We're not locked in for the next 20 years. Not for the next 10.
The carbon in the atmosphere is going to be there for the next millenium and the temperature won't level out till the 2100s if we stopped all carbon emission right this second.
Furthermore, if we did stop all emissions right now, the planet would get 0.5-1.5 °C hotter within a year or two due to the end of the aerosol pollution cooling effect that's been cutting the effects of carbon induced climate change in half this whole time.
This year is so hot because they put limitations on sulfur emissions from shipping boats in the Pacific. Those emissions were cooling the atmosphere, but the aerosol emissions (which that sulfur is one of) only last in the atmosphere for about 2 weeks before they're rained out of the air.
We're fucked.
So can't we reintroduce the sulfur?
It was taken out because the pollution was directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths per year. If we need to geoengineer an aerosol to cool the planet, we can do better.
Deaths from increasing temperatures are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands a year already, how many of those could the aerosols have prevented? Was that more or less than tens of thousands?
I'm not saying it can't be done or it shouldn't necessarily, I'm just trying to express why this decision happened at a political level. Politics only occasionally leads humanity to the logical course of action.
We're not locked in for the next 20 years. Not for the next 10.
The carbon in the atmosphere is going to be there for the next millenium and the temperature won't level out till the 2100s if we stopped all carbon emission right this second.
Furthermore, if we did stop all emissions right now, the planet would get 0.5-1.5 °C hotter within a year or two due to the end of the aerosol pollution cooling effect that's been cutting the effects of carbon induced climate change in half this whole time.
This year is so hot because they put limitations on sulfur emissions from shipping boats in the Pacific. Those emissions were cooling the atmosphere, but the aerosol emissions (which that sulfur is one of) only last in the atmosphere for about 2 weeks before they're rained out of the air.
We're fucked.
So can't we reintroduce the sulfur?
It was taken out because the pollution was directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths per year. If we need to geoengineer an aerosol to cool the planet, we can do better.
Deaths from increasing temperatures are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands a year already, how many of those could the aerosols have prevented? Was that more or less than tens of thousands?
I'm not saying it can't be done or it shouldn't necessarily, I'm just trying to express why this decision happened at a political level. Politics only occasionally leads humanity to the logical course of action.
So which is the lesser evil?