Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2 degrees: U.N

Re:Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2... by xupybd on Monday September 03, 2018 @01:04AM (#17900445)

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Motivation on this scale is very hard to manage. The free markets are the best way I know of to motivate people into action. But the best thing motivated people do is they come up with new technologies. This is where I'm pinning my hopes. I don't think this is going to be solved by governments regulating (that is needed however). It's going to be when we hit the tipping point of low carbon energy production being cheaper than coal and when batteries get cheap enough to both buffer the electrical grid and take over the role of energy storage in vehicles. Once that happens I think we'll see an asymptotic reduction in emissions. I just hope things are in a reasonable state when that happens.

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Re:Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2... by konschubert on Monday September 03, 2018 @02:56AM (#17900908)

I am hoping for the same. But yhe thing is that gas and oil are stored in big underground "warehouses" and the owners just have to open the valve to be profitable. They may just undercut any competition and drive it out of business.

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Re:Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2... by alach11 on Monday September 03, 2018 @03:54AM (#17901126)

Things aren't so bleak as you think. I work in O&G and there are huge amounts of "swing production" in the form of new wells which may be drilled or not drilled, depending on the price of oil and gas.

If the price for energy from renewables becomes cheaper than the price of energy from these wells, they won't be drilled.

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Re:Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2... by konschubert on Monday September 03, 2018 @04:02AM (#17901163)

That makes me hopeful. What do you think needs to happen for renewables to become cheap enough?

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Re:Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2... by alach11 on Monday September 03, 2018 @03:29PM (#17904431)

In the short term a carbon tax would do the trick.

In the long term technological breakthroughs in renewable technology will hopefully bring the cost down.

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Re:Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2... by bigbugbag on Monday September 03, 2018 @04:26AM (#17901256)

The fun thing is that oil and gas are actually renewables given enough time and what we label renewables are not actually renewable, do not scale or do not fit our energy use.

There is no cheap energy production once you factor in costs that are not money.

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Re:Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2... by bigbugbag on Monday September 03, 2018 @04:21AM (#17901238)

Sorry to burst your bubble but free markets are not the best way to motivate people, people do not want to work but simply want to be happy and live a fulfilling life.

Then again it is not a matter of putting cheap batteries in vehicles, it is a matter of not having road vehicles because the issue at hand right now is that we're currently aiming over the threshold where conditions making life possible on earth are going to go away.

Only option is massive reduction of human population and energy use.

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Re:Governments 'not on track' to cap temperatures at below 2... by xupybd on Monday September 03, 2018 @04:09PM (#17904609)

That’s s bold claim that our only option is a massive reduction in population and energy use. Do you have any data or models to back that up?

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