chubbs

Nobody thought it would be easy to replace fossil fuels. Ten years ago low carbon emission scenarios depended heavily on carbon capture, nuclear and biofuels. It has proven difficult to advance those technologies. On the other hand solar, batteries and EV have advanced much faster than anticipated and it is easier to replace fossil fuels with those technologies than anticipated. Your views on the cost of renewables are outdated. The energy cost increases we are seeing are due to fossil fuels. Supply disruptions and the inability to meet increasing demand in a timely manner being the biggest problems. Energy costs would be even higher without renewable, batteries and EV. Countries that have to import fossil fuels are trying to find a cheaper more reliable alternative. Even in Texas, where local natural gas is plentiful, met 80% of new power demand with solar last year.

Yes trends don't change that rapidly. Also CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere. As long as CO2 emissions increase, even very slowly as they have in the past few years, the rate of CO2 increase in the atmosphere also increases. To see a decrease in the rate of CO2 accumulation, need to see a decrease in emissions and that hasn't happened through 2025. This year CO2 emissions are projected to decrease slightly, but emissions are still higher than they were 10 and 20 years ago. To see a decrease in CO2 accumulation in your chart, CO2 emissions would need to flat line or decrease for a longer period of time. You'll see the impact of emission changes more easily in this chart. CO2 emissions and CO2 accumulation increased steadily through the 2010s. Renewables only began to move the needle in this decade. This years CO2 increase, when posted, will be the smallest in 15 years. If CO2 emissions flat line or decrease slowly in the remainder of this decade, then decade average emissions will still be larger than the 2010s. So would expect a small increase in the decade average CO2 accumulation which would set us up for a decrease in the CO2 accumulation rate in the 2030s. Like I said above don't want to minimize the size of the problem. We are fighting growth in energy use, the long life of fossil-fuel emission sources, and the persistence of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Yes, transportation is only part of the CO2 emission pie and it will take time to replace the large existing fleet of fossil-fuel vehicles. Meanwhile CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere. Our climate outlook is better than it was a decade ago; but, it is not rosy. We have a hard time coming to grasp with the scope of the problem.

No inconsistency, the CO2 growth rate has slowed in the past decade as the growth in CO2 emissions has slowed. The CO2 growth rate this year is unusually low. Note however that It is too early to tell how much of this years decrease is emission-related as there are large year-to-year variation in CO2 sinks. Renewables/batteries/EV will have a much bigger impact on CO2 emissions in the future than in the past. Renewables/EV were uncompetitive and a small fraction energy use a decade ago. Now they are competitive in many markets and capturing almost all the growth in global energy use. The cost advantage vs fossil fuels will only increase with time leading to increased market penetration. I don't want to minimize the problem however. CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere and there is continuing strong global growth in energy use. The CO2 growth rate won't begin to decline until non-fossil energy captures all the growth in energy use and begins shrinking the population of older fossil fuel burning units. https://tamino.wordpress.com/2026/10/04/co2-growth-and-el-nino/

The current price spike may be a turning point for oil demand. Global EV sales have surged, mainly outside of China and US. This is the first oil crisis where an alternative was widely available. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fuel-Price-Shock-Pushes-Global-Gas-Car-Sales-Below-50-for-First-Time.html

The current ENSO longitude Index lines up better with other years using ONI vs RONI. A couple of possible explanations: 1) This nino is unusually east-based for its strength and/or RONI isn't a great strength indicator for this particular nino. In any case this year is an outlier.

Agree that we aren't going to reach net zero by 2050s on our current trajectory. Not even close. But that isn't because renewables/batteries/EV can't replace a significant fraction of the fossil fuels used today by then. Its a question of political will not technology. Solar and wind grew 3X faster last year than nuclear did in its best year ever 40 years ago. Energy density doesn't translate into cost or offset other negative aspects. I'd love to see more nuclear but what is going to change to improve nuclear's trajectory?

Your chart shows a big improvement in coal's trajectory, from exponential increase to flat. Without renewables coal use today would be much higher, mainly in China and India, who are both adopting renewables aggressively. Furthermore we would be locked in to a dystopian future of increasing coal and fossil use. Now that renewables and batteries have reached economic scale, growth should continue, enabling a peaking of fossil fuel use in the near future. A more rapid turn down is feasible with stronger policy and/or continuing fossil fuel supply problems. That's what gives me hope. Of course my hope may be misplaced, we will see.

Zeke Hausfather asks the question, where would we be without renewables?. The answer is: on an energy trajectory without hope. As fast as renewables have increased, we could ramp even faster with more supportive policies. That's how superior the technology has become vs fossil fuels. https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/what-if-the-world-hadnt-built-wind

CERES net radiation (available thru July) is behaving as expected in a nino, topping out as global temperatures rise and outgoing radiation increases. The 3-year average indicates that net radiation has stabilized at a high level in the past couple of years. Rapid global warming will continue until there is a drop off.

https://bsky.app/profile/bmcnoldy.bsky.social/post/3mwss7mmx2k26

Yes, compensated by more NHEMI warmth in the US, and the tropical and sub-tropical Pacific this year. The antarctic had a bigger impact on global and SHemi temperatures than the arctic because it has strong anomalies and its influence extends to nearby sea ice and ocean.

https://bsky.app/profile/khaustein.bsky.social/post/3mwqu6hrps22s

The spike in global satellite sea surface temperatures is similar in magnitude to 2023. This September is 0.15C warmer than Sept 2023 and 0.14C warmer than the peak in Jan 2024.

Here's warming since 1850 for the Mid-Atlantic in the new Berkeley dataset. Chester County has similar warming to the region as a whole. The Berkeley warming in good agreement with NCEI, and other groups. https://dashboard.theclimatebrink.com/#map