.
The virtue signaling fake-save-the-world-go-to-zero premise is so laughably absurd at this point, that what we're going to see next will be extraordinary fantasy elements come into play. They'll start talking about increasingly dumb solutions, like that we'll magically warp China's emissions away using quantum AI buzz-word buzz-word buzz-word technology (and we'll do it within just a few decades). The years will keep sliding by, China's emissions will keep soaring higher, the save-the-world fantasy ideas will keep getting dumber.
If the climate scientists are right, the outcome is already set, short of utilizing a fantasy premise to get to zero or negative net for the entire globe very rapidly (none of which is feasible).
A wildly optimistic outcome would be for the developed nations overall to cut emissions by 1/3 in the next ~30 years. That's not going to happen, but let's do a little bit of pretending for fun. China is set to fill that in all by itself over those decades. Now add in the rest of the developing world and three billion additional people hungry for an affluent lifestyle.
But one might say: I'm not proposing any solutions! That's right, there aren't any. Unless China can be convinced (they can't be, see: coal power plant construction) to immediately stop its emissions climb, while everybody else in the developing world also immediately gives up chasing a first world lifestyle (which I also don't fault them for in the least, they should pursue that) and combined with somehow that magically the developed world instantly slashes its emissions output by an impossible amount in the span of a few decades. All of those things has to happen, you need three fantasy outcomes to happen simultaneously to avoid the dire outcome.
Unlike the climate hypocrites on both sides, I'm not asking the developing nations to not seek a developed lifestyle (as a solution). I'm not saying they should fall on the sword either. I'm not asking them to want anything less than what developed nations want. I'm recognizing reality for what it is: there is no positive outcome possible, if the climate scientists are right about their increasingly dire models.