There’s levels of societal collapse, mass migration can destroy the existing social fabric without necessarily being that terrible. Fertility rates being so low means developed countries will likely want large numbers of immigrants.
At the other end stopping all CO2 production tomorrow would result in severe consequences. We can’t transport food to cities without burning fossil fuels. Obviously that doesn’t mean every current use case is worthwhile, but we can’t ignore the short term here.
The good news is we’re actually making a lot of progress on climate change. The electric grid being ~90% very low carbon emissions by 2050 is a realistic goal and would avoid the worst predictions.
That graph is well below earlier forecasts. Accurate predictions require more than simple extrapolations which 30 years ago suggested exponential growth. Instead CO2 per capita and especially in terms of GDP resulted in a different story.
Poor countries are rapidly becoming wealthier which is obviously a good thing. Meanwhile wealthy countries are becoming a lot more efficient with their carbon emissions. Where those lines intersect is what matters in the near term because poor countries aren’t copying 1950’s technology. Skipping power hungry CRT screens and inefficient engines etc just makes economic sense. China emissions spiked as they industrialized but they are currently minimizing their investment in outdated fossil fuel based technologies in favor of solar and EV’s etc.
Co2 levels are the best metric for progress, and progress would be a steady lowering of the rate of increase. We are not seeing that, and AI's power hunger is likely to make it worse despite all of the positive things you mentioned.
CO2 levels tell you nothing about future progress, the legacy of soon to be removed infrastructure built 40+ years ago still impacts it. Meanwhile the vast majority of power brought online in the last decade is ultra low carbon. We know how that story plays out.
AI powered by renewables has ~zero impact on the climate.
I hope you're right, but I'm not optimistic. The demands for power by AI is immediate and extremely large. We can't bring nuclear online fast enough so it will likely keep co2 output high.
Assuming you are right, when would you expect the rate of atmospheric co2 increases to start to decline?
I expect the global peak annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry to occur sometime in the next 5 years largely dependent on economic activity. I’d give it something like 90% odds.
CO2 from land use (deforestation etc) has already dropped by half since the 1960’s, but I know less about that so I’m unsure of the details. That said it’s well under 10% of total emissions so probably not a major factor for now. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-land-use?mapSelect=~C...
Is infinite growth really a positive thing on a finite planet? Are native populations replaced physically and culurally the answer to making an imaginary number go up annually?
My point was about a declining global population concentrating in a few areas not being a major issue.
Globally more babies were born in 1985 than 2025. Population growth at this point is all down to people living longer but that’s a one time correction, we’re already in a steady state situation and heading to decline. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-births-per-year
