Human CO2 emissions

We have to cut emissions to save the planet, has become the mandatory go to phrase in any discussion about 'Climate Change', but do we really? The history of human emissions from primarily fossil fuels since James Watt invented the steam engine in 1769, shows no evidence that would support such a conjecture. If human emissions of CO_2, which are largely from fossil fuels, cause global warming, there should be a clear correlation between them but, as this note will demonstrate, there is not. And, while correlation does not prove causation, a lack of correlation must overturn any hypothesis or conjecture.

Cumulative fossil fuel emissions of CO₂ had only reached 1ppm (Fig 1) by ~1860, when Alpine Glaciers began to retreat (Fig 2). Since that time, atmospheric CO₂ has increased by some 122 ppm and the glaciers have continued to retreat, but they are still there.

Fig 1: Fossil Fuel emissions from 1750 to 2024

The retreat of glaciers globally, signalled the end of the Dickensian Little Ice Age (LIA), and if this was caused only by human emissions, we should be very grateful, because the early 19^th century was a period of failed crops, mass starvation and premature deaths. However, it is more likely that the warming was a response to the increase in solar output that ended the LIA, rather than to the paltry 1 ppm of emissions.

The continuing glacial retreat was not uniform, which could be expected if it was driven by the gradual increase in CO₂ emissions, so the three advances after 1860 were presumably in response to cooling.

Fig 2: Alpine Glacier Advance & Retreat from 1550 Source: http://www.geo.uzh.ch/~snus/publications/nussbaumer_zumbuehl_2012.pdf

By 1900 cumulative emissions had still only reached 6 ppm, and by 1930, at the beginning of the warm period that brought dustbowl conditions to the USA and elsewhere, they were just 9 ppm. But even this figure is misleading, as around half of human emissions are sequestrated by the biosphere and oceans, leaving only a 4-5 ppm addition to the atmosphere (Figs 1 & 3). Was that enough to drive the warming which continued until ~1943, and how can it explain the cooling that followed (Fig3) for the next 35 years?

Fossil Fuel emissions only began to rise significantly from around 1956 (Fig 1), during what had been called the Nuclear Winter, when consensus science was predicting a new Ice Age (Fig3). Then, from 1978, global temperatures began to rise more in line with the increase in atmospheric CO₂ and Global Warming became the new consensus.

Then a 'catastrophe' called 'The Pause', saw temperature rise stalling from 2000, despite continually increasing emissions, and Climate Change, which has no recognisable units that can be easily measured, was born.

The following chart (Fig 3) shows global Sea Surface Temperatures (red) and CO₂ emissions and shows there have been two periods of strong warming (from 1910-1943 and 1978-2000) and two of cooling or no warming (from 1943 -1978 and 2000 to 2016) during which fossil fuel and other human emissions were always increasing.