> How many nations/economies would need to be in on a global warming treaty for it to work, GW?

How many nations/economies would need to be in on a global warming treaty for it to work, GW?

Posted at: 2015-03-12 
Right now, probably about 5-6 of the top sources of CO2.

You'd also need 1-3 nations responsible for deforestation.

However, the problem is that you'd need the goals to be met.

So far, that's not happened.

I think that the reality is that we (the world) needs a better source of non-fossil power than we have today.

Our problem is in finding what the CO2 production is in every country or region. It is difficult enough to find coal production statistics for one state in Australia where I live, which incidentally is a major coal supplier to China, Korea and Japan. While I might, after considerable research, find the coal, oil and gas production & consumption in each of the nations listed in your question, there is essentially no way that I can estimate the net production of CO2 or CH4 by land use changes. I doubt that such emissions are even measured except sporadically, anywhere. So there is no way that I can make a realistic or even ballpark estimate. That's why large research organisation exist. They have the resources to do these estimates, I do not.

Which reminds me, for some reason, of a problem that most scientists in the west do not face. A chemist from India was complaining on the R & S pages about superstition in India, even among relatively educated people. His lab had set up an instrument to monitor methane production, possibly by termites, I forget the exact details. One of their own clerical staff had gone out afterwards and coated the thing with vermilion powder for good luck, which completely wrecked several thousand rupees worth of instrumentation. That was not the only similar experience that they had, they found another field instrument draped in flower garlands, evidence that someone had been worshipping it.

Given all the thumbs up for the roulette, I thought I'd place a warning.

The old double-down method. Problem is that say you start with $100 on say red, while you only have a 0.16% chance of not hitting red for 10 tries, you have $102,300 and have to put down $102,400 and hope for red. That is a serious bankroll.

The reason the casinos don't mind is that eventually you are going to hit a string of "bad luck". That 1 in 613 or 0.16% chance may seem small, but it will likely come around before you get your bankroll up enough to push past it.

This method only works assuming you already have an infinite bank roll BECAUSE your rate of hitting the string of "bad luck" (whether that be 10 bad rolls or 12 or 14, whichever busts you) is faster than your rate of increasing your money.

Lets say you hit that string of 10 misses on your 613th set of tries. You will have earned 61200 which will not be enough to bankroll that 613th set.

Of course the casinos also already have stopped this by placing both a minimum and maximum bet, ensuring this method will not work. So don't throw away your money doing this.

To answer the question thiough,

China, India, Most of Europe, the US and Russia would have to sign to have a prayer of success.

There are a lot of other developing countries that will eventually go through a large growth in CO2 production, but they cane be brought onboard after they have atained a measure of economic growth, at least enough to sustain their population.

Ideally, all of the nations of the world should sign on. But it is wrong to assume that there would be no benefit is only some nations were to sign. First of all, why would the nations that don't sign have any competitive advantage over those that do sign? How does wasting energy and driving SUVs or even the 2 cent per kilowatt hour difference between coal and nuclear power make a nation competitive. It would seem to me that the nations that develop new energy sources would be the ones to have an advantage as easy oil becomes more scarce. There is also the idea of leading by example.

As far as the Kyoto Accord goes, the biggest flaw was not the lack of stiff penalties, but the lack of short term targets. Canada, for example, did not fail to meet its Kyoto targets because of Stephen Harper deciding to withdraw from Kyoto. Canada failed to meet its Kyoto targets because the previous Liberal government did nothing to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels when they were in office from 1992, the year of the Earth Summit, to 2006, when Stephen Harper first won a minority government.

US EU China India Russia Japan Canada Australia South Korea, but going forward the rest of the world also accounts for a large share over 30%.

Placing a tariff on imports would put a dent in emissions, but the large internal markets would also make it not effective. More likely the signatories like China would cheat.

EU has some of the most energy efficient countries already. If only we take example from germany and iceland. But I don't think restrictions is the right way to go, you're just gonna piss people off. Set up incentives for renewable energy and people will follow suit. Also, reforest the amazon. That rainforest is responsible for almost a quarter of the worlds oxygen, and trees love CO2.

If you treat the EU as one country then probably six but Brazil is currently playing catch-up and will appear on the graph soon.

However, politics is also a factor here. Note how China has overtaken the USA in the graph below. As China has roughly 4 times the population their graph could be 4 times higher than the US. Similarly for India. Their graph could reach 3 times that of the US. How is it going to be explained to these people that they need to remain poor because of a suspected problem that, anyway, might not amount to much?

Conversely, who will explain to Obama that the US needs to be as poor as India if it wants to make a substantial CO2 emissions reduction?

In the second reference below, it claims that the US has about 46,100 turbines and that will supply 15.5 million homes. Assuming 4 people to a home worldwide that means we need 117 times as many turbines. This is over 5.3 million turbines. Taking your 50 year timeline then we need to build over 18,000 per year or nearly 300 per day.

If we factor in that the US electricity usage will remain constant per person and that the rest of the world wants to use the same amount then we will need four times the energy. Also factor a population growth of 50%, the need to replace oil in cars (factor of 2). The combined factor is 12. So 3,600 new wind turbines would reduce emissions from fossil fuels to nearly zero. but we only need 70% so we will only need about 2500 new turbines, manufactured, installed, commissioned and connected each day.

We still need something to provide the power when the wind is not blowing, of course.

And in 50 years, the old ones will be wearing out and need replacement.

Getting countries on board enough to set a target is only a small part of the problem.



When there is no form of punishment for not meeting the treaty, they are not worth much. Look at the Kyoto Accord. Many nations signed it, and made intentions to meet requirements, but many did not follow through. You are not going to get a growing developing nation such as China reduce its CO2. They already use a small amount of energy per person compared to developed nations, and coal is plentiful in China.

Your dreaming. Roger Pielke Jr, did an economic presentation (video) on the energy needs of the future, to reduce CO2 to acceptable levels by 2100 would require 1 large nuclear power station (or its equivalent in renewables) to come on line every day. that is without developing nations improving their situation in line with western countries, should developing countries be allowed to match western countries in prosperity, it would require 5 large nuclear stations coming online each and everyday. if your serious about understanding the problems involved watch the video, you might not agree with everything (I did not either) but it is an eye opener, and really needs to be seen not only by you and I, but by all governmental energy agencies.

Your dreaming. Roger Pielke Jr, did an economic presentation (video) on the energy needs of the future, to reduce CO2 to acceptable levels by 2100 would require 1 large nuclear power station (or its equivalent in renewables) to come on line every day. that is without developing nations improving their situation in line with western countries, should developing countries be allowed to match western countries in prosperity, it would require 5 large nuclear stations coming online each and everyday. if your serious about understanding the problems involved watch the video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl... you might not agree with everything (I did not either) but it is an eye opener, and really needs to be seen not only by you and I, but by all governmental energy agencies.

Assume, for a moment, that some number of nations sign a treaty to deal seriously with global warming. All of the signatory nations agree to cut their net CO2 emissions by 50% over the next 20 years, and by 90% over the next 50, as well as putting a carbon tariff on imports from non-signatory nations (so the problem doesn't just get exported), and a scheme where the wealthier nations assist the poorer nations with compliance. Assume, also, that the overall goal is a 30% reduction in worldwide CO2 emissions in 20 years, and a 70% reduction in 50 years. (also, for Certain Parties, remember that only fossil fuel use, land-use changes, and the like count. Biological carbon such as breathing is not a *net* source of emissions)

Treating the EU as a single nation for the purposes of this question, if we started with the world's biggest economies (probably China, the US, and the EU), roughly how many nations would need to sign on for the treaty to meet its overall goals? Do those goals at all resemble scientists' estimates for what we'd need to do to slow AGW to safe levels? Any other thoughts?

We can't even get our own laws straight here in the U.S.. What makes you think any Government can get it right?

The ACA (ObamaCare) is going to fail simply because we don't have "intelligent" Democrats working for the people. They think that just because they "care" about a certain subject, they can make decisions (decisions for all people) about the subject matter.

" ... Now, let’s put into perspective exactly how our nation’s laws are written. The Democratic members of Congress passed the Act unanimously but they did not write much of it. Politicians have more important things to do than write a 2,400-page law with all its attendant rules and regulations. Congress, which dictates things it wants to see in a bill, concedes the actual writing of the law to staff and “architects.” ... " - http://www.examiner.com/article/the-end-...

I doubt that our Governments (Congress in the U.S.) can actually come to any intelligent decisions. That's not what they are there for anyway, but liberals like you think that is exactly what Governments are for. (Just a clue: Governments in the U.S. are here to help people help themselves and "not" dictate to us, but it seems that many States and Federal Government agencies are made up of people who like to have control over others)

First, global warming would have to be a human caused problem.

Since this is not the case, even if every nation in the world signed on to a treaty it wouldn't make a bit of different for the world's climate.

The whole world would need to be involved, and still we can only hope that it will work. No one knows for sure if we can reverse the damage done already or not. We can only hope and try.

I doubt that our Governments (Congress in the U.S.) can actually come to any intelligent decisions. That's not what they are there for anyway, but liberals like you think that is exactly what Governments are for. (Just a clue: Governments in the U.S. are here to help people help themselves and "not" dictate to us, but it seems that many States and Federal Government agencies are made up of people who like to have control over others)

All. Low laying countries need to start making plans to relocate their populations as well. For example the Maldives.

Global Warming ended in 2012/ Confirmed and ICE is still accumulating on all existing Glaciers today. Mike

Most countries know that AGW is a hoax, so every known country could sign on and it still wouldn't work.

It wont change anything its a wealth redistributuion scheme