Running out of time on climate change

Anew United Nations report comes to a definitive but familiar conclusion: We’re not doing nearly enough to prevent disastrous levels of climate change.

The report, released Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warns that the planet is on track to blow past 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, a critical threshold virtually every nation on Earth agreed to work to avoid. We can expect to overshoot that within about a decade unless we immediately switch to renewable energy and slash planet-warming pollution in half by 2030. More than a century of burning coal, oil and gas is catching up with us, and there’s little time to change course.

But one frustrating reality underscored by the report is how much we remain in denial about fossil fuels.

The U.N’s scientific assessment, approved by 195 nations, says that existing and planned fossil fuel infrastructure — all of the coal-fired power plants, oil wells and gas-powered vehicles already built or on the way — will generate enough greenhouse gas pollution to warm the planet by a catastrophic 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, this century.

Humans have already overheated Earth by 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit). To avoid irreversible damage to our communities and ecosystems, we can’t just stop permitting new oil and gas drilling and coal- and gas-fired power plants, and end production of combustion-engine vehicles. We have to cancel and retire existing fossil fuel projects as well.

But that seems like a pipe dream, because the world’s most powerful nations keep advancing planet-endangering projects.

China has been permitting new coal-fired power plants at a staggering rate of two per week. President Biden last week approved the massive Willow oil drilling project in Alaska, giving ConocoPhillips permission to extract as much as 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years and breaking his campaign promise of “no more drilling on federal lands. Period. Period. Period. Period.” (Yes, he said it four times for emphasis.)

Oil companies, meanwhile, are backing off their commitments to fight climate change and transition to renewable energy as they rake in record profits from soaring fuel prices. Global energy-related carbon emissions reached a record high last year, and another U.N. climate conference in Egypt last fall ended without an agreement to phase out fossil fuels.

From local government to heads of state, officials at all levels should exercise whatever authority they have to dismantle the dangerous machinery of fossil fuels and replace it quickly with clean, renewable energy.

It’s our job to seize on each and every one of those decisions and demand swift action that increases the chances for a more tolerable future for nature and humanity.