The key premise of the claim that there is a climate crisis is that CO2 in the atmosphere traps heat in the form of outgoing long wave radiation(OLR). Radiation, which is energy carried by electromagnetic waves vibrating at different wavelengths, is a means of heat transfer. The more heat trapped, the less heat transported to outer space, and the warmer the atmosphere becomes. Therefore, If human activity is contributing to a higher concentration of atmospheric CO2, then it must be the case that it is contributing to an ever higher surface temperature. If we don’t stop using fossil fuels, the Earth will become unbearably hot.

This theory, while plausible, and simple to explain, is wrong because its core assumptions are wrong.

Wrong assumption #1: A doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere would have a runaway heating effect.

Reality: Even if the level of CO2 doubled, the increase in temperature would be no more than 1⁰ C. See the link below for the science explaining why this is true.
https://truthornonsense.com/why-co2-emissions-are-not-a-problem-now-and-never-will-be/

Wrong assumption #2: By absorbing OLR (aka infrared radiation (IR)), and re-emitting it back to the surface (back radiation), CO2 traps heat that otherwise would escape to space. More CO2 means more warming.

Reality: Not only does more CO2 not cause a rise in temperature, it serves as a conduit that converts surface radiation to sensible heat (heat you can feel), thus facilitating heat transfer away from the Earth. This process helps explain why “there is very little correlation between the estimates of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the estimates of the Earth’s temperature over the past 550 million years,” and in the last million years or so when, according to ice core data, there has been a correlation between changes in temperature and changes in CO2 levels, the rise in temperature preceded the rise in CO2.

To understand why the key tenet of the global warming scare is wrong, it is necessary to understand how carbon dioxide affects heat transport, i.e., the transfer of heat from the surface of the Earth and the atmosphere to space. The main drivers of atmospheric heat transport are radiation (electromagnetic waves moving at the speed of light) and thermalization, the process whereby energy is transferred from one molecule to another via a collision (kinetic energy). The more energy (heat) transferred by collisions among molecules, the less back radiation.

The Greenhouse Effect (GHE) on which all climate models are based assumes that “all the [[greenhouse gases] (GHGs) are absorbing and emitting radiation …[and] much of that emitted radiation is directed down and re-absorbed by the Earth’s surface…. This back radiation … makes the temperature of the surface higher than it would be in the absence of the ‘back radiation’”. If all the heat transfer took place via radiation, the GHE might be a legitimate cause for worry, but fortunately, Mother Nature doesn’t work that way. In fact, very little of the transfer of heat from the Earth’s surface occurs through radiation. “Under ambient conditions, the thermalization rate [heat transfer by molecular collisions] is by a factor of 50,000 faster than the [rate of emission of radiation from CO2 molecules in the excited (energetic) state]. Thermalization destroys the back radiation and the greenhouse effect”.

Why does a CO2 molecule re-emit only a very tiny portion of the heat it absorbs from the Sun back to its environment in the form of radiation? The half lifetime of a CO2 molecule from its excited state to its ground (least energy) state is about 0.45 seconds. Only in the ground state can a CO2 molecule absorb radiation. During this transition time each molecule will experience about three billion collisions before it can emit a photon (radiate energy). So, most of the heat energy absorbed by CO2 is converted into kinetic energy.

What happens to the heat from the collisions of greenhouse gas molecules with other gas molecules? This sensible heat joins heat from collisions of air molecules with the Earth’s surface to initiate convection flows. Atmospheric convection is heat transferred vertically by air. These flows “transport heat up to the boundary layer of the troposphere (the atmosphere from the Earth’s surface to about 3.7-6.2 miles)…. In the upper atmosphere the thermally excited emission converts the convectively transported heat energy into infrared radiation that can escape into space.”

CO2 and other greenhouse gases — the most important of which is water (H2O), accounting for 90% of the heat energy carried by GHGs — do not trap heat); rather, heat transport to space is slowed from the speed of light to the speed of convection.

There is not now nor will there ever be a climate warming problem caused by CO2.

Below is a pdf of the presentation by Shula and Ott on which this article was based.

The “Missing Link” in the Greenhouse Effect