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Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Use This Calculator to See How Little Cutting Carbon Emissions Would Budge Temperatures
Kevin Dayaratna. He is a chief statistician, data scientist, and senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis.
"Ever since the start of Joe Biden’s presidency, curbing climate change has been a fundamental component of his energy policy agenda.
During the spring, for example, the Biden administration issued a power plant rule, imposing strict emissions reductions regarding the use of fossil-fuel power plants. There have been many other rules proposed as well, including regulating cars, stoves, dishwashers, water heaters, and even microwaves.
All of these rules are predicated on concerns about the effects of
greenhouse gas emissions on global temperatures and climate change. If
greenhouse gas emissions drive climate change, then curbing the use of
sources of energy that emit them (such as coal, oil, and natural gas)
should in theory curb these increases in global temperature.
However, lawmakers often present policies aimed at curbing climate
change only in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions reductions. For
example, the recent rule the Biden administration issued on electric vehicles claims it will reduce greenhouse gases by 7.2 billion tons through 2055.
This figure sounds large, but it’s surprisingly deceptive: A key
unanswered question is the actual temperature impact of these and other
related policies.
The predicted temperature impact of these and other policies hinges
on a number of assumptions that affect our ever-changing climate.
That’s why we have created The Heritage Foundation Climate Calculator,
an online tool that enables the public to change some of the
assumptions to simulate the climate effects of these policies to reduce
carbon emissions. (The libertarian Cato Institute had a similar tool in the 2010s.)
As the documentation
illustrates, there are myriad assumptions regarding climate in this
model. Our calculator focuses on allowing the user to play with two key
assumptions:
Climate sensitivity
Level of emissions reduction
Scientists generally agree that the earth warms as carbon dioxide
emissions increase. The real question, then, is to what degree (no pun
intended).
Climate sensitivity
measures how much the earth’s temperature will warm as a result of a
doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Climate
scientists’ estimates of climate sensitivity vary greatly, partly
because the physical interactions between carbon dioxide and
temperatures are not fully understood.
The level of emissions reductions is the percentage of CO2 emissions
that lawmakers would seek to reduce with respect to current emissions.
The methodology explained below contains full details.
The simulations presented in this calculator allow user-selected
climate sensitivities between 2 and 5 degrees, stated as the “very
likely” range of climate sensitivity, according the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, encompassing the “likely” range of 2.5 to 4 degrees.
Although empiricalevidence comparing observations to predictions suggests that sensitivities toward the lower end of these ranges may indeed be moreplausible,
The Heritage Foundation Climate Calculator allows users to decide which
climate sensitivity they would like to assume and how steep the
reductions in fossil fuel use they’d like to see.
For example, what if lawmakers wanted to reduce carbon emissions by
40% starting this year? Assuming a 3-degree sensitivity (the middle of
the IPCC’s range of sensitivities), there would be about a 0.036 degree
Celsius reduction by 2050 and 0.070 degree Celsius decline by 2100.
What about the European Union, again assuming 3.5 degree Celsius
sensitivity and 40% reductions? It’s even more trifling—less than 0.019
degree Celsius temperature reduction by 2050 and 0.037 degree Celsius
temperature decline in 2100.
Even assuming the most aggressive policy imaginable (100% reductions)
and the IPCC’s worst-case scenario regarding climate sensitivity (5
degrees sensitivity), The Heritage Foundation Climate Calculator shows
that if the U.S. were to completely eliminate use of fossil fuels, there
would be less than 0.23 degree Celsius global temperature reduction by
2100.
If the EU were to do so, the impact would be even more trifling—less than 0.13 degree Celsius global temperature reduction.
These are just a few of the scenarios that one can simulate using The Heritage Foundation Climate Calculator.
We encourage you to play with the calculator and tweak assumptions
yourself. The results will speak for themselves: Regardless of the
assumptions made using this government model, the climate effects of
carbon reduction policies are slim to none.
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