German Die Zeit Calls 2°C Limit “The Great Self-Deception…Climate Policy An illusion” – Says 4°C Rise Is Unavoidable

There’s no longer any hope of adequately curbing CO2 emissions and preventing run-away global warming, writes Die Zeit weekly here. The hopelessly deep-in-despair German weekly has given up all hope and has resigned itself to the world as we know it coming to an end. Human society has failed.

The IPCC and goverments are in self-deception says Germany’s Die Zeit weekly. (Source: http://www.ipcc.ch/)

Die Zeit claims this because it is obvious that countries are not even going to reduce emissions anywhere near the levels needed to reach the theoretical 2°C target set by IPCC scientists.

Die Zeit’s  report, authored by Frank Drieschner, starts by claiming that even if the entire world changed light bulbs, drove electric cars, and insulated their homes, i.e. followed Germany’s example in greening up, the planet would still heat up by 4°C by the year 2100. To believe anything else is “self-deception,” he writes.

Let’s assume that the world’s ecological revolution were successfully completed by the end of the century. How much would the Earth heat up? Answer: about four degrees Celsius. Four, not two.”

Drieschner is fanatically warmist, believes even the most pessimistic of the IPCC scenarios, and is hopelessly convinced that the end of the world is imminent. Die Zeit says it is all but sure the planet will heat up this century and we will leave our children a world that is “more dangerous, inhospitable and life-threatening then it ever was was during the entire history of mankind.”

Seasons, vegetation patterns and coastlines will change, and not just once, but do so continuously, probably for hundreds of years. […] In addition, there will be incalculable changes in ocean currents in the Atlantic and Pacific with unpredictable consequences. […] In the best case, it’s going to cost millions of lives. [… The probability of such changes is high.”

Die Zeit (Drieschner) claims that no now matter how green the planet gets in the decades ahead, we are all condemned to 4°C of warming hell because we are well beyond the point of no return. The crime has been committed. The guilty ones are the rich industrial countries. Die Zeit advises:

The transition to green energy must be far more rapid, we have not been radical enough by a long shot.”

So why does Die Zeit say the 2°C limit has no chance and that the planet will see 4°C of warming at best?

Here they apply the climate forcings and the emissions scenarios used by the IPCC in its previous reports. When it comes to global GHG emissions, these have far exceeded anything the IPCC projected just a few years ago in even its most pessimistic forecasts – thanks to astronomical emissions growth in China and developing countries.

Die Zeit reminds us that China’s emissions surpassed those of the USA in 2008, and just 3 years later they were 50% higher: “Nobody thought such development could be possible; suddenly all calculations were obsolete.”

And the chances of reaching emissions targets are “hopeless,” Die Zeit writes. The USA refuses to ratify a treaty, Europe is now backing down from its 30% reductions target by 2020. There’s no chance of reducing emissions. The amount of carbon dioxide needed to theoretically heat the planet more than 2°C will surely be emitted sooner than later, and more than enough will be emitted to heat the planet 4°C. Die Zeit:

What industrial countries managedto save in emissions with unified commitment over the last 20 years equals what emerging and developing countries have added in just a year.”

Thus in order to reach the 2°C limit, worldwide emissions would have to drop 2.5 to 3 percent annually starting now, Die Zeit claims. How difficult would that be? It turns out impossibly difficult.

Die Zeit illustrates why this is so by comparing that figure to the reductions achieved by the most successful countries thus far, namely Germany. Die Zeit writes:

Sure [German] emissions per capita compared to Europe are high, but they are dropping faster than almost anywhere else. How fast are they dropping? About 1.3% per year.”

That’s a far cry from the needed 2.5 – 3%. Die Zeit then writes that even if the planet imposed the strictest reductions proposed in the wildest dreams of the eco-activists, emissions would drop only 2.3% per year. No country in the world is prepared to make that kind of economic sacrifice. So clearly there is no chance of reducing emissions to the extent that is needed to meet the theoretically calculated 2°C limit. What’s more, emissions from developing countries are exploding.

Climate policy is based on an illusion that is based on an illusion

Clearly we see that there is absolutely no chance to reduce global CO2 emissions to a point that would satisfy the 2°C target requirements – no matter how much the developed countries cut back. Yet, as Die Zeit frets, countries and governments continue to act like the target is still attainable without much pain. Die Zeit quotes Australian philosopher Clive Hamilton, who writes in his über-pessimistic book Requiem for a Species:

Nobody is ready to publicly tell us what climate science has to tell us: That it’s too late to prevent a global warming that will radically alter the planet this century.”

And even though the mathematics tell countries and world leaders that the 2°C target is impossible, governments continue form policy around it. Die Zeit writes: “one has to conclude that climate policy in total is based on an illusion”.

By now we see that climate policy is actually based on 2 illusions: 1) CO2 is the Earth’s thermostat, and 2) the theoretical 2°C target still can be reached. Governments and the IPCC now have illusions based on illusions!

Die Zeit concludes:

While a warming of over 4°C can be hardly prevented, the IPCC remains relentless in defending the illusion that the world can still calmly decide whether it would like to set the thermostat in the greenhouse at +2°C or perhaps at +1.5°C.”

Die Zeit is probably the first media outlet that I know that has given up on rescuing the planet from global warming has resigned to the fate that we are going to burn up by the end of the century. Drieschner is a total incurable basket case who by now has probably crawled under his bed with his teddy bear.

There’s no data out there that will cure Die Zeit of its terminal pessimism. Obviously the publication is still oblivious to the fact that global temperature has not risen in 16 years.