That's a pity, I had been expecting level or a slight decrease in fossil CO2 (due to economy in China which has 1/3 of emissions), so maybe I was wrong, or maybe it's just too soon to say (they give error range -0.3% to +1.9%). There's still 1/6th of 2024 to go, including part of the NH winter whose heating demand varies with weather, most of the raw data that goes into these calculations is likely not so fresh, and chinese economic projections tend to be 'optimistic'. The rise in LUC CO2 is mainly hangover from tail of El Niño early this year, leading to fires in southern hemisphere. So it's still possible, if we think monthly, that the global peak was early this year, i.e. in the past.
Of course, they release GCB before the end of the year to try to influence the COP, which makes more sense when the COP is in mid-December (as typical, but not necessary - iirc COP1 was April and COP2 July). But does projected bad news really help motivate the world? I'd emphasise mixed news - some trends up, others down, which shows what difference we can make.

Indeed there is huge momentum in renewable costs. I recall 20 years ago climate economists starting to model endogenous technological change, but they just had to invent ' learning curves' with magic numbers. Now it has happened.
On the other hand, I still wish heat pumps were cheaper. Where I live, the cost is inflated by the requirement for installation by people qualified with refrigerant gases.

Some sense to this - global emissions probably just peaked because China's housing bubble burst - responsible for much more CO2 than AI/crypto, and even a communist government can't effectively control such crashes. So no, we are not f****d, but not always saved for noble reasons.
Also regarding crypto - how much of that was sustained by russians evading sanctions - which new team in US is likely to remove ?

Makes sense. China holds a good hand now, as they have probably peaked emissions five years ahead of their promise, and are not yet obliged with financial contributions. Also they need to sell renewables, electric cars etc. - especially to southern countries while US and EU put big tariffs. And if you look at the numbers, US is no longer so important in the world.

Your first sentence is correct. But if you look at the historical data, the sharpest drop in chinese fertility rate was several years before they introduced the one-child policy, which also ended several years ago without apparently making any difference. Also, fertility rates in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan are even lower. As these rates are also lower than europe, that maybe related more to housing affordability and density, possibly combined with some common evolution of 'eastern' values.

In high latitude winters, snow provides light and contrast - without it the world is just shades of black brown grey. Some people there may think a little extra warmth could be welcome, but -2ºC with snow is much better than +2ºC with cold grey drizzle.

It's not necessary for world leaders (with all their entourage) to attend every year, and the total numbers should come down, it's a big waste of energy, especially regarding aviation emissions.
Only a handful of people in a few small rooms can actually change anything in the key decision texts - the other diplomats repeat old positions, and most other participants are just there to lobby for support for their projects.
I recall the early COPs - attended COP2 with only 2000 people, not 80k like last year. Also COP15 where world leaders did turn up, but didn't conclude.
The discussions leading to big decisions are are a multi-year process. COP30 next year in Belem, where new targets are expected, is more important than this year (fortunately, given weak choice of host government).

Hmm. I'm still using a 2014 iMac, as its 27" 5k screen still very good for coding (with added memory). Sometimes develops a bunch of thin vertical lines, which come and go maybe dependent on temperature, but hasn't changed for for ten years and i can live with those. Just wish they'd continue providing security updates for it.

I don't buy this. I'm still using SMTP on my own domain and it’s working fine, a bit of spam but not unmanageable, real messages get read. Main challenge is digesting so many potentially-interesting list messages, indicating email's continued dominance for professional topics. Seems this author has another agenda.
Having said that, it's a pity the world never agreed a protocol for micro-payment for emails (and for many other services), which would resolve the spam problem, and not be a burden for honest users.

"...at a rate of roughly 0.05 percent per day ... would take a very long time" ... but by my quick calculation 0.9995^3650 is 84% per decade, which is not long. Almost instantaneous on a geological timescale - and think how much the world changed when fungi learned how to digest lignin in wood - ending the era of coal-forming swamps.

My boys have chromebooks, it’s almost mandatory for school now, and I get why teachers need the whole class to have a similar locally-networked tool. Problem is we as parents can't set anything, as we don't have 'developer' access, and the school controls their accounts. So at home, they do stupid stuff. The hardware is ok, I wish it was just linux. About what google gets - I doubt the current data is so valuable, they play a long game hoping to lock young people into their ecosystem, to profit from people with cash/energy in their 20s.

EU needs to abandon unanimity in decision making - it's not even the veto of one "country", but of one party in one country. Same for UN. Pure consensus is not working.