Scots climate targets review after warning
● Impact of global warming is less extreme if rises limited to 1.5C
A new report calling for “unprecedented” action to slash carbon emissions has convinced Scottish ministers to ask for independent advice on climate change targets.
The United Nations-backed study has claimed global warming can be capped at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels if drastic changes are made to power generation, industry, transport and buildings.
The report warned the 1.5C threshold would otherwise be breached by about 2040, leading to droughts and rising seas.
The Scottish Government will seek fresh independent advice on its climate change targets after a new report warned countries must take “unprecedented” action to slash carbon emissions.
The Un-backed study said the impacts of climate change, from droughts to rising seas, will be less extreme if temperature rises are curbed at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels than if they climb to 2C.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said limiting warming to 1.5C is possible but will require fast and far-reaching changes to power generation, industry, transport, buildings and potential shifts in lifestyle such as eating less meat.
Action will also be needed to cut carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
The report warns the world is set to breach the 1.5C threshold by around 2040 and is heading for 3C by 2100 and even warmer after that.
Scotland’s new Climate Change Bill, published earlier this year, proposes reducing harmful emissions by 90 per cent by 2050 – up from the previous target of 80 per cent.
The Scottish Government said it will look at targets again in the wake of the IPCC report.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We welcome the publication of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on the scientific evidence around the Paris Agreement aim of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“In line with our evidence based approach to tackling climate change, we are committed to considering the report carefully, including seeking
updated independent, expert advice from the UK Committee on Climate Change on its implications for our targets.”
The IPCC report says a 2C rise will lead to more heatwaves and extreme rain storms, more people facing water shortages and drought, greater economic losses and lower yields for major crops than 1.5C.
While coral reefs could decline 70 per cent to 90 per cent with 1.5C of warming, virtually all the world’s reefs would be lost at 2C, while far more creatures and plants across the world face losing a large part of their range.
Stop Climate Chaos Scotland said the report is a “game changer” and urged the Scottish Government to set a net zero emissions target by 2050.
Campaigns Manager Gail Wilson said: “Climate change is the biggest threat to the planet and everyone that lives here.
“Unless governments urgently take much more concrete action to reduce emissions, we will soon be in a scenario where it is simply too late.”
Friends of the Earth Scotland called on the SNP to commit to cutting climate emissions “further and faster” in the next few years.
Director Dr Richard Dixon said: “Today’s IPCC report is an unprecedented warning on climate change. It makes clear that governments have a narrow and shrinking window for action in which to avert further cat-
“Unless governments urgently take much more concrete action to reduce emissions, we will soon beina scenario where it is simply too late.”
GAIL WILSON
astrophic temperature rises.
“It shows that a 1.5C world will be a nightmare but a 2C world would be unthinkable.”
The Scottish Greens have called for a summit of political and civic leaders throughout Scotland to discuss the issues in the report.
Scottish Greens’ co-convener Patrick Harvie said: “We’ve always challenged the government to go further in its response to dangerous climate change.
“However this report from an internationally respected organisation makes clear the urgent need for all nations to transform their economies to achieve zero-carbon.”
Claire Perry, UK Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, said: “This report should act as
a rallying cry for governments around the world to innovate, invest, and raise ambition to avert catastrophic climate change.
“The UK has already shown carbon abatement and prosperity can go hand in hand and we lead the world in clean growth – slashing emissions by more than 40 per cent since 1990 while growing our economy ahead of the G7.
“There is now no excuse and real action is needed.”
Steve Waygood, from Aviva Investors, said it was estimated that, without action, climate change would cost the global economy $43 trillion (£33tn) in today’s prices.
COMMENT,
In 1845, Sir John Franklin set sail from Canada’s Baffin Bay with two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, on a quest to find the fabled North-west Passage. In the worst disaster in the history of British polar exploration, Franklin and his crew were never seen again after their ships became trapped in the ice.
Today, after the world’s average temperature has risen by about one degree Celsius, the sea ice has retreated so much that tourists can take a cruise through the previously impassable waters.
Talking about climate change in terms of the global average can sometimes make it sound like a minor problem. If we turned the thermostat up by 1C, we’d hardly notice until we came to pay the bill. But the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of the Earth’s lower atmosphere by the same amount is truly vast, and humanity could end up paying a heavy price.
The changes that have already been seen – the disappearance of much of the planet’s sea ice and many glaciers, increases in wildfires and more extreme weather – give an idea of how bad it could get, so it would seem reckless to allow the process to continue much further, let alone double to 2C. Once scientists suggested that this would be an acceptable limit, but in recent years research has suggested we would be wiser to prevent warming of more than 1.5C.
In a new report published yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasised the need to hit the lower target, warning that, on its current path, the average global temperature was likely to reach that point in just 22 years and 3C by 2100. For example, at 1.5C of warming, 90 per cent of coral, one of the most important habitats in the world, will disappear, the report warned; at 2C, more 99 per cent of it will be gone, with serious knock-on effects on the species that rely on it to survive.
One scientist described the report as “frightening”, saying that allowing warming beyond 1.5C would have “very dangerous” implications for all life on Earth and the human economies that depend upon it.
But there is also hope. The price of renewable energy has been falling dramatically, electric cars are becoming more efficient, and artificial ways to extract CO2 from the atmosphere are being developed. Climate change is a serious and pressing problem, but it is nothing that human ingenuity cannot solve – if we choose to do so.
“The Conductors pledge themselves for impartiality, firmness and independence... Their first desire is to be honest,
the second is to be useful...
The great requisites for the task are only good sense,
courage and industry”
FROM THE PROSPECTUS OF THE SCOTSMAN, 30 NOVEMBER 1816