Great post. I’m particularly interested in your newer analysis on the UK.
I’m UK based. I feel that the direction of travel for the Energy Transition here is obvious (ie more wind, modular nuclear, some solar & more heat pumps for domestic heating & electric cars). The speed and final destination of these changes is very uncertain. Issues such as energy storage seem to have no immediate solutions.
Whilst I think carbon emissions will continue to decline, I don’t think that Net Zero by 2050 is remotely possible.
As you identify, I think there are also huge issues about the UK simply closing down industries and importing goods whilst ignoring the associated emissions. Also, issues around carbon accounting for biofuels.
I think the UK is a bit of a live experiment at the moment. I’m concerned that the government simply double-down on simplistic policies that continue to shut down industry and clamp down on activity like transport.
I would love to see more analysis on this and would really like to see more analysis that normalises for industrial offshoring.
It has been 15 years since my original analysis of the UK Climate Change Act and I'd love to carve out some space to do an update. The UK has evolved in ways unforeseeable then (Brexit?!) so an update would be instructive. I don't think people realize how might economic factors have played in decarbonization trends.
Haven't you missed something very important? We've destroyed our indigenous manufacturing capability and have outsourced it all to China etc. The UK economy now runs on cheap imports from countries like China and India. Surely if you account for the carbon emissions associated with our imports the picture would look very different indeed?
Anemic (at best) economic growth, a political circus, the pound sterling going down the toilet, people choosing between heat and eating, loss of industry, off-shoring of GHG emissions - its like a national Monty Python skit.
Adding to my previous comment... I wonder whether the first graph is correct? The drop in reported emissions from 1990 to 2022 (roughly 45%) seems much too great to be believable, even with the reduction in use of coal. A very useful graph would be a revision of the second graph plotting emissions per energy source vs. year rather than tons of oil equivalent per energy source vs. year. Then we would see where the claimed reductions in emissions derive from. If the UK is going to claim a 45% reduction in emissions against a rather flat, slightly declining profile of energy usage, we’d need to know the source of those reductions. I wonder if Roger was not as wrong as he thinks he is?
The fact that emissions dropped significantly from 1990 to 2022 does not imply that the remainder of the curve after 2022 has any credibility. If coal was a major player in the reduction from 1990 to 2022, there is almost no room for further reductions from coal beyond 2022. Usually, growth in GDP is associated with a growth in energy consumption. The fact that energy consumption as a whole in the UK has actually declined in the last twenty years shows that the UK economy has been lacking for some time. That was one unexpected source of reduced emissions compared to expectations. The shift from coal should have been predictable without sophisticated analysis.
A topic that is near and dear. Getting the future correct and forecasting vs predicting. Discontinuities often render forecasts useless. One of the more famous ones was that by the mid 1920's at the then rate of deposition of horse poop in the streets of NY they would all be knee deep in it by the mid '20's. Never happened, the car appeared. Any reader of the "Black Swan" would understand. Another interesting read is Dan Gardner's, "Future Babble". In this case too many of the examples don't acknowledge their errors or worse keep making forecasts until one eventually turns out to be correct (even a blind squirrel...) making them a certified future seer. I applaud Roger accepting when his call was wrong. We do learn more from our failures.
In the case of UK (and Europe) I fear that future forecasts will turn out to severely in error for the reasons that Donald described below, or worse prove to be accurate due to the de-industrialization of their economies caused by the movement of emission sources elsewhere. Ultimately a game of whack a mole that will not cure rising CO2 levels.
Roger: I think the first graph (emissions vs. year) is misleading. The bulk of the drop in emissions is projected after 2022. Based on your second graph (which shows the source mix for energy) it seems likely that much of the reduction in the first graph from 1990 to 2022 was due to a reduction in total energy consumption (probably due to increased efficiency and slow economic growth) as well as a shift from coal to gas, an increase in bioenergy, a slight reduction in oil, and a small contribution from solar and wind. If the original climate change act envisaged a solar/wind future, it didn’t happen.
If you compare the sum of coal, oil and gas in 1990 to 2022, total energy from these sources dropped from about 190 mmt to about 140 mmt, and particularly coal dropped from about 60 mmt to about 10 mmt, which would account for the drop in emissions from 1990 to 2022? But does the projection in the first graph beyond 2022 make sense? There is hardly any room for further reduction of coal. How much room remains for increase in bio and solar/wind? It seems likely (as your implied) that this projection would re quire the economy of the UK to disintegrate. And the way they are going now, maybe that could happen?
The analysis may yet prove to be accurate in its dynamics, but clearly did not consider a wide enough range of plausible futures when I first did it. A failure of imagination for certain.
To paraphrase Tennyson, "it's better to have predicted and been wrong, than never to have predicted at all." Esp. in this case, where you have learned from your errors. The point of this part of Tennyson's elegy is that there is a certain nobility even in failed attempts to do something meaningful. [The paraphrase doesn't have quite the same zing as the original!]
Your examples are interesting, of course. But they both appear to be cases in which something was left out of the model (perhaps better described as a mistake), not cases where the model was fundamentally wrong. What exposed these cases was predictions did not come true.
There is another category of plausibly greater concern: getting a prediction correct using the wrong model. These cases are harder to spot but more insidious. We don’t want to look, and when we do and spot the fundamental error we don’t want to admit it.
Consider Covid vaccines. They were never tested for their effectiveness at preventing transmission, but somewhere along the line it became an article of faith that they did. And then it became impossible to admit error. CDC no longer touts their effectiveness at preventing infection, but it refuses to admit error.
I appreciate the link, but it's off point. My comment concerned scientists who told the public that mRNA vaccines prevented infection even though there was no evidence supporting the inference. Those were not good-faith mistakes. They were willful errors.
Hi Roger
Great post. I’m particularly interested in your newer analysis on the UK.
I’m UK based. I feel that the direction of travel for the Energy Transition here is obvious (ie more wind, modular nuclear, some solar & more heat pumps for domestic heating & electric cars). The speed and final destination of these changes is very uncertain. Issues such as energy storage seem to have no immediate solutions.
Whilst I think carbon emissions will continue to decline, I don’t think that Net Zero by 2050 is remotely possible.
As you identify, I think there are also huge issues about the UK simply closing down industries and importing goods whilst ignoring the associated emissions. Also, issues around carbon accounting for biofuels.
I think the UK is a bit of a live experiment at the moment. I’m concerned that the government simply double-down on simplistic policies that continue to shut down industry and clamp down on activity like transport.
I would love to see more analysis on this and would really like to see more analysis that normalises for industrial offshoring.
Many Thanks
Duncan
Thanks!
It has been 15 years since my original analysis of the UK Climate Change Act and I'd love to carve out some space to do an update. The UK has evolved in ways unforeseeable then (Brexit?!) so an update would be instructive. I don't think people realize how might economic factors have played in decarbonization trends.
Roger
Haven't you missed something very important? We've destroyed our indigenous manufacturing capability and have outsourced it all to China etc. The UK economy now runs on cheap imports from countries like China and India. Surely if you account for the carbon emissions associated with our imports the picture would look very different indeed?
You can compare consumption vs production based emissions accounting here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption-co2-emissions?country=~GBR
The trend is much the same
I suppose more consultation with particular experts in each field you are touching on, like say economists for future gdp growth, would help.
However, economists, at least some, including an eminent one, like Noah Smith, do acknowledge the difficulties in their own fields in certain areas.
Still, it should help.
Turned that lemon into lemonade: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/vndqr/
That is the general idea.
Pretty tough for anyone to argue the UK Climate Change Act has been even remotely successful in light of articles such as these:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/215510/Britain-is-freezing-to-death
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/pensioner-who-takes-busses-to-keep-warm-disappointed/
https://news.sky.com/video/fuel-poverty-i-ride-the-bus-to-stay-warm-12579822
Anemic (at best) economic growth, a political circus, the pound sterling going down the toilet, people choosing between heat and eating, loss of industry, off-shoring of GHG emissions - its like a national Monty Python skit.
Adding to my previous comment... I wonder whether the first graph is correct? The drop in reported emissions from 1990 to 2022 (roughly 45%) seems much too great to be believable, even with the reduction in use of coal. A very useful graph would be a revision of the second graph plotting emissions per energy source vs. year rather than tons of oil equivalent per energy source vs. year. Then we would see where the claimed reductions in emissions derive from. If the UK is going to claim a 45% reduction in emissions against a rather flat, slightly declining profile of energy usage, we’d need to know the source of those reductions. I wonder if Roger was not as wrong as he thinks he is?
The fact that emissions dropped significantly from 1990 to 2022 does not imply that the remainder of the curve after 2022 has any credibility. If coal was a major player in the reduction from 1990 to 2022, there is almost no room for further reductions from coal beyond 2022. Usually, growth in GDP is associated with a growth in energy consumption. The fact that energy consumption as a whole in the UK has actually declined in the last twenty years shows that the UK economy has been lacking for some time. That was one unexpected source of reduced emissions compared to expectations. The shift from coal should have been predictable without sophisticated analysis.
A topic that is near and dear. Getting the future correct and forecasting vs predicting. Discontinuities often render forecasts useless. One of the more famous ones was that by the mid 1920's at the then rate of deposition of horse poop in the streets of NY they would all be knee deep in it by the mid '20's. Never happened, the car appeared. Any reader of the "Black Swan" would understand. Another interesting read is Dan Gardner's, "Future Babble". In this case too many of the examples don't acknowledge their errors or worse keep making forecasts until one eventually turns out to be correct (even a blind squirrel...) making them a certified future seer. I applaud Roger accepting when his call was wrong. We do learn more from our failures.
In the case of UK (and Europe) I fear that future forecasts will turn out to severely in error for the reasons that Donald described below, or worse prove to be accurate due to the de-industrialization of their economies caused by the movement of emission sources elsewhere. Ultimately a game of whack a mole that will not cure rising CO2 levels.
Roger: I think the first graph (emissions vs. year) is misleading. The bulk of the drop in emissions is projected after 2022. Based on your second graph (which shows the source mix for energy) it seems likely that much of the reduction in the first graph from 1990 to 2022 was due to a reduction in total energy consumption (probably due to increased efficiency and slow economic growth) as well as a shift from coal to gas, an increase in bioenergy, a slight reduction in oil, and a small contribution from solar and wind. If the original climate change act envisaged a solar/wind future, it didn’t happen.
If you compare the sum of coal, oil and gas in 1990 to 2022, total energy from these sources dropped from about 190 mmt to about 140 mmt, and particularly coal dropped from about 60 mmt to about 10 mmt, which would account for the drop in emissions from 1990 to 2022? But does the projection in the first graph beyond 2022 make sense? There is hardly any room for further reduction of coal. How much room remains for increase in bio and solar/wind? It seems likely (as your implied) that this projection would re quire the economy of the UK to disintegrate. And the way they are going now, maybe that could happen?
The analysis may yet prove to be accurate in its dynamics, but clearly did not consider a wide enough range of plausible futures when I first did it. A failure of imagination for certain.
To paraphrase Tennyson, "it's better to have predicted and been wrong, than never to have predicted at all." Esp. in this case, where you have learned from your errors. The point of this part of Tennyson's elegy is that there is a certain nobility even in failed attempts to do something meaningful. [The paraphrase doesn't have quite the same zing as the original!]
Thanks!
Your examples are interesting, of course. But they both appear to be cases in which something was left out of the model (perhaps better described as a mistake), not cases where the model was fundamentally wrong. What exposed these cases was predictions did not come true.
There is another category of plausibly greater concern: getting a prediction correct using the wrong model. These cases are harder to spot but more insidious. We don’t want to look, and when we do and spot the fundamental error we don’t want to admit it.
Consider Covid vaccines. They were never tested for their effectiveness at preventing transmission, but somewhere along the line it became an article of faith that they did. And then it became impossible to admit error. CDC no longer touts their effectiveness at preventing infection, but it refuses to admit error.
Regarding vaccines and the prevention of transmission, some messages went beyond the science but it is also clear that good faith mistakes during a historical crisis of global proportions are now being weaponized in bad faith by some. A good fact check here https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-pfizer-transmission-european-parliament-950413863226
I appreciate the link, but it's off point. My comment concerned scientists who told the public that mRNA vaccines prevented infection even though there was no evidence supporting the inference. Those were not good-faith mistakes. They were willful errors.