Approaches to Climate Change: Something Is Missing

The Paris agreement from 2015 is not what the masses had hoped for. The IPCC has made a great effort to gather information for global policy making, but the Anthropocene fear of global warming has not been appeased. Why is this? Climate change theory does not consider how states and their governments engage in strategic gaming.


Introduction
The COVID19 intermezzo was a short run chock that several states counteracted rapidly by forceful means. Now the infernal set of "tipping points" makes mankind fear climate change. These tipping points are in reality positive feedback loops reinforcing global warming-Hawking's irreversibility.
Why will not governments fulfill their Paris agreement obligations?
The interaction between humans and Nature is slowly changing. From mankind exploiting Nature for its own benefit, it now appears that Nature is posing lethal threats to humanity such as COVID-19 and global warming. The Corona virus threat acts on short term, while climate change is a long term challenge.
As nations start opening up their social systems, one may wonder what is next inside for Planet Earth after this terrible short term shock. The global warming threat is forever present, but the consequences may need long time periods to evolve. It is a matter of a slow moving disaster with potentially dismal ramifications for the global economy. Much depends on the strength and timeliness of positive feedbacks as well as the adaptability of mankind. The prediction of abrupt climate change as soon as 2030 or earlier is probably an exaggeration, so where do we stand today? Figure 1 illustrates the relative amounts of different greenhouse gases.

CO2 Concentration
It should be considered somewhat surprising that the Keeling curve has risen also during the COVID 19 pandemic, reaching a value of 418 ppm (). However, it should be remembered that greenhouse gases originate from various human activities and all of them have not been shut down. There is an ongoing revolution in transportation with the coming of EV (Electrical Vehicles), but the majority of the world's population can still not afford this expensive mode of transport. Moreover, housing, heating, electricity and agriculture continue, emitting CO2. Figure 3 shows greenhouse gases divided by sector.
The impact of carbon dioxide is primarily an increase in temperature, indirectly causing a number of outcomes, and reinforcing global warming by means of positive feedback loops. Over time, the relationship between CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and temperature increase can be modeled as a linear function as follows: Temperature Increase / degrees C=-3.3 + 0.0103*CO2/ppm (1) Given the current level of CO2 of 418 ppm, global surface temperature has increased by 1 degree C. If and when we reach 500 ppm, the temperature rise would according to the model become higher than the 1.5 degree max target of the 2015 Paris agreement (1.8 degrees). The abrupt theory of climate change implies that we will reach 500 ppm as soon as within ten years. Yet, global warming is a slow process, albeit Hawking irreversible.
Besides CO2 emissons, much more attention must be paid to the thawing permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere.

CH4 Emissions
When emissions of CH4 are added to the global warming picture, things become even worse. Methane emissions originate almost exclusively from agriculture and natural gas production.  Given that only 10 countries produce more than half of the world's greenhouse gases, it is a remarkable fact that small countries aiming at zero emissions don't matter at all.
Furthermore, the basic interests of states have been theorized in two contrary approaches: on the one hand, realpolitik versus moralism. The first of these focuses on state power and its maximization in an environment of anarchy, while the second rejects state egoism, especially denouncing war, arguing that states are bound by basic model principles of humanity: pacta sunt servanda, speak the truth, never attack unless attacked, and pay compensation for damages. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/rem Research in Economics and Management Vol. 5, No. 3, 2020 6 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
The environmental movement would like to add sustainability to these basic norms. Recently, moralism has made advances in public international law, e.g., the International Court of Justice, but realpolitik remains dominant in international relations. Thus, governments can sign declarations for environmental policy purely for tactical reasons without ever implementing them. When looking at the lists of mega-polluters in the global climate change game with prisoners dilemma (PD) theory, one understands why climate policy making has failed. There is no organization or body with the authority to force China, India and the United States to leave the path of fossil fuels. The weakness of moralism in public international law is the lack of enforceability. The EU promising carbon neutrality by 2050 can not force Germany to stop its huge consumption of coal.

Conclusion
The fear of abrupt climate change is exaggerated, as global warming involves a low but steady temperature increase. It will hit mankind through multiple positive feedback loops, but they all require time before their impact reaches their maximum. Apparently, increases in temperature in the Anthropocenic period have reached a value of 1 degree Celsius, caused by emissions of both CO2 and CH4. Carbon dioxide seem to be more important than CH4 as of now, but that my change in the coming decade. When global warming passes 2 degrees, a number of tipping points will be triggered. Nobody knows how large temperature increase mankind can support in different parts of the world. People will migrate.
When administrations really start to reduce their Mount Everest of carbon dioxide emissions, they have a long way to go before carbon neutrality or even carbon negativity can be accomplished, but what to do if methane emissions start increasing rapidly?