I took a look at Shell's first ever 1.5C scenario and found that it is... remarkably similar to its “well-below 2C” scenario.

Oil, gas, coal, solar.... all basically unchanged.

The key difference: A new forest the size of Brazil to suck up the extra CO2.

Including "nature-based solutions" in the outlook brings forward the date for net-zero emissions to 2058.

Without them their pathway for CO2 emissions is the same as the previous one.

(It's also towards the higher end of 1.5C emissions pathways.)
The "Brazil-sized" forest idea isn't actually new, it has been kicking around for a couple of years.

It was referenced in the "well-below 2C" scenario although not formally included in it, and Shell's CEO has been framing it as the only viable way of getting to 1.5C.
Fine, but who is going to plant all those trees? Well... Shell says it will plant some of them.

Only yesterday Shell said forests were a key part of its net-zero strategy.

Not everyone is convinced though

https://t.co/RaJm7tOHxb
Given that Shell's 1.5C scenario also sees a big scaling up of bioenergy, the question remains: where are all those trees and bioenergy crops going to go?
Shell's scenario sits towards the higher end of 1.5C scenarios that scientists have come up with for energy use, oil, coal and solar

For emissions removed using carbon capture technology, it actually sits at the lower end. 1.5C scenarios rely _a lot_ on (largely untested) CCS
So getting to 1.5C is hard and most estimates say it will rely on lots of carbon removal.

Of course, the more fossil fuels are burned, the harder it gets.

Shell says oil and gas, “will remain significant for decades” and “there needs to be continued investment in…supply”.
Finally, Shell says it makes these scenarios not as forecasts or to reflect a business plan, but rather as “a useful tool for exploring future possibilities”.

A legal disclaimer adds:

“Ultimately, whether society meets its goals to decarbonise is not within Shell’s control.”
For more details on all of this, check out my analysis of Shells "Sky 1.5 scenario" in this piece >>>>

https://t.co/Ngj6MRMMTk

More from Science

1. I find it remarkable that some medics and scientists aren’t raising their voices to make children as safe as possible. The comment about children being less infectious than adults is unsupported by evidence.


2. @c_drosten has talked about this extensively and @dgurdasani1 and @DrZoeHyde have repeatedly pointed out flaws in the studies which have purported to show this. Now for the other assertion: children are very rarely ill with COVID19.

3. Children seem to suffer less with acute illness, but we have no idea of the long-term impact of infection. We do know #LongCovid affects some children. @LongCovidKids now speaks for 1,500 children struggling with a wide range of long-term symptoms.

4. 1,500 children whose parents found a small campaign group. How many more are out there? We don’t know. ONS data suggests there might be many, but the issue hasn’t been studied sufficiently well or long enough for a definitive answer.

5. Some people have talked about #COVID19 being this generation’s Polio. According to US CDC, Polio resulted in inapparent infection in more than 99% of people. Severe disease occurred in a tiny fraction of those infected. Source:
@mugecevik is an excellent scientist and a responsible professional. She likely read the paper more carefully than most. She grasped some of its strengths and weaknesses that are not apparent from a cursory glance. Below, I will mention a few points some may have missed.
1/


The paper does NOT evaluate the effect of school closures. Instead it conflates all ‘educational settings' into a single category, which includes universities.
2/

The paper primarily evaluates data from March and April 2020. The article is not particularly clear about this limitation, but the information can be found in the hefty supplementary material.
3/


The authors applied four different regression methods (some fancier than others) to the same data. The outcomes of the different regression models are correlated (enough to reach statistical significance), but they vary a lot. (heat map on the right below).
4/


The effect of individual interventions is extremely difficult to disentangle as the authors stress themselves. There is a very large number of interventions considered and the model was run on 49 countries and 26 US States (and not >200 countries).
5/

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1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.