Human
activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming
above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global
warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to
increase at the current rate. (high confidence) (Figure SPM.1) {1.2} [United Nations (2018) Global Warming of 1.5°C. Summary
for Policymakers]
The global situation.....
“With more than 6,000
scientific references cited and the dedicated contribution of thousands of
expert and government reviewers worldwide, this important report testifies to
the breadth and policy relevance of the IPCC,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the
IPCC.
Ninety-one authors and
review editors from 40 countries prepared the IPCC report in response to an
invitation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) when it adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The report’s full name
is Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of
global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global
greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global
response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts
to eradicate poverty.
“One of the key messages
that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the
consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea
levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes,” said Panmao Zhai,
Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.
Limiting global
warming
The report highlights a
number of climate change impacts that could be avoided by limiting global
warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC, or more. For instance, by 2100, global sea
level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C.
The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once
per century with global warming of 1.5°C, compared with at least once per
decade with 2°C. Coral reefs would decline by 70-90 percent with global warming
of 1.5°C, whereas virtually all (> 99 percent) would be lost with 2ºC.
“Every extra bit of
warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5ºC or higher increases the risk
associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some
ecosystems,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.
Limiting global warming
would also give people and ecosystems more room to adapt and remain below
relevant risk thresholds, added Pörtner. The report also examines pathways
available to limit warming to 1.5ºC, what it would take to achieve them and what
the consequences could be.
“The good news is that
some of the kinds of actions that would be needed to limit global warming to
1.5ºC are already underway around the world, but they would need to
accelerate,” said Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Co-Chair of Working Group I.
The report finds that
limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require “rapid and far-reaching”
transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global
net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about
45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This
means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from
the air.
“Limiting warming to
1.5ºC is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would
require unprecedented changes,” said Jim Skea, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group
III.
Allowing the global
temperature to temporarily exceed or ‘overshoot’ 1.5ºC would mean a greater
reliance on techniques that remove CO2 from the air to return global
temperature to below 1.5ºC by 2100. The effectiveness of such techniques are
unproven at large scale and some may carry significant risks for sustainable
development, the report notes.
“Limiting global warming
to 1.5°C compared with 2°C would reduce challenging impacts on ecosystems,
human health and well-being, making it easier to achieve the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals,” said Priyardarshi Shukla, Co-Chair of IPCC
Working Group III.
The decisions we make
today are critical in ensuring a safe and sustainable world for everyone, both
now and in the future, said Debra Roberts, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.
“This report gives
policymakers and practitioners the information they need to make decisions that
tackle climate change while considering local context and people’s needs. The
next few years are probably the most important in our history,” she said.
Global emissions of
carbon dioxide have reached the highest levels on record, scientists projected
Wednesday, in the latest evidence of the chasm between international goals for
combating climate change and what countries are actually doing.
Between 2014 and 2016,
emissions remained largely flat, leading to hopes that the world was beginning
to turn a corner. Those hopes have been dashed. In 2017, global emissions grew
1.6 percent. The rise in 2018 is projected to be 2.7 percent.
The expected increase,
which would bring fossil fuel and industrial emissions to a record high of 37.1
billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, is being driven by nearly 5 percent
emissions growth in China and more than 6 percent in India, researchers
estimated, along with growth in many other nations throughout the world.
Emissions by the United States grew 2.5 percent, while emissions by the
European Union declined by just under 1 percent.
As nations are gathered
for climate talks in Poland, the message of Wednesday’s report was unambiguous:
When it comes to promises to begin cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that
fuel climate change, the world remains well off target.
“We are in trouble. We
are in deep trouble with climate change,” United Nations Secretary General
António Guterres said this week at the opening of the 24th annual U.N. climate
conference, where countries will wrestle with the ambitious goals they need to
meet to sharply reduce carbon emissions in coming years.
“It is hard to overstate
the urgency of our situation,” he added. “Even as we witness devastating
climate impacts causing havoc across the world, we are still not doing enough,
nor moving fast enough, to prevent irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption.”
Guterres was not
commenting specifically on Wednesday’s findings, which were released in a trio
of scientific papers by researchers with the Global Carbon Project. But his
words came amid a litany of grim news in the fall in which scientists have warned
that the effects of climate change are no longer distant and hypothetical, and
that the impacts of global warming will only intensify in the absence of
aggressive international action.....
When
hard-right, anti-science, fundamentalist ideology in Australia descends into
madness………….
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.
The UN climate
conference commissioned the IPCC report, but when that body went to “welcome”
the report’s findings and commit to continuing its work, four nations – the US,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia,
all major oil and gas producers – refused to accept the wording, insisting
instead that the convention simply “note” the findings.
Negotiators spent two
and a half hours trying to hammer out a compromise without success.
The apparently minor
semantic debate has significant consequences, and the deadlock ensures the
debate will spill into the second critical week of negotiations, with key
government ministers set to arrive in Katowice.
Most of the world’s
countries spoke out in fierce opposition to the oil allies’ position.
The push to adopt the
wording “welcome” was led by the Maldives, leader of the alliance of small
island states, of which Australia’s Pacific island neighbours are members.
They were backed by a
broad swathe of support, including from the EU, the bloc of 47 least developed
countries, the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean,
African, American and European nations, and Pacific countries such as the Marshall
Islands and Tuvalu.
Australia did not speak
during the at-times heated debate, a silence noted by many countries on the
floor of the conference, Dr Bill Hare, the managing director of Climate
Analytics and a lead author on previous IPCC reports, told Guardian Australia.
“Australia’s silence in
the face of this attack yesterday shocked many countries and is widely seen as
de facto support for the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait’s refusal to
welcome the IPCC report,” Hare said…..
Australia’s environment
minister, Melissa Price, arrived in Katowice on Sunday, with negotiations set
to resume Monday morning.
“The government is committed to the Paris
agreement and our emissions reduction targets,” she said before leaving
Australia. “Australia’s participation in the Paris agreement and in COP24 is in
our national interest, in the interests of the Indo-Pacific region, and the
international community as a whole.”
Price said a priority
for Australia at COP24 was to ensure a robust framework of rules to govern the
reporting of Paris agreement targets. “Australia’s emissions reporting is of an
exceptionally high standard and we are advocating for rules that bring other
countries up to the standard to which we adhere.”
Australia’s emissions,
seasonally adjusted, increased 1.3% over the past quarter. Excluding emissions
from land use, land use change and forestry (for which the calculations are
controversial), they are at a record high..... [my yellow highlighting]
Patrick Suckling (sitting on panel right),
Australia’s ambassador for the environment, waits as protesters disrupt an
event at the COP24 climate change summit in Katowice, Poland. Photograph:
Łukasz Kalinowski/Rex/Shutterstock
Australia has reaffirmed
its commitment to coal – and its unwavering support for the United States – by
appearing at a US government-run event promoting the use of fossil fuels at
the United
Nations climate talks in Poland.
Australia was the only
country apart from the host represented at the event, entitled “US innovative
technologies spur economic dynamism”, designed to “showcase ways to use fossil
fuels as cleanly and efficiently as possible, as well as the use of
emission-free nuclear energy”.
Its panel discussion was
disrupted for several minutes by dozens of protesters who stood up suddenly
during speeches, unfurling a banner reading “Keep it in the ground” while
singing and chanting “Shame on you”.
Patrick Suckling,
Australia’s ambassador for the environment, and the head of the country’s
negotiating delegation at the climate talks, spoke on the panel. His nameplate
bore a US flag…..
…Simon Bradshaw, Oxfam
Australia’s climate change policy adviser, said it was “extremely
disappointing” to see Australia line up behind the US in pushing a pro-coal
ideas.
“It is a slap in the
face of our Pacific island neighbours, for whom bringing an end to the fossil
fuel era is matter of survival, and who are working with determination to
catalyse stronger international efforts to confront the climate crisis. And it
is firmly against the wishes of an overwhelming majority of Australians.”
Bradshaw said continuing
to use coal was not only uneconomic, but would “be measured in more lives lost,
entrenched poverty, rising global hunger, and more people displaced from their
land and homes”.
He said the advice of
the IPCC showed emphatically there was no space for new coal and that
Australia’s position on coal was isolating it from the rest of the world.
The Climate Vulnerable
Forum, a group of 48 countries most acutely affected by climate change, has
committed to achieving 100% renewable energy production by the middle of the
century at the latest. Other developed countries, including the UK, France,
Canada and New Zealand, have committed to phasing out coal power by 2030.
Wells Griffith, a Trump
administration adviser speaking alongside Suckling on the panel, said the US
would continue extracting fossil fuels, and warned against “alarmism” about
climate change…… [my yellow highlighting]
Greenhouse gas emissions in Australia to date.....
 |
| Trend emissions levels are inclusive of all sectors of the economy, including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) |
Reading Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2018 [PDF 39 pages] released on 30 November 2018 it is highly unlikely that the Morrison Govenment will be able to meet Australia's commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Australia was closer to meeting Paris Agreement goals in 2013 under a Labor federal government than it is today under a Coalition federal government.
