Thursday, June 08, 2023

CAPITALI$M;APOLOGIST REVEALS PUBLIC SECRET
Opinion: The world will not hit its climate targets. Let's prepare for that inconvenient truth

Opinion by Special to Financial Post • 

Emissions in less developed countries continue to grow rapidly.© Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

By George Fallis

More than 30 years after the countries of the world first came together to fight climate change it is time for a clear-eyed look at where we stand and what lies ahead.

Fully 154 countries signed 1992’s UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and then committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, followed by the Paris Accord of 2015, which was updated at Glasgow in 2021. At each stage, countries promised deeper cuts. The agreements recognized that countries should not all have to make the same cuts, however. There would be climate justice. The developed countries would make large cuts in their emissions; the less developed could continue to increase their emissions, allowing them to raise living standards.

Over the past 30 years, developed countries have closed coal-fired electricity plants, levied carbon taxes , established cap-and-trade systems, heavily subsidized alternative sources of electricity and taken many other steps to cut emissions. They have also funded impressive amounts of research into solar and wind as alternative sources of energy . In some regions, wind and solar have become the least expensive source of electricity. The world’s big car companies are making billion-dollar investments to produce batteries and manufacture electric cars , which are now commonplace on the roads.



Why emissions are still rising


After all this political effort and technological innovation, how has the world done in cutting emissions? The inconvenient truth is: not very well at all. Global emissions have continued to rise.

Some developed countries have achieved modest emissions reductions, it’s true, but emissions from the less developed countries continue to grow rapidly. According to the best estimates, Earth’s temperature is now 1.1 degrees C above its average in the late 19th century and looks to be rising.

Today, the goal is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C. Climate models indicate this will require global emissions — by both developed and less developed countries — to be 50 per cent less than 2020 levels by 2030 and to be net zero by 2050. How likely is it that world emissions will fall by these amounts? The inconvenient truth is that the likelihood is vanishingly small.

Even the developed countries are unlikely to meet their targets. All the political forces that have resisted cuts over the past 30 years will continue to do so. And at budget time, when governments must decide how much money to allocate toward fighting climate change, even sympathetic groups will chime in: What about health care, what about homelessness, what about education, or tax reductions? Many citizens see these as higher priorities than reducing emissions.

As we think about future emissions, the elephant in the room is China . In 1992, as UN action got underway, China was a less developed country and so was not asked to reduce emissions. But it has grown rapidly and is now the world’s second largest economy and a genuine superpower economically, politically and militarily. It is also now — by far — the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, emitting more than the developed countries combined. Yet it is still building coal-fired power plants, lots of them, and it has made quite clear that climate policy cannot be at the expense of its economic growth: President Xi Jinping has declared that the pursuit of “common prosperity” should guide future Chinese development.

Heart of the problem

The heart of the problem — in every country — is that people (i.e., you and me), are unwilling to cut emissions if doing so means sacrificing our standard of living. Economic growth is paramount — in both the United States and China. Some climate activists in the West say the problem is capitalism; but the situation is the same under “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”


Technological change cannot save us. The experience of western European countries shows it can help reduce emissions modestly as we continue to grow. But technological change cannot cut emissions 50 per cent by 2030 and to net-zero by 2050 if the world economy continues to grow. To meet these targets, world economic growth would have to stop. We would have to produce and consume less. But — almost universally — we do not want to consume less.

A realistic forecast is that global emissions will not be reduced by enough to keep global warming below two degrees C and that damage from extreme weather and rising oceans will increase. On the other hand, even if we do overshoot two degrees C, the world will neither burst into fire nor be submerged under sea water. Except in relatively small areas our planet will still be inhabitable.

But there is a final inconvenient truth: the fight against climate change will not just be about reducing emissions, it will also be about adapting the world’s buildings, infrastructure and agriculture to the changing climate. Both emission cuts and adaptation will continue to cost billions and billions of dollars.


George Fallis is professor emeritus, economics and social science, York University.


 


Greenhouse gas emissions at ‘an all-time high’ - and it is causing an unprecedented rate of global warming, say scientists


Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

University of Leeds Press Release  

Greenhouse gas emissions at ‘an all-time high’ - and it is causing an unprecedented rate of global warming, say scientists  

  • Human-induced warming averaged 1.14°C over the last decade  

  • A record level of greenhouse gases is being emitted each year, equivalent to 54 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide 

  • The remaining carbon budget - how much carbon dioxide can be emitted to have a better than 50% chance of holding global warming to 1.5°C - has halved over three years  

  • Leading scientists have today launched a project to update key climate indicators every year, so people can be kept informed about critical aspects of global warming  

Human-caused global warming has continued to increase at an “unprecedented rate” since the last major assessment of the climate system published two years ago, say 50 leading scientists.   

One of the researchers said the analysis was a “timely wake-up call” that the pace and scale of climate action has been insufficient, and it comes as climate experts meet in Bonn to prepare the ground for the major COP28 climate conference in the UAE in December, which will include a stocktake of progress towards keeping global warming to 1.5°C by 2050.   

Given the speed at which the global climate system is changing, the scientists argue that policymakers, climate negotiators and civil society groups need to have access to up-to-date and robust scientific evidence on which to base decisions.   

The authoritative source of scientific information on the state of the climate is the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) but the turnaround time for its major assessments is five or ten years, and that creates an “information gap”, particularly when climate indicators are changing rapidly.  

In an initiative being led by the University of Leeds, the scientists have developed an open data, open science platform - the Indicators of Global Climate Change and website (https://igcc.earth/. It will update information on key climate indicators every year.  

Critical decade for climate change 

The Indicators of Global Climate Change Project is being co-ordinated by Professor Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at Leeds. He said: “This is the critical decade for climate change.   

 “Decisions made now will have an impact on how much temperatures will rise and the degree and severity of impacts we will see as a result.   

“Long-term warming rates are currently at a long-term high, caused by highest-ever levels of greenhouse gas emissions. But there is evidence that the rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions has slowed. 

“We need to be nimble footed in the face of climate change. We need to change policy and approaches in the light of the latest evidence about the state of the climate system. Time is no longer on our side. Access to up-to-date information is vitally important.” 

Writing in the journal Earth System Science Data, the scientists have revealed how key indicators have changed since the publication of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Working Group 1 report in 2021- which produced the key data that fed into the subsequent IPCC Sixth Synthesis Report. 

What the updated indicators show  

Human-induced warming, largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels, reached an average of 1.14°C for the most recent decade (2013 to 2022) above pre-industrial levels. This is up from 1.07°C between 2010 and 2019.  

Human-induced warming is now increasing at a pace of over 0.2°C per decade.  

The analysis also found that greenhouse gas emissions were “at an all-time high”, with human activity resulting in the equivalent of 54 (+/-5.3) gigatonnes (or billion metric tonnes) of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere on average every year over the last decade (2012-2021).  

There has been positive move away from burning coal, yet this has come at a short-term cost in that it has added to global warming by reducing particulate pollution in the air, which has a cooling effect.   

‘Indicators critical to address climate crisis’ 

Professor Maisa Rojas Corradi, Minister of the Environment in Chile, IPCC author and a scientist involved in this study, said: “An annual update of key indicators of global change is critical in helping the international community and countries to keep the urgency of addressing the climate crisis at the top of the agenda and for evidence-based decision-making. 

“In line with the “ratchet-mechanism” of increasing ambition envisioned by the Paris Agreement we need scientific information about emissions, concentration, and temperature as often as possible to keep international climate negotiations up to date and to be able to adjust and if necessary correct national policies.  

“In the case of Chile, we have a climate change law that aims at aligning government-wide policies with climate action.” 

Remaining carbon budget  

One of the major findings of the analysis is the rate of decline in what is known as the remaining carbon budget, an estimate of how much carbon that can be released into the atmosphere to give a 50% chance of keeping global temperature rise within 1.5°C.   

In 2020, the IPCC calculated the remaining carbon budget was around 500 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. By the start of 2023, the figure was roughly half that at around 250 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.   

The reduction in the estimated remaining carbon budget is due to a combination of continued emissions since 2020 and updated estimates of human-induced warming.   

Professor Forster said: “Even though we are not yet at 1.5°C warming, the carbon budget will likely be exhausted in only a few years as we have a triple whammy of heating from very high CO2 emissions, heating from increases in other GHG emissions and heating from reductions in pollution.  

“If we don’t want to see the 1.5°C goal disappearing in our rearview mirror, the world must work much harder and urgently at bringing emissions down. 

“Our aim is for this project to help the key players urgently make that important work happen with up-to-date and timely data at their fingertips.”   

Dr ValĂ©rie Masson-Delmotte, from the UniversitĂ© Paris Saclay who co-chaired Working Group 1 of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment report and was involved in the climate indicators project, said: “This robust update shows intensifying heating of our climate driven by human activities. It is a timely wake up call for the 2023 global stocktake of the Paris Agreement - the pace and scale of climate action is not sufficient to limit the escalation of climate-related risks.” 

As recent IPCC reports have conclusively shown, with every further increment of global warming, the frequency and intensity of climate extremes, including hot extremes, heavy rainfall and agricultural droughts, increases.  

The Indicators of Global Climate Change (https://igcc.earth/) will have annually updated information on greenhouse gas emissions, human-induced global warming and the remaining carbon budget.   

The website extends a successful climate dashboard called the Climate Change Tracker which was created by software developers who took ideas from the finance industry on how to present complex information to the public.   

What the analysis revealed 

Climate Indicator  

Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)  

Latest value  

Greenhouse gas emissions (decadal average)  

53 GtCO2e (2010-2019)  

54 Gt CO2e (2012-2021)  

Human-induced warming since preindustrial times  

1.07°C  

1.14°C  

Remaining carbon budget (1.5C, 50% chance)  

500 GtCO2  

About 250 GtCO2 and very uncertain  

Headline results from the paper Indicators of Global Climate Change 2022: Annual update of large-scale indicators of the state of the climate system and the human influence.  “AR6” refers to approximately 2019 and “Now” refers to 2022.  The AR6 period decadal average greenhouse gas emissions are our re-evaluated assessment for 2010-2019. 

END

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