this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

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Germany's coal exit quietly progressing, likely completed by 2032 – researcher (www.cleanenergywire.org)
submitted 2 days ago by Sepia@mander.xyz to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/52096709

Germany's coal phase-out is on track to happen through market forces well before the legal 2038 deadline, regardless of current energy market turbulence, says Hauke Hermann, a researcher at the Institute of Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut). Carbon price trends make an exit as early as 2031 or 2032 likely, Hermann told Clean Energy Wire. Refiring old coal plants in response to the Iran war's energy market shock to cut power costs would distort investment signals and is unlikely to happen in practice, he added.

Soaring energy prices have triggered calls for slowing Germany’s coal exit. The country’s coal exit law, agreed in 2020, provides for the step-by-step decommissioning of coal power plants. It also stipulates that coal-fired power generation must cease by 2038 at the very latest. Germany's western coal region aims for an earlier phase-out by 2030, but delays in building new gas-fired power plants as a backup for renewables make meeting this earlier deadline increasingly unlikely.

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[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 hours ago

Yes, that is half a century, and no, explanding their life time is irresponsible from a safety standpoint as any operator will tell you. At most you can add new reactor blocks and decomission the old ones. Furthermore it is also uneconomic to operate vintage npps as necessary repairs become much more expensive.

And no, investing into white elephants that don't produce any electricity for at least 15 years does not help with climate change. It is actively harmful, as during that time the fossile fuel plants continue to operate, while necassary investments into the grid and renewables can't be done because all the money is stuck with building prohibitively expensive npps.