We're f**ked!

[azps]

I've long thought that the time lag/hysteresis for a system as large as the earth has to be many decades, or even centuries. So once you see it start to move, you ain't going to stop it, not reasonably, in any short time. 
So, yes, a degree of heating is inevitable. How much, I don't know. How long will it take to stop it? - again I don't know, but it will be decades, if not centuries.

The minute we stabilise emissions at net zero, we stop increasing the heat content of the earth, and climate settles down within 30 years, as long as we don't hit any tipping points. The minute we switch to net carbon negative, we start shortening that 30 years.

Every pound we spend now on mitigation, will save several pounds on adaptation in the future. And that applies up to very high levels of intervention: so we could globally shoot for net zero within 25 years, technically we could achieve it, and economically it saves us much more than it costs us.

[kristen]

Houseing has improved and will slowly continue.

That's the one that I think we could fix overnight. Change building regs for all new build (and maybe some refits) to require better insulation. And PV on every roof and all that sort of stuff.


Building new housing stock that we know will have to be improved in next 20 years (heck, "at any time during its life"), is nuts.

[dimengineer]

I've long thought that the time lag/hysteresis for a system as large as the earth has to be many decades, or even centuries. So once you see it start to move, you ain't going to stop it, not reasonably, in any short time. 
So, yes, a degree of heating is inevitable. How much, I don't know. How long will it take to stop it? - again I don't know, but it will be decades, if not centuries.

The minute we stabilise emissions at net zero, we stop increasing the heat content of the earth, and climate settles down within 30 years, as long as we don't hit any tipping points. The minute we switch to net carbon negative, we start shortening that 30 years.

Every pound we spend now on mitigation, will save several pounds on adaptation in the future. And that applies up to very high levels of intervention: so we could globally shoot for net zero within 25 years, technically we could achieve it, and economically it saves us much more than it costs us.

Why 30 years - where did you get that from? It may be in the right ball park, or may not. I kind of think it'll be much longer, so I'm curious as to the source of your 30 years.

[azps]

Why 30 years - where did you get that from? It may be in the right ball park, or may not.

Because that's about the time it takes for the full manifestation of a change in equilibrium heat content to play out into the climate, assuming no critical tipping points have been passed.

But I believe that we won't get to net zero, then stop. I believe we'll get to net zero, then go carbon negative for some time, because the economics will make it obvious that this is the right thing to do - it reduces the ongoing damage costs significantly.