The year 2021 has been heralded as one in which countries would make bold, legally binding commitments to protect and restore the natural world. The UN biological diversity crisis conference COP15 is to be held in Kunming, China in October and the UN climate crisis conference COP26 will be held in Glasgow, UK, in November.
Last week, the United States hosted a virtual Leaders’ Summit on Climate, which heard from political leaders of 40 countries. The top five Greenhouse Gas (GHG) polluters - China, India, Japan, USA and Russia - all participated in the summit. Carbon dioxide constitutes 76 per cent of GHG in the atmosphere with methane and nitrous oxide making up 16 per cent and six per cent respectively.
Political leaders not only widely acknowledged that humanity is facing an existential crisis that threatens human civilisation and survival but also that people are causing the mass extinction of plant and animal species and habitats. In the words of US President Joe Biden, “the signs are unmistakeable and the science undeniable”.
The summit has revived the Paris Agreement goal to limit the increase in mean global temperature from pre-industrial times to 1.5°C in order to avoid catastrophic, irreversible changes to the world’s living conditions. In October 2020, the temperature rise had reached 1.2°C.
The US has set the 2030 emissions reduction target at the equivalent of 52 per cent of its 2005 emission levels. The EU 2030 target is set at the equivalent of 55 per cent of its 1990 emission levels. This actually translates to around 44 per cent for the US and about 37 per cent for the EU, based on estimated 2021 global emission volumes.
The choice to set targets in percentage terms and calculated on past base years, when emissions were lower, is dishonest.
Calls have been made for governments to stop the $500 billion in subsidies granted to the fossil fuel industry annually and to honour the 10-year-old commitment to jointly mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020 in order to address the climate crisis needs of developing countries.
UN IPCC scientific data reveals that, this year, we are overshooting the 465 parts per million (ppm) concentration levels of GHG in the atmosphere. This has reduced the chances of success to contain the temperature rise to 1.5°C to 50 per cent, with a seven-year window within which to achieve this.
Failing which there is a serious risk of temperature increases of up to 2°C and beyond that could no longer be controlled.
Carbon neutral and net zero emissions mean the same thing, being the point at which the GHG that humanity is releasing into the atmosphere equals the amount being removed. Countries have set targets for carbon neutrality to be achieved by 2050 or 2060. Little has been said about the removal, by natural or technological means, of the GHG already in the atmosphere plus the GHG that humanity will continue to discharge for another 30 to 40 years.
The scientific pathway that has established the 1.5°C threshold does factor in uncertainty in view of the necessary assumptions in the methodology used and unpredictability of the complex interactions in the biosphere that would accelerate the warming process and the ecological degradation. For this reason, scientists warn that unpredicted peak concentrations of GHG could result in the temperature rise of 1.5 °C occurring at any time in the next seven years.
It is clear that, notwithstanding the rhetoric, even the most ‘ambitious’ targets envisaged are nowhere close to what is required to take life on earth to a safer and healthier place.