Tom, I found this all very heartening. Not just how the rest of the world is dragging the U.S. into the 21st century. But how technology transfer to the developing world could become a reality.

And how the global justice movement is coming to see climate action as central. (Loved the Solidarity Village -- I had no idea there was such a vital civil society in Indonesia). It really points to a whole paradigm shift in how activists from the North and South can unite around a shared cause and inspire each other. Can we expect a stepping-up of the grassroots movements for COP 14 in Poland next year?

The red line appears to conjecture that Annex 1 emissions have been flat since 2000.  Have I missed something?  Is the yellow line trend even correct for that period?  

Also, the recent behavior of the cryosphere doesn't give me a lot of hope that an additional 1.4C of warming won't have some extremely unpleasant consequences.

And then there's the fact that the unknowns of climate science have a habit of presenting us with nasty surprises.  For example, we have no idea as to the pace of ocean CO2 saturation.  If it becomes significant very soon, that chart goes off the rails.

Finally, are any of the leading Democratic candidates likely to negotiate the right kind of treaty while the U.S. is in the midst of a recession?

Okay, so now it becomes much clearer why the right wing in the US have been playing the climate skeptic game. They saw this coming:

...countries and sectors that have contributed the most to the climate crisis -- the rich countries and transnational corporations of the North -- must pay the cost...

That basically means the industrialized countries could be asked for reparations for 2 centuries of industrial pollution. You can put forward whatever rational arguments you like, but the rightwing will only ever hear it as "death to capitalism". And they will fight this with everything they can throw at it.

Aubrey, there is no question that C&C is both attractive and instructive. It taught me a lot and I'm sure that it's done the same for many of others.

It's particularly instructive because any climate regime that worked would produce, as a necessary side effect, the contraction of emissions under a global cap and the convergence of rich and poor world emissions under that cap.

The question is if this large-scale property of any possible "viable climate stabilization regime" is, in itself, enough to form the backbone of a framework that is both operational and viable in this particular historical world, with all its bitterness and particularity.

And there are good reasons to doubt that it is.  

All the best, toma

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Actually, it wouldn't cost that much, not as a percentage of Gross World Product.  In fact there is  good reason to think that an investment about the same size as the global military budget -- which is about 2.5% of GWP, would do the job.  

Of course you would have to raise that money in a "progressive" fashion so as to not hurt the poor. But a carbon stabilization regime with progressive financing mechanisms is hardly the same as the end of capitalism.

-- toma

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The red line is deliberately optimistic.  

And, of course you are right.  The science is altogether terrifying.  Which is why we have to have a big think about the political structure of the climate regime -- which, to be viable, has to support a protected emergency transition.  As in the "moral equivalent of war."

I know, I know.  It didn't work out for Carter.  

As for the recession, you have an excellent point.  The reply, I think, is that climate policy cannot be seen as something separate from the "new deal" we so badly need, here in the US and around the world.  

And, as a matter of realism, a crash program of global clean energy transition would probably be an excellent vehicle for Keynesian stimulus.  Not to mention the "green collar jobs" factor.

Cheers, toma

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Notice the silence in the US candidate debates about the industry that's paying for them, the coal companies.  The big black rock with the electric cord plugged into it.

Has anyone drawn the line showing how much coal the industry wants to mine and sell, over the same time period, and how much of that has to be left unsold?

I recall back in the 1950s that there was a time when companies that held mining rights to areas with proved claims for uranium ore showed vast paper wealth on their books.  

The industry didn't develop to buy that.  It got written down in value.  (Or it's still on the books backing some loan as collateral, but don't go there...).

I don't know how much coal is on some private company's books as an asset, compared to being on government land as a mining right.

I'm starting to bang on people in business that there's as much illusion of value in the coal industry as there was in the home mortgage field, and that it's stupid to keep building bigger and fancier plants at high prices with longterm prospects that they won't ever run long enough to pay out the bonds or loans, and once the value plummets the owners will walk away.

Same problem -- big money's made up front on each step of the transaction creating these things as theoretical destinations for mined coal, supporting the book value of all that coal in the ground.

But the coal's going to stay in the ground and the plants will get closed before they pay out.

Who's got numbers on the overbuilding and overvaluing of the coal industry, the excess they'd have to burn above the sane level the science tells us could save the oceans?

Never mind 'global warming' -- watch ocean pH, changing predictably, simple chemistry, far less to understand to see a crash coming from excess CO2 in the oceans this century.

Blame coal.  Take the money and walk away.