Ray of light piercing the climate gloom?

You would be forgiven if your head was spinning at the headlines about climate change this week.

Some reports say countries are falling far short of their promises, with serious consequences likely, but there also seemed to be some signs of optimism.

Here’s a quick look.

Are Things Really That Bad?

Let’s start with the word “optimistic,” a word not often seen in an article about climate change.

A New York Times newsletter explored the meaning of optimism in the context of climate trends, and where in the world progress has been made.

It cited the work of columnist David Wallace-Wells, who five years ago explored a worst-case scenario for climate change in which the planet warmed by as much as 5C by 2100.

That would be catastrophic, bringing extreme weather, environmental damage, economic collapse, famine and war, while hitting developing countries especially hard.

But Wallace-Wells now sees that level of doom as much less likely, suggesting human beings have made progress on one of the most serious challenges they’ve faced.

“I’ve grown more optimistic than I used to be,” Wallace-Wells said.

“The endgame looks calmer and more stable than it did a few years ago.”

A matter of a few degrees

Wallace-Wells wrote an essay published online this week in The New York Times Magazine ’s climate issue.

His essay is a broad treatment of a new climate reality that is taking shape: one that falls somewhere short of outright doom.

He starts with the word “apocalyptic” to describe years-old projections for the future in which “business as usual” would bring 4C or even 5C of warming and the food crises, heat stress, conflict and economic strife and more that it would entail. But he notes scientists believe that warming this century will most likely fall between 2C or 3C.

“Those numbers may sound abstract, but what they suggest is this: Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilisation, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years,” he wrote.

But he also warned about falling back on what he called the handy narratives of apocalypse and normality.

Countries are falling short of commitments

The range of 2C to 3C of warming was confirmed this week by the United Nations, in a report covered by the

Times. Even though that scenario is an improvement over earlier projections, it still translates into severe disruption.

With each fraction of a degree of warming, tens of millions more people worldwide would be exposed to lifethreatening heat waves, food and water scarcity, and flooding.

The report said countries were failing to live up to commitments to fight climate change.

Only 26 of 193 countries that agreed last year to step up their actions had followed through.

One problem appears to be unified action. On Tuesday, the European Union said it could only increase emissions reductions pledges when its members agreed on upcoming climate laws.

But an energy crisis, global inflation and political turmoil in countries such as Britain and Brazil have distracted leaders and complicated cooperative efforts to tackle climate change. War in Europe has also been a factor.

War and the energy crisis Meanwhile, this week the International Energy Agency analysed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its impact on global warming and proposed a possible positive development.

The energy crisis triggered by the war is likely to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner technologies.

That shift, however, is not happening fast enough to avoid dangerous levels of global warming, the agency said.

Some countries have been burning more fossil fuels, such as coal, in response to natural-gas shortages caused by the war in Ukraine. Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel, and that means global carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are likely to rise roughly 1 per cent and approach record highs.

But the IEA said the rising cost of fossil fuels pushed many countries to invest heavily in clean, renewable alternatives. The rise in emissions would have been three times greater but for a swift deployment worldwide of wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles, the agency said in its

World Energy Outlook, which forecasts global energy trends.

Fatih Birol, the agency’s executive director, said many of the new cleanenergy targets weren’t being introduced only because of climatechange issues.

Increasingly, the big drivers were energy security and industrial policy — “a lot of countries want to be at the leading edge of the energy industries of the future”.