CO2 emissions from energy remain flat for third year running
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It is a good sign, but I'd be cautious with taking this as cause for celebration. Even if trends do continue as expected, the resultant downturn is unlikely to be enough to prevent global temperatures from reaching "the point of no return" where runaway heating sets in. Furthermore, the U.S. doesn't seem to have made the issue a priority, and the U.K. may very well be heading in a similar direction. We've won the battle, but are yet to turn the war in our favor.
> unlikely to be enough to prevent global temperatures from reaching "the point of no return" where runaway heating sets in.
We don't need to (and probably can't) stop climate change. The problem is the rate of change. As long as we reduce the rate of change to a manageable level, we can adapt; farmlands can be relocated, coastal cities can be downsized and eventually abandoned, communities living on low-elevation islands can be relocated, etc.
I think the phrase "point of no return" may not have been a good choice- I agree entirely with what you've said, but I believe we may be discussing different phenomena. The "point of no return" was a reference to the temperature at which the evaporation from the oceans and methane from melting permafrost create a strong enough greenhouse effect so that, even if we completely stop emissions, climate change will continue accelerating by itself anyway. If I recall correctly, one estimate placed that temperature at 2.5 degrees Celsius above current values.
"from energy" is probably the key part. So I see "emissions from power generation remain flat for those years" and I think "Great, so.... what about the rest?" Maybe the rest is just so horrible that it offsets it or something and things still get bad. Who knows. It says nothing about total CO2 from all emission sources, which is probably a more important number. Since they're careful to focus only on one thing it makes me wonder if it's carefully worded for spinning stuff about CO2 to make things look bad. After all: You can take any particular statistic, put it into a vacuum, and spin it to talk about how great things are...
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