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“Global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control, a U.N. climate panel said in a landmark report Monday… Unless immediate, rapid and large-scale action is taken to reduce emissions, the report says, the average global temperature is likely to reach or cross the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold within 20 years.” Reuters
The right is skeptical of predictions of catastrophe and calls for market solutions to global warming.
“The report emphasizes climate change in recent decades but obscures, or fails to mention, historical precedents that weaken the case that humanity’s influence on the climate has been catastrophic. The Summary for Policy Makers section says the rate of global sea-level rise has been increasing over the past 50 years. It doesn’t mention that it was increasing almost as rapidly 90 years ago before decreasing strongly for 40 years…
“Extreme weather events are invoked as proof of impending disaster. But the floods in Europe and China and record temperatures across regions of the U.S. are weather, not climate—singular events, not decadeslong trends. Both Europe and China have experienced equally devastating floods in past centuries, but these are forgotten or deliberately ignored…
“The drought and wildfires in the Western U.S. are part of a trend going back a few decades, but forest management and expanding human presence in the forests are perhaps more important than climate change in causing these events… we should be wary of the torrent of hyperbole that is sweeping the globe.”
Steven E. Koonin, Wall Street Journal
“Since the heat dome in June, there has been a lot of writing about more heat deaths. And the IPCC confirms that climate change indeed has increased heatwaves. However, the report equally firmly, if virtually unacknowledged, tells us that global warming means ‘the frequency and intensity of cold extremes have decreased.’ This matters because globally, many more people die from cold than from heat…
“As temperatures have increased over the past two decades, that has caused an extra 116,000 heat deaths each year. This, of course, fits the narrative and is what we have heard over and over again. But it turns out that because global warming has also reduced cold waves, we now see 283,000 fewer cold deaths. You don’t hear this, but so far climate change saves 166,000 lives each year…
“The scare stories on climate impacts are vastly overblown and not supported by this new climate report. One of the clearest ways to see this is through climate economics. Because of climate change, the average person worldwide will be ‘only’ 436 percent as well off in 2100 as they are now, instead of 450 percent. This is not the apocalypse but a problem we should fix smartly.”
Bjorn Lomborg, New York Post
“The big risks in the IPCC report are the known unknowns, the possibility of sudden tipping points in ice sheets or ocean circulation. But if buying insurance is sensible, green energy subsidies are not that insurance…
“The solar panels Americans are being subsidized to install, the Journal recently noted, are produced in ‘carbon-dioxide-belching, coal-burning plants in China.’ Your subsidy to buy an electric car is the manufacturer’s subsidy to consume fossil energy in mining the lithium and rare metals needed to make it. Your subsidy to get a Tesla is the electric company’s subsidy to burn more fossil fuels to keep it charged. A carbon tax, because it reduces the incentive to consume fossil fuels across the board, is the way to lower emissions meaningfully.”
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street Journal
“A word that does not appear in the report is democracy. And democracy is the specter that haunts climate activism. Climate change is not a new issue. It is an issue that seems to grow in urgency each year if we judge by taking the temperature of the political rhetoric. But it is an issue that does not seem to grow in urgency each year if we consider the actions of governments, democratic and otherwise, around the world… progressives insist that President Biden must achieve his climate goals even if the democratically elected representatives in Congress disagree…
“[But] Why do we [elect] congresses and parliaments if not to make decisions of precisely this kind? The fact that progressives have not got their way on this issue is not an indictment of democracy — it is a reflection of the fact that different people have different priorities…
“Maybe Americans and Europeans and Japanese should have different priorities — but they don’t. This is a matter of stated preferences (‘Go green!’) being at odds with revealed preferences (for inexpensive energy and the bounty that comes with it). The democracies have had plenty of time to adopt the more radical version of the climate agenda — and they have, for the most part, said, ‘No.’”
Kevin D. Williamson, National Review
The left is alarmed by the report and calls for immediate action to reduce global warming.
The left is alarmed by the report and calls for immediate action to reduce global warming.
“The second-biggest wildfire in California’s recorded history is now burning out of control, having destroyed the Gold Rush town of Greenville, the latest in a string of fires in the state. An apocalyptic fire season is plaguing not just western North America but southern Europe as well, including blazes that are devastating Greece’s second-largest island. Earlier this summer, an unprecedented ‘heat dome’ set astonishing new temperature records in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada…
“Last month, an almost biblical deluge caused flooding in Germany and Belgium that swept away picturesque towns and killed more than 200 people. Coastal megacities such as Lagos, Nigeria, are struggling to cope with frequent and widespread flooding — caused by an average rise in sea levels, according to the new IPCC report, of nearly 8 inches since the beginning of the 20th century…
“All of this is the result of about 2 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming — caused by human activity that has boosted the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 47 percent and vastly increased the concentration of methane… we know we need to change our ways. Our descendants will curse our memory if we fail to act.”
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) writes, “If we are to keep global temperatures in check, we urgently need to focus on cutting methane pollution… Last year, the Democrats on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis that I lead released a road map to help America reach net zero emissions. In our Climate Crisis Action Plan, we recommended reducing methane pollution from oil and gas extraction by 90 percent by the end of the decade, as well as phasing out the routine flaring of methane…
“Last month, I was disappointed to see only 12 House Republicans join our Democratic majority when we voted in favor of stronger safeguards against methane pollution. This was truly low-hanging fruit: a measure to require oil and gas companies to regularly find and repair methane leaks. The resolution even had support from some of the world’s largest oil companies. And yet most of our colleagues across the aisle refused to put the health of American families above the profits of polluters. This is a huge issue… [Republicans] must get serious about tackling this crisis with urgency.”
Kathy Castor, New York Times
“The IPCC report has some reasons for optimism… The extreme scenarios in which Earth turns into a version of Dante’s Hell have now been effectively ruled out. And it’s not because modelers made some kind of math error, either; the scenarios have changed because new technologies have arrived that will make it much easier to reduce greenhouse emissions by drastic amounts without impoverishing ourselves…
“Technology has opened the door to climate salvation, but special interests are blocking it… According to some estimates, [the oil and gas] industries support more than 5% of total U.S. employment, or around 10 million jobs. That, plus their deep pockets, gives companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. enormous political clout. And these companies have used that clout not only to minimize concerns about climate change, but to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about renewables… Old-line industries must not be allowed to stand in the way of the planet’s salvation.”
Noah Smith, Bloomberg
Critics argue that “Whatever climate spending Democrats can eke out of reconciliation is certainly welcome. But something’s gotta give at a much larger scale… The Biden administration is now on track to approve more oil and gas drilling on public lands—activity that accounts for a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions—than any administration since George W. Bush. Climate envoy John Kerry has balked at the idea of committing the U.S. to a coal phaseout…
“Showing off a modest pilot project for solar-paneled highways last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg claimed the U.S. has entered the race to ‘win the E.V. market.’ This, to put it plainly, is ridiculous. Let’s compare, for example, where the U.S. is to where China is on that front. The U.S. currently has 1,650 electric and fuel cell buses currently or ‘soon to be’ in use. Since 2015, China has rolled out 421,000 electric buses via generous industrial policy that paid automaker BYD the equivalent of $150,000 for every $300,000 electric bus it churned out… Shenzhen alone now has 16,000 electric buses, along with some 12,000 E.V. taxis.”
Kate Aronoff, New Republic
