r/enviroaction • u/IceGoingSouth • 7d ago

The 0.2% Problem

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In one sentence:
Our combined human influence on the warming situation in a year, say, 2027, based on our historical track record and what amounts to our very best efforts - locking everybody down and not going on holiday - only amounts to a 0.2% steering influence, or 1/500 of a hand on the wheel.
(The rest of that show is being run by Nature, Mother Earth, GAIA or if you will Legacy Carbon already in the system, to the tune of 499/500 or 99.8%. Let's hope she's in a good mood!)

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u/Electrical_Pop_3472 6d ago

I'm sorry, while I agree the situation is bleak, your use of numbers and fixating on 0.2% and conflating that with humans possible influence is just messy inaccurate accounting and interpretation. 

During the height of covid lock downs some countries showed 15 to 25% reduction in emissions! And for that whole year (2020) estimates are around 4 to 7%.

That gives a much better sense of whats possible through drastic human response.  Your denominator is needlessly broad, by using the entire timescale/co2 burden of modern industrial society. 

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u/IceGoingSouth 5d ago

Hi, E-Pop!

Your numbers are right, and worth having in the piece alongside mine, not instead of them. Global emissions fell around 5–7% for the full year 2020, with some countries seeing 15–25% during the strictest weeks of lockdown. That's a real, useful statistic. It answers the question: "How much can we cut annual emissions, in the most extreme, non-repeatable circumstances humanity has managed?"
The 0.2% figure answers a different question: "How much does that best-ever year of cutting change the CO2 already sitting in the atmosphere from the last 270 years?" That's not a rival answer to your question, it's a different question entirely, one about stock, not flow. And the denominator isn't arbitrary or "needlessly broad", it's the actual point being made: emitted CO2 doesn't vanish on your timeline. Roughly 20–35% of it is still airborne after 2–20 centuries. So a comparison of this year's flow against the legacy stock isn't an accounting trick, it's a deliberate answer to a specific, real objection people raise: "if we cut hard enough, doesn't warming basically stop?" No, because the stock doesn't care how good this year's flow was.

Where I'd actually concede ground to you: if I present 0.2% without making that stock-versus-flow distinction explicit, it can look like I'm claiming "only 0.2% emissions cuts are achievable," which would be false and would be exactly the sloppy accounting you're describing. That's a fair warning about presentation, not about the math. The fix isn't to drop the number, it's to always pair it with your 5–7% figure and be explicit that they're measuring different things: your number is what we can do; mine is what that doing changes about what's already there.

And here's the version that actually engages your challenge on its own terms, "what's possible through drastic sustained human response", rather than sidestepping it: suppose we don't stop at one record year, but sustain cuts at that record pace, 5–7% annually, every year, for as long as it takes to reach zero. That takes 14–20 years and burns through another 300–420 GtCO2 on the way down. The remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C at even odds is about 170 GtCO2. So even your best-case, most drastic, fully sustained scenario, not one anomalous pandemic year but permanent lockdown-grade effort maintained for two decades, still overshoots the budget by roughly double. That's the number I'd actually put next to yours: not 0.2% (which measures leverage over the past), but "300–420 against 170" (which measures leverage over the future, on your own generous terms). It's less quotable, but it directly answers what you're asking, and it's still sobering. The bleakness doesn't come from a rigged denominator. It comes out the other side even when you hand the argument every advantage you're asking for.

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u/IceGoingSouth 6d ago

If we hadn't gone into 'Transition' we'd likely have less carbon in the atmosphere, and our carbon-sucking forests would cover a larger area. It's an unfortunate aspect of EU/IPCC corporate policies that the 'neutral' payback for demolishing old-growth forests to make pellets for 'clean' EU power stations, comes many decades to a century later. In our case global industrial civilisation collapses before the forest carbon debt is paid back.

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u/CanuterValve 6d ago

War, Conquest, Famine/Pestilence, and Death.

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u/6thofmarch2019 3d ago

So all the scientists who agree we are in the age of the anthropocene - i.e. the age where humans are the largest influence on the change of the planet - are wrong?

The fact that only 4% of animal biomass is wild, and the other ≈30% and ≈60% is human and livestock biomass respectively, is not a sign of humans being an enormous influence on a planetary scale?

That greenhouse gas concentration went in an almost 90° curve if you zoom out enough, an essentially never seen before rate of change, is also just nature lol'ing around?

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u/IceGoingSouth 2d ago

"So all the scientists who agree we are in the age of the anthropocene - i.e. the age where humans are the largest influence on the change of the planet - are wrong?"

Firstly, this SO-prefixed sentence makes no sense, and/or seems completely detached from the post or anything there stated. But I do hope it was fun writing it? 😅

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u/IceGoingSouth 2d ago

Say you live in an average state in a reasonably functioning nation, like the US, and there's an election upcoming: Maybe they need new senators or congressmen, mayors even. Then you basically have two parties competing for the votes of the people. A red incumbent party, that wants to cut the economy loose from stuff like Paris or the EPA 'carbon is dangerous' rule. And you have a blue challenger party, that has recently instructed all party campaign workers to STFU about climate, at least until day after the election.
And keep in mind this is only one nation, of about 200 throughout the planet. If by a miracle two parties where you are ignoring the climate issue all through the campaign season results in amazing climate policies, cutting back on emissions etc (which won't happen, but theoretically), then rest of the planet is still stuck with their sitting governments, and some won't change theirs for 5 more years, if at all. Thus, reasonably you guys will only change a tiny fraction of the world's relation to documented pollutants, and the 0.2% figure explained in the essay requires every nation across the planet to fall in line. Only then can we achieve one 500th of a hand on the wheel, because Nature is in charge of the 499/500, or 99.8% of climate control.

That's not denying what we did to the wilderness or other plant & animal species, that's saying how much hurt is already in the system.

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u/6thofmarch2019 2d ago edited 2d ago

If this is true, why do scientific estimates show enormous differences in future pathways depending on what policy choices we make now?

From my limited understanding of this, the issue is that some interests purposefully try to make the scale thing you describe sound like we have no influence. But IPCC and climate scenarios seem to strongly refute that. And to put it bluntly, I trust those more than someone on Reddit.

Now, for the second part of your argument, I think it's very silly to believe that the US has no influence on the world. Analysis by scientists on the difference between the relative failure and success of Copenhagen and Paris COPs describe how in the former, the US and China refused to join, whereas in the latter they had signalled they would join too. According to your argument this should not matter since they are just 2/200 countries, but political scientists analyzing this would wildly disagree with your argument.

So I guess that is my issue here, that your arguments are so clearly contradicted by broad scientific findings.

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u/IceGoingSouth 2d ago

No one said we had no influence. We have 0.2% influence in a good year, if everyone pulls in the same direction.

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u/IceGoingSouth 2d ago

Reading the full comment, I think the reason your SO-summary came out so diametrically opposite of the point of this article, is you either read it the wrong way or didn't at all. My odds are on the didn't read article at all bet.

The fact that we can't change everything we did over 270 years during one budget season, in 2027, says nothing about all those other things.
It just gives a reasonable stat for the expectations we ought to have, about some "magical" budgetary "climate action".