We must immediately commence carbon emissions reductions of 6% each year until the end of the century. Timing is crucial. If we wait until 2020 to begin emissions reductions the annual requirement is 15% per year.Starting only 5 years earlier, they are saying that we can do 2/5ths as much reducing each year, for 85 years instead of 80, and get the same result. It seems too dramatic. I want to think about how to analyze it. I don't yet know what assumptions I can make.
- Should I compare total emissions from now until 2100? (I think so.)
- Should I assume emissions are growing exponentially from now until 2020 in the 2nd scenario? (I think so.)
- What else would I need to know? (Are there other factors that make this more complicated?)
I think I got it. I think this assumes that we are currently increasing our carbon emissions at a rate of about 20% a year. We are not. It's more like a tenth of that - about 2.5%. (Government source here.)
If you want to do some real math, think about what you would do before continuing.
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I figured it like this. I count this year's carbon emissions as 1. If we decrease 6% a year, that means we have 94% of the previous year's emissions. So the total emissions from now until 2100 is
S=1+.94+.94^2+...+.94^84. This simplifies to S = (1-.94^85)/(1-.94). Note that the .94^85 is so close to 0 that we can ignore it. We Get S=1/.06 = 16.666. So the article is saying that for the next 85 years, we can emit 16 times this year's emissions.
If we increase until 2020, we would start with higher emissions, H. 15% decrease per year leaves 85% of the previous year's emissions. Our sum would be
S=H+.85H+.85^2H+...+.85^79H = H(1-.85^79)/(1-.85) = (almost) 1/.15 = 6.666.
16.666 - 6.666 = 10. So somehow we get 10 times this year's emissions within the next 5 years. If our emissions are currently increasing so that our emissions next year is r, then
S = 1 + r + r^2 + ... +r^5 = (1-r^6) / (1-r) = 10. I asked wolframalpha.com to solve this and got r = 1.2, for a 20% increase per year.
I asked John Golden to check my work. He used a continuous increase model and got close to 9%, mush lower. But still not low enough to match what's happening.
So it seems that either the article has a typo, or my mathematical model is not including everything it should. Humanity seems to be at a tipping point. Can we change our ways of making decisions, from capitalism to something else, in time to save ourselves from our foolishness? I would like everyone to be able to do this sort of math.
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