[graeme]

Global co2 emissions are at an all time high.

Co2 parts per million are a stock, like the level of water in a bathtub. Annual emissions are a flow, like how strongly the water is flowing in.

The tub is fuller than ever before AND filling at the fastest rate ever.

The problem is that carbon energy is useful. So unless something globally beats almost all use cases then somewhere marginally it will be worth burning vs not burning it.

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

[spwa4]

... which is evidence in favor of the idea that the only parties that can actually do anything about CO2 emissions are the countries digging up oil.

If we do what we do now, what the UN IPCC is focusing on, which is lowering CO2 in the west to bring CO2 usage up everywhere else. China, India, and Africa and South Africa (hopefully) in the future then we've not just achieved nothing, we've made things worse.

It seems to me if oil keeps being dug up what we do on the usage side just does not matter unless everyone agrees to lower the total, because someone will use it. By the way, CO2 will keep increasing if we burn more than about 18 mbd (0.03% of what we use now).

This means nothing will matter unless you get US, Norway, Russia, China, and the Middle East to comply. And by comply I don't mean lowering the oil pumping, but stopping 100% (yes, technically 99.97% or more). That includes the oil they pump for their own use.

And obviously I realize this argument doesn't work. We cannot proceed along this way, it's not reasonable towards so many people, who have the right to life, an economy and energy. So we'll have to find an entirely different way to deal with these changes.

[graeme]

Agree on all points. The trouble is if some countries stop the price goes up and there's an incentive to find more oil in countries which didn't stop.

Markets are powerful. No real solution other than making market competitive alternatives such that the desire to dig up oil is simply lost. This may or may not be feasible.

[gpt5]

It's a leaking bathtub. Half life of excess CO2 in the atmosphere is 30-100 years. So you need the water flowing in to continue to increase in rate (not just to continue flowing in), otherwise you reach a new equilibrium and the CO2 levels in the atmosphere stop increasing.

They do increase in rate as you said (for now).

[graeme]

That's a rather misleading statistic. Some is absorbed by oceans, where it acidifies. For land based carbon sinks (trees, soil, etc) any new carbon being deposited is competing with existing carbon in the carbon cycle.

If your stat had any sense then atmospheric carbon levels would rapidly plunge in a few centuries without humans burning carbon. They plainly don't do that.

[gpt5]

Carbon levels are expected to plunge over a few centuries if carbon emissions drop.

You are right the the ocean is the largest carbon sink, and it has the negative side effect of acidifying.