Global warming- a suggestion

A lot of procrastination [ and work] has been involved by nations in tackling the above problem, which is obviously not a great surprise given the cost /complexity and social changes required.

Reasons vary: states that produce lots of greenhouse gases don’t want  the loss of revenues associated with cutting that production, resource companies use lobbying power to deny the scope of the problem. Poorer countries state they need finance to help. Newer industrialising nations feel hard done by if asked to cut down their growth for wealth, which might make rich countries being possibly forever out of reach of being overtaken financially.. Some countries are just [possibly justifiably] suspicious of anything rich nations say. Some are …. The list goes on ……

What is the world being asked to do ?

To keep within a 1.5C warming over pre industrial levels. 

What are the consequences of not doing so ?

More extreme weather conditions 

That is a basic summary, I think . 

The problem for most people is thus : What does it mean ? By most, this I think means probably a good proportion of world leaders as well as all citizens . One just 3? Years ago thought global warming was good- the Greenland ice cap was going to disappear making mining easier and transport cheaper . Some people think it would help their farming ability. Yet others think they will be drowned. A whole range of opinions really .

What we need to do is make it so we can understand it. From the media, it seems obvious that climate models can predict global temperatures based on a given set of criteria, in fact its likely to be calculated that way and converted to temperature . 

Understanding it means reporting it in a way that makes sense to most . 

This means describing the term ‘ more extreme weather conditions’ vs global warming or CO2 levels in my opinion  , preferably as a single understandable number .

So more extreme weather conditions . We’ve all seen what’s been happening, wild fires even in the Arctic and rainforests , hurricanes, flooding, heatwaves and the like [ including colder events as global warming does do both ] . These have 2 consequences: loss of life and loss of property [ with sometimes permanent land loss] . Combining those into 1 number means allocation the cost per life , or the financial cost into virtual lives. Figures from the IMF [ based on PPP] give the world GDP/capita to be just under $20k. Richer nations assume a value much higher than this [in their cost:benefit proposals , say traffic modifications], so a multiplier may be required . A ‘lifetime value’ would be $840k, so call it $1M ?

In addition, the effects of global warming have extremely long lead times , so a lead time would need to be fixed.

And finally, we would need something to compare the number to .

If we managed to get a death/destruction number model , then we could obtain a result.- say at present rates of global  CO2 , deaths would be x,000 within ,say,  40 years . The major failing in this is that the number would certainly be wrong, but would be a great starting point . 

For comparison, most people are aware of Covid -19 . This has caused just over 5 million deaths so far worldwide  and has affected nearly everyone on the planet . All governments have taken action against it - often several % of their GDP to fight that problem. 

I may be wrong, but over the next 40 years, even if no further warming took place, Ii feel that many more than 5 million [equivalent] deaths would happen , so the time scale looked at may need changing to reflect that .  Maybe 5 million deaths/1.5 years ? 

Someone would inevitably work out deaths/1000 tonnes CO2 , which would be introducing more errors on top of heroic estimates , but would that necessarily be a bad thing ? 

It seems that with informed guesswork , this could wake up the world properly . 

Thoughts ????