numbers, not adjectives — D. J. C. MacKay
Universal Carbon Cooperation
April 13, 2025
Understanding climate change is difficult if your
lifestyle depends on your not understanding it.
— adapted from Upton Sinclair, 1935
Digest
These pages contain a concrete, practical proposal for addressing climate change. The proposal is called the Themis Mechanism. If you prefer to go directly to a one-pager. But even the best proposal can’t stand on its own. Background and context is provided, which explains what exactly a climate mechanism needs to achieve, why our current systems aren’t going to deliver that, and what properties a successful mechanism must poses.
What is new in the Themis Mechanism? Themis is not a radical novel suggestion. It is also not just a collection of principles without context. Instead, it is a careful application of some well understood measures into a specific practical framework. Such a framework must necessarily be applicable globally, across nations with different cultures, in different states of economic and technological development. This requires it to be based on simple explicit economic and ethical principles.
The Themis Mechanism is a proposal for an international mechanism to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in a fair and effective way; one-pager.
The Equitable Atmosphere Climate Cooperative (EACC) is a practical proposal to address the climate crisis.
Why will we reach long term average +1.5°C by October 2033 ± 18 months?
The Degree Person Day (DPD) is a unit measuring the consequences of emitting greenhouse gases: one DPD causes 1 person having to endure 1°C warming for 1 day. A ton of CO2 equals 500 DPD.
How good is the Paris Agreement? Unfortunately, the Paris Agreement will fail, since it bears none of the hallmarks necessary for a cooperative agreement to succeed.
What reasoning do we employ to justify greenhouse gas emissions?
A short note on paying for carbon.
Who owns the atmosphere, and why is it important?
There are two types of green investment, which differ in goals, motivation and requirements. Confusing the two prevents clarity in thought and action.
Mechanisms against Climate Change are the slides from a recent talk, discussing necessary properties of strategies against climate change, and a concrete proposal of how to achieve it.
What is the growth rate of atmospheric CO2? For the past 10 years, the growth rate of CO2 has been close to 2.5 ppm per year, the fastest rate of growth in modern times. The temperature will likely reach the Paris Agreement limit of +1.5°C at 450 ppm CO2, between summer 2032 and summer 2035. Techincal details.
International Cooperation against Climate Change. Effectively addressing climate change requires international cooperation. Unfortunately it is easy to understand why the Paris Agreement will fail, and what effective cooperation would look like.
Sustainable growth is much talked about by economists and politicians and at first sight may sound like an awesome idea. Unfortunately, it doesn't correspond to anything real in a finite physical world.
Pages, mostly about the UK
The UK Climae Change Act and Actual Greenhouse gas emissions We compare the past and future legal limits with actual greenhouse gas emissions for the UK.
Are current UK greenhouse gas emission limits fit for purpose?
The UK government's Jet Zero Strategy is not Net Zero. A quantitative look at the Jet Zero Strategy shows that it is entirely unrealistic.