Policymakers need to look at the real climate risks

By David Spratt and Ian Dunlop

This blog is an extract from What Lies Beneath: The scientific understatement of climate risks, just published by Breakthrough, the National Centre for Climate Restoration.

Download report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are the twin climate processes of the United Nations.

Conferences of the Parties (COPs) under the UNFCCC are political fora, populated by professional representatives of national governments, and subject to the diplomatic processes of negotiation, trade-offs and deals. In this sense, the COPs are similar in process to that of the IPCC by which the Summary for Policymakers is agreed. The decision-making is
inclusive (by consensus), making outcomes hostage to national interests and lowest-common-denominator politics.

The COP 21 Paris Agreement is almost devoid of substantive language on the cause of human-induced climate change and contains no reference to “coal”, “oil”, “fracking”, “shale oil”, “fossil fuel” or “carbon dioxide”, nor to the words “zero”, “ban”, “prohibit” or “stop”. By way of comparison, the term “adaptation” occurs more than eighty times in 31 pages, though responsibility for forcing others to adapt is not mentioned, and both liability and compensation are explicitly excluded. The Agreement has a goal but no firm action plan, and bureaucratic jargon abounds, including the terms “enhance” and “capacity” appearing more than fifty times each.

Paris 1.5-2°C target far from safe, say world-leading scientists

by David Spratt, first published at Renew Economy

The Paris climate agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius (ºC) is well above temperatures experienced during the Holocene — period of human settlement over the last 11,700 years — and is far from safe because “if such temperature levels are allowed to long exist they will spur “slow” amplifying feedbacks… which have potential to run out of humanity’s control.”

That’s the message from some of the world best climate scientists, including former NASA climate chief, James Hansen, in a newly paper, “Young people’s burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions”, published in Earth System Dynamics this month.

Climate heating is an emergency and an existential threat to human civilisation

In mid-2015, I was one of several people who were interviewed by filmmakers Jordan Osmond and Samuel Alexander for their documentary "A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity". Now the film-makers have kindly made the full interview available....


The interview covers the scientific character of the climate challenge, why it must now be understood as constituting a global emergency, and what that means for the actions we need to take.

Hansen says "It's crazy to think that 2 degrees Celsius is safe limit"

by David Spratt

James Hansen

Two weeks ago, I started my blog on the Recount: It's time to 'Do the Math' again" report with a question: Have we gone mad and should contemporary climate change policy-making should be characterised as increasingly delusional?

Because I spend quite a lot of time following climate science closely and trying to understanding its political manifestations and representations, it's easy to feel that I am living in a parallel universe. There is the world of the scientific evidence, that climate change is already dangerous and 2 degrees Celsius (2°C) of warming would be an uncontrollable disaster.

Dangerous climate change: Myths and reality (3)

Third in a 3-part series | Part 1 | Part 2

by David Spratt

Download report (16 pages)

Myth 6: Long-term feedbacks are not materially relevant for carbon budgeting

Some elements of the climate system respond quickly to temperature change, including the amount of water vapour in the air and hence level of cloud cover, sea-level changes due to ocean temperature change, and the extent of sea-ice that floats on the ocean in the polar regions. These changes amplify (increase) the temperature change and are known as short-term or “fast” feedbacks.

There are also long-term or “slow” feedbacks, which generally take much longer (centuries to thousands of years) to occur. These include changes in large, polar, land-based ice sheets, changes in the carbon cycle (changed efficiency of carbon sinks such as permafrost and methane clathrate stores, as well as biosphere stores such as peat lands and forests), and changes in vegetation coverage and reflectivity (albedo).

Dangerous climate change: Myths and reality (2)

Second in a 3-part series | Part 1 | Part 3

by David Spratt

Download report (16 pages)

Myth 3: Big tipping points are unlikely before 2°C

Tipping points, often an expression of non-linear events, are difficult to project. But if it is sometimes hard to see tipping points coming, it is also too late to be wise after the fact. Estimated tipping points around or below ~1.5ºC include: 

• West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Current conditions affecting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are sufficient to drive between 1.2 and 4 metres of sea rise, and these glaciers are now in "unstoppable" meltdown at global average warming of just 0.8ºC (NASA, 2014A; Rignot, Mouginot et al., 2014; Joughin, Smith et al., 2014). 

The why and how of radical emissions reductions: (1) Kevin Anderson

Prof. Kevin Anderson

First in a series

On 10-11 December 2013, a Radical Emissions Reduction Conference was held at the Royal Society, London under the auspices of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. The conference's purpose was described as:

Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non-radical option. Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions – they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption – the rationale for this conference.

Reigniting the debate: Climate change is fundamentally a human story

A British group says people's interest in global warming has dwindled, and new ways of telling what is essentially a human story should include talking to those who may be sceptical about climate change.

By Kieran Cooke, via Climate News Network

George Marshall is a co founder of the Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN), an organisation based in Oxford in the UK which specialises in climate change communication.

Whenever he can, Marshall tries to engage people in conversation about global warming: he finds it a tough task.

2 degrees hotter not an acceptable climate target but a disaster, say leading scientists

Countries round the world have pledged to try and limit the average global temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial figures. That’s way too high and would threaten major dislocations for civilization say a group of prominent scientists.

Lead author James Hansen

by Tim Radford, Climate News Network

Governments have set the wrong target to limit climate change. The goal at present – to limit global warming to a maximum of 2°C higher than the average for most of human history – “would have consequences that can be described as disastrous”, say 18 scientists in a review paper in the journal PLOS One.

With a 2°C increase, “sea level rise of several meters could be expected,” they say.  Increased climate extremes, already apparent at 0.8°C warming, would be more severe. Coral reefs and associated species, already stressed with current conditions, would be decimated by increased acidification, temperature and sea level rise.

Tony Abbott's climate policy is a deniers' figleaf

Abbott's direct inaction policy would condemn Australia to even worse heatwaves, extreme floods and bushfires 

by Alexander White

Tony Abbott. Photograph: Stefan Postles/Getty Images

Tony Abbott is the alternative prime minister of Australia, and later this year he will face an election presenting a climate change policy that is frankly insulting and potentially dangerous.

The Coalition's climate change policy amounts to a bullet point in a pamphlet – the "Real Solutions for Australians" plan – number 10 of 12 such bullet points. It reads:

"We will take direct action to reduce carbon emissions inside Australia, not overseas – and also establish a 15,000-strong Green Army to clean up the environment."

Stop tailoring global warming scenarios to make them “politically palatable” says leading climate scientist

Note from CCR: Readers of this blog will be familiar with the work of Prof. Kevin Anderson, one of the world's most forthright climate scientists, including in 4 degrees hotter: an adaptation trap?, Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous, and Scientists call for war on climate change, but who on earth is listening?  Anderson's approach is reflected in the framing of the forthcoming Radical Emission Reduction Conference in December 2013. The conference rationale sums up our dilemma neatly: "Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non-radical option (emphasis added). Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions – they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption – the rationale for this conference."  The following interview with Anderson was first published at People and Nature. 

The reality about the greenhouse gas emissions cuts needed to avoid dangerous global warming is obscured in UK government scenarios, according to Prof. Kevin Anderson. Anderson told a Campaign Against Climate Change conference in London on 8 June that the most important measurements, of total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, are pushed into the background and scientists are pressured to tailor their arguments to fit “politically palatable” scenarios.

“Critical decade” or “lost decade”? (3) Is the future unspeakable?

The Australian Labor government’s climate policy steps were slow in coming and incremental, when they needed to be transformative, and a likely Abbott government will be worse, so what’s important now?

by David Spratt | Third in a series | Part one | Part two

Published at ReNewEconomy on 10 April 2013 

Photo courtesy Greenpeace

As the federal Labor government and a significant period in climate policy-making in Australia very likely come to a close this year, there is an opportunity for the climate action and advocacy movement to reflect and plan together. One important chance is from 18-20 May in Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley of NSW, where community activists from around Australia will gather for three days of discussion under the banner Our Land, Our Water, Our Future: Beyond Coal and Gas.

“Critical decade” or “lost decade”? (2) Inside the beltway

With a victory for Tony Abbott and the Liberal–National Party coalition at Australia's federal election in September, and conservative domination of Australian parliamentary politics for the remainder of this decade both likely, what will the major parties do on climate action?

by David Spratt | Second in a series | Part one | Part three

Published at ReNewEconomy on 9 April 2013

Increasing heat content in the oceans (blue) show the
claims that global warmed has "stopped" to be fallacious.
Courtesy Skeptical Science.

LIBERAL–NATIONAL PARTY COALITION (LNP): The federal LNP’s plans are clear: up to $70 billion cuts in government spending, public sectors austerity and up to 35,000 public sector job losses. Think David Cameron in the UK or Campbell Newman in Queensland. Big business will get a free run, the mining profits tax will go, and wealth will be transferred to the top end of town. All in the name of reducing the size of government and reducing regulation to expand the private sector because more, bigger and more profitable markets are our saviour.

Fear, optimism and activism: What drives change?

It's  a fair bet that my Brightsiding series in 2012 was responsible for the topic at this year's Melbourne Sustainability Festival Great Debate held last Friday: "Fear is stronger than optimism in creating rapid social change".
      So six of us lined up, not in teams, but with clear instructions to take one side or the other and not fence-sit (more of this later). The participants were Bob Brown, Jon Dee, Fiona Sharkie, David Spratt, Guy Pearse and Tanya Ha, and the debate host was ABC TV's Bernie Hobbs.
      Given the brightsiding that still dominates the poor performance of the government and many of the big environment groups on climate action, I felt obliged to bend the stick in the opposite direction, even though the question was poorly framed. Ten minutes is hardly time to canvas the meaning of life, so this was my contribution:

If we need a war footing to rebuild the physical economy, why can't we talk about it?

by Philip Sutton, Manager, RSTI

A 2009 WWF report says
"a 'war footing' may be the only
option" to re-industrialising
at the necessary speed

At the end of last year a very useful discussion was opened up by a number of climate scientists in different parts of the world calling for climate change action to be put onto a war footing.
    John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute, questioned the desirability of pursuing this approach. But how valid was John's critique? And is there a better response to the call from the climate scientists to go onto a war footing?

This is what John said in the Climate Institute's 13 December 2012 newsletter (emphasis added):

If you are not scared or getting scared, you are not paying attention. Yet another rollercoaster year for climate policy and investment is ending as a remarkable chorus of conservative voices from the World Bank, the World Meteorological Organisation, the International Energy Agency and others state that climate change is happening and on track to get much worse in terms of danger and expense. These are realities, not just risks.

Systematic short-termism: Climate, capitalism and democracy

by Jorgen Randers

[Third of three parts]

• Plus 2°C in 2052. What to do?  
• Forty more years of slow growth

I am a climate pessimist. I believe (regrettably) that humanity will not meet the climate challenge with sufficient strength to save our grandchildren from living in a climate-damaged world. Humanity (regrettably) will not make what sacrifice is necessary today in order to ensure a better life for our ancestors forty years hence. The reason is that we are narrowly focused on maximum well-being in the short term. This short-termism is reflected in the systems of governance that we have chosen to dominate our lives: Both democracy and capitalism place more emphasis on costs today that on benefits forty years in the future.

Arctic warning: As the system changes, we must adjust our science

Update 20 September:
EXTENT: Satellite data shows Arctic melt sea-ice extent probably reached the minimum for the year at around 3.4 million square kilometres on Monday 17 September, 18 per cent less than the previous record in 2007 of 4.2 m.sq.kms. The JAXA daily raw data is here and the NSIDC date is here. This extent is now well less than half of the average extent of the 1980s.

VOLUME: The sea-ice volume is now down to just one-fifth of what it was in 1979. Latest PIOMAS volume from September 3, 2012 is 3407 cubic kilometers of ice remaining in the Arctic. Contrasted with the 16,855 of 1979, that is just about 20 per cent. Extent has dropped further since 3 September, so minimum volume this melt season will be about 5–10 per cent less than the early-September figure.

ICE-FREE ARCTIC: Debate rages within the scientific community. Previously we covered Big call: Cambridge prof. predicts Arctic summer sea ice “all gone by 2015”. On Monday the Guardian reported "Arctic expert predicts final collapse of sea ice within four years", in which Prof. Peter Wadhams of Cambridge said:  "I have been predicting [the collapse of sea ice in summer months] for many years. The main cause is simply global warming: as the climate has warmed there has been less ice growth during the winter and more ice melt during the summer… in the end the summer melt overtook the winter growth such that the entire ice sheet melts or breaks up during the summer months. This collapse, I predicted would occur in 2015-16 at which time the summer Arctic (August to September) would become ice-free. The final collapse towards that state is now happening and will probably be complete by those dates. As the sea ice retreats in summer the ocean warms up (to 7C in 2011) and this warms the seabed too. The continental shelves of the Arctic are composed of offshore permafrost, frozen sediment left over from the last ice age. As the water warms the permafrost melts and releases huge quantities of trapped methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas so this will give a big boost to global warming." Unforntunately, the eviednce is on his side.

Northern Polar Institute Research Director Kim Holmen, left,
with UN Foundation Board Chairman Ted Turner and
President Timothy Wirth in the Arctic

Post of 13 September:
By David Spratt,
published in ReNewEconomy on 12 September 2012
and in Climate Progress on 13 September 2012

The Arctic sea-ice big melt of 2012 “has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our understanding of the system and we must adjust our science and we must adjust our feelings for the nature around us”, according to Kim Holmen, Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) international director.
     From Svalbard (halfway between mainland Norway and Greenland), the BBC’s David Shukman reported on 7 September that Holmen had described the current melt rate “a greater change than we could even imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago”.
     As detailed last week, the thin crust of sea-ice which floats on the north polar sea is now only half of the average minimum summer extent of the 1980, and just one-quarter of the volume twenty years ago.

On thin ice: Time-frame to save the Arctic is melting away

By David Spratt, first published by ReNew Economy on 5 September 2012

 Something extraordinary is happening when graphs of melting Arctic sea-ice have their vertical axis redrawn because the data are falling off the chart.
     But that’s what has occurred in the last 10 days, since the extent of floating Arctic sea-ice broke the satellite-era minimum record on 24 August. On that date it was 4.2 million square kilometres, according to data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
     Since then, an additional half a million square kilometres of sea-ice has melted. The extent on 4 September was just half of the average minimum extent of the 1980s. At the current rate of loss, with one to three weeks left in the northern melt season, the minimum may well shrink below 3.5 million square kilometres. This is an astounding story.

A sober assessment of our situation (1)

by David Spratt 

Where we are   [Part 1 in a series]

• Read Part 2: How we got to here
• Read Part 3: Challenges 
• Related post: As Tony Abbott launches all-out war on climate action, what's the plan? (2 Feb 2014) 

1.1 Introduction

In the last five years, Australia has signed the Kyoto Protocol, legislated a price on greenhouse gas emissions, established a Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), and more than doubled the Renewable Energy Target (RET) to 20 per cent of electricity production by 2020. The Contracts for Closure of around 2GW of dirty coal power is due to be resolved soon. Household electricity demand is falling and the wholesale price has dropped substantially. Energy efficiency measures, installed household solar PV and higher prices have already reduced demand by the equivalent of Hazelwood power station’s full capacity.
     The Greens’ vote and influence has increased, the Transition Towns and sustainability movements are growing, and a formidable community campaign against coal seam gas is gaining significant political power. The coal industry in Queensland is a hot topic. The cost of renewable energy, especially PV solar, is falling quickly and household rooftop solar is already grid competitive. Community support for replacing dirty fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy is strong.

Why we are going nuts

As noted in the End game for the climate policy paradigm post, I am re-posting two articles by the US environmentalist Ken Ward, because they are so relevant to our circumstances today. Next week, I will start a 3-part series, tentatively entitled "A sober assessment of our situation" — David


Why we are going nuts
Lessons from cognitive dissonance theory for US environmentalists

by Ken Ward, first published on Grist, March 4, 2009

"If we do not raise our sights and ambitions, then we are guaranteed to fail. Itʼs a tough but simple choice and if we continue down our present road, we will leap from foggy thinking into pure madness, there being no other means of keeping reality at bay."

If we accept the worst, or precautionary assessment, then US environmentalists have perhaps a year to avert cataclysm and nothing we are doing now will work. We are dealing with this terrible situation in a very ordinary and human way, by denying it.
     Our denial comes in a variety of forms: we believe that President Obama can and will solve the problem; we ignore Jim Hansenʼs assessment and timeline; we concentrate on our jobs and organization agendas and pass over the big picture; we focus on the molehill of climate policy rather than tackle the mountain of climate politics; we assess our efforts by looking back on how far we have come and do not measure the distance still to be traveled; we scrupulously avoid criticizing each other, lacking conviction in our own courses of action and not wishing to invite criticism in turn; and we are irrationally committed to antique approaches that are self-evidently inadequate.