The current CO2 emissions at the end of 2024:
Two scenarios:
These two scenarios show how Manmade CO2 emissions are likely to grow in the future, probably before the end of the century.
Introduction
This post estimates of the probable future growth in global CO2 emissions to put Western World efforts at CO2 emissions reduction in a proportional context of the inevitable growth of Global CO2 emissions from the developing world in the future.
This point was amply made by Berkley Professor Richard Muller in 2010. His graph below and anticipates rather faster CO2 emissions growth from the developing world, than either of the scenarios here. It shows the extent that the Underdeveloped world is set to wholly overwhelm any efforts in the West to limit Global CO2 emissions in an attempt to influence Global temperature.
Two future scenarios are considered but timescales are not defined. They simply set the range of outcomes:
Firstly: the Underdeveloped world, (~160 Nations) and India presently at a level of ~2.1 tonnes/head/annum attain the COVID reduced 2020 Global average level of CO2 emissions/head/annum: 5 tonnes/head/annum
Secondly: the Underdeveloped world and India eventually approach the present level of CO2 emissions/head in China: ~8 tonnes/head/annum.
These values give a reasonable range of estimates and show how the inevitable CO2 emissions growth in the Developing World would entirely negate and swamp any CO2 reduction efforts made by Western nations, however draconian,.
Starting point from end 2024
The UK Energy Institute releases its review of World Energy every year and their most recent CO2 emissions data was released for the end of 2024. They have made some radical reassessments increasing recorded CO2 emissions overall by ~6,000 million tonnes. This data took into account the Covid-19 effect during 2020. This data set is used as the foundation of the following speculative calculations.
https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review
This post uses the current 2021 CO2 emissions status as provided in current BP (British Petroleum) dataset, accounting in part for the Covid-19 effect. The comprehensive BP/ EI data is reclassified into major Nation groups as shown below:
The 2024 progress of CO2 emissions shown as current tonnes/ head according to the UK Energy Institute data is set out below.
Further CO2 emissions growth
In spite of the 2016 Paris Climate accord and all other International CO2 reduction efforts, the Underdeveloped and Developing Nations will have no significant limitations to their CO2 emissions for the foreseeable future. The UK Energy Institute data reported the total end 2024 Man-made CO2 emissions as ~34,400 million tonnes/annum. Two simple speculative scenarios for Global development are considered:
Firstly: the Underdeveloped world and India presently at a level of ~2.1 tonnes/head/annum attain the Global average 2024 level of CO2 emissions/head/annum of 5.0 tonnes/head/annum. This results in Global CO2 emissions growing by an extra ~23,000 million tonnes/annum to reach ~64,000 million tonnes/annum. At 5.0 tonnes/head/annum this current Global average level is already ~11% higher than CO2 emissions/head/annum of France with its ~80%+ commitment to Nuclear energy for power generation.
Secondly: the Underdeveloped world and India eventually approach the level of CO2 emissions/head current in China: ~8.0 tonnes/head/annum. This would result in Global CO2 emissions growing by ~18,000 million tonnes/annum to reach ~82,000 million tonnes/annum. China just maintains its level of CO2 emissions/head at 8.8 tonnes/head and grows its population by ~15%. The Chinese emissions level/head is already higher, (+54%), than the 2024 average level of CO2 emissions/head/annum in the EU(28) at 5.70 tonnes/head.
Western CO2 emissions have recovered substantially from the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 epidemic. Western agencies, such as the UN and IMF, are trying to hold back investment for effective power generation in the Underdeveloped World, (about 40% of the Global population), on the grounds of controlling Man-made Climate Change.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/africa-needs-to-be-richrather-than-green-slgbjsl62hq
On the other hand, the Chinese “Belt and Road Programme” has been working in the opposite direction. China is promoting Coal-fired power and the installation of electrical grids throughout the Underdeveloped World. The likely future outcomes in terms of CO2 emissions of this Chinese policy may well be indicated by these speculative estimates. The improvements in lifestyle for the Underdeveloped world will progressively reduce the pressure for further population growth in those Nations. The concomitant beneficial outcome for China is its effective technical and financial colonisation of much of the Underdeveloped World.
The USA on the other hand has already achieved substantial CO2 emissions reduction, about -47% ~900 million tonnes/annum since 2000 by the use of Fracked Gas rather than Coal for electricity generation. This technical shift has already resulted a far greater CO2 emissions reduction than could have been achieved by either the Kyoto Protocol or the Paris Climate Accord. The USA’s continuing replacement of Coal-firing by relatively inexpensive, (in the USA), Fracked gas for electricity generation is assumed to result in a further 15% reduction in USA CO2 emissions.
The only Nations making any real, proactive efforts to reduce their CO2 emissions are now in Europe, the UK, Australia, Canada but now no longer in the USA with the second Trump presidency. The aspiration of “Net Zero CO2 emissions” cannot be achieved without the destruction Western economies and a total loss of wellbeing in Europe and any Western Nation that participates.
It should also be noted that the reduction of CO2 emissions/head/annum down to ~4.9 tonnes/head in the UK was largely attributable to the earlier UK “dash for Gas” policy, whereas the German “die Energiewende” policy and even with its massive commitment to Weather-Dependent “Renewables” has not resulted in an equivalent CO2 emissions reduction. Germain CO2 emissions are now increasing as they have decoded to shutter the last of their Nuclear power plants
Rather than achieving “Net Zero emissions”, more realistically, these estimates assume that Europe as a whole might reduce its CO2 emissions by a further 20%, but this could only amount to a reduction ~550,000,000 tonnes/annum. This level of CO2 emissions reduction would result in massive self-harm to European and Western economies. This comparatively minor European CO2 emissions reduction of ~550,000,000 tonnes/annum should be set in the context of the inevitable CO2 emissions growth anticipated here initially of 20,000 million tonnes/annum and possibly later up to 32,000 million tonnes/annum. The percentage breakdown of these CO2 emissions growth scenarios is shown below.
An estimate of Global Population Growth
These speculations assume that the bulk of population growth will arise in the Underdeveloped world, Rest of World (~160 Nations), growing by 40% and with India growing by ~25%. This population growth can only be curbed by increasing development and urbanisation of the Underdeveloped world. It is assumed that population growth in China and the rapidly Developing Nations will be more limited to ~15%. The developed world would see only marginal population growth, with 5% growth in the USA and other Developed Nations, (JP CIS CA AU) and with virtually nil population growth in the EU(27) and the UK. The result is that Global population is likely to exceed ~9 billion by 2100, of which the European share will reduce to from 6.7% to 5.7% of Global population. According to current UN predictions this Global population outcome by 2100 is a low estimate. The range of CO2 emissions increase will increase as the population of the underdeveloped world grows further.
The environmental context for concerns about atmospheric CO2
Any CO2 reduction policy should also be seen in a longer-term context:
according to reliable Ice Core records the last millennium 1000 – 2000 AD was the coldest of our current Holocene interglacial and the world had already been cooling comparatively rapidly for the last 3000 years, since before the warm Roman times from ~1000 BC.
the modern short pulse of beneficial Global Warming slowed some 20 years ago and recent global temperatures are now relatively stable or declining.
at 11,000 years long, our congenial warm Holocene interglacial, responsible for all man-kind’s advances, from living in caves to microprocessors, is likely to be coming to it’s eventual end.
so, the World will very soon, (on a geological time scale), revert to a true glaciation, again resulting in mile high ice sheets over New York.
in colder times the weather gets worse because of the increased energy differential between the poles and the tropics.
in colder times Man-kind’s survival will become more difficult.
plant productivity is hampered in colder weather: any even minor cooling can immediately lead to agricultural losses, as has already been seen in recent growing seasons at the present Solar minimum.
on the other hand, plant productivity is markedly enhanced with increases in atmospheric CO2 and this is well evidenced by current higher crop yields.
however, it should now be realised that even a doubling of the level of atmospheric CO2 whether from natural or man-made sources can now only affect global temperature very marginally.
But, the prospect of even moving in a cooling direction is something to be truly concerned about both for the biosphere and for the survival of man-kind.
Conclusions
The current, 2024 European CO2 emissions are 3,794 million tonnes/annum or ~9% of current Global CO2 emissions. In the event of these two scenarios this European proportion of Global CO2 emissions will reduce to between 4.9% – 3.6%. A reduction of only 2,770 million tonnes/annum could be achieved by meeting the impossible target of Net Zero emissions in the EU(27)+UK.
Net Zero emissions achieved in the UK alone could only result in a CO2 reduction of ~319,000,000 tonnes/annum, or less than 0.5% of the likely total future CO2 emissions. However as soon as the Underdeveloped world gets access to centralised power that potentially viable 20% reduction for the European at 550 million tonnes/annum would be entirely swamped by the inevitable additional CO2 emissions elsewhere in the World. The likely CO2 emissions increases ranging from +20,000 – +32,000 million tonnes/annum and puts the possible 20% reduction by the entire EU(28) of ~55 million tonnes into its true context.
And as UK CO2 emissions are roughly 10% of the European total CO2 emissions, makes any efforts in CO2 emissions reduction in the UK even less significant. From past experience neither significant CO2 emissions reductions nor massive excessive annual production seem to have made any perceptible reaction or forced any inflexion to the Mauna Loa Keeling curve over the past 55 years.
The failure to see any inflexion of the Mauna Loa Keeling curve from the Covid 19 episode implies that all concerns over the control of Man-made CO2 emissions particularly if only from the Western world alone are unwarranted and unjustifiable. In the context of the inevitable and massive future expansion of CO2 emissions from the Underdeveloped world, any CO2 reduction efforts in the West, Europe or just in the UK alone would simply be acts of massive economic self-harm and clearly futile. Even doubling Man-made CO2 emissions,(from the developing world), as anticipated by these scenarios will not cause any perturbation of the Keeling curve.
An excellent way to undermine Western economies is to render their power generation unreliable and expensive. That objective of Green thinking is progressively being achieved by Government policy but without popular voter mandate throughout Western Nations. So, spending any effort, for the solely emotional and in the quasi-religious belief in the evil of Western Man-made CO2 emissions:
without full due diligence and bilateral examination of the costs and benefits
without true cost benefit analysis
there is a desperate need for a radical “Red team Blue Team”analysis of the whole Manmade Global warming assertion.
without detailed engineering consideration and due diligence and critical analysis for any proposed technical solutions let alone at GDP scale costs, trying to stop the UK’s <0.8% or the EU’s ~9% of something that has not been happening for 3 millennia has to be monumentally ill-considered and ill-advised.
Unsurprisingly, Russia, China and India are mocking the way Western governments have been induced by their own “Green thinking and Virtue Signalling” to promote their policies of abject self-harm at great National cost and to no perceptible global benefit. This is amply supported by Western “useful idiots” in NGOs and in Western Governments, (Lenin’s term).
The “Green” movement has already succeeded in eliminating Fracking throughout Europe and Germany had a dependency on Russian Gas imports via the Nordstream pipelines, which have been cut off at Russia’s whim. Subsequent to Russia’s war in the Ukraine, that eventuality has now come to pass. The Developing and Eastern worlds are certainly not going to be meekly following the deranged example of the “virtue signalling” West.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/05062019-china-and-india-will-watch-the-west-destroy-itself-oped/
Never forget: Sun Tsu’s first art of war:
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” That is exactly what is happening as Western governments pursue self-harming Green Energy policies. There is no better way to damage Western societies than by rendering their power supplies unreliable and expensive. Cui bono Who Benefits ??
and
The late Professor Sir David MacKay:
“The dependence on Weather-Dependent “Renewable Energy” to power a developed economy is an Appalling Delusion”.
There’s so much delusion and I think it’s so dangerous for humanity that people allow themselves to have these delusions that they’re willing to not think carefully about the numbers and the realities, and the laws of physics and the realities of engineering… humanity really does need to pay attention to arithmetic, and the laws of physics.”
Arithmetic? Laws of physics? Engineering? They are lost on obsessive politicians, to the West’s incalculable cost.
