POSTED ON AUGUST 18, 2024 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN CLIMATE, GREEN NEW DEAL

NET ZERO IS A ZERO

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/08/net-zero-is-a-zero.php

Our government, and a number of other Western governments, are committed to a goal of “net zero.” That is, our countries will add nothing further to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Any emissions of CO2 (e.g., breathing) will be balanced by absorption of CO2 by, e.g., plants. Various dates are specified in these aspirational statements, none of them realistic. And of course, the world’s main sources of atmospheric CO2 (China and India now account for most of the world’s CO2 emissions) have no intention of cutting their CO2 emissions, let alone cutting them to net zero.

But suppose we did it. Suppose we spent countless trillions, destroyed our electric grid and reduced our standard of living to a pre-industrial level. How much would an American “net zero” affect global temperatures?

This paper by three of the world’s leading scientists, Richard Lindzen, William Happer and W. A. van Wijngaarden, of MIT, Princeton and York University respectively, undertakes a mathematical calculation to answer that question:

Using feedback-free estimates of the warming by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and observed rates of increase, we estimate that if the United States (U.S.) eliminated net CO2 emissions by the year 2050, this would avert a warming of 0.0084 ◦C (0.015 ◦F), which is below our ability to accurately measure. If the entire world forced net zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050, a warming of only 0.070 ◦C (0.13 ◦F) would be averted. If one assumes that the warming is a factor of 4 larger because of positive feedbacks, as asserted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the warming averted by a net zero U.S. policy would still be very small, 0.034 ◦C (0.061 ◦F). For worldwide net zero emissions by 2050 and the 4-times larger IPCC climate sensitivity, the averted warming would be 0.28 ◦C (0.50 ◦F).

See the link for the mathematics. One important factor is that CO2 is relatively saturated in the atmosphere. Each incremental addition of CO2 adds less and less warming:

The proportionality of the temperature increment ∆T to the logarithm of the concentration ratio C/C0 means that the warming from increased CO2 concentrations C is “saturated.” That is, each increment dC of CO2 concentration causes less warming than the previous equal increment. Greenhouse warming from CO2 is subject to the law of diminishing returns.

Dr. Happer has commented on the paper: