Glimmer of Climate Hope With a Mix of Cautious Optimism

The results of a recent study provide reason for optimism: The Paris Climate Agreement targets remain within reach in about three-quarters of the 100,000 model simulations run  through the year 2100. While significant uncertainties remain, the study envisions a possible future [with climate hope] in which a cascade of social and political and technological feedbacks could lead to an accelerating decline in human greenhouse gas emissions.

(This post is sourced from an article by Dana Nuccitelli previously published in Yale Climate Connections.)

Climate Hope and Cautious Optimism

The vast majority of climate modeling studies treat human behavior as an external, unpredictable factor. They have projected how the climate would change in a variety of possible greenhouse gas emissions pathways, but have not evaluated the likelihood of those pathways.

To address that shortcoming the new study, led by University of California Davis climate economist Frances Moore, incorporates seven social, political, and technological feedbacks into climate models. It’s an effort to assess which human emissions pathways are the most likely.

This approach “is important for adaptation because increasingly we need to give people information about what climate risks are going to look like over the next 50 or 100 years,” Moore said in a phone interview, which is very difficult if scientists are unable to constrain the likely range of human emissions over that period.

The human climate feedbacks

To identify the relevant societal feedback processes that could influence how human greenhouse gas emissions change over the coming decades, Moore and her co-authors conducted a four-day interdisciplinary workshop and a review of literature across relevant fields including social and cognitive psychology, economics, sociology, law, political science, and energy systems engineering. This assessment uncovered seven such climate-social system feedbacks, described below.

The “social conformity feedback” incorporates the influence of public opinion and individual decisions into the model. Public support can often translate into policy changes, with varying success depending on the type of government, and individual behavioral changes can persuade other people to engage in similar actions.

The “climate change perception feedback” accounts for the fact that as climate change and its extreme weather impacts worsen, individuals affected by those events or witnessing the impacts may be more likely to support policies to address the root cause(s).

The “political interest feedback,” which describes how policy changes can activate powerful lobbying interests, similarly acts in both positive and negative directions. For example, policies that support renewable energy can bolster the wind and solar industries and their lobbying efforts, but those policies can also trigger adversarial political and public relations activities by powerful fossil fuel interests.

The “credibility-enhancing display feedback” is similar to the individual action component of the social conformity feedback, but it applies to influential individuals.

The “expressive force of law feedback” incorporates into the models that changes in laws and regulations can alter the perception of social norms, attitudes, or behaviors.

The “endogenous cost-reduction feedback” accounts for the fact that as new technologies are increasingly deployed, their costs can potentially fall rapidly as a result of economies of scale, lower input costs, and increased efficiencies that come from the economic theory of “learning by doing.”

Finally, the “temperature-emissions feedback” addresses direct impacts climate change will have on the economy. Several studies have suggested that worsening climate change damages may slow economic growth, and given that economic productivity is connected to energy use, this effect could also slow greenhouse gas emissions growth.

(For a more complete examination of human climate feedbacks, read the full article here.)

Results inspire hope, justify cautious optimism

The study authors performed 100,000 model simulations incorporating these seven climate-social feedbacks and then clustered together model runs with similar trajectories of climate policy and emissions through the end of the century. They found that the most common cluster (called the “modal path”), representing nearly half of the model runs, resulted in a most likely warming of about 2.3°C (4.1°F) above pre-industrial temperatures in the year 2100. The second-most common group of simulations, representing more than a quarter of model runs, was categorized as an “aggressive action” scenario in which governments are successful in meeting the Paris Climate Agreement target of limiting global warming to less than 2°C (3.6°F).

They labeled the third-largest cluster “technical challenges,” representing almost one-fifth of model runs.

Together, these three scenarios account for nearly 95% of the model simulations, and they all envision many governments enacting climate policies well beyond their current status quo in an effort to meet Paris commitments.

The study did not include the potential for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere.

Key factors and caveats

The most influential factors in the model runs were the strength of public opinion, clean technology cost reductions, responsiveness of political institutions, and the role of cognitive biases.

As in any modeling exercise, there are significant uncertainties in the study’s results, related both to physical and social factors. It’s also possible that the study did not include some important negative feedbacks, for example if rising energy prices reverse public opinion support for climate policy, or if highly politicized nationalism or isolationism increases as climate change potentially makes resources increasingly scarce.

Climate modeler Drew Shindell, not involved in the study, also flagged potential unaccounted-for negative feedbacks like media biases, noting, “for example there are loads of reports on EV battery fires (even though they are far less common than gas-powered vehicle fires), which could lead to public opinion being a negative feedback suppressing changes.”

Consilience with cautious optimism from other studies

The study’s bottom line could best be characterized as suggesting that governments might succeed in implementing climate policies starting within the next decade that are sufficient to limit global warming to somewhere between a bit less than 2°C and 3°C by 2100. While this includes a wide range of increments of climate change and associated damages, the results suggest that the most catastrophic outcomes above 3°C are relatively unlikely, with the aforementioned caveats.

Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather believes that the most likely temperature outcomes tend to fall in that same 2-3°C range. But if net-zero pledges are met, there is still some glimmer of hope that warming can be kept below two degrees Celsius.

Our piece accompanies a new study by @meinshausen and colleagues and @Laura_Cozzi_‘s team at the @IEA, which finds net-zero pledges by countries now cover 75% of global emissions and – if met – would result in a best-estimate of under 2C warming by 2100: https://t.co/d00rB7dXBK pic.twitter.com/VQCUP6EYig

— Zeke Hausfather (@hausfath) April 13, 2022

The new study’s most likely outcome suggests that global emissions will continue to rise over the next 8 years, missing the 2030 Paris pledges, but will decline rapidly thereafter to bring the 2050 targets within reach. For example, increasing public support

• could spur climate policies in many countries,
• which could catalyze the deployment of clean technologies,
• which could drive down their costs,
• which could further increase public support,
• … and so on in a cascading positive feedback effect.

As Moore told Yale Climate Connections, near-term climate failures could make people “way too pessimistic. If there are these spillovers like ‘learning by doing’ effects and cost reductions and network effects, it’s possible to be taken by surprise positively” by accelerating emissions reductions after 2030.

Given ongoing struggles and delays in adopting and implementing climate policies in many countries like the United States, some advocates for climate action may be heartened by this potential hope for success – or at least for progress – in coming decades.

ICYMI:
Is Carbon Capture a Help or a Hindrance?
40% of Developed Fossil Fuel Reserves Must Stay in the Ground
Five Ways Canada Can Reach 2030 Emissions Target

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.