Warming world facing the climate ‘endgame’
The world will break through the more ambitious Paris climate target of 1.5 degrees as soon as 2030 but may still avoid a more catastrophic 2 degrees of warming if governments act immediately to dramatically reduce emissions, according to a new report.
The report by Australia’s Climate Council, Aim High, Go Fast, is based on new data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and echoes similar findings by the Australian Academy of Science issued last week.
It warns that the more ambitious Paris target of holding warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels cannot be achieved without what it calls ‘‘significant overshoot’’ and ‘‘drawdown’’. Drawdown refers to the possibility of using as yet non-existent large-scale carbon dioxide removal technology to help cool and stabilise the climate after overshooting the target.
In the report the Climate Council says that in view of Australia’s historical contribution to global warming, its high emissions and its natural advantages in renewable energy generation, the government should now aim to reduce emissions by 75 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net zero by 2035.
So far the government has committed to reducing emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030 and has set no net-zero target, but said it would prefer to reach that milestone earlier than 2050.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to face more pressure to commit to more ambitious actions at a climate summit to be hosted by US President Joe Biden next week and during the lead-up to the next UN climate talks in Glasgow in November.
Asked if such an abrupt reduction was possible, one of the report’s authors, executive director of the Australian National University Climate Change Institute Will Steffen, cited the example of allied nations transforming their economies in five years to defeat the Axis powers inworldwar II.
‘‘The point is, it’s going to be a tough decade, no doubt about it,’’ he said. ‘‘There’ll be some disruption soon, but it’ll be an exciting decade and it’ll set us up for a much brighter future after 2030.’’
To reach such targets Steffen said the government would need to immediately halt the expansion of coal and gas and plan to support affected communities as fossil fuels were phased out. Secondly, Australia would have to reach almost 100 per cent renewables in its energy system by 2030.
‘‘We now face a more dangerous future, with further risks and damages locked in,’’ says the report. ‘‘We have reached the endgame and if we are to limit further disruption then we must dramatically step up the scale and pace of action.’’
The report finds ‘‘multiple lines of evidence’’ that the world will break through 1.5 degrees: the increasing pace at which the world has been warming since 2016; new scientific understanding of the climate system’s sensitivity; and the increasing rate of sea levels rising.
There is also an analysis of global greenhouse gas emissions which are now in line with the highest of four scenarios considered in the fifth assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’S lead climate change body.
‘‘We now face a more dangerous future, with further risks and damages locked in,’’ says the report.
‘‘We have reached the endgame and if we are to limit further disruption then we must dramatically step up the scale and pace of action. Inaction or delay in the face of so much evidence is in fact an active commitment to massive global climate disruption and damage.’’
Steffen said the impact of temperature rises did not go up in a linear fashion, and that 2 degrees of warming was far worse than 1.5 degrees.
‘‘The issue here is that past inaction on climate change has cost us dearly. There is plenty of momentum in the climate system, it is like trying to turn a battleship around,’’ he said. – Nine