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Perhaps you should read Vaclav Smil's book 'Power Density' more closely. Power density is key in any energy transition and it is clear that there is an important role for nuclear energy in the future, the densest power source of them all. It seems to be willfully ignored in this article (and perhaps also in the McKinsey and EU commission reports). Banking on a very dense power source like nuclear energy is a superior strategy to banking on blue-sky innovations somewhere in the future ("That leaves 14 per cent to be covered by blue-sky innovation". Pie in the sky?). Just a single sentence has been dedicated to nuclear: "utopian assumptions about nuclear power". There's nothing utopian about it, it just simple physics (energy density) and a G7 country has proven over many decades now, that it works: France, which pretty much achieved the transition to an almost carbon-free electricity system approximately 20 years ago.

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I'm writing as a scientist. I'm not a climate scientist, so my specialized knowledge is limited, but I grew up around true experts, and have tried to stay informed.

Greenhouse gases are a real problem, and a solution is necessary. However the specific claims of expert panels are rhetorically excessive. Climate is exceedingly complex, and confident projections 50+ years into the future are fraught with uncertainty. To proceed with great caution in the face of possible severe danger is wise, but to promulgate educated guesses as "known facts" may ultimately simply discredit expertise. Thus, in my view, "If we do not [achieve net-zero carbon-dioxide emissions by 2050], we have reason to believe that the basic conditions of our existence will be in question" is perhaps true, provided one recognizes the weasel-word phrasing of "will be in question," but to me seems misleading.

Additionally, I echo the views of Camiel below: one wonders why e.g. nuclear energy is ignored in facing this problem. My own suspicion is that it reflects that sad tribal politicization of nearly everything now, such that cultural coherency becomes more important than solving problems, no matter how serious they may be.

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Every time I see the biogenic carbon cycle mentioned in the same breath as fossil fuel emissions my sceptic sense starts tingling. The carbon cycle is a naturally occurring phenomena where by definition animal (and human btw) emissions are carbon neutral. Whether a cow eats a patch of grass or the grass is left to rot makes no difference in theory as it gets reabsorbed again. In practice, ruminants maintaining grassland health is a critical form of carbon storage. Not eating meat would not only not make a difference for fossil fuel based carbon emissions, it would actually be devastating for grasslands around the world. Grasslands which are better forms of carbon storage than forests as they are less likely to burn, and where plant agriculture cannot be performed due to infertile soils. The only place we can farm plants is in fertile soils that can support forests.

Improving productivity per cow, as we have done for decades, therefore acts as a form of carbon storage, since more carbon is stored per unit of meat and milk produced.

I find it truly mind boggling to see ruminant methane be mentioned as a cause of climate change. It shows how little knowledge of the subject many supposed experts have.

https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/biogenic-carbon-cycle-and-cattle

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In the framework of economic orthodoxy (neoliberalism) all discussions of social and/or economic transformation devolve to "how can we pay for it" and not infrequently "nice idea, but sadly we just can't afford it, there is no magic money tree, you see? Dismiss!"

Hence: "If the gap were to be closed by public expenditure, Europe's governments would, according to McKinsey, need to mobilise €4.9 trillion in subsidies over 30 years. That is the amount of profit taxpayers would need to offer investors to get them interested in the energy transition—€365 for every man, woman and child in the EU27, every year for 30 years. Painful and unfair, no doubt, but hardly inconceivable."

From a MMT perspective the first question to ask is "do we have the resources to do this"? If yes, the money can always be found - as it was for the various bouts of financial crisis-related QE and pandemic-related deficit spending (and Trump era tax cuts). The ideas that currency issuing governments depend on tax revenue for their spending and that government bond issuing equates to borrowing as in the private and household sectors, are just profoundly wrong and not evidence based.

Meanwhile, while the West struggles in its self-applied economic straitjacket, China is getting on with it: Peter Drahos, "Survival Governance" https://chinadialogue.net/en/climate/review-survival-governance/

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Smil's power density metric is really no more than an interesting observation. It doesn't matter to energy users where and how electricity is generated, only that the supply is reliable and affordable. Besides, there are questions about the appropriate boundaries to apply: yes, the coal- or gas-fired power plant is relatively small, but what about the vast areas and quantities of materials that are required for its construction and operation, which in the case of coal may involve transoceanic supply chains, e.g. Australia to China and Japan? Also, distributed generation is clearly more resilient than a concentrated single point of failure. See "Competing principles driving energy futures: Fossil fuel decarbonization vs. manufacturing learning curves" http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2016.07.001

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Trillions of euros worth of trade could be lost if more severe global warming depresses African economies. Africa's billions could buy trillions upon trillions of dollars worth of goods over the coming century, if they were sufficiently wealthy.

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Well, the trillions will pay for themselves. One presumes that cost-effectiveness calculi have been done, and that this will probably be cheaper than spending trillions on additional infrastructure/urban hardening, bigger border walls to keep out more climate refugees, and more nuclear missiles/BMD/conventional forces/domestic security forces to deal with the additional wars and conflicts each additional degree of warming will engender.

What is the scholarship on these cost-benefit calculi?

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