Follow up to my post on my post on Climate change change, an article in Bloomberg is also optimistic that things are moving in a better direction.
… I have some very good news thttp://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-12-15/it-looks-like-global-carbon-emissions-hit-a-peakreo report. In 2015, global carbon emissions actually fell.
This isn’t an occasion for complacency. The fall might be a temporary blip. Even if it’s not, emissions represent the amount of additional carbon that is added to the atmosphere every year — that carbon builds up, so to really halt climate change we will need to decrease emissions drastically, not just halt their growth.
Most of the drop, the article admits, comes from China’s economic slowdown, which will ultimately reverse itself. But some of it comes from the cost-effectiveness of solar in a growing number of areas, even without subsidies, and even with relatively low fossil fuel prices. Some comes from the increasing prices of good quality coal. And some comes from the shift in perception and politics that “has caused even growth-obsessed China to be worried.”