Australia and the world are fast running out of time to limit negative impacts of climate change to spans of multiple generations rather than millennia

 

The United Nations website is very clear about what has been agreed at an international level concerning the global response required to limit the Earth’s global warming to an average 1.5°C, thereby limiting the negative impacts of climate change in intensity and time span – hopefully to spans of multiple generations rather than millennia.

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015. It entered into force on 4 November 2016.

Its overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

Australia is a party to the 2015 Paris Agreement, effective 4 November 2016.

However, in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century.

That’s because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.

To limit global warming to 1.5°C, greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline 43% by 2030.

All those nations which entered into the Paris Agreement agreed to participate in the global attempt to reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emission by establishing firm undertakings in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

In their NDCs, countries communicate actions they will take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in order to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. Countries also communicate in their NDCs actions they will take to build resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Australia submitted its first NDC to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in 2015 and updated that version of the NDC in 2022. This update commits Australia to reducing its emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. It should be noted that in 2005 Australia’s total national greenhouse gas emissions of 559.1 million tonnes of carbon equivalent gases (MT CO²-e) was already 102.2% of its 1990 annual total of 515.9 MT CO²-e.

It could be said that even now our national reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is sluggish at best.

"For the year to June [2023], according to the preliminary numbers from the government’s latest national greenhouse gas inventory, emissions were 4.1 million tonnes above those for the corresponding period the previous year." [The Saturday Paper, 08.09.23]

 

In the year to December 2015 Australia’s “annual unadjusted” greenhouse gas emissions stood at 529.2 MT CO²-e. An artificially constructed figure because per government policy it excluded emissions from from land use, land use change and forestry. These excluded emissions would have possibly added more than 1.0 MT CO²-e bringing the national annual total to over 30 MT CO²-e in 2015.

By year to December 2022 Australia’s “actual annual” greenhouse gas emissions were recorded as 463.9 MT CO²-e. A figure arrived at by an alleged fall in emissions from land use, land use change and forestry of est. -13.6 MT CO²-e due to professed reductions in land clearing and native forest harvesting, increases in plantations and native vegetation, and improvements in soil carbon. NOTE: By year to December 2022 each person in Australia was estimated to be responsible for 17.8 tonnes CO²-e of that year’s greenhouse gas emissions total.

What Australian governments and industries has effected was a paltry national greenhouse gas emissions change of est.

-65.3 MT CO²-e spread over eight years – an average of 8.1. Or est. -95.2 MT CO²-e spread over 17 years – an average of 5.6 MT CO²-e per annum. And that change was to a significant degree on the back of the adoption of rooftop renewable energy by the general population which in the year to December 2022 was contributing to an electricity sector emissions reduction of 5.5 MT CO²-e, according to the Dept. of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Either way, leaving Australia with an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least the promised -240.4 MT CO²-e within the next seven years. That’s roughly 34.3 MT CO²-e emissions we have to cease releasing into the air, waterways and oceans each and every year until 2030 to even have a chance at surviving as a nation and a functioning society beyond that year.

Creative accounting using offsets, hiding behind green washing propaganda, pushing hard decisions further down the track into the future, just won’t work. We need to immediately tighten polluting emissions regulations & abatement requirements, begin phasing out current unabated fossils greenhouse gas and, from this point in time where we stand right now, we must refuse all new or expanded proposals for fossil fuel extraction and use.

Australian industry and corporations both foreign and domestic are laughing in our faces and, federal & state governments appear all but frozen into inaction by the magnitude of the climate crisis before us. There will be no heroes coming down from the mountains to save us, no ships arriving to sail us all to as yet undiscovered safety, no divine miracles falling from the skies.

Australia’s estimated resident population stood at 26,268,359 men, women and children in December 2022 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 

An estimated 21,461,249 of the resident population in 2022 were individuals 15 years of age and older.

By default theirs is the burden of stopping that 240.4 MT CO²-e of additional pollution entering earth’s atmosphere over Australia by 2030. That’s an extra 11.2 tonnes CO²-e per person averaging 1.6 tonne of carbon equivalent a year.

So how do we each attempt to shoulder this terrible burden? 

"Key finding 4: global emissions are not in line with modelled global mitigation pathways consistent with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, and there is a rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition and implement existing commitments in order to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels." 

[United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), Technical dialogue of the first global stocktake, Advance Version 8 September 2023, excerpt]

 

PRINCIPAL SOURCES

• UN., Climate Change, retrieved 8 September 2023
• U.N., The Paris Agreement
• U.N., Technical dialogue of the first global stocktake. Synthesis report by the co-facilitators on the technical dialogue, Advance Version 8 September 2023
• U.N., Nationally Determined Contributions Registry
• DCCEEW, Australia’s National Greenhouse Accounts, 1990 onwards
• DCCEEW, National Inventory Reports
• DCCEEW, National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: Quarterly updates 2009-2023
• ABS, Australia's Environment: Issues and Trends, 2002 onwards
• ABS, Year Book Australia, 2005
• Our Word In Data, C02 Emissions
• Nature, Food, Global food-miles account for nearly 20% of total food-systems emissions, 15 December 2022

Postscript:

Stocktaking our personal emissions level and, looking at ways of reducing that average per head of population average green house gas emission excessive budget of 17.8 tonnes CO²-e, may be something we can all attempt. 

For example: 

• the average vehicle in Australia is estimated to travel 12,100 km per year or 33.2 km per day, which represents around 2.1 tonne CO²-e annually; 

• while the average household across all power supply types is estimated to consume 5,818.6kw/h of electricity each year, which can be as high as 3 tonne CO²-e annually depending on the mix of supply types per household; and

• imported food or imported ingredients have food transport kilometres attached, which in Australia's case means food importation from the European Union represents est. 1.3 MT CO²-e annually or approx. 50 kg CO²-e per capita. A serve of deli sausage from Denmark travels est. 25,000 food kilometres to reach the supermarket counter. 

Time to get cracking and shame the devils who brought us to this catastrophic pass - even if the task appears impossible and we merely so many cursed children of a condemned Sisyphus.

Cartoons of the Week

 

Megan Herbert

Mark David

Cathy Wilcox

Australia on the international stage, 23 September 2022

 

 

Senator Penny Wong, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, addresses the 11th plenary meeting session of the general debate of the 77th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations on 23 September 2022.

The seventy-seventh session of the General Assembly opened on 13 September under the theme; “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges.” The theme stems from the recognition that the world is at a critical moment in the history of the United Nations due to complex and interconnected crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, humanitarian challenges of unprecedented nature, a tipping point in climate change as well as growing concerns about threats to the global economy. It is therefore necessary to find and focus on joint solutions to these crises and build a more sustainable and resilient world for all and for the generations to come.

Scott Morrison's "The Australian Way" climate change policy called out as unworkable, reckless and dangerous at UN COP26 Climate Change Conference 2021

"The pandemic has taught us that national solutions to global problems do not work. We come to Glasgow with global ambition to save our people and to save our planet. But we now find three gaps. On mitigation climate pledges are NDCs [nationally determined contributions]. Without more we will leave the world on a pathway to 2.7 degrees and with more we are still likely to get to 2 degrees. These commitments made by some are based on technologies yet to be developed and this is at best reckless and at worst dangerous...."  [Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley Q.C., Day Two, UN Climate Conference 2021, Glasgow Scotland U.K.]

FULL SPEECH: "1.5°C is what we need to survive, 2°C, is a death sentence... We do not want that dreaded death sentence, and we've come here today to say, try harder, try harder."

Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley Q.C. addresses #COP26 Climate Conference pic.twitter.com/hlK9cQ1eD6

— CCN TV6 (@tv6tnt) November 1, 2021

Snapshot of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor listening to the full speech.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison states that net zero emissions will be achieved through technology and "the animal spirits of our business community". I rather thought it was those very same animal spirits which had been globally polluting our atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution began in the 1700s

 

On 19 April 2021 at the Business Council of Australia Annual Dinner Prime Minister Scott Morrison informed the world that; “We are going to meet our ambitions with the smartest minds, the best technology and the animal spirits of our business community. We need to change our energy mix over the next 30 years on that road to net zero emissions…..It will be achieved by the pioneering entrepreneurialism and innovation of Australia’s industrial workhorses, farmers and scientists.

It will be won in places like the Pilbara, the Hunter, Gladstone, Portland, Whyalla, Bell Bay, the Riverina. In the factories of our regional towns and outer suburbs. In the labs of our best research institutes and scientists. It will be won in our energy sector. In our industrial sector. In our ag sector. In our manufacturing sector. That’s how you get to net zero.

It would appear that his first step on this journey is to make a token investment in ‘clean’ energy by way of $539 million in funding for new projects involving hydrogen product and capture & storage, which will apparently be fuelled by both black and brown coal – thereby increasing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions Australia releases into the atmosphere.

This folly was pointed out by ABC News on 21 April 2021:

Getting hydrogen into a pure, useable form takes a lot of energy and this process can produce a lot of emissions.

And so, that is why experts talk about different types of hydrogen — brown, black, grey, blue and green.

Only "green" hydrogen is produced entirely through renewable power and has zero emissions. The others use electricity made by coal (black or brown) or gas (grey), sometimes with carbon capture and storage (blue).

The Government call its hydrogen plans "clean" — a combination of hydrogen from gas and renewables.

The Climate Council says the term is "misleading" for average Australians.

Its website states: "Proponents of fossil-fuelled hydrogen have used this to describe fossil fuel hydrogen linked to carbon capture and storage, as well as renewably sourced hydrogen."

"Only the variety of hydrogen generated with renewables … belongs in our zero emissions future."….

The government insists real progress is being made on CCS technology.

However, many climate scientists believe, when it comes to fossil-fuel energy production, CCS is not a serious alternative to wind and solar power.

Some, like the Climate Council, see it as an attempt to prolong the use of fossil fuels.

"The Gorgon CCS trial has been a big, expensive failure. It is capturing less than half the emissions needed to make CCS viable," the Climate Council's website states.

"CCS is extremely expensive and cannot deliver zero emissions."

"There are still no successful projects operating anywhere in the world."

While The Guardian on April 2021 published these telling quotes:

Harry Guinness, a former Liberal adviser and chief executive of the centre-right thinktank the Blueprint Institute, said the US was planning to spend about 35 times what Australia allocated in the last federal budget on green stimulus, and the government would need to commit to serious finance if Australia was to make a transition to net zero by 2050 as Scott Morrison has said is his preference…..

“Our friends and allies are going to want to see tangible commitments. They’ve been quite clear about that, it’s no mystery,” Guinness said. “If we are in the game of bringing technologies down the cost curve we need finance and incentives, including pricing carbon. Actions speak louder than words.”

Tony Wood, the Grattan Institute’s energy program director, said there was little detail in what the government had announced on Wednesday, making it hard to assess, but that Australia was spending significantly less on hydrogen than some other countries.

He said Australia was also offering support for hydrogen made with fossil fuels where others were backing “green hydrogen” made with renewable energy only.

“I don’t see any evidence that Australia has developed positions that are leading the world,” he said…..

Announcing the funding on Wednesday, Morrison said hydrogen was “zero emissions gas”.

The Greens said as the government planned to support hydrogen made with fossil fuels as well as renewable energy its commitment was “just more cash for coal and gas”. The party’s leader, Adam Bandt, said it paled next to multibillio-dollar green hydrogen commitments by other countries including South Korea, Germany, Spain, France, Japan and Saudi Arabia.

“This government’s obsession with coal and gas is about to cost Australia as other countries invest heavily in green hydrogen, giving them the edge as future markets open up,” Bandt said. “With all our wind and sunshine, this is Australia’s competitive advantage to seize, but it is being lost.”…..

Richie Merzian, the Australia Institute’s climate and energy program director, said it appeared the government was “once again using climate action to support fossil fuel companies”. He said that under current commitments it was possible by 2030 the US would have halved its emissions and the UK cut its emissions by two-thirds but Australia was sitting on a 26% cut while still subsidising fossil fuels…..

I was talking to a public servant climate policy in his portfolio the other day who said 'at least when we were in enviro (dept) we felt like climate policy might relate vaguely to the environment. Now we're just the department for coal and gas. No ones even pretending anymore '

— Polly Hemming (@pollyjhemming) April 21, 2021

Morrison must think the Australian electorate and every OECD government around the world are so monumentally stupid as to not realise that these announcements (and their lack of detail, fuzzy timelines or no guaranteed funding) are solely for the benefit of US President Joe Biden 's two-day virtual Leaders Summit which began on 22 April 2021, with a weather eye out for the twelve-day UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) to be held in Glasgow during November 2021.

By the time all his half-promises and evasions concerning zero emissions have failed to meet the 2050 target date, Scott Morrison will be 81 years of age and I will be long dead - having lived all my life in a country which only genuinely attempted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for six short years between June 2007 to September 2013.

Australian Prime Minster Morrison & Foreign Minster Payne not as sanguine about trading partners' pledges of zero green house gas emission targets as they pretend?

This was Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison after the world left this country even further behind with regard to climate change policy and emissions reduction targets…..

The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 October 2020:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he will not be dictated to by other governments' climate change goals, declaring he is not worried about the future of Australia's exports despite four of the country's top trading partners adopting net-zero emissions targets.

China, Japan, Britain and South Korea, which account for more than $310 billion in Australian annual trade between them, have all now adopted the emissions target by 2050 or 2060, ramping up pressure on Australia's fossil fuel industry. Coal and natural gas alone are worth more than 25 per cent of Australia's exports, or $110 billion each year….

Major Australian export companies such as Rio Tinto, BHP, major agriculture groups and multinational food companies are pursuing carbon neutrality, which experts say is a move to avoid being stung with trade tariffs or charges by countries that have set net-zero targets….

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister and Liberal Senator Marise Payne was just as stubborn as her own prime minister.

However, it was made obvious by at least one other media article published the next day that Morrison was perhaps uncomfortable with the situation and how it might read to the general public.

The Guardian, 29 October 2019:

The Morrison government has quietly appointed an expert panel to come up with new ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions and given it less than a month to come up with recommendations.

In what is being seen by observers as an acknowledgment that its main climate change policy, the $2.55bn emissions reduction fund, is failing to cut national pollution, the government has appointed a panel of four business leaders and policy experts to suggest options to expand it.

The panel is headed by Grant King, the outgoing president of the Business Council of Australia and a former chief executive of Origin Energy. It was appointed by the minister for emissions reduction, Angus Taylor, in mid-October but has not been made public…..

The panel has been established despite Morrison and Taylor maintaining they have set out “to the last tonne” of carbon dioxide how Australia will meet the 2030 emissions target announced before the Paris climate conference . In reality, national emissions have risen each year since 2015  and most analyses  suggest the government will not reach the goal, a 26%-28% cut below 2005 levels, under current policies…..

Expert Panel examining oppo... by The Guardian

https://www.scribd.com/document/432470725/Expert-Panel-examining-opportunities-for-further-abatement

BACKGROUND

The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 October 2019:

Australia's carbon emissions appear to have edged higher in the final quarter of the 2018-19 financial year, delaying the downward trajectory the nation needs in order to hit the country's Paris climate goals.

National emissions are projected to have reached 134.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2-e) in April-June 2019, according to Ndevr Environmental Consultants, an environmental auditing company with a track record of accurately estimating the nation's emissions.

That total would come in about 900,000 tonnes of CO2-e more than for the previous three months, Ndevr said in a report based on public data and sector estimates. The tally would be less - by a similar amount - than the fourth quarter of 2017-18.

For the whole year, emissions were modestly higher than for previous 12 months, marking three consecutive years of increases. Excluding land-use changes - such as deforestation or tree planting - annual emissions have risen for the five years since the Abbott government scrapped the carbon price in 2014…..

A sobering interview from the UN Climate Change Conference COP 25 in December 2019

This is a sobering interview from the UN Climate Change Conference COP 25 in Madrid (2-13 December 2019).

https://youtu.be/oa13KrOvE2s

Dr. Peter Carter founded the Climate Emergency Institute. He served as an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change’s fifth climate change assessment in 2014. 

According to Dr. Carter the COP25 conference, like UN climate change conferences before it, are designed to fail.

Since 2013 Australia has been on a path that ensures such failure.

Under Scott Morrison's prime ministership the federal government's willingness to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at these conferences is becoming quite noticeable.

The Guardian, 10 December 2018:

As four of the world’s largest oil and gas producers blocked UN climate talks from “welcoming” a key scientific report on global warming, Australia’s silence during a key debate is being viewed as tacit support for the four oil allies: the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait.

The end of the first week of the UN climate talks – known as COP24 – in Katowice, Poland, has been mired by protracted debate over whether the conference should “welcome” or “note” a key report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC’s 1.5 degrees report, released in October, warned the world would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 45% by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5C and potentially avoid some of the worst effects of climate change, including a dramatically increased risk of drought, flood, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

BBC News, 12 December 2019:

According to the UN, 84 countries have promised to enhance their national plans by the end of next year. Some 73 have said they will set a long-term target of net zero by the middle of the century. In a rare move, negotiators from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) pointed the finger of blame at countries including Australia, the United States, Canada, Russia, India, China and Brazil. They had failed to submit revised plans that would help the world keep the rise in global temperatures under 1.5C this century.

Courier Mail, 14 December 2019:

Australia has come under fire for resisting proposed future emissions targets and changes to carbon markets.

Escalating tensions, Costa Rica’s environment and energy minister Carlos Manuel Rodríguez outright blamed “Australia, Brazil and the US” for the stalemate.

For clarity, obviously all countries are here to advance their national interest. For some that's to stop all their citizens dying. For others it's profit #COP25 https://t.co/CaSy8OzeQU

— Patrick Galey (@patrickgaley) December 14, 2019

CLIMATE CHANGE 2019: The Morrison Government and much of the media are obviously not listening, so ordinary Australians have to

Media Matters (USA), 14 August 2019:

In the early hours of August 8, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report detailing climate change’s effects on land and agricultural practices. The next morning, on August 9, a majority of top newspapers in each of the top 10 agricultural producing states failed to mention this report on their front pages. Additionally, neither NBC Nightly News nor any of the Sunday political news shows discussed the report.

According to the new IPCC report, climate change is drastically altering the planet’s agricultural land and humankind’s ability to survive from it. Land use accounts for about 23% of human greenhouse gas emissions, and practices like deforestation and intensive farming are adding more stress to it. Fertilizer emissions have risen sharply since the 1960s, and soil is being lost at an almost unprecedented rate. Land is heating up faster than the oceans, and the consequences -- more droughts, floods, coastal erosion, and melting permafrost -- have major food security implications. Food insecurity will hit people from developing and lower-income countries the hardest.

The IPCC has laid out a number of solutions to this crisis, including cutting food waste, adopting smarter farming methods, and protecting forests. Ultimately, the report states that humanity needs to become better stewards of its land if we want to tackle the climate crisis.

In Australia the mainstream media response to the UN report was almost as desultory, with only the AAP wire service and three print mastheads running articles in the first two days.

For those who have not yet read the 43 page IPCC summary or started on the much longer full report, here are some of the predictions set out below.

As of June 2019 the world population is an est. 7.7 billion men, women and children. This figure is too high to guarantee that people will not die of thirst, starvation, heat stress, severe cold, infection or natural disaster as climate change intensifies.

IPCC Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse gas fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems: Summary for Policymakers, 7 August 2019, excerpts:

A1.5. About a quarter of the Earth’s ice-free land area is subject to human-induced degradation (medium confidence). Soil erosion from agricultural fields is estimated to be currently 10 to 20 times (no tillage) to more than 100 times (conventional tillage) higher than the soil formation rate (medium confidence). Climate change exacerbates land degradation, particularly in low-lying coastal areas, river deltas, drylands and in permafrost areas (high confidence). Over the period 1961-2013, the annual area of drylands in drought has increased, on average by slightly more than 1% per year, with large inter-annual variability. In 2015, about 500 (380-620) million people lived within areas which experienced desertification between the 1980s and 2000s. The highest numbers of people affected are in South and East Asia, the circum Sahara region including North Africa, and the Middle East including the Arabian peninsula (low confidence). Other dryland regions have also experienced desertification. People living in already degraded or desertified areas are increasingly negatively affected by climate change (high confidence). {1.1, 1.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, Figure SPM.1}

A2.5. In some dryland areas, increased land surface air temperature and evapotranspiration and decreased precipitation amount, in interaction with climate variability and human activities, have contributed to desertification. These areas include Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of East and Central Asia, and Australia. (medium confidence) {2.2, 3.2.2, 4.4.1}

A4.5. Changes in forest cover for example from afforestation, reforestation and deforestation, directly affect regional surface temperature through exchanges of water and energy²⁷ (high confidence). Where forest cover increases in tropical regions cooling results from enhanced evapotranspiration (high confidence). Increased evapotranspiration can result in cooler days during the growing season (high confidence) and can reduce the amplitude of heat related events (medium confidence). In regions with seasonal snow cover, such as boreal and some

temperate, increased tree and shrub cover also has a wintertime warming influence due to reduced surface albedo28 (high confidence). {2.3, 2.4.3, 2.5.1, 2.5.2, 2.5.4}

A. Risks to humans and ecosystems from changes in land-based processes as a result of climate change

Increases in global mean surface temperature (GMST), relative to pre-industrial levels, affect processes involved in desertification (water scarcity), land degradation (soil erosion, vegetation loss, wildfire, permafrost thaw) and food security (crop yield and food supply instabilities). Changes in these processes drive risks to food systems, livelihoods, infrastructure, the value of land, and human and ecosystem health. Changes in one process (e.g. wildfire or water scarcity) may result in compound risks. Risks are location-specific and differ by region

A5.2. With increasing warming, climate zones are projected to further shift poleward in the middle and high latitudes (high confidence). In high-latitude regions, warming is projected to increase disturbance in boreal forests, including drought, wildfire, and pest outbreaks (high confidence). In tropical regions, under medium and high GHG emissions scenarios, warming is projected to result in the emergence of unprecedented29 climatic conditions by the mid to late 21^st century (medium confidence). {2.2.4, 2.2.5, 2.5.3, 4.3.2}

A5.3. Current levels of global warming are associated with moderate risks from increased dryland water scarcity, soil erosion, vegetation loss, wildfire damage, permafrost thawing, coastal degradation and tropical crop yield decline (high confidence). Risks, including cascading risks, are projected to become increasingly severe with increasing temperatures. At around 1.5°C of global warming the risks from dryland water scarcity, wildfire damage, permafrost degradation and food supply instabilities are projected to be high (medium confidence). At around 2°C of global warming the risk from permafrost degradation and food supply instabilities are projected to be very high (medium confidence). Additionally, at around 3°C of global warming risk from vegetation loss, wildfire damage, and dryland water scarcity are also projected to be very high (medium confidence). Risks from droughts, water stress, heat related events such as heatwaves and habitat degradation simultaneously increase between 1.5°C and 3°C warming (low confidence). {Figure SPM.2, 7.2.2, Cross-Chapter Box 9 in Chapter 6, Chapter 7 supplementary material}

A5.4. The stability of food supply30 is projected to decrease as the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events that disrupt food chains increases (high confidence). Increased atmospheric CO2 levels can also lower the nutritional quality of crops (high confidence). In SSP2, global crop and economic models project a median increase of 7.6% (range of 1 to 23%) in cereal prices in 2050 due to climate change (RCP6.0), leading to higher food prices and increased risk of food insecurity and hunger (medium confidence). The most vulnerable people will be more severely affected (high confidence). {5.2.3, 5.2.4, 5.2.5, 5.8.1, 7.2.2.2, 7.3.1}

A5.5. In drylands, climate change and desertification are projected to cause reductions in crop and livestock productivity (high confidence), modify the plant species mix and reduce biodiversity (medium confidence). Under SSP2, the dryland population vulnerable to water stress, drought intensity and habitat degradation is projected to reach 178 million people by 2050 at 1.5°C warming, increasing to 220 million people at 2°C warming, and 277 million people at 3°C warming (low confidence). {3.5.1, 3.5.2, 3.7.3}