Even taking the single most favorable comparison - 2019 emissions of 358.2 million metric tons to the peak emissions in 2007 of 402.6 million metric tons, California has only reduced emissions at a rate less than 1% per year. Most of which progress stopped some time ago (as noted above, emissions have been rising over the last decade). And that’s in one of the best states in the country, and in one of the easiest states in the country (because California has always had very large hydro power and never really had a big coal generation infrastructure and is very heavily insolated), and in the easiest sector to decarbonize (electricity generation, which is only a small portion of GHG emissions).
It’s nowhere near enough. I’m sure it makes some Californians feel good about their state (which isn’t nothing), but it’s virtually nothing compared to the scope what would need to happen for Californians to be doing what’s necessary to effect their share of the change needed to fight material warming. Which involves not just reducing their own emissions to very near zero, but also to be paying a significant proportion of the cost of other countries (like China and India) to refrain from increasing their emissions.
California produced more energy-related GHG emissions in 2019 than it did in 2010:
Even taking the single most favorable comparison - 2019 emissions of 358.2 million metric tons to the peak emissions in 2007 of 402.6 million metric tons, California has only reduced emissions at a rate less than 1% per year.
Albaby
I think you are cherry picking data.
California started to fight GHG emissions with the passage of Proposition 32 in 2006. I think you were expecting miracles by 2007?
The passage of AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, marked a watershed moment in California’s history. By requiring in law a sharp reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, California set the stage for its transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future. AB 32 was the first program in the country to take a comprehensive, long-term approach to addressing climate change, and does so in a way that aims to improve the environment and natural resources while maintaining a robust economy.
It takes a few years to make changes to GHG emissions while the California population was growing from 36 million in 2007 to 39 million in 2019 (a 10% increase). The CA GHG emissions in 2007 were 488 million tons of CO2eq and in 2019 were 418 million tons of CO2eq. This represents a 14.3% decline in GHG CO2eq emissions of 1.1% per year. Another measure of the progress would be the per capita GHG in 2007 were 13.2 tons and in 2019 were 10.5 tons.
I think we will see the 418 million tons CO2eq GHG in 2019 rapidly being reduced to 350 million in time frame 2021-2030 because of EVs, more solar, more geothermal, more energy storage and more efficiency. CO2eq emissions will decrease at an average rate of 2% or 8 million tons of CO2eq per year.
The average rate of decrease should increase after 2030 should increase to 16 million tons of CO2eq per year until 2040 and reduce emissions to 30 million tons of CO2eq in 2050 and to zero in 2052.
Transportation accounts for 40% of GHG emissions in California. With insignificant ICE vehicles in California by 2035, this sector should come down rapidly.
As you may know, the earth has been generally cooling for the last 50 million years and during the last 3-5 million years.
Also over the last 11,000 years - the current interglacial period began 12,000 years ago. There has been a cycle with a period of about 1,000 years, with most (not all) peaks being cooler than the previous peak and most bottoms being cooler than the previous bottom. ALL peaks - including the current temperature which may or may not be a peak - have been cooler than the second previous peak.
The prior interglacial period shows a similar pattern.
If the current interglacial ends, we can expect the global mean temperature to drop by 4-7 degrees celsius over a few hundred years. If the current ice age ends, we can expect a similar rise. This is based on what appears to have happened in regard to prior interglacials and ice ages, and therefore due to causes beyond human control (and, possibly, mentionable human influence).
It takes a few years to make changes to GHG emissions while the California population was growing from 36 million in 2007 to 39 million in 2019 (a 10% increase). The CA GHG emissions in 2007 were 488 million tons of CO2eq and in 2019 were 418 million tons of CO2eq. This represents a 14.3% decline in GHG CO2eq emissions of 1.1% per year. Another measure of the progress would be the per capita GHG in 2007 were 13.2 tons and in 2019 were 10.5 tons.
None of which conflicts with what I was saying.
If your climate policies are resulting in so small a decrease in per capita emissions that your total emissions are barely declining each year, then you’re not doing anything that’s going to materially help climate change. It’s better than nothing, but it’s nowhere near enough. And while it’s all well and good to point to the prospect of future emissions reductions, if it’s taking that long to get any material reductions in emissions then your policies aren’t fast enough or strong enough (or both) to have a material effect on climate change, either.
Again, the argument isn’t that states like California are doing nothing. It’s that they’re doing things that give the appearance of progress, but actually are nowhere near large enough to have any real effect. Dropping emissions by 1.1% per year means that CA will cut emissions from present levels in half (not big enough) some time after 2080 (not fast enough). And that’s in one of the most environmentally supportive states and one of the richest states in the country - and they can’t get the political will to do anything even remotely approaching a sufficient impact.
That’s Smil’s thesis. The amount of carbon-emitting infrastructure is so much vaster than the public really appreciates that the idea we can actually prevent significant warming is little more than a delusion. Nothing big enough to actually change the emissions is feasible, so we do things that aren’t anywhere big enough in order to pretend that we’re going to be able to prevent significant warming. Like California is doing.
It takes a few years to make changes to GHG emissions while the California population was growing from 36 million in 2007 to 39 million in 2019 (a 10% increase). The CA GHG emissions in 2007 were 488 million tons of CO2eq and in 2019 were 418 million tons of CO2eq. This represents a 14.3% decline in GHG CO2eq emissions of 1.1% per year. Another measure of the progress would be the per capita GHG in 2007 were 13.2 tons and in 2019 were 10.5 tons.
From 2005 to 2018, NC had a 23% decrease in GHG emissions while it had a population increase of almost 20%.
Hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and other renewables will rule the future with a little help from nuclear. Coal, oil, and nat gas will wither and die.
Under Duke’s carbon plan, nuclear will still represent over 60% of the energy mix in 2050 in the Carolinas.
I think we will see gasoline usage drop in direct proportion to the price of gasoline. CO2 emissions are directly related to gasoline consumption.
The EIA disagrees with your first sentence. Not only do they think it won’t drop proportionately, but they appear to think it will hardly drop at all. See second graph here -
The tax started at $20 per ton in 2019 and rose $10 per ton each year until reaching $50 per ton in 2022. The goal, in part, is for Canada to meet its obligation to the Paris Agreement. That means cutting Canada’s carbon pollution by 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.
We are more than halfway through that time period (2005-2030 is 25 years, we are 18 years in so far) … what percent below 2005 have y’all reached to date?
High gasoline prices discourage driving, but only a little. The main benefit is people tend to buy more fuel efficient vehicles.
Usually. Unfortunately the recent supply chain issues have upended the whole car purchasing calculus. Nowadays most people simply buy whatever car (in the desired class) they can get hold of … regardless of fuel efficiency. Add to that, because the carmakers are production constrained, they are choosing to build the bigger (read as “more profitable”) vehicles that typically have bigger engines and are less fuel efficient.
The EIA disagrees with your first sentence. Not only do they think it won’t drop proportionately, but they appear to think it will hardly drop at all. See second graph here -
To be fair, that report is from much earlier this year. Before the Ukraine invasion, actually. So it’s not really addressing how consumers will respond to gas prices over $4.50 per gallon.
That said, gasoline demand is typically price inelastic over the short term (“inelastic” means that it doesn’t move much in response to price changes). Demand is much more elastic over the medium and long terms. That’s because only a portion of gasoline consumption is discretionary and/or easy to avoid in the very short run for most people. We should expect that dynamic to be even more pronounced in the current situation. People generally have pretty high savings right now, and a pent-up demand for travel - so they neither have to nor want to give up discretionary transport as a first response to higher gasoline prices. And of course, supply chain problems make it difficult to change one’s vehicle quickly in response to gas prices.
As the short term blends into the medium term, though, we would expect that $4+ per gallon gas in the U.S. would start to affect consumption patterns (if it persists). The mid-2000’s increase in gasoline prices were eventually accompanied by a sizable increase in new car fleet fuel economy, as manufacturers started to emphasize fuel efficiency in response to consumer demand. We would probably see that here.
To be fair, that report is from much earlier this year. Before the Ukraine invasion, actually. So it’s not really addressing how consumers will respond to gas prices over $4.50 per gallon.
True. But that isn’t the salient point of the graph. The salient point is that gasoline increasing from ~$2 to ~$3 didn’t reduce demand, and increasing from ~$3 to ~$3.45 didn’t reduce demand, and EVEN knowing that gasoline increased from ~$2 to ~$3.45, they didn’t predict any decrease in use of the commodity. The only reductions that appear in their charts are seasonal and the initial pandemic drop.
That said, gasoline demand is typically price inelastic over the short term …
Yep, and this is precisely why consumption hasn’t gone down, and won’t go down much.
In fact, I am rather surprised that there isn’t any lasting reduction in consumption considering that so many more people are working from home now than pre-2020. I would mention a million EVs, but a million out of 100 million doesn’t make much of a dent. When we hit 5 or 10 million EVs in a few years, it will begin to make a dent in gasoline consumption, but that’s at least 3 or 4 years away. Unfortunately EVs are severely supply constrained, and are therefore expensive, so the EV revolution will be a few more years in coming. We are a 2 EV family right now, and looking for a 3rd one, but it has to be a 7 seater (we are a family of 7). Once I replace the minivan with an EV, we will consume ZERO fossil fuels directly (house is all electric, and vehicles will be all electric, and I have no gas-operated tools, don’t even have a gas grill anymore!).
As the short term blends into the medium term, though, we would expect that $4+ per gallon gas in the U.S. would start to affect consumption patterns (if it persists). The mid-2000’s increase in gasoline prices were eventually accompanied by a sizable increase in new car fleet fuel economy, as manufacturers started to emphasize fuel efficiency in response to consumer demand. We would probably see that here.
Two comments:
I don’t think $4+ will do much at all. I think we would need to get to near European prices to see any meaningful effect. Probably beginning at $5.50 or $6 we would see people make meaningful change.
Manufacturers are kind of in a pickle. In the short-term, they can’t get enough material to make enough to meet demand, so they’ve obviously chosen to build bigger, fancier, more profitable vehicles. Those generally get lower mileage. And since that’s all that is available, consumers have no choice but to buy them. In the medium/long term, manufacturers are shifting almost all their investment toward EVs, so they won’t be designing new IC engines that are more efficient. I seem to recall reading about at least one auto manufacturer that has completely discontinued their gasoline engine design team.
True. But that isn’t the salient point of the graph. The salient point is that gasoline increasing from ~$2 to ~$3 didn’t reduce demand, and increasing from ~$3 to ~$3.45 didn’t reduce demand, and EVEN knowing that gasoline increased from ~$2 to ~$3.45, they didn’t predict any decrease in use of the commodity. The only reductions that appear in their charts are seasonal and the initial pandemic drop.
Well, because they didn’t predict that gasoline would increase from ~$2 to ~$3. Their chart showed average 2021 prices at $3.00 per gallon, and projected average 2022 prices at $3.06 per gallon and $2.80 per gallon. It’s hardly a surprise they would show demand as relatively flat, given that they were projecting that annual gas prices would be flat as well (and real prices probably falling slightly).
As for this:
1. I don’t think $4+ will do much at all. I think we would need to get to near European prices to see any meaningful effect. Probably beginning at $5.50 or $6 we would see people make meaningful change.
It depends on how you define ‘meaningful.’ Fleetwide new car fuel economy spiked in the mid 2000’s in response to higher gas prices caused by that decade’s commodity boom. From 1985 to 2005, the average real world fuel economy of new cars had been steadily declining from 22 to 20 mpg. Not because individual vehicles were getting less efficient, but because the composition of the fleet changed as consumers switched massively from sedans/coupes to SUV’s. But as soon as gas prices started rising again in 2005, fuel economy reversed as well - rising sharply from 20 mpg to 25 mpg in the space of the next decade - as consumers started to rank fuel economy much more highly in their stated (and demonstrated) preferences in what they found important in new vehicles. The market completely reversed course as consumers changed their preferences, and the SUV market share actually started to decline for the first time since the early 1980’s. Once gas prices dropped again after the Great Recession, consumers again switched back to SUV’s.
If gas prices remain high, we will probably see a repeat of that phenomenon, and we’ll see sedans/coupes claw back market share at the expense of larger SUV’s.
The EIA disagrees with your first sentence. Not only do they think it won’t drop proportionately, but they appear to think it will hardly drop at all. See second graph here -
EIA website you reference is not up to date. It was published January 13,2022, based on 2021 data. The world energy prices and supply lines have been turned upside down in the last 4 months. I think EIA will catch up and support my position in their new reports:
I think we will see gasoline usage drop in direct proportion to the price of gasoline. CO2 emissions are directly related to gasoline consumption.
People are leaving their gasoline hogs home and driving their small cars much more.
People are looking to buy new cars that require very little of no gasoline.
People are willing to pay a little more for energy. They are not willing to pay enough more for energy to matter.
I don’t know about “people”, I only know about myself. I want to pay LESS for energy. That’s why I have switched to EVs when possible. My previous ICE 4-door sedan got me about 50 miles out of $10 of gasoline. When it needed to be replaced, I replaced it with an equivalent 4-door EV which gets me about 250 miles out of $10 of electricity. That has reduced my cost of energy by quite a lot.
When I replaced my hot water heater a few years ago, from a typical resistive one to a heat pump one, my electric bill immediately went down by a noticeable amount each month. That has reduced my cost of energy.
So I am confused why you are saying people want to pay a little more for energy??? The good solutions for reducing carbon emissions often result in LOWER costs of energy. Now I understand that CA and NY allow for people to pay more for “green” electricity today, but if the green electricity is done right, eventually it will COST LESS than other electricity. I’m pretty sure that a solar array requires less “fuel” than a coal/gas turbine.
If your climate policies are resulting in so small a decrease in per capita emissions that your total emissions are barely declining each year, then you’re not doing anything that’s going to materially help climate change. It’s better than nothing, but it’s nowhere near enough. And while it’s all well and good to point to the prospect of future emissions reductions, if it’s taking that long to get any material reductions in emissions then your policies aren’t fast enough or strong enough (or both) to have a material effect on climate change, either.
Yes it does conflict with what you were saying. The CA emissions reductions are not trivial.
The fact that CA reduced emissions by 70 million tons in 9 years is significant. The CA reduction rate in the future will be more geometric than linear because CA voters are electing politicians that support these reduction. As I said before, CA will be very close to achieving 95% reduction in emissions by 2050.
Every state had high emissions in 2005. What we are comparing is the reductions in emissions from 2010 to 2019. So can you provide the numbers of a link to NC emissions for that time period.
My previous ICE 4-door sedan got me about 50 miles out of $10 of gasoline. When it needed to be replaced, I replaced it with an equivalent 4-door EV which gets me about 250 miles out of $10 of electricity. That has reduced my cost of energy by quite a lot.
Sure - but unless you’re in the luxury segment, it almost certainly increased the cost of the car by quite a lot relative to alternatives, and it’s that total cost that counts. You can’t replace the average sedan (about $25K) with an EV without paying a $10K or more premium over the ICE alternative, and it’s very hard to make that up through lower fuel costs.
So I am confused why you are saying people want to pay a little more for energy??? The good solutions for reducing carbon emissions often result in LOWER costs of energy.
People are willing to pay a little more for energy to reduce emissions.
Most, if not all, solutions for materially reducing carbon emissions result in significantly higher costs of energy. In small amounts at the margins, improving green technology means that there exist circumstances where the cost of renewables can be lower than fossil alternatives. So, for example, today it can often be the case that for new electricity generation capacity, in wealthy western countries in heavily insolated or wind-rich areas where there is substantial dispatchable baseload generation and good existing transmission facilities, it is cheaper to meet new demand with renewables.
But that is a tiny, tiny, tiny slice of what needs to be done in order to materially reduce the impacts of global warming. In order to do that, you can’t just use renewables for new facilities in developed countries (either to meet new demand or as old facilities reach the end of their useful life). You need to start tearing down existing fossil fuel facilities that still have plenty of useful life. You need to start eliminating new fossil fuel construction in countries where environmental protections are so much laxer than the U.S. (like, say, India) that it’s still cheaper to build coal plants - and have Western voters pay for it. You need to start forcing people to buy electric cars even when the total cost of ownership of the car is higher than the equivalent ICE.
There’s no free lunch. Replacing fossil fuel infrastructure with green infrastructure will cost a lot more money than just continuing with the fossil fuel infrastructure (which is why it isn’t already happening to any material degree) - because you have to destroy a lot of existing, still valuable infrastructure and replace it.
The fact that CA reduced emissions by 70 million tons in 9 years is significant. The CA reduction rate in the future will be more geometric than linear because CA voters are electing politicians that support these reduction.
They are trivial. CA emissions have reduced about 1.1% per year, taking the very most favorable time frame. Over the last ten years, they’ve increased.
There’s no evidence at all that the reduction rate will be more geometric than linear in the future. Again, CA emissions have been slightly, but steadily, increasing for the last ten years.
Every state had high emissions in 2005. What we are comparing is the reductions in emissions from 2010 to 2019. So can you provide the numbers of a link to NC emissions for that time period.
Here’s the relevant data (figures in millions of metric tons of CO2).
2010 2019 Change
California 356.6 358.2 0.5%
North Carolina 147.2 122.6 -16.7%
