(Read this article in Job One for Humanity)
What are our REAL last chance personal and national fossil fuel reduction targets to save humanity from extinction?
POSTED BY LAWRENCE WOLLERSHEIN 100.20SC ON FEBRUARY 11, 2019
What you have been told by our governments is dead wrong when it comes to what are our REAL annual fossil fuel emission reduction targets…
Introduction
In order to prepare you for the shocking REAL fossil fuel reductions that must be made if we are going to save humanity from unimaginable loss, suffering, death, and likely extinction, it is first necessary to see just how poorly our previous fossil fuel reduction agreements and actions have fared since we were first notified about the global warming extinction danger by our scientists over 35 years ago.
What has been hidden from you:
1. We have actually increased fossil fuel use more this century than in the last two decades of the 20th century. To make this point alarmingly clear, more than half of all fossil fuel emissions that have been released in the last 25 years and parked in the atmosphere are more than were released in all of recorded history before 1990.
2. Even though we have had over 20 international conferences on fossil fuel use reduction, and we had international treaties since at least 1993 pledging we would reduce global warming, worldwide we still are about 67% higher in carbon emissions than the early 1990s. (Atmospheric carbon emissions is probably the best way to measure future global warming.)
3. In 2018 carbon emissions increased another dramatic 2.7% and they are projected to increase once again in 2019. (Here is a graph that shows the rising carbon in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels to help you visualize that it is not just going bad, it is getting exponentially worse, while at the same time, you are being told we are doing better at reducing carbon emissions. Worse yet, exponential increases in carbon emissions can also mean exponential increases in future global warming consequences.)
Yes, intentionally or through ignorance, our governments, the media, and most of the world’s environmental groups have not been telling us the REAL facts about our REAL lack of any meaningful progress whatsoever in reducing the rate of fossil fuel use increases, much less the complete absence of any substantive reductions anywhere across the world in reducing atmospheric carbon.
Keeping the preceding horrific failure of any appreciable efforts to take seriously fossil fuel reductions, or even reducing the rates of increases, now please explore the REAL fossil fuel reductions that must be made to save our future. (If you don’t believe we are telling you the facts about our dismal failure in reducing global warming over the last 35 years, click here to view a short video by climate Professor Kevin Anderson in a recent presentation to the Oxford University Climate Society.)
(If you do not understand how fossil fuel emissions of carbon into the atmosphere creates global warming, please click here for a set of simple illustrations and then continue reading…
What must be done
The absolute minimum total fossil fuel reductions that must occur to prevent the strong likelihood of going extinct within our lifetimes (and not sometime after 2100 as our governments would like you to believe,) are:
a. All industrially developed nations must reduce their total fossil fuel use by 75% by 2025 and then continue reducing fossil fuel use to net zero carbon emissions by 2035. Net carbon zero emissions in this solution means that no additional fossil fuel emissions are going into the atmosphere that are not also simultaneously being removed from the atmosphere by natural means. (Only about 20 countries produce 70% or more of the world’s carbon emissions.)
Think of developed nations like most members of the G 20 group; Argentina, Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, China, and India. (See technical note 1 near the end of this page for why China and India had to be included in the list of developed countries.)
b. All developing nations must maintain their total fossil fuel emission levels as they are at the beginning of 2019 and not allow them to go any higher. Then by 2045, all developing nations must also be at net zero carbon emissions. This allowance for developing nations to stay at the level they are now and gradually reduce down to net zero carbon emissions by 2045 is part of an essential justice and equity equation. The developed nations created their wealth by producing the far greatest majority of all carbon emissions in the atmosphere today, thus causing almost all of our current global warming emergency. (See technical note 2 near the end of this page for more about justice and equity allowances.)
Here are your annual personal, business and national fossil fuel reduction targets
The above total targets break down to every person, every business, and every government in the developed world each year, reducing their total fossil fuel use by about 25% or more per year over the next six years. This will allow us to reach the most critical first 75% reduction target. Once we have reached that target successfully, we must then further reduce fossil fuel use at least another 10% per year over the next 10 years and before 2035.
If you are in a developing nation, you cannot increase your annual fossil fuel use at all. You also will need to begin reducing your fossil fuel use on the average by around 5-7 % per year for the next 26 years to hit your critical net zero emissions target by 2045.
What is essential to know is that these shockingly large amounts of required fossil fuel reductions and their soon arriving deadlines are absolutely critical immediately because our past and current reduction strategies have resulted in absolutely no effective level of the essential needed reductions in emissions from fossil fuel use.
Yes, we have been continually deceived about global warming reduction progress as well as the REAL fossil fuel reduction targets we should have started making each year beginning over 35 years ago.
If you are in a developed country, here are some very important questions to ask yourself:
How are you doing on reducing your total personal fossil fuel use this year by 25%?
How is the business that you are working at doing in reducing its total annual fossil fuel use this year by 25%?
How is your nation doing in reducing its total annual fossil fuel use by its 25% target for this year?
It is critical to keep in mind that hitting the first six-year target is tantamount for avoiding entering the extinction process. Consequently, the greatest emphasis must be made to successfully reach this first target level.
Please also keep in mind that for every year any individual, business or nation does not hit their targets, it causes their individual, business and national reduction targets for the following years to be increased accordingly.
If you, your business or your nation is not making its targets, do not despair and do not beat yourself up. We have no time to waste for those kinds of activities.
Here’s what to do immediately if you’re not hitting your annual targets:
Click here part two of our Job One Plan to see what you can do today to start reducing your individual and business fossil fuel use.
Click here to see part three of our Job One Plan to see what governments can do today to help us reduce our and their fossil fuel use.
If you are in a developing country, here are some very important questions to ask yourself:
How are you doing on reducing your personal total annual fossil fuel use for this year to meet your target?
How is the business that you are working at doing in reducing its total annual fossil fuel use for this year to meet their target?
How is your nation doing in reducing its total annual fossil fuel use by its target for this year?
It is critical to keep in mind that hitting your reduction targets is tantamount to avoid the likelihood of entering the extinction process. Please also keep in mind that for every year any individual, business or nation does not hit their targets, it causes their individual, business and national reduction targets for the following years to be increased accordingly.
If you, your business or your nation is not making its targets, do not despair and do not beat yourself up. We have no time to waste for those kinds of activities.
Here’s what to do immediately if you’re not hitting your annual targets:
Click here part two of our Job One Plan to see what you can do today to start reducing your individual and business fossil fuel use.
Click here to see part three of our Job One Plan to see what governments can do today to help us reduce our and their fossil fuel use.
What really happens if we miss these absolute minimum targets?
If we miss these “must not fail” fossil fuel reduction targets, particularly the most important first 75% fossil fuel use reduction in developed countries by 2025 target, we are likely to go into an inescapable extinction progression that will not reverse itself for hundreds of years to centuries from now.
In the simplest of terms, what happens if we miss these targets is that the worst consequences of global warming not only increase in severity, frequency, and scale, they come faster and faster until everything we depend upon in an organized society becomes unstable.
If we fail to hit these targets, it is very likely that as much as 70 to 90% of humanity will suffer and die in as little as the next 30 to 50 years.
We are now in a “succeed or die” final window of opportunity. We know this is a huge statement with unthinkable implications. We don’t expect you to simply take our word for it, so we have provided you with the following links to the detailed science and analysis so that you too can see this soon-arriving extinction threat is absolutely REAL and, we are in fact, in a true emergency of the highest possible urgency.
Please take a look at the extinction supporting science and analysis for yourself by clicking here.
Once you’ve read that, you can then click here to learn about global warming’s already progressing extinction timetables, processes and consequence chains, which we call the Climageddon Scenario.
Again, if the idea that global warming can cause the extinction of most of humanity in the near future (the next 30-50 years,) seems unrealistic to you, this document and its selected links will point you to the research that will support this horrible looming thread and unpleasant but true reality.
What’s really important to remember
We also absolutely need to hit the above global fossil fuel reduction targets, because additionally, they will keep us from breaking through the very dangerous atmospheric carbon level and range of 425 to 450 parts per million (ppm.) We are at about carbon 411 ppm right now.
Once we reach the carbon 425 to 450 ppm range, there will be so much climate system heating momentum from all of the previously emitted carbon and other greenhouse gas that this will propel us towards moving quickly to even higher temperatures. Stopping this momentum will be like trying to stop a gigantic boulder from rolling faster and faster down a hill that keeps getting steeper and steeper.
The terrifying thought that is completely real and critical for you to burn into your mind is that, as much as 70 to 90% of humanity will suffer and die in as little as 30-50 years, but our ability to have any real or meaningful control over this looming emergency ends around about 2025 sometime after we enter the carbon 425-450 ppm range. But once again, this will only occur if we fail to successfully execute the now required global fossil fuel use reductions.
And in case you’re still thinking technology will save us at the last minute, no new carbon removal technologies (what we call magical carbon sucking unicorns,) will be able to save us in time because, even those who believe this technology might save us are projecting that they will not even be available at the earliest until sometime after 2050. This will be long after the damage is done and long after anything can be done for the billions of people who will suffer and die!
Because of the preceding, we truly have no other rational alternative other than to never cross over into the dangerous transitional range and the tipping point of carbon 425-450 ppm. What we do know with certainty is this.
In spite of all of the challenges and bad outcomes that are possible and in spite of the possibility of failing to hit our 2025 fossil fuel reduction targets, no matter what, the single constant and greatest truth for the best possible global warming outcomes for humanity in the future is that — the faster and more we reduce global fossil fuel use:
a. the larger the percentage of people will be that will not suffer or die over the next 30 to 50 years, and
b. surviving future generations will suffer far less from an escalating chain of global warming consequences. (This is described fully in what is called the Climageddon extinction scenario.)
If you don’t think we can make these fossil fuel reduction targets, what you should know
As the research and analysis verification links in this document reveal, there no longer is such thing as any program of gradual fossil fuel reduction being a viable alternative anymore. We squandered that option with our procrastination, denial, and delay causing our failure over the last 35 years to begin to effectively reduce fossil fuel use and consequently global warming.
Because of our lost 35 years of denial and delay, what we need to do now not only needs to be done immediately but it is also radical, painful, and costly, but it is the price of our future if we want to have any future at all.
Don’t be fooled. This crisis is not far off in the future. This is not a problem for your children in their later life or for your grandchildren. It will affect you and your children. It is likely that within the next five-to-ten years we all will know if we are locked into the path of likely extinction, or if we have been able to salvage any habitable future for most of humanity for the second half of this 21st century and for the centuries to follow.
What this implies is that we will soon know if we are at the end of history and of everything every human has ever cared about. Gone then if we fail, is life, love, family, art, music, sexual intimacy, motherhood, and everything else.
We often hear conversation about the extinction of species. Failure to hit these reduction targets means the extinction of all of humanity is on-the-line — right now! That is what is meant by we are having “a global warming or climate emergency.”
This self-made suicidal tragedy is already affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world and, over the next 10 to 30 years it’s just going to get worse faster and faster unless we all come together and in priority:
1. get our governments to execute the absolutely critical radical fossil fuel reducing actions of Part 3 of the Job One Plan.
2. get ourselves and our businesses to execute the radical annual fossil fuel cuts listed above as described in Part 2 of our Job One Plan
Are you going to do your part to make those needed fossil fuel reductions happen?
Your and your children’s immediate future depends upon the choices you make right now about how to face and deal with the above critical fossil fuel use reductions.
Stop thinking that there is ANY time left to make gradual or comfortable fossil fuel reductions. Never forget that only the radical fossil fuel reductions described in this document will slow down the coming global warming consequences enough to have a fair chance to prevent our extinction.
We will either succeed together or we die together!
At this point, you’re probably feeling a bit overwhelmed by what you have read and the enormity of the challenge for what we must do to survive. You may have also reached the point of saying the level of reductions required are impossible or, the task is so large with such a low probability of success, why even try. The following story should help you deal with those ideas.
A wise Chinese general was cornered at the banks of a large river by an opposing army at least 20 times larger than his own. His only means of escape was to get his army across the river before they were attacked. This general had also previously placed enough boats on the bank of the river for escape with his army should that need arise.
As the larger army approached, pushing the smaller army closer to the river, this general gave the order to his most trusted lieutenants to rush to the boats and burn them. When his army saw their only means of escape was being destroyed, they became wildly angry and charged toward the general. The army demanded to know why their trusted general had burned their escape boats and condemned all of them to certain death at the hands of a vastly superior army.
The general calmly said, “We will win this battle or we will die. There is no other alternative and no escape.”
His army now knew their only option was victory or death. Filled with such clarity and single-mindedness of purpose, they fought with such reckless intensity, they defeated the opposing army 20 times their size.
Now that you better understand the rapidly approaching extinction consequences of our global warming emergency from the science and analysis in the links above, you too should no longer retain any illusion of any long-term escape for you or your family, business or nation from immense suffering and likely extinction — if we do not deal with the reality of this emergency.
What you also may not have realized yet, is that our 35-year failure to have previously started effective fossil fuel usage reductions means that we too, in effect, have already burned our escape boats! Because of this, like like the Chinese army, we either win or we die.
This is the perilous and sad point that we have come to because of our inaction and ineffectiveness in addressing global warming and the required fossil fuel reductions for almost 35 years.
The good news is if we act wisely cooperatively and immediately to radically cut fossil fuel use to the above targets, humanity and civilization will have a chance to continue.
So what do you have to lose? What rational alternative do you have than to act immediately to radically reduce your personal fossil fuel use? What legitimate excuse is there for you to not to help us get our governments to enforce the required radical fossil fuel reductions by the necessary deadlines and that only governments can achieve?
The reality is, failure is no longer a conscionable option.
More technical facts and footnotes affecting the REAL required fossil fuel reductions described in A and B at the top of this document
The following information is for those of you fellow researchers and techies who want more detail behind the calculations and factors involved in the global fossil fuel reduction targets listed at the top of the page.
Here are the additional facts and factors:
1. To make the above fossil fuel reduction calculation work to save humanity from extinction, both China and India can no longer be considered or treated developing nations. They must be required to immediately begin making the same fossil fuel reduction targets as all other developed nations because at this time they are producing far too much of the world’s total carbon emissions.
China is already the worlds largest fossil fuel polluter. If they are not put into the same required reduction category as the other developed nations, there will be no credible way to hit the necessary fossil fuel reduction targets and avoid the likelihood of extinction.
2. Because there is no effective international agreement on climate justice regarding the exact differences in required fossil fuel reductions between developed and developing nations, all that exists today considering equity and existing global warming treaty responsibilities is the usually ignored and unenforceable UNFCCC treaty.
This is the treaty most of the world signed and ratified and whose operating principles began with “Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.” The problem here is there is no sufficiently detailed treaty agreement which specifies the proportionate remedial responsibilities based on who did the damage or the specifically required differences in fossil fuel reductions that each developed or developing country must make.
To make matters worse, the US and many other nations are currently not abiding by fossil fuel reduction treaties. Additionally, in the existing UNFCC treaty, there are no verification, punishment or enforcement capabilities.
Due to the nature of this emergency, to resolve these inadequacies and the inadequacies of past Global warming treaties and agreements, it was necessary to independently come up with at least something true, workable and just that could be put into action immediately, where developing nations were given far less initial fossil fuel reduction requirements and a longer time to reach net zero carbon emissions. In short, the reductions mentioned above are REAL and necessary and can work to avert the extinction threat.
3. Having carbon neutrality, or a net zero carbon footprint means achieving net zero carbon emissions by balancing any measured amounts of carbon dioxide C02 released into the atmosphere with an equivalent measured amount of carbon dioxide taken from the atmosphere and being captured for long-term storage (see carbon sequestration). In the Job One Plan, this carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) should happen almost exclusively through our already-existing natural biological, chemical, and physical processes. (See this definition of global warming for illustrations on how the climate’s heat controlling systems and processes handle carbon capture and sequestration among other things).
Net zero carbon emissions by 2035 or sooner for developed nations and 2045 or sooner for developing nations is a difficult subgoal to achieve. It will also require that strong financial disincentives be placed on fossil fuel use and by keeping almost all of existing fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas, tar sands, etc.) in the ground and never burned. While doing this we will also have to be heavily incentivizing natural carbon sequestration methods as discussed in Part 3 of the Job One Plan.
4. These reduction calculations do not include any of the false and grossly misleading carbon capture technology calculations currently being used in all international fossil fuel reduction treaties and by all governments. These governmental calculations utilize detailed compensatory calculations for the miraculous unproven carbon removing effects of negative technologies (NETs,) which our governments postulate will hopefully be discovered and put into operation sometime after 2150, yet at the same time, somehow have to be in a massive deployment soon so they can meet national reduction targets by 2025 and 2035. NETs are carbon capture technologies that are projected to keep global temperature below 2°C by removing to about 100 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere at a workable scale without any disastrous even worse side effects. Nets are also sometimes called BECCS (bio-energy with carbon capture and storage. (To get an idea of how big this problem really is, consider that 1 Gigatonne or metric gigaton (unit of mass) is equal to 1,000,000,000 metric tons. 100 gigatons would equal 100 billion metric tons or 100,000,000,000 metric tons.)
The belief and current reliance upon these magical “carbon sucking unicorns” (as we call them) allow the government’s of the world today to foist the current bogus carbon reduction targets upon their populations, which then allow fossil fuel industries and fossil fuel producing nations to continue with “business as usual” and the rest of the society to believe there is no emergency or urgency regarding the real and hidden fossil fuel reduction amounts. Click here for the whole crazy story about how these magical carbon sucking unicorns will save us at the last possible moment and, at the same time keep the fossil fuel industry rolling in profits for another 30-50 years.
5. The above reduction calculations do not include any extra reduction percentage or calculation for the massive spikes in carbon and methane emissions that will occur when we closely approach or cross additional global warming tipping points. To be really safe, these percentages for fossil fuel emissions reduction should actually be significantly higher by another 10-15% to allow for approaching or crossing more global warming tipping points. Not allowing any fossil fuel reduction compensatory calculations for any tipping point issues amounts to planning for perfection. Planning for perfection is always planning to fail. Click here to learn more about the tipping points that will suddenly release massive additional amounts of carbon and methane into the atmosphere.
6. The above reduction calculations do not include any extra fossil fuel reduction percentage or calculation for the long history of governmental underestimation of needed reductions because of national political or economic conditions or advantages. Click here to learn how big these underestimation problems have been.
7. The reduction calculations above are based on current and projected carbon CO2 levels in the atmosphere provided by the United Nations. They do not show the total levels of all greenhouse gases now in our atmosphere as tracked by CO2e. (CO2e measures ALL major greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.)
Because the calculations above also do not include the necessary reductions for methane and the other greenhouse gases as tracked by CO2e, the reduction calculations above probably should also be increased by another 2 to 4%. This additional 2 to 4% reduction would in part allow for the factor that methane is 86 times more potent for increasing global warming than carbon as Co2 in our atmosphere. As shocking as it sounds, methane releases into the atmosphere from fracking or natural gas distribution is seldom measured or regulated by countries around the world, including the US.
8. The above fossil fuel reduction targets also do not include the fossil fuel emissions currently produced by all import-export activities between nations. These are significant because of ocean cargo ships, trains planes and other methods used for international import-export transport produce a lot all fossil fuel emissions. For some reason which defies logic, those scientists charged by the governments to measure and regulate fossil fuel emissions have carved out a political exemption for measuring or regulating this particular type of emission, which could be up to 2 % of the world’s total fossil fuel emissions.
9. Once we get to net zero carbon emissions by 2035 for the developed nations, and 2045 for the developing nations we still aren’t safe. There is much left to get done to restore our climate’s long term natural atmospheric carbon balance at around carbon 270-300 ppm.
10. Net zero carbon emission calculations from fossil fuel use by 2035 in developed and developing countries could allow for a very small amount of fossil fuel use for agriculture and medical uses.
11. The Job One Plan or any other legitimate plans for achieving net zero carbon emissions also do not endorse Cap and Trade methods of arriving at net zero carbon and carbon-neutrality through offset schemes. Current Cap and Trade methods are too often a disguise for “business as usual” and will not get us to the radical fossil fuel reduction levels we need in the extremely limited time left to keep us from crossing the carbon 600 ppm extinction tipping point. In Job One’s own targeted version of getting to carbon-neutrality, we use a method called Fee and Dividend (discussed in part three of our Job One Plan.) In our plan, you will not be able to buy Cap and Trade carbon credits to make up the difference and achieve net zero carbon emissions through buying offsets because that inevitably promotes more fossil fuel burning.
12. The required fossil fuel reduction calculations discussed above are based on attempting to keep the average global temperature from rising two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. It is calculated that if we cross that 2°C maximum level of average global temperature increase above the preindustrial level, somehow we will be able to control the extremely slippery slope which can quickly lead us to 3, 4 and 5° Celsius increases in average global temperature.
There is additional strong evidence beyond what has been discussed above, that even we are successful in achieving the immediate and powerful fossil fuel reductions described above, the average global temperature will still rise to 3°C and likely beyond with many unavoidable and horrendous consequences. This means that we are in a real quandary as far as making the only the above-required fossil fuel reductions.
While it is absolutely true that we have to at least make the required above fossil fuel reductions no matter what! It is also highly likely that even those steep fossil fuel reductions are still not enough to avoid unthinkable suffering or the wide-scale reduction of the human population by as much as 50%.
On the other side of this painful quandary is an even scarier fact. If we do not make those immediate and radical fossil fuel use reductions, it is very likely that we will lose everything in as little as 30 to 50 years where as much as 70 to 90% of humanity (if not all,) will suffer and die.
What other choice do we have other than to make the required fossil fuel reductions above while at the same time knowing we’re probably going to have to make even steeper fossil fuel reductions as more research becomes available? What we do know is that, no matter what, the constant for the best possible global warming outcome is that — the faster and more we reduce global fossil fuel use, the more people we will save to carry on our civilization, and the fewer future generations will suffer from the escalating global warming consequences as described fully in what is called the Climageddon Scenario.
13. Here are the links to the two videos by climate Prof. Kevin Anderson discussing the REAL fossil fuel reduction calculations needed. Click here for the first professor Anderson video. Click Here for the second professor Anderson video.
And the final shocker, the above critical fossil fuel reduction amounts are probably significantly lower than they should be
The above fossil fuel reduction amounts described in points a and b at the top of the page are definitely minimum critical starting reduction amounts. In fact, based on numerous uncalculated key factors and conditions described in 1-12 above, they should be significantly higher.
Based on the best current science from climate Professors like Kevin Anderson, the targets and deadlines above at least, are far closer to what we must do, and we have to start somewhere. These new working fossil fuel reduction percentages and deadlines based on both good science and climate justice must now replace our current ridiculously impotent governmental and IPCC (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) global warming reduction targets and deadlines.
Furthermore, if we really wanted to be completely safe and if we took into consideration all of the other calculation mistakes and inclusion or exclusion factors listed above that were not considered in the reduction targets above in a and b, we probably should be targeting an 80 to 85% fossil fuel reduction in all developed nations by 2025 (or earlier,) and a complete reduction to net zero carbon in all developed nations by around 2032 or earlier. Similar greater fossil fuel reduction adjustments also would need to be made for the reduction targets in developing nations that would be aligned with what was adjusted and re-targeted for developed nations.
It’s time to get busy on the Job One for Humanity Plan to immediately start radically reducing your personal, business and national fossil fuel use.
And as part of the final shocker, there are at least 13 major and scary reasons that it will be very, very difficult to hit our 2025 global warming fossil fuel reduction targets. These 13 reasons demand that we also initiate a Plan B in case we do not succeed.
Click here to read these 13 reasons.
Click here to read about our Plan B in case everything goes wrong as it has for the last 35 years.
Written by the research staff at joboneforhumanity.org