The global inconsistency of climate science denier, Larry Hamlin, at WUWT

This is rich.

Yesterday I wrote how climate disinformer Larry Hamlin picked out years of hot Junes in the USA and California, as if to argue that global warming isn't worth worrying about because there have been occasional hot Junes in California and the USA in the past. Today he wants to ignore local and go global (cached here).

In the last article I showed how, when you put Larry's USA/Californian June temperatures in the global context, it highlights the ridiculousness of deniers. Early last century the world as a whole was much colder than it is today. This century we're really getting a taste of what's to come. This past few weeks we've been getting a horrific taste of what's to come much more often, with deadly fires, drought, killer heat waves and floods widespread over the northern hemisphere, not to mention the drought back here in Australia. It isn't just hot in California and the USA, it's hot in lots of places as this map of June temperatures shows (from GISTemp).

Today Larry's bounced back with another article. This time he's complaining that the LA Times had an article about a big drop in CO2 emissions from electricity usage in California, when according to Larry the article should have been about what is happening worldwide. He wanted the article to be about how CO2 emissions haven't been falling.

His last article was devoid of global context. Now he only wants to write about the globe.

He wrote:

What the L. A. Times story completely hides (some might say conceals) is any discussion of relevance or lack thereof of how California’s greenhouse gas emission reduction levels relate to the overriding and controlling picture of global emissions.

How's that for inconsistency, duplicity, whatever you want to call it?

Some wins in California, but it's not enough

It wasn't as if the LA Times article was all congratulatory and positive. It also indicated that, although CO2 from the Californian electricity sector was falling, there has been an uptick in CO2 emitted by cars and trucks.

I suppose it's good to know that Larry is very concerned that some countries aren't doing enough yet when it comes to reducing emissions. I wish he'd have a chat with Prime Minister Turnbull and let him know that as far as WUWT is concerned, Australia isn't pulling its weight.

Global inequality in CO2 emissions

Below is a map from EDGAR, a European Commission entity, which shows per capita emissions in 2012. This is from a 2017 report, which gives comprehensive data on emissions and where they come from. It shows USA (and Australia) are emitting way more than they should on a per capita basis. (Click to enlarge.)

Change, but too little and too slowly

The chart below, from the same report, shows more recent data from some of the larger nations and EU. It looks as if emissions from the EU and USA are dropping and those from China are tapering off.

The above is just for emissions from fossil fuel, industry and production. The report has many other charts if you're interested. If you're short of time, here's a summary of the state of play in 2016:

CO2 emissions are stalled for the third year in a row, plateauing with no further increase to a total of 35.8 Gton CO2 in 2016. The 0.3% increase in 2016 compared to 2015 is due to the extra day in the leap year of 2016. CO2 emissions in the US (with 14% share of global total) fell by 2%. There was a status quo in emissions with  -0.3% and +0.2% change in 2016 compared to 2015 in China (29.2% share of global total) and Europe (9.6% share of global total), respectively. The largest decrease is seen for UK (1.0% share) with -6.4%, Brazil (1.3% share) with -6.1% and Bulgaria (0.1% share) with -6.0% while increases are observed for India (7.1% share of global total) with +4.7%, Indonesia (1.5% share) with +6.4%, Ukraine (0.7% share) with 8.0% and Malaysia (0.7% share) with 6.5%.

To modernise or not?

Larry appears to be in two minds about whether there should be a global effort to reduce emissions or not. He can't decide whether he wants the world to modernise or if he wants the world to be stuck in the 19th century. On the one hand he thinks it's wrong, talking about cost, inefficiency and bureaucracy, on the other hand he implies that China in particular should be doing more. He wrote:

California’s politically driven climate alarmism campaign touting the state and China as leading the global emissions reduction effort is a classic example of the deception, distortion and dishonesty of climate fear propaganda that is falsely portrayed by our politicians here and media supporters including the L. A. Times.

The LA Times article didn't mention China, so it seems to me that Larry is the person who is out to deceive.

The other thing is, of course, that if he was concerned about cost and efficiency, he'd be pushing hard to shift to clean energy as quickly as possible. The cost of climate change is almost incalculably high.