Twenty one years ago, on this day, February 22nd, 2004, we were promised clean coal…
JUDGING by the heavy hitters attending a conference on the Gold Coast this week, geosequestration is about to get a substantial workover in Australia in the next few years.
Geosequestration is the capture of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and placing them underground. To some environmentalists the concept is about as popular as toxic waste.
For Australia’s biggest export industry, coal, geosequestration may be the difference between death and survival.
Wilson, N. 2004 Turning coal clean and green. The Australian, February 21.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 377ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that interest in technological solutions to climate change – solutions is doing a lot of work in that sentence – were being promulgated especially by the Australians and Americans because they had not signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. The Australian coal industry was going along with the fantasy of “clean coal” – , at least rhetorically, but not putting any of their own money where their mouths were. They have the skills to deal with digging stuff up, solids and moving it from place to place. CCS is all about pipes and valves and so forth. I mean that you can overstate this. The coal industry does have some experience with these sorts of things, but not enough.
Also, the sums of money involved in making CCS “work” are staggering.
What I think we can learn from this is that people have been wittering about CCS loudly in public for a very long time. And we don’t have any CCS worthy of the name.
What happened next
The CCS bubble in Australia burst in 2010. Chevron did its ridiculous Gorgon plant, (signed off by one P. Garrett, then Federal Environment Minister) which has never met its promises. However, CCS is now currently having another “moment.”
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has said Chancellor Rachel Reeves support fora third runway at Heathrow airport is based on “the usual techno babble. You know, ‘sustainable aviation fuel and electric planes.’ These cannot deliver on scale and in timeline for the current aviation, let alone the growth in aviation.”
In an interview conducted before making a presentation at a January 30th public meeting in Glossop, England, Anderson went on to condemn the advice being given to Reeves, and her stance on climate change.
Either she was sufficiently ignorant to not be aware of this, and given she’s had lots of guidance and expertise and all the research expertise that she needs to lay her hands on to understand it, that is concerning. Or she’s been dishonest, but under both those, I think she’s not fit for office, if that’s what she thinks is appropriate. So either she can’t understand the issues well, I’m sorry, you need to get a handle on issues, or you’re not being honest with the population, and I think as an electorate, we should have, we expect should expect – this may be naive – I expect honesty and integrity. I don’t have to agree with them – to expect honesty, integrity of our elected officials. She seems, at the moment, I can see no other way but to say she’s failed on one of those which means she is not fit for purpose.
The interview covered a range of topics, and isl being released in installments. Part one, on the physical impacts we can expect is here. Part two, on “Team Mann vs Team Hansen” and the speed of recent warming is here. . It was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson), and the URL of this page.
Stay tuned for Monday’s blog post – is Kevin on the Climate Change Committee and its influence on government and academia.
Which brings us to yesterday, the Labour Chancellor, who, two years ago, said that she was going to be the first green – small g green – Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, came out and said that she favored Heathrow airport expansion, and the BBC coverage was helpfully saying things like, “Can sustainable aviation fuel and electric planes make Heathrow’s third runway green?” And my simple response was, “FFS, no.” But we come to you, Kevin for more than “FFS, no.”
So, can sustainable, aviation fuels and electric planes make Heathrow’s third runway green?
Kevin Anderson 14:15
Well, on the question “Can the third runway be made green through technology”. – here I go back to both Mann and Hansen, and their respective timelines to deliver on Paris. And the answer is a categorical no.
But the answer is a categorical no for the existing aviation demand as well.
So it’s not just about any new aviation promoted and facilitated by the third runway. If you focus on the UK, aviation is quickly returning to about 10% of our national emissions. And as we try to cut the emissions from other sectors, then this proportion is only set to increase. The Government’s own Climate Change Committee envisages almost no change in aviation emissions out to 2050, and possibly beyond. Such an industry, at existing levels of emissions , is completely incompatible with our Paris commitments. The third runway is just a reinforcing nail in the Parisian coffin.
So my concern with what Rachel Reeves, our Chancellor, has said, it’s the usual techno babble. You know, “sustainable aviation fuel, SAF and electric planes” These cannot deliver on scale and in timeline for the current aviation, let alone the growth in aviation. They are simply used as a ruse to allow business as usual to continue. Either she was sufficiently ignorant to not be aware of this, and given she’s had lots of guidance and expertise and all the research expertise that she needs to lay her hands on to understand it, that is concerning. Or she’s been dishonest, but under both those, I think she’s not fit for office, if that’s what she thinks is appropriate. So either she can’t understand the issues well, I’m sorry, you need to get a handle on issues, or you’re not being honest with the population, and I think as an electorate, we should have, we expect should expect – this may be naive – I expect honesty and integrity. I don’t have to agree with them – to expect honesty, integrity of our elected officials. She seems, at the moment, I can see no other way but to say she’s failed on one of those which means she is not fit for purpose.
But of course, she is being supported by Reynolds, the business secretary, and lots of other MPs who all of a sudden have discovered the fact that they can somehow reconcile growth in pretty much the highest carbon activity we can imagine with our climate commitments.
And one of the ways that’s been reconciled is this ruse of “net zero 2050”, because there’s a concern here that you can almost squeeze anything you want into that, because you can just assume that in the future, our children and their children will find ways to remove our carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And that is what’s reliant what the Committee on Climate Change, and indeed, many of the big climate models here now reliant on – a really key aspect of them is this, this removal of carbon dioxide, some big carbon sucking machine that we simply do not have today, that is just assumed to occur in the future.
marc hudson 17:30
So does the net in net zero imply Negative Emissions Technology? See what I did there? Yeah,
Kevin Anderson 17:35
Yeah the net in net zero does imply that.
I mean, the net is slightly different, the way it’s been….
Unfortunately we use this term in two ways, the net zero. In other words, we will find ways to remove carbon dioxide that will compensate for some of the emissions that are still put into the atmosphere, and particularly for the Committee on Climate Change, it’s aviation. Very large. Round about for total emissions, about 30 million tons of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels in 2050. That’s more emissions per person in 2050 than the Kenyan emits today. So it’s completely incompatible with Paris.
But the other part about the net is we use this language of net, as in negative emission technologies. Now that term just trips off our tongue because we’ve used it so often. but in fact, they don’t really exist.
These are, these are in such a small level that they’re little more than sort of unicorns in this storyline. They’re sort of made-up technology, because they exist in that they capture a few 1000 tons, and yet atmospherically, we’re putting out about 37 billion tons. So these are completely different in scale to what we’d require.
And so the Chancellor and indeed, many of her sycophantic MPs and ministers are completely reliant on these ruses to allow their Business As Usual to continue. The physics will continue, regardless of any political machinations. And most worryingly is that the repercussions for poor people around the world – typically very low emitters, and also typically, often people of color who have very little political influence – their lives will be willing be increasingly damaged, ripped apart, their livelihoods destroyed by the sorts of decisions that people like the Chancellor’s making over here.
And she’s obviously just dismissed the concerns, any concern for those people. But she’s also dismissed the concern for the children of the electorate in the UK who will suffer the repercussions of her ill-informed decision.
Fifty five years ago, on this day, February 20th, 1970, a “Committee on the Environment” is set up by South Australian Premier Steele Hall
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that from the middle of 1969 people in Western countries (at a minimum Australia, the UK and the US – probably the same in a lot of other places, idk) were beginning to be up in arms about air pollution, water pollution, species loss, etc, etc, j
And there were calls for immediate action. There had been the Senate, the Federal Senate Committees on air pollution and water pollution was coming too. And so all across the states, you would see these sorts of well, let’s set up a committee with stakeholders, with scientists, with business, with leading lights in civil society and the wise men will come up after a year or two with a series of recommendations. That’s what this was.
What I think we can learn from this is that there was a real push in 1969-1971, to respond institutionally, culturally, to what was clearly a major problem. This was part of that.
What happened next The Environment Committee eventually released a report in May 1972 just before the Stockholm conference. It included mention of carbon dioxide, by the way, as a potential problem but kicked it into the “more research needed” basket (not unreasonably, given the state of knowledge at the time).
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson weighed in on the debate on whether the recent warming is beyond what the models predict, pointing out that “it’s not just the scale of change, it’s the timeline of that scale of change. And that’s the real difference between Hansen and Mann. Really, it is one of timeline. They both end up being in a terrible place. The Hansen analysis gets us there a little sooner than that of Mann, but in the absence of deep and rapid cuts in emissions both are going to get there.”
I see a lot of good reasons to be taking more notice of the Hansen end of the spectrum. But as with all science, there’s a range of uncertainty that comes out of equally robust analysis. So Mann’s analysis could be correct, and so could Hansen’s, and we can’t, we can’t know which of those are more accurate until we get an improved understanding and more empirical data.
But does that affect our policy framework? No, not really. Risk is an important part of policy, risk and uncertainty. So we should start planning for the repercussions of the Hansen end of the spectrum being correct. The consequences of Mann analysis are pretty disastrous anyway, but Hansen’s conclusions land more within a dire to catastrophic framing. And from a responsible political perspective, I think we have to lean our policies more towards the worst case than hoping for more optimistic interpretations to play in our favour.
As it is today policy makers fail to have the courage or clarity of vision to even grapple with the Mann end of the spectrum. To put it bluntly, at both the global and national level the policy realm embeds a soft form of denial.
The interview covered a range of topics, and will be released in portions. You can read the first part here. It was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson, and the URL of this page.
Give me the conch back.Two observations and the next question. Observation one is in the 60s and 70s, or early 70s, it was this toss up between, “are we going to freeze or are we going to burn?” Obviously, the science has come on a very long way, but we’re kind of still in the same place and interesting.
And then I’m reminded of the late, great Wally Broecker, the oceanographer, who said of ocean currents and climate, that we were poking the beast with a sharp stick, and there might be trouble if we woke the beast up. I think the beast is snuffling. And in that pre awake, yes, pre awake phase,
OK. Next question. So here’s my rough characterization. There is “Team Michael Mann” that says, you know “the temperature anomalies of 2023 24 while surprising, are within what the models kind of suggest and expect and quote.‘The truth is bad enough.’” And then there is “Team Hansen with people like James Hansen, Leon Simons, saying, “no, no. no no The lessening of the sulfates from the marine pollution and other factors means that the models that we have been using, including the IPCC, are no longer adequate.”
And even Gavin Schmidt, they would say, is having to admit that he’s confused [Guardian]. And you know, Gavin Schmidt is kind of at the smart end, shall we say, of climate scientists.
So where is Kevin Anderson? Is he firmly in the camp of … First is this a fair characterization of the debates that are happening among the scientists? Or is it. unfair? And second question is, where does Kevin Anderson fit? Is he Team Mann or Team Hansen, or is he a substitute, or is he playing a different game altogether?
Kevin Anderson 10:14
I see a lot of good reasons to be taking more notice of the Hansen end of the spectrum. But as with all science, there’s a range of uncertainty that comes out of equally robust analysis. So Mann’s analysis could be correct, and so could Hansen’s, and we can’t know which of those are more accurate until we get an improved understanding and more empirical data.
But does that affect our policy framework? No, not really. Risk is an important part of policy, risk and uncertainty. So we should start planning for the repercussions of the Hansen end of the spectrum being correct. The consequences of Mann analysis are pretty disastrous anyway, but Hansen’s conclusions land more within a dire to catastrophic framing. And from a responsible political perspective, I think we have to lean our policies more towards the worst case than hoping for more optimistic interpretations to play in our favour.
As it is today policy makers fail to have the courage or clarity of vision to even grapple with the Mann end of the spectrum. To put it bluntly, at both the global and national level the policy realm embeds a soft form of denial. There’s an acceptance of the science, but a denial of the need to act accordingly; behind the eloquence and rhetoric, fingers remain firmly crossed that we’ll somehow be ok.
marc hudson 11:48
Don’t talk about the airport expansion. That’s my next question.
Kevin Anderson 11:52
Is it. Okay.
Thinking about how we, the academic and wilder climate expert realm, engage with policy makers, I see it incumbent on us to start by asking what does the policy landscape look like if we’re to deliver the deep cuts in emissions needed in a climate emergency? But also, of course, how on earth do we adapt? How do we, and the ‘we’ is important in this, adapt to the scale of change that is implied by the Hansen framing of these issues?”
And it’s not just the scale of change, it’s the timeline of that scale of change. And that’s the real difference between Hansen and Mann. Really, it is one of timeline. They both end up being in a terrible place. The Hansen analysis gets us there a little sooner than that of Mann, but in the absence of deep and rapid cuts in emissions both are going to get there.
marc hudson 12:44
We’ve had these warnings since 1988 in public,
Yep
and from scientists since late 70s. I think it’s fair to say
Yep
though you can, you can heckle me when I’m doing my presentation, because I cover this though. The omens – if past performance is the best indicator of future performance – the omens are not good.
For more of Kevin’s work see climateuncensored.com
Tomorrow’s blog post – UK aviation emissions and the proposed Third Runway at Heathrow.
Forty four years ago, on this day, February 19th, 1981, Nature publishes an article, by Wendy Barnaby, about an Earthscan meeting the previous week in Stockholm,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 340ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the OECD and the IEA – and other bodies – were beginning to hold meetings about energy and environment and especially climate, in the context of the second oil shock the tail end of the 70s, thanks to the overthrow of the Shah.
The other context was that the United States Council on Environmental Quality had been trying to get things moving, but now Reagan was present with his goons, (and see the end of the article before the greenhouse one in the screengrab above! – it all looked a little unsure about what would happen.
And this is also in the context of the First World Climate Conference, which had taken place in February of 1979, Nature had an interesting relationship with carbon dioxide build up, shall we say, with its erstwhile editor, John Maddox, being a vehement opponent of the theory up until and including 1987 (he seems to have climbed down from this by 1995).
What I think we can learn from this is that in the late 70s, early 80s, there was a flurry of activity, awareness, and slowly growing consensus.
What happened next There was a flurry of reporting in New Scientist, the FT etc. A documentary, “Warming Warning”, by Richard Broadwas broadcast the end of that year, in part inspired by this report in Nature and other accounts.
Eighteen years ago, on this day, February 20th, 2007, the Canberra Times reports on the gas industry’s lobbying efforts around the recently-returned issue of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions…
If you’re a federal politician expect a call in election year from Belinda Robinson, chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.
Dutt,K. 2007. Pushing case for gas in changing climate. Canberra Times, 19 February.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that climate change had burst (back) onto the public policy scene in Australia in, say, September of 2006. Prime Minister John Howard had been so spooked that he’d had to appoint the a civil servant, Peter Shergold to chair a committee to write a report about emissions trading schemes. Fossil fuel interests realized that climate was back on the agenda, and the gas lobby was pushing there “we are more efficient line.” Inevitably,
What I think we can learn from this is that the gas lobby will do this regardless of the fugitive emissions and the life cycle analysis and all the rest of it that shows that gas really isn’t that much “cleaner” ie less polluting than coal. I.e. they are throwing coal under the bus.
What happened next
Well, eventually APPEA, decided to take the word petroleum out of its name, as so many other outfits have, like Statoil, for example. And you can read more about appear in Royce Kurmelov’s book Slick.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
On this day 44 years ago, (February 19, 1981) two newspapers (the Shepton Mallet Journal and the Central Somerset Gazette) reported on a meeting of the Ecology Party (now known as the Green Party). The topic? Carbon dioxide build-up and its implications.
IN THE time it takes to read this sentence, 3,000 more tons of carbon dioxide will have been released into the atmosphere.
This was just one of the astonishing statistics quoted by Mr. Fred Clarke. guest speaker at a meeting of Wells Constituency Ecology Party at the Good Earth Cafe, Wells..
He showed that pollution was more than a mere nuisance; it was a threat to the natural systems on which we depended for survival.
He demonstrated how most pollution was caused by our everyday actions rather than Torrey Canyon-like disasters. and suggested practical ways to avoid pollution. [continues].
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 340ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the previous year the UK government had decided not to keep close tabs on carbon dioxide build-up (there were some scientists urging closer engagement). But the question of carbon dioxide build-up was well understood in environmental circles.
What we learn is that the Ecology Party was doing this sort of thing a lot. They knew what was coming.What happened next was that the scientific certainty that there was Serious Trouble Ahead grew, and in 1988 Margaret Thatcher was finally, nine years after she had first been briefed on the topic and had dismissed it, forced to acknowledge its existence.
Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has said that the impacts of climate change that scientists had previously thought would only happen at higher global temperatures in fact “look set to be significantly worse at lower temperatures than previously thought.”
“some of the others such as the risk of rapid dieback in the Amazon, or indeed in the Congo, where we have very little detailed information. If some of the tipping point issues play out in the way that some analysis suggests they could significantly accelerate the rate of the impacts that we anticipate from the standard headline framing of the IPCC.
“Another major tipping point issue relates to the ongoing weakening and even potential collapse of AMOC – which in the UK some may think of as the “Gulf Stream”, but that’s just one small part of it. AMOC is a much more global driver of weather and indeed climate. It’s a thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards…. and if climate change continues unchecked there is a very real risk that AMOC will be significantly weakened if not collapse. Much of the world, would in various serious ways be impacted, from changes in Monsoon rainfall, and hence food production, through to dire weather implications for much of Europe.
The interview covered a range of topics, and will be released . It was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson, and the URL of this post.
Tomorrow’s interview excerpt – is Kevin on “Team Mann” or “Team Hansen”?
TRANSCRIPT
Let’s start with developments since last we interviewed, which I think is quite a long time ago. We had the Paris Agreement, and everyone held hands and said, “We’re aiming for two degrees”. And then they were forced to say, “well, 1.5” because otherwise the poor nations weren’t going to stay on board. You, at the time, said that this was a farce, as did James Hansen, whom I trust, and we’ll talk about later. As did I, you know? So the three titans of climate climate commentary said this.
[Laughter]
Then, you know, the pandemic happened. So the COP got canceled for the first time, and then they all met in Glasgow and cried in order to “”keep 1.5 alive.” Now that was four years ago. There about and here we are with the US saying it’s going to pull out of the Paris Agreement again, with a 3.6 PPM increase in concentrations last year, which is a new record. I think so. It might be that the sinks are failing as much as
the El Nino,as well
yep. So where are we going to be gazing into your crystal ball – not with the politics, because no one can tell what the politics are going to be – where do you think we will be first with atmospheric concentrations? Do you see three PPM as kind of what we should expect as a ‘new normal’, and where will we perhaps be with impacts five years from now? The conch is being handed over.
Kevin Anderson 3:07
In terms of ppmv. What I’ve read on various scientific forums since the report came out from Richard Betts and colleagues at the UK’s Met Office just a couple of weeks ago, [BBC, Guardian] is that the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide build up in the atmosphere will likely not remain at 3ppmv per year, but will likely fall again to more typical annual levels of increase. That said, the total concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue its relentless rise until we stop emitting.
So whilst the annual rise will likely not be as high next year, or the year after that, there is a concern that as we continue to increase the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and therefore the temperature keeps rising, that some of the natural buffering will begin to be lost. Thus far, roughly half of all carbon emissions we put into the atmosphere every year are taken up by a mixture of the oceans and by the land, that is the buffering – its huge service that’s been provided by nature, but as the temperature continues to rise so that buffering may be weakened. If that happens, then more of the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere each year will remain there and we will start to see a higher annual rise in ppmv each year – that is more rapidly rising concentrations of carbon dioxide
But at the moment, the expectation is that last year was a little bit of an anomaly because of El Nino. But I wouldn’t be too hopeful that we won’t be back up to those sorts of levels within some reasonably short period of time.
4 mins 47
So impacts Physical impacts?
Physical impact? Well, yes, physical impact, if we could isolate them so easily! The physical impacts are damning between 1.5 and two degrees centigrade. This is one of the reasons that 1.5 came out in Paris as we were starting to get a better handle on the rising scale of impacts as the temperature rises. In contrast to the simplistic expectation that policy follows evidence, for 1.5°C, it’s been since Paris, where we’ve really started to understand the difference between 1.5 and 2°C. My take from reading the work of impacts experts is that the impacts look set to be significantly worse at lower temperatures than previously thought. So what we used to think were perhaps the basket of impacts at 2°C and now more likely to occur at just 1.5°C … though this shift is not all neat and linear. Put simply, we expect to see more floods, droughts, heat waves, fires, etc … with these playing out in terms of food and water insecurity – driven in part by devasting reductions in insects/pollinators, … this may then lead to internal and external migration – all set against a potential backdrop of other tensions. In an increasingly fractious world rapidly rising climate impacts are only really set to make things worse.
In addition to this perhaps more conservative view of rising temperatures and impacts, there is increasing concern related to bigger ‘tipping point’ changes – with rapid and accelerating impacts
AMOC?
Well, I was going to come to AMOC – that is one of them, yes. I was also thinking about some of the others such as the risk of rapid dieback in the Amazon, or indeed in the Congo, where we have very little detailed information. If some of the tipping point issues play out in the way that some analysis suggests they could significantly accelerate the rate of the impacts that we anticipate from the standard headline framing of the IPCC.
Another major tipping point issue relates to the ongoing weakening and even potential collapse of AMOC – which in the UK some may think of as the “Gulf Stream”, but that’s just one small part of it. AMOC is a much more global driver of weather and indeed climate. It’s a thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards.
marc hudson 6:32
Wait, are you saying the United Kingdom is not the center of the world?
Kevin Anderson 6:35
Well, to some people it may well be. But if you stand back and look at the planet from outer space. I think you probably would see the UK as a small full stop on the left side of Europe. As for AMOC, it is the thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards. It’s a fundamental mechanism of the global weather system, and if climate change continues unchecked there is a very real risk that AMOC will be significantly weakened if not collapse. Much of the world, would in various serious ways be impacted, from changes in Monsoon rainfall, and hence food production, through to dire weather implications for much of Europe.
marc hudson 7:07
You used the word “dire” in another interview. Do you mean sort of
Catastrophic
Sort of Mad Max ends up looking like the Sound of Music?
Kevin Anderson 7:18
Well Mad Max in reverse … if AMOC collapses or significantly weakens, then Europe could be a lot colder.
This illustrates one of the key challenges of rapid climate change. For example, here in Europe it could get a lot warmer or perhaps, if we lose AMOC, it could get dangerously cold. But wherever in the world, a major weakening or collapse of AMOC will create hazardous instabilities. Such a rapid shift would be catastrophic for human systems and ecosystems.
Now, if you went back 10 years, I think most people say that there’s a very, very low chance of this, the collapse or major weakening of AMOC, happening. If you look at the outputs of those working on AMOC now, it’s clear that there’s a much higher chance of it occurring that we thought previously. There’s a very real chance of major changes in AMOC happening within the next few years and out towards the end of the century. In other words during the lifetime of people listening to this, or the children of those people. That is really damning.
Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has said that the impacts of climate change that scientists had previously thought would only happen at higher global temperatures in fact “look set to be significantly worse at lower temperatures than previously thought
I was also thinking about some of the others such as the risk of rapid dieback in the Amazon, or indeed in the Congo, where we have very little detailed information. If some of the tipping point issues play out in the way that some analysis suggests they could significantly accelerate the rate of the impacts that we anticipate from the standard headline framing of the IPCC.
Another major tipping point issue relates to the ongoing weakening and even potential collapse of AMOC – which in the UK some may think of as the “Gulf Stream”, but that’s just one small part of it. AMOC is a much more global driver of weather and indeed climate. It’s a thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards.
The interview covered a range of topics, and will be released . It was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson, and the URL of this page
Tomorrow’s blog post – is Kevin on “Team Mann” or “Team Hansen”?
Let’s start with developments since last we interviewed, which I think is quite a long time ago. We had the Paris Agreement, and everyone held hands and said, “We’re aiming for two degrees”. And then they were forced to say, “well, 1.5” because otherwise the poor nations weren’t going to stay on board. You, at the time, said that this was a farce, as did James Hansen, whom I trust, and we’ll talk about later. As did I, you know? So the three titans of climate climate commentary said this.
[Laughter]
Then, you know, the pandemic happened. So the COP got canceled for the first time, and then they all met in Glasgow and cried in order to “”keep 1.5 alive.” Now that was four years ago. There about and here we are with the US saying it’s going to pull out of the Paris Agreement again, with a 3.6 PPM increase in concentrations last year, which is a new record. I think so. It might be that the sinks are failing as much as
the El Nino,as well
yep. So where are we going to be gazing into your crystal ball – not with the politics, because no one can tell what the politics are going to be – where do you think we will be first with atmospheric concentrations? Do you see three PPM as kind of what we should expect as a ‘new normal’, and where will we perhaps be with impacts five years from now? The conch is being handed over.
Kevin Anderson 3:07
In terms of ppmv. What I’ve read on various scientific forums since the report came out from Richard Betts and colleagues at the UK’s Met Office just a couple of weeks ago, [BBC, Guardian] is that the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide build up in the atmosphere will likely not remain at 3ppmv per year, but will likely fall again to more typical annual levels of increase. That said, the total concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue its relentless rise until we stop emitting.
So whilst the annual rise will likely not be as high next year, or the year after that, there is a concern that as we continue to increase the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and therefore the temperature keeps rising, that some of the natural buffering will begin to be lost. Thus far, roughly half of all carbon emissions we put into the atmosphere every year are taken up by a mixture of the oceans and by the land, that is the buffering – its huge service that’s been provided by nature, but as the temperature continues to rise so that buffering may be weakened. If that happens, then more of the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere each year will remain there and we will start to see a higher annual rise in ppmv each year – that is more rapidly rising concentrations of carbon dioxide
But at the moment, the expectation is that last year was a little bit of an anomaly because of El Nino. But I wouldn’t be too hopeful that we won’t be back up to those sorts of levels within some reasonably short period of time.
4 mins 47
So impacts Physical impacts?
Physical impact? Well, yes, physical impact, if we could isolate them so easily! The physical impacts are damning between 1.5 and two degrees centigrade. This is one of the reasons that 1.5 came out in Paris as we were starting to get a better handle on the rising scale of impacts as the temperature rises. In contrast to the simplistic expectation that policy follows evidence, for 1.5°C, it’s been since Paris, where we’ve really started to understand the difference between 1.5 and 2°C. My take from reading the work of impacts experts is that the impacts look set to be significantly worse at lower temperatures than previously thought. So what we used to think were perhaps the basket of impacts at 2°C and now more likely to occur at just 1.5°C … though this shift is not all neat and linear. Put simply, we expect to see more floods, droughts, heat waves, fires, etc … with these playing out in terms of food and water insecurity – driven in part by devasting reductions in insects/pollinators, … this may then lead to internal and external migration – all set against a potential backdrop of other tensions. In an increasingly fractious world rapidly rising climate impacts are only really set to make things worse.
In addition to this perhaps more conservative view of rising temperatures and impacts, there is increasing concern related to bigger ‘tipping point’ changes – with rapid and accelerating impacts
AMOC?
Well, I was going to come to AMOC – that is one of them, yes. I was also thinking about some of the others such as the risk of rapid dieback in the Amazon, or indeed in the Congo, where we have very little detailed information. If some of the tipping point issues play out in the way that some analysis suggests they could significantly accelerate the rate of the impacts that we anticipate from the standard headline framing of the IPCC.
Another major tipping point issue relates to the ongoing weakening and even potential collapse of AMOC – which in the UK some may think of as the “Gulf Stream”, but that’s just one small part of it. AMOC is a much more global driver of weather and indeed climate. It’s a thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards.
marc hudson 6:32
Wait, are you saying the United Kingdom is not the center of the world?
Kevin Anderson 6:35
Well, to some people it may well be. But if you stand back and look at the planet from outer space. I think you probably would see the UK as a small full stop on the left side of Europe. As for AMOC, it is the thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards. It’s a fundamental mechanism of the global weather system, and if climate change continues unchecked there is a very real risk that AMOC will be significantly weakened if not collapse. Much of the world, would in various serious ways be impacted, from changes in Monsoon rainfall, and hence food production, through to dire weather implications for much of Europe.
marc hudson 7:07
You used the word “dire” in another interview. Do you mean sort of
Catastrophic
Sort of Mad Max ends up looking like the Sound of Music?
Kevin Anderson 7:18
Well Mad Max in reverse … if AMOC collapses or significantly weakens, then Europe could be a lot colder.
This illustrates one of the key challenges of rapid climate change. For example, here in Europe it could get a lot warmer or perhaps, if we lose AMOC, it could get dangerously cold. But wherever in the world, a major weakening or collapse of AMOC will create hazardous instabilities. Such a rapid shift would be catastrophic for human systems and ecosystems.
Now, if you went back 10 years, I think most people say that there’s a very, very low chance of this, the collapse or major weakening of AMOC, happening. If you look at the outputs of those working on AMOC now, it’s clear that there’s a much higher chance of it occurring that we thought previously. There’s a very real chance of major changes in AMOC happening within the next few years and out towards the end of the century. In other words during the lifetime of people listening to this, or the children of those people. That is really damning.
Thirty four years ago, on this day, February 18th, 1991, it was reported that Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas had said he was open to deep emissions cuts…
The 1992 US election intervened as a factor in the negotiations during that year. All the potential Democratic candidates favoured a quantified target on C02 emissions on the European model. Clinton also said he would give “serious consideration” to cuts of 20-30 per cent by 2004 (ECO, 18 February, 1991). This injected a dynamic into the US’s position, and it might well be possible to attribute some of the change in that position to this.
(Paterson, 1996: 87)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the international negotiations on a climate treaty had just begun. It was clear that the George HW Bush administration was opposed to strong action, but it wasn’t clear then perhaps, just how strongly they were (thanks to the success of the Sununu faction within the White House). The liberation of Kuwait by US forces and a “Coalition of the Willing” was underway, and a lot of people just assumed that George Herbert Walker Bush would definitely be a two-term president- that he would waltz it. So the Democrats who were putting themselves forward were doing it perhaps as long shots. They didn’t know at this point that Ross Perot would enter the race.
Btw the numbers Clinton was suggesting were in excess of the “Toronto Target” proposals.
What I think we can learn from this is that the Democrats were all pushing for emissions reductions targets, as per “The American President” with Michael Douglas a few years later (for a good take down of that film, see Unclear and Present Danger podcast, btw).
What happened next is Clinton managed to secure the nomination despite having to admit that he was a philanderer and a draft dodger. The darker allegations were largely swept under the carpet because he was the favored son. Clinton became president, for all the good that did anyone beyond business interests, and the rest is history.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Twenty three years ago, on this day, February 17th, 2003,
Even though the Kyoto Protocol “does not offer a global solution to climate change,” an Australian government advisory group wants the country to ratify the international climate change agreement anyway.
Why? Because the treaty is a “step towards a global climate change response,” according to a report released Feb. 18 by the Kyoto Protocol Ratification Advisory Group.
Additionally, the cost of meeting the treaty’s first commitment period would be low, with or without Australia’s inclusion, the report noted. However, if Australia ratifies Kyoto, “economic costs associated with meeting the target are estimated to be less than half of the costs that would be incurred if Australia takes action to meet the target from outside the treaty framework,” the report concluded.
The report was prepared in response to a request from the premiers of New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria.
While Australia’s ratification would certainly improve the protocol’s chances of entering into force, the treaty still relies heavily on a pending commitment from Russia, which is responsible for 17.4% of the world’s total emissions. The Russian government had hinted it would ratify the treaty by the end of last year, but that still has not happened.
AUSTRALIAN GOV’T ADVISORY GROUP WANTS COUNTRY TO RATIFY KYOTO Oxy-Fuel News
Vol. 15, Issue: 9 [Copyright 2003 Chemical Week Associates. All rights reserved.]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was there seems to have been a concerted push by various entities(stat governments especially) to make it possible for Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, even though Howard had ruled it out six months previously. Decisions can be overturned, U turns can be forced. And they’ll have known that. These people will have known that an emissions trading scheme proposal was planned to come forward to a Howard cabinet again (one had been defeated in 2000.)
What I think we can learn from this is that business was severely split, because Kyoto was going to make some of them some money in terms of consultancy fees and all the rest of it for carbon trading. And this is a case where business interests are trying to exert pressure on politicians. Politicians are running for their own show as well. And there’s also the geo-politics with Howard wanting to be absolutely in lockstep with George W Bush. (I mean, essentially, Australia is a US colony, frankly, let’s not kid ourselves.)
What happened next? The Business Council of Australia had to say they had no position on Kyoto ratification. Howard scuppered an ETS with his own personal veto. And eventually, in ,Australia did ratify Kyoto – for what that was worth. I.e. not much. See also, the academic article “The Veil of Kyoto.”
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
