To Address Climate Change, Nothing Substitutes for Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions

The politically expedient way to mitigate climate change is essentially no way at all, according to a comprehensive new study.  Among the climate pollutants humans put into the atmosphere in significant quantities, the effects of carbon dioxide are the longest-lived, with effects on climate that extend thousands of years after emissions cease. But finding the political consensus to act on reducing carbon dioxide emissions has been nearly impossible.  So there has been a movement to make up for that inaction by reducing emissions of other, shorter-lived gasses, such as methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and nitrous oxide, and particulates such as soot and black carbon, all of which contribute to warming as well.

A new study by University of Chicago climatologist Raymond Pierrehumbert shows that effort to be, as he puts it, a delusion.  "Until we do something about CO2, nothing we do about methane or these other things is going to matter much for climate," he said.

To Address Climate Change, Nothing Substitutes for Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions