Tag Archive for: Paris agreement

Tackling climate change in the age of Trump

There is no denying the reality of global warming. Each year is hotter than the preceding one. Last month alone was the hottest January on record. Recurring natural disasters—floods, fires, droughts and hurricanes—are becoming more extreme and frequent. The world has blown through the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C above the pre-industrial level. At this rate, climate change could define the second half of this century.

National and international efforts to stem climate change are not succeeding. The Global South views the problem as one that ought to be fixed by richer countries that developed sooner. Many countries, including China, prioritise near-term economic growth over reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, and freeriding on other governments’ efforts is widespread, partly owing to public opposition to taxes that could curb energy use or encourage climate-conscious behaviours.

Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has led the United States swiftly into this camp, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, rescinding emissions-reduction targets and ending climate-related initiatives. His administration is focussed on increasing fossil-fuel production, even though the US is already the world’s leading producer of oil and gas and has only modest potential to increase output.

The reasons are not only economic but also cultural and political, with many Americans resenting or rejecting experts’ climate warnings. The good news, though, is that a range of potential initiatives that are consistent with the Trump administration’s priorities could still slow climate change.

Those who acknowledge the seriousness of the climate crisis can repeat the same arguments, attend the same global conferences and advocate for the same policies in the hope that at some point what has mostly failed will mostly succeed. But they would be better off trying a different approach, one that reflects political realities in the US and around the world but could still make a meaningful difference.

Such an approach must begin with realistic goals. Climate change can be managed, not stopped or solved. Global emissions continue to rise, fossil fuels still account for 80 percent of world energy use and talk of a transition away from them is mostly just that: talk. And energy use will only continue to increase as the global population increases, Africa develops, electrification expands and new data centres required for artificial intelligence are built.

Given this, embracing energy coexistence is unavoidable. Fossil fuels will be here for decades to come. While developed countries are abandoning coal (albeit not completely), its use in the developing world continues to increase, where the goal should be to accelerate the shift toward cleaner natural gas. The same holds for practices that limit methane emissions. Renewables are growing in importance and should be encouraged through public-private partnerships. There is no reason that a US president prepared to be tough on China should allow it to dominate green technological innovation. The private sector, which has made enormous investments and stands to gain from future ones, should weigh in.

Policymakers should also emphasise adaptation and resilience at the national, state and local levels. Building codes and zoning regulations need to be rethought to limit vulnerability to climate-related extreme heat, fires, storms and flooding. Investment in such infrastructure could create jobs and make it possible for people to live where they want. Solutions that increase the efficiency of the energy grid, water systems and household appliances should also be adopted. Here, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) should weigh in.

Likewise, a feasible climate-change policy must treat nuclear energy as indispensable for achieving reliable clean power. This can only happen by streamlining permitting processes to accelerate deployment of new reactors. China is building nuclear plants in under five years; there is no good reason the US cannot match this. Similarly, roadblocks to much needed renewable projects, mining of critical minerals and development of energy infrastructure ought to be reduced. Here, too, DOGE could have a role to play.

The federal government and states (together with companies) should also invest in technologies such as direct air capture, better scrubbing systems for coal plants and carbon capture, utilisation, sequestration and storage. Again, there is no reason that economic growth must be sacrificed.

A greater focus on what communities and cities can do to reduce their vulnerability to fires, floods and the like can help manage the effects of climate change without engaging the ideological debate. It would also help to engage new climate allies, including religious leaders, educators and business leaders. Many young people are already there.

At the same time, global efforts should be restructured. The annual United Nations climate change conferences are falling short. What is needed are smaller groups (what some call minilateralism) focussing on specific aspects of the climate challenge and involving the governments and companies that matter most. Trade offers a model here: whereas global efforts have failed, regional and other small clusters have flourished.

Nature-based climate stewardship of the oceans and forests is also needed, because it preserves and expands the most powerful carbon sinks. Assistance of all sorts should be channelled to encourage forestation and halt or slow deforestation. Trump considers himself an environmentalist. Here is a way he can act on it.

Lastly, solar geoengineering, or reflecting solar radiation back into space, deserves more exploration. Federal investment through US national labs could ensure responsible development and governance. While controversial, it represents the kind of bold, game-changing initiative that should appeal to Trump. If successful, solar geoengineering could one day meaningfully slow or stop additional climate change and even offset some existing effects. And even if its promise proves to be less dramatic, the technology could complement existing and planned mitigation and adaptation efforts.

There are no doubt other ideas that are both desirable and feasible. What is certain is that we cannot address the climate crisis effectively by insisting on an approach that is not succeeding. Stopping climate change might well be beyond our reach, but managing it in a cost-effective way need not be.

Editors’ picks for 2018: ‘A difference of degrees: the looming climate catastrophe’

Originally published 26 October 2018.

The release earlier this month of a major UN-sponsored scientific report on the significant impacts expected from 1.5°C of global warming—the aspirational limit countries adopted in the Paris climate agreement—generated widespread media interest. Much of the commentary has rightly focused on the rapidly closing window of opportunity to achieve the aspiration and the huge scale of the societal changes required.

But the recent coverage has largely overlooked an equally important aspect of the study. Based on the most recent scientific evidence, researchers have now determined that extremely harmful climate impacts will strike at much lower temperature thresholds than previously projected.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C, which was produced at the request of countries adopting the Paris agreement, is an authoritative and cautious document. It’s the culmination of the efforts of 133 contributing authors who analysed more than 6,000 scientific studies and incorporated comments from over 40,000 expert and government reviews.

The report highlights the enormous challenge of limiting global warming to 1.5°. Annual emissions of CO2 will need to be halved by 2030 relative to 2016 levels and renewable energy will need to supply 70–85% of global electricity demand (with coal’s contribution essentially ceasing) by 2050. It notes that systemic changes on this scale would be historically unprecedented and require ‘deep emissions reductions in all sectors, a wide portfolio of mitigation options and a significant upscaling of investments in those options’.

A key objective of the report is to describe how the climate-related risks at 1.5° would differ from those at 2° of warming (the upper limit agreed in Paris). Not surprisingly, the report concludes that the risks for human and natural systems are higher at 2°, but it is the scale of the difference that is most worrying—particularly given that without further ambition to reduce greenhouse gases, we can expect between 3° and 4° of warming.

For example, that 0.5° difference would, according to the report, result in several hundred million additional people falling into poverty; a 50% increase in the proportion of the global population experiencing water stress; 420 million more people frequently exposed to extreme heatwaves; 184 to 270 million more people exposed to an increase in water scarcity; and a 10-fold increase (from 8 million to 81 million) in the number of vulnerable people affected by changes to crop yields (jumping to a 50-fold increase at 3° of warming).

As distressing as these projections may be, they probably underestimate the actual harm because they don’t generally take account of the cascading impacts of disasters, which can often be more severe than the proximate impacts. The report in effect acknowledges this, noting that ‘The literature on compound as well as interacting risk at warming of 1.5°C and 2.0°C is limited.’ It observes that ‘Multi-sector risks are projected to overlap spatially and temporally, creating new (and exacerbating current) hazards, exposures, and vulnerabilities that will affect increasing numbers of people and regions with additional warming.’

Media coverage of one of the report’s most important findings has been relatively low-key. Recent research has now determined that global warming will trigger highly harmful societal impacts at significantly lower temperatures than was previously assumed.

The IPCC’s 2014 Fifth Assessment Report identified five categories of impacts and determined for each the implications at various levels of warming for people, economies and ecosystems. The categories are: unique and threatened systems; extreme weather events; distribution of impacts; global aggregate impacts; and large-scale singular impacts (so-called climate tipping points). The current study, drawing on the most up-to-date scientific evidence, has determined that the 2014 assessment significantly underestimated the risks in four of the five categories.

For example, in the case of ‘unique and threatened systems’, the threshold for the transition from ‘high’ to ‘very high’ risk has been lowered from 2.6° to between 1.5° and 2° of warming. The change reflects recent research that, among other things, has now determined with ‘very high confidence’ that 2° of warming will result in the total loss of coral reefs from the world’s tropical and subtropical regions.

‘Extreme weather’ is the only category of impacts for which the report’s finding is relatively unchanged from 2014. However, that is largely because, as the authors point out, ‘The impact literature contains very limited information about the potential for human society to adapt to extreme weather events and hence it has not been possible to locate the transition from “high” … to “very high” risk within the context of assessing impacts at 1.5°C versus 2°C global warming.’

Given the hugely disproportionate effect climate change will have on less developed countries and the likelihood of cascading impacts, there is good reason to suspect that plugging this research gap will reveal a significantly lower threshold in this major category as well.

As the scientific uncertainty diminishes, it is becoming increasingly clear that we have greatly underestimated the impacts of climate change. The IPCC report’s findings make it urgent for nations, including Australia, to scale up rapidly their national commitments under the Paris agreement.

A difference of degrees: the looming climate catastrophe

The release earlier this month of a major UN-sponsored scientific report on the significant impacts expected from 1.5°C of global warming—the aspirational limit countries adopted in the Paris climate agreement—generated widespread media interest. Much of the commentary has rightly focused on the rapidly closing window of opportunity to achieve the aspiration and the huge scale of the societal changes required.

But the recent coverage has largely overlooked an equally important aspect of the study. Based on the most recent scientific evidence, researchers have now determined that extremely harmful climate impacts will strike at much lower temperature thresholds than previously projected.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C, which was produced at the request of countries adopting the Paris agreement, is an authoritative and cautious document. It’s the culmination of the efforts of 133 contributing authors who analysed more than 6,000 scientific studies and incorporated comments from over 40,000 expert and government reviews.

The report highlights the enormous challenge of limiting global warming to 1.5°. Annual emissions of CO2 will need to be halved by 2030 relative to 2016 levels and renewable energy will need to supply 70–85% of global electricity demand (with coal’s contribution essentially ceasing) by 2050. It notes that systemic changes on this scale would be historically unprecedented and require ‘deep emissions reductions in all sectors, a wide portfolio of mitigation options and a significant upscaling of investments in those options’.

A key objective of the report is to describe how the climate-related risks at 1.5° would differ from those at 2° of warming (the upper limit agreed in Paris). Not surprisingly, the report concludes that the risks for human and natural systems are higher at 2°, but it is the scale of the difference that is most worrying—particularly given that without further ambition to reduce greenhouse gases, we can expect between 3° and 4° of warming.

For example, that 0.5° difference would, according to the report, result in several hundred million additional people falling into poverty; a 50% increase in the proportion of the global population experiencing water stress; 420 million more people frequently exposed to extreme heatwaves; 184 to 270 million more people exposed to an increase in water scarcity; and a 10-fold increase (from 8 million to 81 million) in the number of vulnerable people affected by changes to crop yields (jumping to a 50-fold increase at 3° of warming).

As distressing as these projections may be, they probably underestimate the actual harm because they don’t generally take account of the cascading impacts of disasters, which can often be more severe than the proximate impacts. The report in effect acknowledges this, noting that ‘The literature on compound as well as interacting risk at warming of 1.5°C and 2.0°C is limited.’ It observes that ‘Multi-sector risks are projected to overlap spatially and temporally, creating new (and exacerbating current) hazards, exposures, and vulnerabilities that will affect increasing numbers of people and regions with additional warming.’

Media coverage of one of the report’s most important findings has been relatively low-key. Recent research has now determined that global warming will trigger highly harmful societal impacts at significantly lower temperatures than was previously assumed.

The IPCC’s 2014 Fifth Assessment Report identified five categories of impacts and determined for each the implications at various levels of warming for people, economies and ecosystems. The categories are: unique and threatened systems; extreme weather events; distribution of impacts; global aggregate impacts; and large-scale singular impacts (so-called climate tipping points). The current study, drawing on the most up-to-date scientific evidence, has determined that the 2014 assessment significantly underestimated the risks in four of the five categories.

For example, in the case of ‘unique and threatened systems’, the threshold for the transition from ‘high’ to ‘very high’ risk has been lowered from 2.6° to between 1.5° and 2° of warming. The change reflects recent research that, among other things, has now determined with ‘very high confidence’ that 2° of warming will result in the total loss of coral reefs from the world’s tropical and subtropical regions.

‘Extreme weather’ is the only category of impacts for which the report’s finding is relatively unchanged from 2014. However, that is largely because, as the authors point out, ‘The impact literature contains very limited information about the potential for human society to adapt to extreme weather events and hence it has not been possible to locate the transition from “high” … to “very high” risk within the context of assessing impacts at 1.5°C versus 2°C global warming.’

Given the hugely disproportionate effect climate change will have on less developed countries and the likelihood of cascading impacts, there is good reason to suspect that plugging this research gap will reveal a significantly lower threshold in this major category as well.

As the scientific uncertainty diminishes, it is becoming increasingly clear that we have greatly underestimated the impacts of climate change. The IPCC report’s findings make it urgent for nations, including Australia, to scale up rapidly their national commitments under the Paris agreement.