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Topic: Climate Science

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[Episode #214] – Countering Climate Doomerism

Dec 27 2023

Renowned climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann joins us to discuss his new book,
Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis,
and to answer some of the hottest questions in climate science discussions today:

Are we doomed?
Is the world facing polar ice breakdown if we reach the same CO2 concentrations that existed in the geological past when the planet was free of ice?
Is there evidence of “tipping points” in the climate system that will activate “feedback loops” of runaway warming?
Will the planet keep warming after our carbon emissions go to zero?
Was the Paris target breached when the world exceed 1.5°C of warming for some months of 2023?
Are climate scientists using models that underestimate future warming?
Is there a chance of limiting warming to only 1.5° or 2°C?

Geek rating: 8

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[Episode #176] – Climate Scenarios vs. Reality

Jul 6 2022

Mini Episode

Why do so many decarbonization scenarios rely on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to play a major role in the world's energy transition portfolio when it really doesn’t even exist as a commercial technology? Why does the IPCC's climate mitigation strategy model countries as if they would implement the same policy for carbon pricing across all sectors, when we know that’s just not how the world operates? Why do models dodge attempts to reflect the fragmented, irrational, and irregular way that the world actually works, when we know for a fact that the transition is going to be a bumpy ride into a hazy future?

If globally coordinated carbon pricing never materializes, and CCS never has a real market opportunity as our integrated assessment models assume, where will that leave us in developing meaningful policies and taking action on climate change? And why aren’t other people asking this vital question?

In this episode, Dr. Ida Sognnaes, a Senior Researcher at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research, explains how the integrated assessment models (IAMs) used in IPCC reports are constructed, what assumptions modelers make, and how the very design of IAMs can bias them toward certain outcomes—including the role of CCS as a climate mitigation strategy. She also offers further evidence that the world is currently on a trajectory for between 2 and 3 degrees of warming by the end of the century, and shares her perspective on why the climate modeling community has been so reluctant to just say that plainly.

Geek rating: 8

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[Episode #166] – IEA’s Climate Scenarios

Feb 15 2022

Mini Episode

As the energy transition continues to accelerate, it’s more important than ever that we update our models—both our empirical and mental models—of where we’re heading. Things that we used to take for granted, like oil and gas demand increasing every year, are no longer assured. And governments the world over are gradually tightening their restrictions on fossil fuel use and emissions, so it’s important to keep our data on climate policies and pledges current.

In this episode, we are joined by Christophe McGlade, Head of the Energy Supply Unit at IEA, to discuss the latest updates to the IEA’s Announced Pledges Scenario in light of the pledges announced at the COP26 conference in November 2021. We also revisit IEA’s other main scenarios, and review what the world needs to do to put us on a trajectory to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Other topics covered in this interview include an exploration into the gap between what emissions scenarios imply about stranded fossil fuel assets and how the oil and gas industry is actually proceeding with the blessing of governments; the role of the oil and gas industry in the energy transition; the role of negative emissions technologies in the IEA’s scenarios; and the IEA’s plan to make more of its data available for free.

Geek rating: 7

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[Episode #117] – Climate Science Part 12b – Improving Climate Modeling

Mar 18 2020

Mini Episode

Are the climate change scenarios produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accurately representing our likely futures, or are they rooted in outdated data that doesn’t represent the progress we’re already making on energy transition? Is the world on a “business as usual” path to climate doom in a world that’s 5°C warmer, or are we actually within reach of limiting warming to 2°C by the end of this century?

In this episode, we ask two experts to debate these questions in the very first extended three-way conversation on this podcast. Representing the energy analyst’s critique of the IPCC models is Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder Michael Liebreich. And representing the IPCC modeling work is Dr. Nico Bauer, an integrated assessment modeler with the Potsdam Institute who has helped develop the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways used in the IPCC framework.

This episode is part two of that three-hour conversation. Part one was featured in Episode #116. Together, those two episodes make Part 12 of our mini-series on climate science.

Geek rating: 10

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[Episode #116] – Climate Science Part 12a – Improving Climate Modeling

Mar 4 2020

Mini Episode

Are the climate change scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accurately representing our likely futures, or are they rooted in outdated perspectives that don't represent the progress we’re already making on energy transition? Is the world on a “business as usual” path to climate doom in a planet that’s 5°C warmer, or are we actually within reach of limiting warming to 2°C by the end of this century?

In this episode, we ask two experts to debate these questions in the very first extended three-way conversation on this podcast. Representing the energy analyst’s critique of the IPCC models is Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder Michael Liebreich. And representing the modeling work that informs the IPCC process is Dr. Nico Bauer, an integrated assessment modeler with the Potsdam Institute who has helped develop the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways used in the IPCC framework.

This episode is part one of that three-hour conversation. Part two will be featured in Episode #117. Together, those two episodes make Part 12 of our mini-series on climate science.

Geek rating: 10

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[Episode #112] – Climate Science Part 11 – Climate Confusion

Jan 8 2020

Mini Episode

What do the various emissions scenarios published by the IPCC really mean? Is the worst-case RCP8.5 scenario “bollox,” as some have asserted, or it useful? Are we already doomed to experience seven feet of sea level rise and five degrees Celsius of warming globally, or is there still a chance that we can limit warming to two degrees? And if so…how likely is it that we can hit that target? How much can our energy transition efforts, both now and in the foreseeable future, do to mitigate that warming? Should our scenarios err on the side of being too extreme to account for unknown feedback effects and tipping points that may come in the future, or should we try to be as accurate as possible with our modeling, given the available data and scientific tools?

In this 11th part of our miniseries on climate science, we attempt to answer these questions and help our listeners sort out the various perspectives, from the tame to the apocalyptic, that feature in the current debates about our climate future. We hope that it will leave you with a much better understanding of what the climate scenarios really mean, how likely they are, and what the actual trajectory of climate change might be. We’re not out of the woods by any means, but our prospects may be better than you think!

View all parts of The Energy Transition Show mini-series on climate at: https://energytransitionshow.com/climatescience

Geek rating: 9

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[Episode #109] – Big Oil’s Climate Denial Machine

Nov 27 2019

Mini Episode

More than forty years ago, Exxon began researching the potential effects of carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion on the climate. As far back as 1982, honest scientists doing respectable scientific work had realized that there was already a scientific consensus that a doubling of the carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere would produce average global warming of 3 degrees Celsius, plus or minus 1.5 degrees C. And they knew it would have significant changes in the earth’s climate, including rainfall distribution and disturbances in the biosphere, accompanied by major economic consequences.

But then, after climate scientist James Hansen’s presentation to Congress in 1988, Exxon did an about-face. It spiked its own research and started working on climate denial. For the next 20 years its efforts were oriented around manufacturing doubt and lobbying to block federal action. Along with other companies in the fossil fuel lobby, Exxon spent considerable effort and money on a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public and policymakers about the risks of climate change.

Our guest in this episode is a veteran energy and environment journalist who, as part of an investigative team at Inside Climate News in 2015, pieced together the story of Exxon’s history of doing research on climate change, and then discrediting their own research in an effort to frustrate action on climate change and energy transition. If you’ve ever wondered why the public and certain elected officials continue to deny the reality of climate change, this episode is for you.

Geek rating: 2

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[Episode #104] – 4-Year Anniversary Show

Sep 18 2019

Mini Episode

In this anniversary episode, we welcome back Jonathan Koomey to talk about some of the interesting developments and raucous debates we have seen over the past year. We’ll be talking about the flawed concept of “committed emissions” and how we should be calculating future emissions instead; we’ll expand that discussion and critique the conflicting stories that we’ve been hearing about the expectations for coal usage and emissions in India; we’ll review some of the efforts to execute so-called “just transitions” in coal country; we’ll take a little excursion into a recent raging dialogue on Twitter about RCP8.5 which had its genesis in the PhD thesis of our producer, Justin Ritchie, which we explored in Episode #49; we’ll move on from there to discuss the communication challenges around climate change science, and what’s wrong with the kind of hysterical journalism being practiced by writers like David Wallace-Wells in his book The Uninhabitable Earth; we’ll take a look at Jon’s latest research on the energy demands of Bitcoin mining; we’ll consider the rapid deployment of utility-scale storage and what that might mean for the future of the grid; we’ll review Jon’s update of global energy intensity data and ask what it all means; and we’ll wrap it up with another look at the energy transition modeling work of Christian Breyer’s team at Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland, which we explored in Episode #95.

Geek rating: 6

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[Episode #78] – 3-Year Anniversary on the Jonathan Koomey Omnibus

Sep 19 2018

Mini Episode

Veteran energy researcher Jonathan Koomey rejoins us for another anniversary show! In this episode we talk about California’s new plan to obtain 100% carbon-free power; the potential for “peak gas” as utility-scale solar-plus-storage and wind plants beat gas on price in the US; the outlook for nuclear power in the West; how to know when the numbers you’re seeing aren’t right, and how to understand data; and the degree to which energy transition can help us stay below 2 degrees C of warming. We also discuss some of the confusing issues with energy data and how that influences our forecasts for primary energy consumption, and we’ll talk about the future need for climate modeling. It’s a wide-ranging, fast-paced romp through all sorts of geeky energy topics that definitely deserves its Geek Rating!

Geek rating: 10

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[Episode #65] – Climate Science Part 9 – Jet Stream

Mar 21 2018

Mini Episode

In this ninth part of our mini-series on climate science, we turn to one of the key suspects in extreme weather events we have experienced in recent years—the shifting shape of the North Atlantic jet stream. And the fingerprints of the changing jet stream can be found in tree ring data. The guest in this episode has studied three centuries of European tree rings and found that the shape of the jet stream, along with clear deviations from historical weather, began in the 1960s, pointing to a connection to the changing climate. Other researchers have come to similar conclusions by studying things like the difference between Arctic and mid-latitude temperatures over time. And they conclude that increases in greenhouse gas emissions will make the jet stream increasingly wavy in the future, exacerbating such extreme weather events.

Geek rating: 3

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