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Advances in Politics and Economic 
ISSN 2576-1382 (Print) ISSN 2576-1390 (Online) 

Vol. 1, No. 1, 2018 
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1 
 

Original Article 

Hawking Irreversibility and Socio-Economic Determinism 

Jan-Erik Lane1* & Florent Dieterlen1 
1 Public Policy Institute, BELGRADE, Yangon, Myanmar, Geneva 
* Jan-Erik Lane, Public Policy Institute, BELGRADE, 10 Charles Humbert, 1205, Geneva, 559 A, 3rd 

Floor, Thuya Street, 9th Quarter, Yangon, Myanmar 

 

Received: November 26, 2017   Accepted: December 6, 2017  Online Published: December 7, 2017 

doi:10.22158/ape.v1n1p1             URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/ape.v1n1p1 

 

Abstract 

Physicist Stephen Hawking has suggested that climate changes is about to become unstoppable. One 

may introduce a concept of Hawking irreversibility as the point where temperature has risen so much 

that the global warming consequences threaten the survival of mankind. The recent news out of China 

that its CO2s are increasing again makes this term highly policy relevant. Moreover, the methane 

emissions have started to augment, which also calls up Hawking irreversibility. The drive behind these 

dire developments is the endless zest for affluence and wealth, fueled by ever larger energy 

consumption. 

Keywords 

decarburization, Hawking irreversibility, GHCs, CO2S, methane, COP21 Treaty goals, solar power 

plants 

 

1. Introduction 

Climate scientists warn, already before the implementation of the UNFCCC Agreement from Paris 

2015 that the decarbonisation plan decided in global governance will not be enough to stabilize 

temperature at + 2 Celsius, at most. Global average temperature will most probably be larger than the 

COP21 objective. At what point on the temperature scale, we move into Hawking irreversibility is not 

known. But a rise beyond + 4 degrees will have dramatic consequences for the ecology and human 

social systems. 

A few days before the start of the UN global environment reunion COP23 (6-13 November 2017) in 

Bonn, the major study Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment (USGCRP, 

2017), was published in Washington. It examines the global warming problematic from the point of 

view of the US and the world, based upon years of research by a large group of US scholars. It 

definitively recommends a combination of national and international policy-making to halt temperature 



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rise, despite the fact that the US government is negative. It renders an impressive list of climate change 

impacts upon the US territory and points decisively at human causes. We must then ask: Can 

decarbonisation policies be implemented or managed? The COP23 by the UNFCCC reflects upon the 

very same problem. 

If or when global warming reaches the point of no return with temperatures perhaps plus 4-6 degrees 

Celsius higher, then the present calamities will be magnified: a) Melting of polar ice massively: b) 

Retraction of glaciers globally; c) Huge land losses along the costs (Bangladesh); d) Too high 

temperatures for men and women to work outside (South Asia); e) Food production decline (Africa); f) 

Fish harvest decrease (Atlantic ocean, Pacific Ocean); g) Droughts and starvation (South Asia); h) Lack 

of fresh water supply (Latin America); i) Drying up of rivers, affecting electricity supply (Latin 

America, South Asia, East Asia); j) Ocean acidification and species extinction (Australia); k) Highly 

volatile climate with giant forest fires, storms, rainfall and tornados with tremendous damages 

inclusingmudslides (Caribbean, North America, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, China, Australia); l) Deforestation 

and desertification (Latin America, Africa, Indonesia, South Asia). If worse comes to worse, global heat 

streams like the Gulf Stream and the Atlantic Current may be affected, changing weather in the 

Northern and Southern hemispheres. 

 

2. Present Global Predicament 

2.1 No Kuznets’ Curve for CO2s 

The Greenhouse Gases (GHG) have a strong anthropogenic sources, being linked with socio-economic 

development or economic growth via the consumption of energy, especially the burning of fossil fuels, 

use of cement and emission of methane from landsinks, cows, microbes, etc. The UNFCCC has 

focused on halting CO2s and decreasing them in a gigantic decarbonisation policy globally in this 

century. Figure 1 shows that there is no Kuznets’ curve (first rising, then descending) for CO2: richer 

countries emit more CO2 than poor ones. International aviation is a very major source of CO2 

emissions, and it is booming. 

 

 

Figure 1. GDP-COP for All Countries 

Source: All countries in the world have formed a Common Pool Regime (CPR) to save the atmosphere 



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from more GHGs, focusing only upon the CO2s. The global decarbonisation plan includes: 

i) Halting the rise if CO2s by 2020 (GOAL I); 

ii) Reducing the CO2s by 30-40% by 2030 (GOAL II); 

iii) Complete decarbonisation by around 2075 (GOAL III); 

iv) Decentralised implementation under international oversight, financial support and technical 

assistance. 

 

These are enormous goals, as only one country—Uruguay—is near GOAL I and GOAL II. Some 

countries have lately had stalling or even decreasing CO2s, but many other still face an upward sloping 

curve.  

2.2 Energy 

Energy generates not only survival but also affluence and wealth, being vital to both poor and rich 

countries. If energy consumption is reduced, there will be global economic recessions and mass poverty 

as well as unemployment. But Planet Earth consumes too much energy from one major source: burning 

fossil fuels. One may employ some standard sources on energy consumption and what is immediately 

obvious is the immensely huge numbers involved—see Table 1. 

 

Table 1. Energy Consumption 2015 (Million Tons of Oil Equivalent) 

Total % 

Fossil fuels 11306,4 86,0 

Oil  4331,3 32,9 

Natural Gas 3135,2 23,8 

Coal 3839,9 29,2 

Renewables 1257,8 9,6 

Hydroelectric 892,9 6,8 

Others 364,9 2,8 

Nuclear 

power 
583,1 4,4 

 

Total 13147,3 100,0 

Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2016. 

 

Table 1 holds the answer to why GHG emissions have become the global headache number 1. Energy 

for humans and their social systems come to an average of 90% from burning fossil fuels: stone and 

wood coal, oil and gas. And people do that all over the world, though to very different degrees from 

100% to less than 50% of all energy consumption, because it is necessary for affluence and survival. 

The enormous expansion in the energy consumption of fossil fuels has allowed the world to take on 



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many new inhabitants, as well as reducing poverty in the Third World and much enhancing affluence 

and wealth in the First world. 

CO2 emissions are closely connected with energy consumption, globally speaking. Projections for 

future energy augmentation in the 21st century are enormous, especially for Asia (EIA, BP, IEA). 

Figure 2 developments since 1990. 

 

 

Figure 2. Global GDP-CO2 Link: y = 0,7498x, R² = 0,9801 

 

GDP increases with the augmentation of energy per capita. Decarbonisation is the promise to undo 

these dismal links by making GDP and energy consumption rely upon carbon neutral energy resources, 

like modern renewables and atomic energy. 

 

 

Figrue 3. GDP against Energy per Person, 2005-2016 

Source: World Bank Data Indicators, data.worldbank.org; BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2017. 

 

Both curves in Figures 2 and 3 indicate stalling, which is what the UNFCCC hopes for. But recent new 

out of China informs about renewed augmentation of CO2s in 2017. Together with recent trends in 

methane emissions, Hawking irreversibility is not far off. 

 

 



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3. Temperature Rise 

3.1 CO2s 

One may attempt to calculate exactly how increases in greenhouse gases impact upon temperature 

augmentations. Take the case of CO2s, where a most complicated mathematical formula is employed: T 

= Tc + Tn, where T is temperature, Tc is the cumulative net contribution to temperature from CO2 and Tn 

the normal temperature. Moreover, the general formula reads: dT = λ*dF, where “dT” is the change in 

the Earth’s average surface temperature, “λ” is the climate sensitivity, usually with degrees Celsius per 

Watts per square meter (°C/[W/m2]), and “dF” is the radiative forcing. To get the calculations going, we 

start from lambda between 0.54 and 1.2, but let’s take the average = 0.87. Thus, we have the formula 

(Myhre el al., 1998): Formula: 

0.87 x 5.35 x ln(C/280)                           (1) 

Figure 4 shows how CO2 emissions may raise temperature to 4-5 degrees, which would be Hawking’s 

worst case scenario. 

 

 

Figure 4. CO2s and Temperature Rise in Celsius 

 

No one knows where the critical temperature rise occurs, i.e., from which Celsius degree global 

warming becomes “irreversible”, to use Stephen Hawking’s expression. It could be as low as + 2 

Celsius or as high as + 5 Celsius. 

There are several greenhouse gases, but the two biggest are the CO2s and methane. The UNFCCC has 

concentrated upon halting and reducing carbon dioxide, but now we are about to face a methane threat. 

Moving now and up to 2030, according to the COP21’s GOAL II for decarbonisation would eliminate 

Hawking irreversibility Time has come for halting and reducing CO2 emissions by real implementation 

and not utopian dreams of a sustainable economy (Sachs, 2015). There is nothing to wait for any longer 

(Stern, 2015), as the COP23 must set up the promised Super Fund. No time for politicking in the UN 

any longer (Conca, 2015; Vogler, 2016). Yet, could socio-economic determinism drive mankind to take 

proper action according to the COP21 Treaty? 

 



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3.2 Methane Emissions 

We shall use the methane concentration curve from mid 2013 to beginning of 2017 issued by NOAA 

ESRL https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends_ch4/ gently suggested by Dlugokencky and Kuniyuki. 

Why mid 2013? Because it is the last maximum of the second derivative before 2017. Since then, the 

curve is approximately linear, and we will derive its equation hereunder. 

Why should we start with a linear approximation, the simplest approximation that can be found? Because 

it is a mean between two extreme scenarios:  

1) Another plateau like during the years 1999-2006 (probably due to an enhancement in methane 

transport insulation in ex-USSR after 1991, Pearce), unlikely for the following reasons. Any decrease in 

methane concentration is very unlikely, as the main sources (in decreasing importance order) generally 

increase: 

a) Agriculture emissions increase with the increase of population, the increase in meat diet in developing 

countries and the temperature increasing the metabolism of microbes in rice agriculture. 

b) Wetlands emissions don’t diminish yet, as the microbial chemical activity will increase with 

temperature for many years. 

c) Fossil fuel production and use doesn’t diminish yet, and was underestimated by industry (Fred Pearce, 

http://e360.yale.edu/features/methane_riddle_what_is_causing_the_rise_in_emissions). 

d) Biomass burning doesn’t diminish yet, therefore the primary forest diminishes in the tropics, leading 

also to a decrease in animal, vegetal and cultural (Indigenous People) diversities and an increase in 

biosphere entropy.  

e) Other natural emissions  

The most important contribution to the recent rise of methane concentration is mainly due to the increase 

in activity by microbes, present in points a), b) and d) (Nisbet, in the above reference), mainly in the 

tropics. This study suggests the positive feedback of the chemical increase of activity of microbes is 

starting now, yielding a quasi-exponential curve in the near future, or at least a steeper curve.  

We will derive examples of future increase in methane concentration due to such a positive feedback, in 

addition to a linear approximation. For this, we will not simulate differential equations, which would be 

the best option, but simulate the hypothetical solution of a transition (bifurcation) between 2 steady-states, 

with a S-shaped function (which approximate the bifurcation between 2 steady-states) multiplied (to 

have continuity) by the linear approximation. We shall approximate the S-shape curve by an transitory (5 

years) exponential curve in continuity with the linear approximation. 

The present (November 2017) quasi-linear curve starts mid 2013 (2013. 5) and its ordinate is 

approximately 1813 ppb. We will use as a last value at start of 2017, and the function is approximately 

1846 ppb.a straightforward calculation gives the slope: it is approximately 10 ppb/year. Therefore the 

equation for the future curve if there is no vicious circle (positive feedback) is: 

y = 10 (t-2013.5) + 1813                          (2) 

wheret is the time when one wants to know the CH4 concentration, and y is the future CH4 concentration 



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in ppb. From this equation, one can estimate the approximate the temperature rise due by methane, by 

applying to y the formula (1), and multiply it by 25. It will be valid for close future, but will probably be 

underestimated for farther future, where it will probably closer to an exponential. 

 

Methane conc. (ppm)

1820

1840

1860

1880

1900

1920

1940

1 3 5 7 9 11 13

Time

M
d

et
h

an
e 

co
n

c.
 (

p
p

m
)

Methane conc. (ppm)

 

Figure 5. Projected Increase in Methane 

 

4. Decarbonisation Srategies 

The UNFCCC suggests a decentralized management strategy for decarbonisation. Reflecting the 

enormous differences in available energy resources in the member states of COP21 Treaty, each 

government must develop a strategy for achieving Goal I, Goal II and Goal III. The COP may wish to 

concentrate upon the following measures start credible decarbonisation: 

1) Phasing out coal power plants; convincing a few countries like India and Australia not to build 

new ones; 

2) Replace wood coal with natural gas—small or large scale, stopping deforestation and the use of 

charcoal in households in poor nations; 

3) Massive construction of solar power and wind power plants in all countries, as well as stimulate 

small scale solar power; 

4) Turn some countries away from massive dam constructions towards solar power parks, like 

Brazil and India, as the environmental damages are too big; 

5) Help some countries maintain their huge forests; 

6) Abstain from expensive and unsafe carbon sequestration techniques in favour of electricity: solar 

power and electrical vehicles. 

7) The promise of financial support—Super Fund—has to be clarified about both funding and 

budgeting. A management structure has to be introduced for oversight of the entire decarbonisation 



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process. As the emission of methane increases, the reduction of CO2s is all the more important, if 

irreversibility is to be avoided with a margin. 

The resort to atomic power plants is highly contested. Nuclear power gets safer and safer, but the 

problem of storing the used uranium has no solution. If global warming becomes really bad, all these 

radioactive materials could be released back in our social systems and nature. Some countries expand 

atomic energy, whereas others dismantle it. 

 

5. Solarpower Parks—A Model Example 

Consider now Table 3, using the giant solar power station in Morocco as the benchmark—How many 

would be needed to replace the energy cut in fossil fuels and maintain the same energy amount, for a 

few selected countries with big CO2 emissions? 

 

Table 2. Number of Ouarzazate Plants Necessary in 2030 for COP21’s GOAL II: (Note: Average 

of 250-300 Days of Sunshine Used for All Entries Except Australia, Indonesia, and Mexico, where 

300-350 Was Used) 

Nation Co2 reduction pledge/ 

% of 2005 emissions 

Number of gigantic solar 

plants needed 

(Ouarzazate) 

Gigantic plants needed 

for 40 % reduction 

United States 26-28 (Note 1) 2100 3200 

China None (Note 2) 0 3300 

EU28 41-42 2300 2300 

India None (Note 2) 0 600 

Japan 26 460 700 

Brazil 43 180 170 

Indonesia 29 120 170 

Canada 30 230 300 

Mexico 25 120 200 

Australia 26-28 130 190 

Russia None (Note 3) 0 940 



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Canada 30 230 300 

Mexico 25 120 200 

France 37 (Note 4) 210 220 

Italy 35 (Note 4) 230 270 

Sweden 42 (Note 4) 30 30 

Argentina None (Note 2) 0 80 

Uruguay None (Note 2) 0 3 

Chile 35 25 30 

World N/A N/A 16000 

Notes. 1) The United States has pulled out of the deal; 2) No absolute target; 3) Pledge is above current 

level, no reduction; 4) Upper limit dependent on receiving financial support; 5) EU joint pledge of 40 

% compared to 1990. 

 

If countries rely much upon water or geo-thermal power or atomic power, the number in Table 2 will be 

reduced. Table 2 displays the dependency upon fossil fuels that may go over 90% in some countries. 

Each country energy predicament is both situation dependent and path dependent, reflecting natural 

resources and past policies. 

The key question is: Can so much solar power be constructed in some 10 years? If not, Hawking may 

be right. Thus, the COP23 should decide to embark upon an energy transformation of this colossal size. 

Solar power investments will have to take many things into account: energy mix, climate, access to 

land, energy storage facilities, etc. They are preferable to nuclear power, which pushes the pollution 

problem into the distant future with other kinds of dangers. Geo-thermal power comes from volcanic 

power and sites.  

It has been researched has much a climate of Canadian type impacts upon solar power efficiency. In 

any case, Canada will need back-ups for its many solar power parks, like gas power stations. Mexico 

has a very favourable situation for solar power, but will need financing from the Super Fund, promised 

in COP21 Treaty. In Latin America, solar power is the future, especially as water shortages from the 

Andes may be expected. Chile can manage their quota, but Argentine needs the Super Fund for sure. 

Uruguay has the best number globally, relying upon water and biomass. 

Table 3 has the data for the African and Asian scene with a few key countries, poor or medium income. 

 

 



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Table 3. Number of Ouarzazate Plants Necessary in 2030 for COP21’s GOAL II (Note: Average 

of 300-350 Days of Sunshine per Year Was Used) 

Nation Co2 reduction pledge/ 

% of 2005 emissions 

Number of gigantic 

solar plants needed 

(Ouarzazate) 

Gigantic plants needed 

for 40 % reduction 

Algeria 7-22 (Note 4) 8 50 

Egypt none 0 80 

Senegal 5-21 0,3 3 

Ivory Coast 28-36 2 3 

Ghana 15-45 1 3 

Angola 35-50 6 7 

Kenya 30 3 4 

Botswana 17 1 2 

Saudi Arabia none 0 150 

Iran 4-12 22 220 

Kazakhstan none 0 100 

Turkey 21 60 120 

Thailand 20-25iv 50 110 

Malaysia none 0 80 

Pakistan none 0 60 

Bangladesh 3,45 2 18 

 

Since Africa is poor, it does not use much energy like fossil fuels, except Maghreb as well as Egypt 

plus much polluting South Africa, which countries must make the energy transition as quickly as 

possible. The rest of Africa uses either wood coal, leading to deforestation, or water power. They can 

increase solar power without problems when helped financially. For a few Asian countries, the numbers 

are staggering, but can be fulfilled, if turned into the number ONE priority. Some of the poor nations 



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need external financing and technical assistance. 

 

6. Conclusion 

We are not yet at the point of irreversibility, meaning there are still a few degrees of freedom for 

government policy-making and international governance. The plans of the UNFCCC must be 

implemented by all nations: Goal I: halting CO2 growth, Goal II: reducing CO2s until 2030 and Goal 

III: near complete decarbonisation by 2075. But time is certainly running out. 

 

References 

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OECD National Accounts data files. (n.d.). 

World Bank national accounts data. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.data.worldbank.org 

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BP Energy Outlook 2016. (n.d.). 

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World Bank Data Indicators. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.data.worldbank.org 

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Notes 

Note 1. The United States has pulled out of the deal.  

Note 2. No absolute target. 

Note 3. Pledge is above current level, no reduction. 

Note 4. Upper limit dependent on receiving financial support. 

 


