Not on the same page: When science and politics collide in climate communication

by David Spratt 

Not on the same page?
Click image to enlarge.

Updated 29 September 2022

A significant paper on climate tipping points was published on 9 September, Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points. Having co-written a non-specialist’s overview on tipping points earlier this year, entitled Climate Dominoes, I looked forward to the new paper’s conclusions. 

But on the very first page, there was a sense of science and politics on a collision course: the conclusions about appropriate climate goals did not seem to match the evidence, as I will explain below.

Now this is not a new story, but it points to the need to disentangle political conclusions from physical evidence. Often scientific reports and papers pull their punches, especially when it comes to IPCC, as we documented in our Breakthrough report, What Lies Beneath: The understatement of existential climate risks.   But such reticence is not restricted to the IPCC.

The reasons for scientific reticence in the climate field are many, and may include:

Pakistan is a hotspot for climate-driven human security crises

by David Spratt

A nation’s capacity to respond to climate risks by adaptation  is significantly dependent on its capacity, reflected in the nation’s economic capacity, and poor countries are more vulnerable.

In Pakistan’s case, that vulnerability is magnified by the extent of climate-driven change in the Himalayas and to the south Asian monsoons, as well as ever-more-extreme events: heat waves beyond human tolerance and flooding that has just submerged one-third of the country, killed up to 80% of livestock according to some reports, destroyed a million homes and 2200 miles of roads, and displaced more than 33 million people. “We are witnessing the worst flooding in the history of the country,” said Dr Fahad Saeed, a climate scientist with the Climate Analytics group, who is based in Islamabad.

High-profile paper on “catastrophic” climate impacts echoes our "What Lies Beneath" analysis on fat-tail, existential risks and IPCC reticence, published four years ago

By David Spratt

Last week, just as a new paper on catastrophic climate risks was hitting the media, I received an email:

“It would appear some scientists are now, finally, openly speaking about what you yourself have long been describing as the 'high end' or 'fat tail' risks associated with climate change and want UN scientists to look into the risks of catastrophic climate change. Here's the link to the article on the BBC website…  On two occasions when reading this article I did punch the air on your behalf; when it mentions the need for more emphasis on tipping points and for the IPCC to produce a special report on catastrophic climate failure..”

It wasn’t the only one. 

"Biggest scandal in climate policy"– Interview with Operaatio Arktis

by David Spratt

Operaatio Arktis (Operation Arctic) is a group of young Finnish activists campaigning to protect the Arctic. Their message is simple: "If you are an activist, politician or educator of any kind, put climate repair technologies on your agenda. We need to re-freeze the Arctic." Follow @OperaatioArktis on Instagram.

What are they talking about?  Ideas such as those coming from the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge, led by Sir David King, for marine cloud brightening or other interventions that could cool the Arctic and arrest the cascade of warming events and tipping points emanating from the Arctic that will otherwise overturn human civilisation.

Recently a discussion was recorded with Operaatio Arktis, and is available here. We talked about some big-picture issues and why the public, policy makers and even many activists have a way-too-optimistic view of the state of our climate system: tipping points, the scandal of Integrated Assessment Models, the IPCC, UNFCCC climate policies, understanding existential risks, and how to communicate these stories.

Cooling the Arctic will be the focus of the 2022 Arctic Circle Assembly at Reykjavik, 13-15 October. 

• View "Biggest scandal in climate policy"– Interview with  Operaatio Arktis
• Read more about Integrated Assessment Models and bankers' "net zero 2050" scenarios in Degrees of Risk.
  

 

 

Defence agencies ‘accelerating’ risk of ‘Hothouse Earth’, US military study warns

The actions of government military and intelligence agencies are increasing the ‘hyperthreat’ of climate and environmental change, according to new research.

by Nafeez Ahmed, first published at Byline Times

A new landmark study published by the US Marine Corps University concludes that the activities of government military and intelligence agencies over the next decade are accelerating the likelihood of triggering a worst-case ‘Hothouse Earth’ scenario that would make the planet “unliveable for most species”.

These agencies, the study argues, have become the biggest danger to planetary security, by in effect working to accelerate the “hyperthreat” of climate and environmental change.

The research study – published in two parts in the US Marine Corps University Press’ digital journal and in the Spring 2022 edition of its peer-reviewed Journal of Advanced Military Studies – applies war theory and military strategy to the dynamics of the climate and ecological crises.

Philip Sutton, pioneer climate and environmental activist

by Luke Taylor, first published at The Guardian

Philip Sutton, environmental activist; born 2 March 1951, died 13 June 2022

Photo: Thom Rigney/Breakthrough

Philip Sutton, who has died suddenly aged 71, was a pioneer of the climate emergency movement and a powerful influence on environmental campaigners in Australia and internationally.

Sutton’s work challenged the prevailing paradigm of a “reform as usual”, incremental-change strategy based on unclear goals. He campaigned on an understanding that climate risks threatened the future of the planet and of humanity, and therefore required a society-wide mobilisation at an emergency scale and speed. Sutton argued that getting into emergency mode rapidly was the central challenge for the climate movement.

This understanding was expounded in the 2008 book Climate Code Red: the Case for Emergency Action, written with David Spratt, which codified the term “climate emergency”, and shocked many readers into becoming climate activists. The book played a major role in shifting the narrative on the level of climate risk and our required response. Climate Code Red’s risk and impact assessments and climate system repair fundamentals have since been validated by mainstream analysis.

Model-based net-zero scenarios, including those of the IPCC, aren’t worth the paper they are written on, say leading economists

Cr: Merriam-Webster

By David Spratt, first published at Breakthrough

World-leading economists have blown a hole right through the middle of the main tool used to produce the net-zero scenarios embraced by climate policymakers.

In a new paper, Sir Nicholas Stern, Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz and Charlotte Taylor conclude that climate-energy-economy Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), which are the key tool in producing emission-reduction scenarios, “have very limited value in answering the two critical questions” of the speed and nature of emissions reductions and “fail to provide much in the way of useful guidance, either for the intensity of action, or for the policies that deliver the desired outcomes”.  The research paper is The economics of immense risk, urgent action and radical change: towards new approaches to the economics of climate change.

Now this is a big thing, because IAMs are at the centre of the IPCC Working Group III report on mitigation, and “have played a major role in IPCC reports on policy, which, in turn, have played a prominent role in public discussion. They continue to play a very powerful role in the research activities of economists working on climate change.” 

We need to talk about climate interventions, as tipping point dominoes fall

Download the report

by David Spratt 

The need to cool the planet in order to avoid collapse scenarios needs to be taken seriously.

Breakthrough recently released Climate dominoes: Tipping points risks for critical climate systems, a report on climate system tipping points and cascading effects. 

This is based on our blog series earlier this year, now with a foreword by Sir David King, the former UK chief scientist and founder of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge. King writes that: 

“... there is a blind-spot in the IPCC analysis, in that the severity of human influence on our planetary ecosystems is leading us toward a range of irreversible tipping points; uncertainties about which we have limited knowledge. The first of these, in the Arctic Circle region, appears already to have tipped, leading to the series of devastating extreme weather events around the Northern Hemisphere last summer. This blind-spot is the subject of Breakthrough’s latest Climate Dominoes report, which is a critically important analysis of the state of the world today and the immediate threat to our global economic systems from these tipping points. It is a sober call for all countries to follow a critical analysis pathway for dealing with climate change as the emergency that it is. It should be read and acted on by governments and their advisors, by the financial communities of the world, and by scientists, engineers, social scientists and philosophers. Precautionary action is needed now to avoid, to the extent possible, further tipping points being triggered.” 

1.5 degrees Paris climate target not ‘safe or appropriate’ given climate tipping point risks, ‘major rethink’ required: new report

Download the report

Climate tipping points in the Antarctica, the Arctic and the Amazon are at risk of being reached before or at the current level of global warming of 1.2 degrees Celsius, requiring a “major rethink” of global climate goals and the action necessary to achieve them, according to a report released today.

A ‘tipping point’ is a threshold at which a small change initiates a larger, more critical change, taking the climate system from one state to a discreetly different state, which may be abrupt and irreversible. 

Climate Dominoes: Tipping point risks for critical climate systems,is published by Breakthrough - National Centre for Climate Restoration. Co-authored by former head of the Australian Coal Association Ian Dunlop and Breakthrough’s Research Director, David Spratt, the report outlines the scientific evidence that critical climate tipping points are already being reached in Antarctica, the Arctic, Greenland Ice Sheet, the Amazon rainforest and for coral reefs.

Tullamarine’s dream of a third runway is an emissions nightmare

by Mark Carter

Aviation is gearing up to be once more the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. And MelbourneAirport is planning to play its part.

It’s now asking the federal transport minister to approve a third runway that will create cumulative emissions,estimated at around 160 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) out to 2046 from additional flights.

Australia Pacific Airports (Melbourne) Pty Ltd (APAM), Melbourne Airport’s owner, seems to be in denial about our climate reality. It understates Third Runway emissions, its assessment of climate risk to the runway is cavalier, and it ignores realistic threats to passenger growth.

Are renewables decreasing global fossil fuel use?

by David Spratt

Recently Shane White, who blogs at worldenergydata.org, alerted me to a recent report, Boom and Bust Coal 2022: Tracking the global coal plant pipeline, compiled by by Global Energy Monitor in association with CREA, E3G, Sierra Club, SFOC, Kiko Network, CAN Europe, LIFE, and Bangladesh Groups. The report points to a net increase in the global coal-power fleet of 18.2 gigawatts (GW) in 2021.

Whilst the pace of solar and wind energy construction is accelerating, it is not making significant inroads into the quantity of emissions from fossil-fuel based energy systems. Recently Mark Diesendorf from the University of NSW noted that: "We must confront a hard fact: In the year 2000, fossil fuels supplied 80% of the world’s total primary energy consumption. In 2019, they provided 81%.” 

“Climate greatest threat to Australia’s security,” ex-defence chief says

Former Chief of Australian Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie during a press conference at the Fuel Security Summit in Sydney. (AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi).

by Michael Mazengarb, first published at RenewEconomy

National security experts have called on Australian voters to use the federal election to support candidates that back strong action on climate change, saying Australia has “squandered” the last two decades.

Speaking at the Smart Energy Council’s Emergency Fuel Summit in Sydney, retired admiral Chris Barrie described climate change as the single biggest threat to Australia’s national security. Barrie currently serves on the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group and said the group saw national climate policy failures as putting Australia at risk.

“We consider that climate change now represents the greatest threat to the future and security of Australia,” Barrie said.

Retired senior defence leaders name climate disruption as "clear and present danger", call for 2030 decarbonisation goal

by David Spratt

Seventeen senior retired Australian defence leaders have described climate disruption as an "existential threat" and a "clear and present danger", calling for accelerating action with a 2030 decarbonisation goal.

The call came in an open letter to Australia's political leaders, which was also published as a full-page statement in the national The Australian newspaper on 23 March.  Amongst the signatories are Admiral Chris Barrie, the former chief  of the Australian Defence Force, and Air Vice-Marshal John Blackburn AO, the former deputy chief of the Royal Australian Air Force.   The letter is available here.

Existential climate risk management on ClimateGenn

by David Spratt

Recently I had the opportunity to speak with journalist Nick Breeze, who writes for The Ecologist as well as running his excellent ClimateGenn site (genn.cc). 

The podcast /video are now available. Nick describes our conversation as:

"In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with Research Director of the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration in Melbourne, David Spratt, about assessing climate risk and why incremental tweaks to reduce emissions are failing us.

"We also discuss IPCC forecasts, political failure, and how change is possible but it requires a huge mobilisation of resources, coupled with public and political participation and leadership of the Zelensky variety.

Don't miss Saul Griffith in Melbourne 20 February

For our Melbourne and Victoria readers...

Saul Griffith's new book ‘The Big Switch’ lays out a detailed blueprint – optimistic but feasible – for decarbonising our economy while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. 

Join Saul for this special Sustainable Living Festival Forum as he reveals exactly what it will take to rapidly transform our infrastructure to zero emissions. 

 Hosted by Walkley Award-winning journalist and broadcaster, Paul Barclay, the event will be recorded and broadcast on ABC Radio National's 'Big Ideas' program.

1pm Sunday 20 February @ The Capitol

Book at https://events.humanitix.com/the-big-switch-australia-s-electric-future

 More information: http://www.slf.org.au/event/big-switch-australias-electric-future/ 

"I’m a scientist, engineer, inventor, and father who wants to leave my kids a better world. The data convinces me that it is still rational to have hope." — Saul Griffith 

Have tipping points already been passed for critical climate systems? (7) Summing up: Faster than forecast, cascades loom

by David Spratt

Seventh in a series.    Read 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7

Image: MaxPixel

Reflecting on the evidence presented in this tipping point series, a number of conclusions may be drawn:

1. At just 1.2°C of warming, tipping points have been passed for several large Earth systems.  At just 1.2°C of global average warming, tipping points have been passed for several large Earth systems.  These include Arctic sea ice, the Greenland Ice Sheet, The Amundsen Sea glaciers in West Antarctica, the eastern Amazonian rainforest, and the world’s coral systems. The world will warm to 1.5°C by around 2030, with additional warming well beyond 1.5°C in the system after that. Yet even at the current level of warming, these systems will continue to move to qualitatively different states. In most cases, strong positive feedbacks are driving abrupt change. At higher levels of warming, the rate of change will quicken. The meme that “we have eight years to avoid 1.5°C and tipping points” should be deleted from the climate advocacy vocabulary. It is simply wrong.
   
   

Have tipping points already been passed for critical climate systems? (6) Permafrost: Beyond the models

by David Spratt 

Sixth in a series.    Read 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7

Permafrost is permanently frozen ground. It covers one-quarter of the land mass of the northern hemisphere, and contains 1.5 trillion tonnes of carbon, twice the amount currently in the atmosphere and triple the amount emitted by human activity since 1850.  Permafrost buried beneath the Arctic Ocean holds 60 billion tons of methane (in structures known as methane clathrates) and 560 billion tons of organic carbon.

Permafrost is releasing significant amounts of greenhouse gases, and feedbacks are under way, but the dynamics are not yet well enough understood to be able to judge whether tipping points have been reached or not.  As previously noted (in part 1 of this series), University of NSW researchers point out that: “We do not know exactly how close we are to a tipping point, or even whether we have already passed it… There are tipping points that while not yet triggered may already be fully committed to.” 

Have tipping points already been passed for critical climate systems? (5) Coral Reefs: A death spiral

by David Spratt 

Fifth in a series.    Read 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7

Updated 2 February 2022.

Great Barrier Reef bleaching 2016

Ecosystems, including coral reefs, mangroves and kelp forests in Australia, are degrading fast as the world's sixth mass extinction gathers pace. 

Coral polyps are invertebrates similar to minute jellyfish, which build limestone structures, and live in a symbiotic relationship with algae-like unicellular zooxanthellae that reside within the coral structure, and give it colour. The coral provides the algae with a protected environment and compounds they need for photosynthesis. In return, zooxanthellae supply the coral with oxygen, glucose, glycerol, and amino acids, which are the products of photosynthesis. 

Have tipping points already been passed for critical climate systems? (4) Forests and the Amazon: A faltering carbon sink

by David Spratt

Fourth in a series.    Read 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
Image: Chatham House
 

 

The plant-based terrestrial biosphere may be understood as including the world’s land-based plants, soils, derived dead organic matter, such as litter, and soil organic matter. 

Plants photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and water to produce sugar (glucose) and oxygen. Around 30% of the additional carbon dioxide (CO₂) produced by human actions has been drawn down from the atmosphere (mitigated) by increased plant photosynthesis. This adds to the land-based sink of stored carbon. But plants also respire, for example at night and in winter, by converting oxygen and stored glucose back into water and carbon dioxide. 

As the planet continues to warm, a point of warming is reached — the “thermal maximum for photosynthesis” — after which combination of the rate of photosynthesis decreasing and the rate of respiration increasing results in the net flux of CO₂ from the atmosphere decreasing.

Have tipping points already been passed for critical climate systems? (3) Greenland and the Arctic: Abrupt change

by David Spratt

Third in a series.    Read 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7

Broken-up Arctic sea-ice

“The Arctic is screaming”, says Mark Serreze, Arctic climate expert at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Arctic warming is racing ahead of the worst-case estimates, now heating four times faster than the global average, and the region is undergoing abrupt climate change, understood as a transition of the climate system into a different mode on a time scale that is faster than the responsible forcing. In other words, it has passed a tipping point for rapid, system-level change. 

Researchers say that the Arctic “is currently experiencing an abrupt climate change event …  climate models underestimate the abruptness of the recent changes observed in the Arctic (and) climate models underestimate this ongoing warming”. [Models do not account well for warming due to sea-ice loss, but losing the reflective power of Arctic sea ice in the summer months would advance the 2ºC threshold by 25 years”.]