tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14295467116998061112024-03-09T17:13:36.561+11:00Climate Code RedClimate code redDavid Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17579440972803022382noreply@blogger.comBlogger438125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-19054180376425307872024-03-09T17:12:00.005+11:002024-03-09T17:12:50.886+11:00Is scientific reticence the new climate denialism?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2TB90PAyWBPNX3C8cHbEwk_5PVqxaz9BodAicJnhotTPmcvDvaThgye-EAeJOWMg7XOwTM6FYGwZ3RPg6pql5SUp4xnk7ircWyUWeLVbx2BHRG9yrxT49DVB76P4S0yd1TQvLmDhtBma7ooaE4n7qujHh4BTNVegGnkGeYsvJPUeRMrOP5BfZbmUpLhk/s582/Screen%20Shot%202018-01-10%20at%2011.37.28%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="582" height="502" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2TB90PAyWBPNX3C8cHbEwk_5PVqxaz9BodAicJnhotTPmcvDvaThgye-EAeJOWMg7XOwTM6FYGwZ3RPg6pql5SUp4xnk7ircWyUWeLVbx2BHRG9yrxT49DVB76P4S0yd1TQvLmDhtBma7ooaE4n7qujHh4BTNVegGnkGeYsvJPUeRMrOP5BfZbmUpLhk/w640-h502/Screen%20Shot%202018-01-10%20at%2011.37.28%20AM.png" width="640" /></a></div> <br />Jonathon Porritt (technically, Sir Jonathon Espie Porritt, 2nd Baronet, CBE) has an excellent piece out, called <a href="https://www.jonathonporritt.com/mainstream-climate-science-the-new-denialism" target="_blank">"Mainstream climate science: The new denialism?"</a> <p></p><p>It really is worth the read. For people who have followed this blog, it won't be shockingly new, but in a forthright manner he questions the startling new reality we are facing, which we discussed in recent series for <i>Pearls&Irritations</i>: </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/humanitys-new-era-of-global-boiling-climates-2023-annus-horribilis/" target="_blank">Humanity’s new era of “global boiling”: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis</a> </li><li><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/part-2-towards-an-unliveable-planet-climates-2023-annus-horribilis/" target="_blank">Towards an unliveable planet: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis</a></li><li><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/as-warming-accelerates-and-1-5c-is-breached-faster-than-forecast-australia-needs-to-re-think-climate-risks-and-policy/" target="_blank">Shock as warming accelerates, 1.5°C is breached faster than forecast</a></li></ul><p>Porritt focusses on the "deceit" of "mainstream scientists, NGOs and commentators" have been "holding back" because of the alleged need to "protect people from the truth of climate change", noting that this strategy has not worked "as a way of enlisting the huge numbers of people required to force our politicians to start getting serious".<br /><br />And he concludes that "we have to see off this patronising, manipulative, self-serving deceit ONCE AND FOR ALL".<span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Here is an extract from the early part of Porritt's analysis, in which he starts by summarising his analysis:<br /><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>The speed with which the climate is now changing is faster than (almost) all scientists thought possible.</li><li>There is now zero prospect of holding the average temperature increase this century to below 1.5°C; even 2°C is beginning to slip out of reach. The vast majority of climate scientists know this, but rarely if ever give voice to this critically important reality.</li><li>At the same time, the vast majority of people still haven’t a clue about what’s going on – and what this means for them and everything they hold dear.</li><li>The current backlash against existing (already wholly inadequate) climate measures is also accelerating – and will cause considerable political damage in 2024. Those driving this backlash represent the same old climate denial that has been so damaging over so many years.</li><li>The science-based institutions on which we depend to address this crisis have comprehensively failed us. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is incapable of telling the whole truth about accelerating climate change; the Conference of the Parties (under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) has been co-opted by the fossil fuel lobby to the point of total corruption.]</li><li>By not calling out these incontrovertible realities, mainstream scientists are at risk of becoming the new climate deniers.</li></ol><p>He then proceeds with this:<br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p>Hot off the press: we heard today (March 7th) that February was the hottest month ever, with an average temperature that was an astonishing 1.77°C above pre-industrial levels.</p><p>I don’t want to slow down the narrative here – so I’ve just given a flavour of some of that evidence about current extremes in the equivalent of an Appendix. And then further details about the speed with which certain “tipping points” are looming ever larger in a second Appendix. A quick glance is all you’ll need. But if you just can’t see why I’m getting so hot and bothered about all this, PLEASE check it out!</p><p>And there goes my reputation as a “glass half-full sort of a guy”! I will, from herein on, be badged as a full-on “doomist”, a “prophet of apocalyptic despair”, an anarchist/communist/subversive seeking “to bring down capitalism” by “existentializing” (I kid you not!) the “perfectly manageable threat of climate change”.</p><p>Guilty as charged.</p><p>It’s not just the right-wing crazies (of whom, more later) who follow that line. All sorts of serious commentators have subscribed (for years!) to the hypothesis that there’s only so much climate truth the little people can deal with. Here’s Pilita Clark writing in the Financial Times in August 2023:</p><blockquote><p>“Doomist thinking is dangerous because it breeds paralysis and disengagement, which is precisely what the forces of climate inaction want.” “Doomism is ultimately a luxury that only a few can afford.”</p></blockquote><p>Brilliant! So we’re the ones responsible for the lack of political traction, by virtue of a surfeit of hairshirt misery that only the middle class can afford!</p><p>These accusations of doomism are not new. Writing back in 2019, US author Jonathan Franzen put it like this:</p><p>“If you’re younger than 60, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilisation of life on Earth – massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under 30, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it.</p><p>You can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or enraged by the world’s inaction. Or you can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope today.”</p><p>I would be the first to acknowledge some kind of continuing denial sort-of makes sense. It can be very painful to have to properly embrace an understanding of what is actually happening in the climate today. And it can get even more disheartening when we take account of the constraints of human psychology and behaviour, let alone today’s political reality.</p><p>I get all that. But mainstream scientists, NGOs and commentators have been “holding back”, on those very grounds, for a long time. And it certainly hasn’t worked as a way of enlisting the huge numbers of people required to force our politicians to start getting serious.</p><p>Simple conclusion: we have to see off this patronising, manipulative, self-serving deceit (about needing to protect people from the truth of climate change) ONCE AND FOR ALL.</p><p>Particularly if you happen to be a climate scientist still playing the “we’ve got this covered” card.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>The full article is here:<br /><a href="https://www.jonathonporritt.com/mainstream-climate-science-the-new-denialism/">https://www.jonathonporritt.com/mainstream-climate-science-the-new-denialism/</a></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiglACTGrbJkYbn2nsAZlX1M1rLsNU4N6z_bZwS3Zl0SAEIDgdiljMLWRt0TlTZEooZQBeIQG30n04qs4NRvmxZTnPsedfsmBu2LLlkUk76ovpO0XaOHtIxa2_GEVH-jPPOzVgAMUUa42XrRz4Wt3WBUQI3f-FFuQM_LHu7wI-ANqZwb_ATYgUGpisxfnc/s1050/WLB%20cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="684" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiglACTGrbJkYbn2nsAZlX1M1rLsNU4N6z_bZwS3Zl0SAEIDgdiljMLWRt0TlTZEooZQBeIQG30n04qs4NRvmxZTnPsedfsmBu2LLlkUk76ovpO0XaOHtIxa2_GEVH-jPPOzVgAMUUa42XrRz4Wt3WBUQI3f-FFuQM_LHu7wI-ANqZwb_ATYgUGpisxfnc/s320/WLB%20cover.png" width="208" /></a></div><br />A similar analysis, focusing on the underestimation of existential climate risks by mainstream science, and particular the IPCC, was published by Ian Dunlop and myself in 2018 under the title <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/whatliesbeneath" target="_blank">"What Lies Beneath"</a>, with a foreword by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber which amongst other things said that: <p></p><p></p><blockquote>It [<i>What Lies Beneath</i>] is the critical overview of well-informed intellectuals who sit outside the climate-science community, which has developed over the last fifty years. All such expert communities are prone to what the French call <i>deformation professionelle</i> and the German <i>betriebsblindheit</i>.<br /><br />Expressed in plain English, experts tend to establish a peer world-view which becomes ever more rigid and focussed. Yet the crucial insights regarding the issue in question may lurk at the fringes, as this report suggests. This is particularly true when the issue is the very survival of our civilisation, where conventional means of analysis may become useless.</blockquote><br />David<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-20229593280979657752024-02-29T08:42:00.001+11:002024-02-29T08:42:27.739+11:00Pigs might fly: Australian aviation’s delusional emissions future<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUfvshx8lOIbgYaP6uQH1Qy2isuTjnj6KZm-kPvRmfuNTAaUK9NP7FAh11LtTb2facY76SI_Pk78KidRrQSOC2iVNh-9w0vR-tsJ8to7kJg8ghlwk9F348LZ99s9XVVH6BwSiYpkCd4uJkAR5dyd-NqBQw0fpYLIgEZtHmBep2VMgWNznHscwZ8WKUkak/s800/Pigs-might-fly_iStock-collage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUfvshx8lOIbgYaP6uQH1Qy2isuTjnj6KZm-kPvRmfuNTAaUK9NP7FAh11LtTb2facY76SI_Pk78KidRrQSOC2iVNh-9w0vR-tsJ8to7kJg8ghlwk9F348LZ99s9XVVH6BwSiYpkCd4uJkAR5dyd-NqBQw0fpYLIgEZtHmBep2VMgWNznHscwZ8WKUkak/w640-h400/Pigs-might-fly_iStock-collage.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>by <b>Mark Carter</b>, first published at <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/pigs-might-fly-australian-aviations-delusional-emissions-future/" target="_blank">Pearls and Irritations</a> <br /></p><p>Australian aviation is in the news again. Having <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/23/qantas-lower-fares-record-profit-alan-joyce">ripped off passengers</a>, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/qantas-loses-high-court-appeal-over-sacked-workers-20230912-p5e41l.html">illegally sacked workers</a>, and <a href="https://bfpca.org.au/54-stonewalling/">impacted the health of residents under airport flight paths</a>, the industry has now received <a href="https://www.australianflying.com.au/latest/jet-zero-council-launches-as-government-invests-in-saf">$30m from taxpayers</a> to manufacture “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF). And <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/01/industry-super-funds-warn-slow-transition-to-net-zero-puts-australia-at-risk-of-losing-attractive-investments">investors</a> and <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/qantas-calls-on-canberra-to-back-sustainable-aviation-fuel-industry-20231210-p5eqde">airlines</a> are clamouring for more.<span id="more-376735"></span></p>
<p>Having “committed to net zero emissions by 2050”, or Net Zero 2050, (<a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/aviation_green_paper.pdf">Aviation Green Paper, p.1</a>) the federal government says sustainable aviation fuel will help maximise “aviation’s contribution” (<a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/aviation_green_paper.pdf">Aviation Green Paper, p.73</a>).</p>
<p>So, yes. Pigs might fly. Literally and metaphorically.</p>
<p>Literally as <span><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2376853-planes-could-soon-run-on-pig-fat-but-it-wont-reduce-emissions/">pig fat in SAF</a></span>. And metaphorically because the government’s emissions reduction proposals for aviation can never make flying climate safe.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>Sustainable aviation fuel won’t allow the planet to cool. SAF won’t make flight emissions
net zero by 2050. And Net Zero 2050 won’t prevent 2ºC of warming.</p>
<p><b>Sustainable aviation fuel won’t allow the planet to cool</b></p>
<p>2ºC of warming will likely trigger <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115">life-as-we-know-it-ending consequences</a>. For an acceptable chance of avoiding them, <a href="https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/climate-repair-three-things-we-must-do-now-to-stabilise-the-planet/">according to leading climate scientists</a>,
we need to do three things, and aviation has a role in two of them.
Right now, new emissions need to be cut to near absolute zero at
emergency speed to prevent increased warming. At the same time, we need
to draw down the CO2 already in the atmosphere to cool a dangerously hot
planet. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-what-the-world-was-like-the-last-time-carbon-dioxide-levels-were-at-400ppm-141784">last time CO2 in the atmosphere was as high as now</a> — 420 ppm — warming hit 3ºC and sea levels ended up 10 metres higher.</p>
<p>We need to stop the warming and start the cooling.</p>
<p>Our government, however, is trapped in the delusion that cooling can
be ignored, that drawing down CO2 can safely allow new CO2 emissions.
This delusion has a name. It’s called “Net Zero 2050”. And the CO2
reduction claims for Sustainable Aviation Fuel ride on its coat tails.</p>
<p><b>Sustainable aviation fuel</b><b> won’t make flight emissions net zero by 2050</b></p>
<p>SAF, when burnt, emits the same amount of CO2 as jet diesel, not
less. The claimed reduction, compared to jet diesel CO2 emissions, is
achieved when CO2 drawn down in growing the SAF feedstock — whether pig
or plant — is subtracted from in-flight emissions. SAF’s ‘lifecycle’ CO2
emissions (growing through to burning) are less than jet diesel’s. In
this way SAF CO2 emissions can be said to be net zero. As such SAF is
then marketed as ‘clean’, ‘green’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘eco-friendly’ —
despite preventing cooling.</p>
<p>Even if we ignore the priority of cooling, it’s delusional to think SAF can make flight emissions net zero by 2050.</p>
<p>Firstly, because SAF can only claim ‘net zero’ for CO2 flight
emissions. While non-CO2 emissions, including nitrous oxides and
contrail cirrus, for a given flight, contribute <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231020305689">twice the warming</a> of CO2 alone (<a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/aviation_green_paper.pdf">Aviation Green Paper, p.78</a>), and can’t be drawn down.</p>
<p>Secondly, in practice, for Australian aviation to get to net zero CO2
emissions, 100% SAF would be required to fuel all flights. Yet, the
size of the financial investment and land acquisition required to grow
the feedstock, then manufacture and <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2023/august/sustainable-aviation-industry-australia">deploy it to all flights</a> — 20 billion litres by 2050 — will, <a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/aviation-white-paper-scenario-analysis-september-2023.pdf">the government agrees</a>, be <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/heatherfarmbrough/2023/12/05/aviation-wants-sustainable-fuels-the-problem-is-there-isnt-enough/?sh=530f64bb6b53">prohibitive</a>.</p>
<p>Federal transport minister, Catherine King (<a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/aviation_green_paper.pdf">Aviation Green Paper, p.38</a>),
says offsetting will therefore be needed to help make CO2 flight
emissions net zero by 2050. But her colleague, federal climate minister,
Chris Bowen, disagrees. He has specifically <a href="https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/bowen/transcripts/national-press-club-address-qa-session">ruled out the use of offsets</a>
across the transport sector under Safeguard Mechanism regulations to
achieve emissions reductions of 43% by 2030 on the way to NZ2050.</p>
<p>Offsetting allows a tonne of new CO2 flight emissions right now, on
the premise that another tonne will be drawn down somewhere, some time
later. But <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/carbon-credits-and-offsets-explained/">in practice that rarely happens</a>. And even when it does it still prevents cooling.</p>
<p><b>Net zero 2050 won’t prevent 2ºC of warming</b></p>
<p>Underlying the government’s projected future for Australian aviation
sits the delusion that 2ºC of warming will be prevented if CO2 emissions
get to net zero by 2050.</p>
<p>Emissions reduction proposals, like NZ2050, should have a near zero
risk of failure — as we require for the infrastructure we build — given
the threat that 2ºC represents. Yet the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-2/">IPCC acknowledges a risk of failure for Net Zero 2050</a> that most would find unacceptable. <a href="https://berkeleyearth.org/november-2023-temperature-update/">Warming in 2023</a> has already <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-2023-will-be-warmest-year-record-eus-copernicus-2023-12-06/">nudged 1.5ºC</a>. It will hit 2ºC by the 2040s if significant policy changes are not made, according to <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2022EF003330">current climate models</a>. Indeed, former NASA climate chief James Hansen <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/how-we-know-that-global-warming-is-accelerating-and-that-the-goal-of-the-paris-agreement-is-dead?e=3763203384">recently warned</a> that “global warming of 2ºC will be reached by the late 2030s”.</p>
<p>On current plans, the <a href="https://productiongap.org/">UN reports annual new emissions globally will be no lower in 2050 than they are today</a>. With our government planning for a threefold increase in flights by 2050 (<a href="https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/aviation_green_paper.pdf">Aviation Green Paper, p.96</a>) actual flight emissions from Australian aviation won’t be dropping either.</p>
<p>In summary, Australian aviation policy is based on these three delusions. In reality, for a chance of holding warming to 2ºC, <a href="https://www.climatecodered.org/2023/06/three-climate-interventions-reduce.html">all emissions need to be reduced at emergency speed</a>. And, because <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint">flying is the fastest way to fry the planet</a>, the only way aviation emissions can be cut at the speed required, is by regulating flight reductions to near zero by 2030.</p>
<p>We’re <span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/06/earth-on-verge-of-five-catastrophic-tipping-points-scientists-warn">facing the abyss</a></span>. And our government is telling us we can fly. So will we jump?</p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-47426195476913738012024-02-14T08:34:00.001+11:002024-02-14T11:27:04.917+11:00As warming accelerates and 1.5°C is breached faster than forecast, Australian Government stumbles on climate risks<p> by <b>David Spratt</b> and <b>Ian Dunlop</b>, first published at <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/as-warming-accelerates-and-1-5c-is-breached-faster-than-forecast-australia-needs-to-re-think-climate-risks-and-policy/" target="_blank"><i>Pearls and Irritations</i></a> <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJEXTw-wCt7OH-umXBLp02gL-Kv57GbUoH6VGPrStnpa3DSON38T6gJPzSyPxtuSosPoJECN1WThmPJzmKLCi4yY4IZ0XWzPVcVad_INmpZHxgCZJyqjtZfJKgK2wKFmypmSgqrpyiUmG7q8zBIjLJRtYxKyKnvOVYHFyWzVFIZegj-NmXmXfwJ3SCuEI/s1024/SeasonalWrap-2023.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="1024" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJEXTw-wCt7OH-umXBLp02gL-Kv57GbUoH6VGPrStnpa3DSON38T6gJPzSyPxtuSosPoJECN1WThmPJzmKLCi4yY4IZ0XWzPVcVad_INmpZHxgCZJyqjtZfJKgK2wKFmypmSgqrpyiUmG7q8zBIjLJRtYxKyKnvOVYHFyWzVFIZegj-NmXmXfwJ3SCuEI/w400-h220/SeasonalWrap-2023.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />If there was shock and awe last week when the Copernicus Climate
Change Service announced that global average warming over the last
twelve months — February 2023 to January 2024 — <span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68110310">had exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius </a></span>(°C),
it was likely because too many people had succumbed to the predominant
but delusional policy-making narrative that holding warming to 1.5–2°C
was still on the cards.<span id="more-376353"></span><p></p>
<p>What does this symbolically important moment mean for the poor
understanding of climate-risk analysis by Australian governments? To
begin, the idea that emissions could continue till 2050 and still
achieve the 1.5–2°C goal was always a con; now it is fully exposed.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>One year of 1.5°C does not constitute a trend, which technically can
only be seen in retrospect over 20 to 30 years of data. But with <span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-01-08/2024-could-be-even-warmer-than-record-setting-2023">another hot year likely in 2024</a></span>, the rate of warming accelerating, and a <span><a href="https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1725529865690976507">current peak in the Earth’s Energy Imbalance </a></span>—
which is an indicator of future warming — it is hard to disagree with
the assessment of former NASA climate science chief James Hansen that
the world has now reached the 1.5°C mark for all practical purposes.</p>
<p>When the 2015 global climate conference resulted in the Paris
Agreement’s commitment to hold climate warming to the 1.5–2°C band,
those numbers quickly became normalised as the <i>sine qua non </i>of climate
policymaking. But that was a grand illusion on two counts:</p>
<blockquote><p>The <b>first</b> was that 1.5°C was a safe or
appropriate target. Sir David King, the former UK Chief Scientist, had
collaborated with the small-island states in the lead-up to the Paris
conference in pushing the 1.5°C goal. But in 2021,<i> The Independent
</i>journalist Donnachadh McCarthy <span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/arctic-ocean-ice-temperature-climate-change-b1790779.html"><span>reported </span></a></span>that
King “astounded me by saying he now realised this was wrong, and
believes the passing of the Arctic tipping point has already been
reached… He said the 1.1°C rise that we already have is too dangerous —
and candidly admitted he believed US climate professor James Hansen had
been right after all in 1988, when he warned the US Congress that we
should not pass 350 ppm. We have now [in 2021] breached 415 ppm and are
heading fast towards 500ppm” (emphasis added).</p>
<p>The <b>second</b> illusion was that there was any realistic
hope of keeping warming to 1.5°C or even 2°C, given the decades of
policy-making failure (see image below), <span><a href="https://theconversation.com/fossil-co-emissions-hit-record-high-yet-again-in-2023-216436"><span>emissions breaking new records year after year</span></a></span>, the <span><a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2021/09/renowned-climate-scientist-warns-rate.html"><span>reduced levels of aerosols which are masking warming</span></a></span>,
the political inertia rooted in adherence to a slow, economically
non-disruptive mitigation path, and in particular state capture by the
fossil fuel industry, allowing fossil fuel expansion. Many of us,
including some leading scientists, <span><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/too-hot-to-handle-can-we-afford-a-4-degree-rise-20110709-1h7hh.html"><span>have been warning for a long time </span></a></span>that
the world would flash past 2°C and into the existential 3-4°C range
given the failure to treat climate change as the single greatest threat
to humanity, and respond accordingly.</p></blockquote>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/?attachment_id=376358" rel="attachment wp-att-376358" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" class="moz-reader-block-img" height="277" src="https://johnmenadue.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-02-12-at-3.52.34%E2%80%AFpm.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy: CarbonCredits.com</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>But policymakers focused on the scenarios provided by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is charged with
presenting policy-relevant science; that is, science for
politically-appointed policymakers. The 2018 IPCC <span><a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/faq/faq-chapter-1/"><span><i>Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C </i></span></a></span>said
that global temperature was currently rising around 0.2°C per decade,
and “if this pace of warming continues, it would reach 1.5°C around
2040”. The more recent, new generation CMIP6 models using an emissions
scenario closest to current circumstances <span><a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-when-might-the-world-exceed-1-5c-and-2c-of-global-warming/">showed 1.5°C between 2026 and 2042</a></span>,
with a median of 2032. These sets of numbers created a comfort zone for
policymakers (”it could be 20 years away”) at odds with the reality now
unfolding.</p>
<p>In 2021, Hansen warned that the <span><a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2021/09/renowned-climate-scientist-warns-rate.html">rate of global warming over next 25 years could be double that of the previous 50</a></span>, and in 2023 he pointed to <span><a href="https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889"><span>clear evidence that this acceleration was now happening</span></a></span>.
Some were initially sceptical, but as records continue to be smashed
month after month, it is now more widely appreciated that the warming
rate is at least 50 per cent higher than earlier decades, at 0.3°C per
decade.</p>
<p>Last week Celeste Saulo, the new chief of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), said that <span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ap-world-meteorological-organization-baltimore-james-hansen-north-america-b2492342.html">the rate of human-caused climate change is accelerating</a></span>,
based on research by some WMO science teams. She was concerned not
knowing what it means for the future: “We are not there in terms of our
scientific understanding of the implications of this acceleration. We
don’t fully understand how it is going to evolve.” That should be a real
worry for the Australian Government, too, in this hottest and driest
continent.</p>
<p>That acceleration moves forward the timeline for reaching 2°C of
warming, for the manifestation of more severe impacts, and for systemic
tipping points. <span><a href="http://mailchi.mp/caa/how-we-know-that-global-warming-is-accelerating-and-that-the-goal-of-the-paris-agreement-%2520is-dead">Hansen warns that warming will accelerate to 1.7°C by 2030</a></span>.
In comparison, current modelling reflected in IPCC reports show
temperatures “are expected to pass 2°C in the modest-mitigation SSP2-4.5
scenario – where emissions remain around current levels – <span><a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-when-might-the-world-exceed-1-5c-and-2c-of-global-warming/">between 2038 and 2072, with a median year of 2052</a></span>”.</p>
<p>Advice to the Australian Government from the sclerotic Climate Change
Authority, reports from CSIRO, and the current, domestically-focused,
National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA) all use the IPCC work as the
bedrock of their work and advocacy. This is now a disaster, because
warming may be 15 years ahead of the IPCC’s out-dated analysis, and its
history of reticence on tipping points.</p>
<p>The NCRA is still using a 1.5–2°C by 2050 scenario, Department of Climate Change Deputy Secretary Jo Evans <a href="https://www.aapnews.com.au/news/climate-risk-assessment-based-on-dream-1-5c-scenario/gRdlatnw">told</a>
Greens Senator Larissa Waters at Senate Estimates on 12 February. Asked Senator Waters:</p><blockquote><p>“I
don’t understand why you are doing a risk assessment based on a scenario
that’s so below what’s actually going to happen. That doesn’t give you
an adequate picture of risk. Isn’t the whole point of doing this risk
analysis to understand what the risks are?” <br /></p></blockquote><p>“We don’t
think it’s unrealistic. You are expressing your take on it,” replied
Evans.</p>
<p>And that’s the problem. The Government simply isn’t up to speed, and its risk assessment process is out of time.</p>
<p>Hansen’s analysis doesn’t have to be exactly right for his conclusion
to be taken very seriously as a plausible worst-case scenario — though
he has not been substantially wrong on any of the big issues in a career
spanning 50 years. Such a scenario should play a prominent role in
generating climate advice to governments, because when risks are
existential — as climate minister Bowen has accepted — it is important
to give particular attention to the plausible worst-case or high-end
scenarios. That is where the damage is greatest, and we do not get a
“second chance” to learn from our mistakes when a risk is
civilisation-ending. Thus the urgency for precautionary action to ensure
these scenarios never occur.</p>
<p>Last month, Prof. Matt King, the head of the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, <span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/21/antarctica-melting-ice-shelf-sea-cover-professor-matt-king"><span>said he found it embarrassing how little was known about the local and global ramifications of Antarctic changes</span></a></span>,
“including a historic drop in floating sea ice cover, the accelerating
melting of giant ice sheets and the slowing of a deep ocean current
known as the Southern Ocean overturning circulation”, which may threaten
the viability of some Australian agriculture sectors amongst many
adverse impacts.</p>
<p>With warming way ahead of the IPCC view, <span><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/humanitys-new-era-of-global-boiling-climates-2023-annus-horribilis/"><span>extreme events astounding scientists as they reach way outside the model projections</span></a></span>, inadequate understanding of <span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-01/how-the-jet-stream-has-been-causing-extreme-weather/102885780"><span>how a destabilising jet stream is magnifying heat and rain bomb extremes</span></a></span>, and worries about faster-than-forecast tipping points including <span><a href="https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/02/new-study-suggests-the-atlantic-overturning-circulation-amoc-is-on-tipping-course/">a new study which suggests the Atlantic overturning circulation (AMOC) “is on tipping course</a></span>”,
any government focussed on protecting their people from unexpected and
catastrophic impacts would commission an urgent review of this
fast-changing landscape.</p>
<p>Bob Berwyn at <i>Inside Climate News </i><span><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09022024/climate-impacts-from-collapse-of-atlantic-meridional-overturning-current-could-be-worse-than-expected/">reports </a></span>the
author of a 2023 AMOC paper, Peter Ditlevsen, as saying that a collapse
of the heat-transporting circulation is a "going-out-of-business
scenario" for European agriculture.</p>
<p>Given the way the Australian Public Service has been gutted of climate expertise, the sad state of CSIRO, and <span><a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/_files/ugd/148cb0_300c6784078c49d1b9d38ce28f978711.pdf"><span>the methodological mess into which the NCRA has fallen</span></a></span>,
an urgent review would be best led by an independent, eminent scientist
or scientists who can give analysis and advice free of the turf wars,
the silos and the culture of failure so evident within government
structures, and of the dead hand of the fossil fuel industry. It could
be a similar role to that played by Ross Garnaut on the economics of
climate change.</p>
<p>Some questions the climate minister could reasonably be asked today now include:</p>
<blockquote><p><b>1.</b> What specific advice has the minister
received on the magnitude of the warming acceleration, and on the
implications for impacts and policy-making in Australia over the next
twenty years?</p>
<p><b>2.</b> Will the scientific inputs to the NCRA be revised
in light of this recognition of accelerated warming, and will new
modelling be done to accommodate these changed circumstances?</p>
<p><b>3.</b> How will the Antarctic changes identified by Matt King be incorporated into the NCRA, especially for food production?</p>
<p><b>4.</b> Is the NCRA giving particular attention to a
plausible worst-case scenario? In such a scenario, what level of global
warming to 2050 would we be looking at?</p>
<p><b>5.</b> Chatham House’s 2021 Climate Risk Assessment
identifies a high-end scenario as warming of 3.5°C or more this century.
Will the NCRA be specifically looking at such a scenario?</p>
<p><b>6.</b> What precautionary action will be taken to head off this looming national climate catastrophe?</p></blockquote>
<p>Given the performance in Senate Estimates this week, it is not easy to be optimistic about the government’s response.</p><p> </p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-40844611935402692772024-01-26T08:44:00.001+11:002024-01-29T12:07:57.320+11:00Towards an unliveable planet: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaLZkBM4PmH1TBUn44LB1bUi6PM-Pp5uxP4SweYad8fskzn8zUUdRZf31O263MCkqiN3HEGQgT7yh4aDKU-Yyjt8Ot8MmwEXYmIZJuKQXtK0XE8XBaM6FfVBTByKoEpG57E1XfvNqmOA5iyVYlSWhyh1hgNZLPUiJTEn7a5QcSzRqAkWXOQX2sPxV5U6I/s1654/Screenshot%202024-01-26%20at%208.40.46%20am.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="886" data-original-width="1654" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaLZkBM4PmH1TBUn44LB1bUi6PM-Pp5uxP4SweYad8fskzn8zUUdRZf31O263MCkqiN3HEGQgT7yh4aDKU-Yyjt8Ot8MmwEXYmIZJuKQXtK0XE8XBaM6FfVBTByKoEpG57E1XfvNqmOA5iyVYlSWhyh1hgNZLPUiJTEn7a5QcSzRqAkWXOQX2sPxV5U6I/w640-h343/Screenshot%202024-01-26%20at%208.40.46%20am.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The "production gap". Government plans and projections would lead to an increase in global coal production until 2030, and in global oil and gas production until at least 2050 (UNEP). </span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p>by <b>David Spratt</b> and <b>Ian Dunlop</b>, first published at <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/part-2-towards-an-unliveable-planet-climates-2023-annus-horribilis/" target="_blank">Pearls and Irritations</a>.</p><p>This is the second article in a two-part series. Read the <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2024/01/humanitys-new-era-of-global-boiling.html">first part here</a>. <br /></p><p> The heat and extreme climate records of 2023 shocked scientists.
So where are we heading? Given current trends, the world will zoom past
2°C of warming and the Paris climate goal of limiting warming to
1.5-2°C.
</p><p>Climate model scenarios similar to current policies project 2°C of
warming before 2050; if James Hansen is right (see <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2024/01/humanitys-new-era-of-global-boiling.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a>) and warming
sharply accelerates, it could be a decade sooner. These outcomes will be
driven by the high energy imbalance, continuing high emissions, the
accelerating accumulation of heat in the oceans, and decreases in
short-term aerosol cooling.</p>
<p>Several years ago <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aah3443"><span class="s1">a group of eminent scientists proposed a “carbon law”</span></a>, which said that keeping warming to 2°C required emissions to be halved <i>every</i>
decade from 2020 onwards, including a halving between 2020 and 2030,
plus some carbon drawdown. Instead, the level of greenhouse gases and
coal use both hit record highs in 2023. And the largest national fossil
fuel producers plan to keep on expanding production As a result, current
government plans worldwide will likely result in emissions in 2050
almost as high as they are today, according to the <a href="http://unep.org/resources/production-gap-report-2023"><span class="s1">UN Environment Programme’s 2023 <i>Production Gap</i> report</span></a>.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>Other analyses are broadly consistent:</p>
<ul class="ul1"><li class="li3">The<a href="http://iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2023"><span class="s1"> International Energy Agency finds </span></a>that stated national policies will result in oil and gas production in 2050 as high as 2020; with coal halved.</li><li class="li3">The <a href="http://oecd.org/env/indicators-modelling-outlooks/oecdenvironmentaloutlookto2050theconsequencesofinaction-keyfactsandfigures.htm"><span class="s1">OECD finds</span></a>
that a world economy four times larger than today is projected to need
80% more energy in 2050; and without new policy action and the global
energy mix in 2050 will not differ significantly from today.</li></ul>
<p class="p5">The intentions of the world’s five largest fossil fuel producers are clear — and civilisation-threatening — <a href="http://unep.org/resources/production-gap-report-2023"><span class="s1">as reported by the UN</span></a>:</p>
<ul class="ul1"><li class="li3">In China, oil production is projected to be flat to
2050, but gas will increase more than 60 percent from 2020 to 2050,
while coal use will remain high till 2030 then decline sharply.</li><li class="li3">In the United States, oil production will grow and then
remain at record levels to 2050, and gas is projected to continuously
and significantly increase to 2050; whilst coal will drop by half.</li><li class="li3">Projections for Russia are available only to 2035, with
coal and gas production projected to increase significantly, while oil
remains flat.</li><li class="li3">In Saudi Arabia, oil production is projected to grow by
26 to 47 percent by 2050, with gas up 40 percent between 2019 and 2050.
Together they make up half of the Saudi economy.</li><li class="li2">And in Australia, one of the world’s top two liquified
natural gas and coal exporters, gas production is projected to stay
above the current level for the next 15 years, with coal remaining high
over the same period, above 450 million metric tons annually.</li></ul>
<p class="p6"><b>We are heading towards 3–4°C.</b></p>
<p class="p6">This outlook suggests Earth is heading towards 3°C of
warming and perhaps a good deal more, because current climate models
which project warming of around 2.7°C do not adequately account for all
the system-level reinforcing feedbacks.</p>
<p class="p6">In 2021, the pre-eminent UK international affairs think-tank <a href="http://chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021"><span class="s1">Chatham House said</span></a>
a “plausible worst-case scenario” is 3.5°C or more, which could be an
underestimate if tipping points are reached sooner than the orthodox
science suggests. This now seems to be the reality.</p>
<p class="p6">A <a href="http://nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02990-w"><span class="s1">clear majority of scientists expected warming of more than 3°C</span></a>, and 82% expected to see catastrophic impacts of climate change in their lifetime, according to a 2021 survey by the journal <i>Nature.</i></p>
<p class="p6">Questions about the size of the aerosol forcing, and the
related issue of how sensitive the climate is to changes in greenhouse
gases, remain an issue of scientific contention.</p>
<p class="p6">New climate history research published in December 2023, based on a study of the last 66 million years, concluded that <a href="http://science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi5177"><span class="s1">global temperature may be more sensitive to CO</span><span class="s2"><sub>2</sub></span><span class="s1"> levels than current models estimate</span></a>. It showed that the last time CO<span class="s3"><sub>2</sub></span>
levels were as high as today was around 14 million year ago, which is
longer than previous estimates, and that climate sensitivity — the
amount of warming resulting from a doubling of atmospheric CO<span class="s3"><sub>2</sub></span> — may be between between 5°C and 8°C, compared to the IPCC orthodoxy of 1.5–4.5°C.</p>
<p class="p6">The level of greenhouse gases is currently around 560
parts per million, double the pre-industrial level. Some of those gases
such as methane are short-lived so this level of forcing is not written
in stone, but nevertheless if Hansen et al. are right that a doubling
may lead to around 4–5°C of warming, then another 30 years of high
emissions means humans will have created an increasingly unliveable
planet.</p>
<p class="p6">Has the impact of aerosols been widely understood? In what the <a href="http://nytimes.com/2023/08/30/opinion/columnists/the-faustian-bargain-of-reducing-air-pollution.html"><span class="s1"><i>New York Times</i> described</span></a> as “an eye-opening <i>Nature </i>commentary”,
Geeta Persad and her colleagues wrote in late 2022 that “overall, vast
emissions of aerosols since the start of the industrial age have had a
profound cooling effect” and that without them “the global warming we
see today would be 30 to 50 percent greater”, <a href="http://nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03763-9"><span class="s1">warning that “the impacts of aerosols on climate risk are often ignored”</span></a>.</p>
<p class="p6">In 2018, a group of eminent scientists explored the
potential — once warming had exceeded the 1.5–2°C range — for
self-reinforcing positive feedbacks in major elements of the climate
system to push passed a planetary threshold that would prevent
temperature stabilisation, and <a href="http://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115"><span class="s1">drive the system to a “Hothouse Earth”</span></a>. <a href="http://nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0"><span class="s1">They warned </span></a>that <span class="s4">“we are in a climate emergency… this is an existential threat to civilisation”.</span></p>
<p class="p6">The <a href="http://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad080/7319571"><span class="s1"><i>2023 State of the Climate Report: Entering uncharted territory </i>warned</span></a>
of: “potential collapse of natural and socioeconomic systems in such a
world [of 2.6°C warming] where we will face unbearable heat, frequent
extreme weather events, food and fresh water shortages, rising seas,
more emerging diseases, and increased social unrest and geopolitical
conflict.”</p>
<p>Whatever the words, the understanding is widely shared that
contemporary nations and societies, and likely the global social system,
are heading towards collapse. “If we carry on the way we are going now,
I can’t see this civilisation lasting to the end of this century”, <a href="http://youtu.be/FKjVpyqOZ2w?si=jwFuOBbbQOIPw0Ty"><span class="s1">says Professor Tim Lenton</span></a>. The US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin III <a href="http://defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2582828/secretary-austin-remarks-at-climate-change-summit"><span class="s1">calls the risks “existential”</span></a>.</p>
<p>Opening the Innovation Zero Congress in London in May 2023, Potsdam Institute Director Prof. <a href="http://aol.co.uk/news/current-climate-path-lead-collapse-103729716.html"><span class="s1">Johan Rockstrom described the path we are on</span></a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="p7">“2.5°C global mean surface temperature rise is a disaster.
It’s something that humanity has absolutely no evidence that we can
cope with… [There] would be a 10-metre sea-level rise. There would be a
collapse of all the big biomes on planet Earth – the rainforest, many of
the temperate forests – abrupt thawing of permafrost, we will have
complete collapse of marine biology… Over one-third of the planet around
the equatorial regions will be uninhabitable because you will pass the
threshold of health, which is around 30°C. It’s only in some parts of
the Sahara Desert today that has that kind of average temperature.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="p7">Chatham House’s <i>Climate Risk Assessment 2021</i> <a href="http://chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021"><span class="s1">concludes that by 2050 global food demand would be 50% higher, but crop yields may drop by 30%</span></a>.
As desertification spreads across the dry sub-tropics, and one-third of
the planet experiences unprecedented heat, it is not difficult to see
why they concluded that cascading climate impacts will “drive political
instability and greater national insecurity, and fuel regional and
international conflict”<span class="s5">.</span></p>
<p class="p7">What is worse is the setback to climate action posed by
current conflicts and military posturing in Europe, the Middle East and
east Asia, which are huge political distractions from dealing with the
greatest threat to humanity, and all of which have the potential to
spread more widely.</p>
<p class="p7">To maintain military flexibility, the US insisted in 1997
that direct military carbon emissions be excluded from international
carbon accounting. Those emissions, around 5 percent of the total
global, are far less than the indirect emissions from conflict, as
recent estimates <a href="http://chathamhouse.org/2023/03/how-russias-war-ukraine-threatening-climate-security"><span class="s1">here</span></a> and <a href="http://theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/09/emissions-gaza-israel-hamas-war-climate-change"><span class="s1">here</span></a> indicate.</p>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-24-at-1.57.20 pm.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-374378" height="400" src="https://johnmenadue.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-24-at-1.57.20 pm.png" width="373" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Past, Current and Future Extents of the Sahara</b> <br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image:
https://earth.org/data_visualization/the-past-present-and-future- <br />of-the-sahara-desert,
based on Thomas and Nigam, 2018
<br />(https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/31/9/jcli-d-17-0187.1.xml
)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="p7">Projections show that by 2100 the <a href="http://earth.org/data_visualization/the-past-present-and-future-of-the-sahara-desert"><span class="s1">expansion of the Sahara due to desertification will embrace Israel/Palestine</span></a>, as well as spreading across the Mediterranean into Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey (see map).</p>
<p class="p7">The Australian Prime Minister has finally <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-gold-coast-queensland"><span class="s1">spoken out about the escalating climate threat </span></a>whilst
inspecting damage from the recent Queensland floods: “All of this is a
reminder that the science told us that climate change would mean there
would be more extreme weather events and they would be more intense. And
unfortunately, we are seeing that play out with the number of events
that we’re having to deal with right around Australia”.</p>
<p class="p7">Just so, except that in common with leaders globally, the
Australian government continues to have its head stuck in the sand about
the real risks climate change now represents. It <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/are-australias-climate-security-risks-too-hot-to-handle"><span class="s1">refuses to release an intelligence assessment of climate-security risks</span></a>, and has <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/are-we-failing-to-see-the-wood-for-the-trees-on-climate-risks"><span class="s1">fumbled a domestic climate risk assessment</span></a>.</p>
<p class="p7">As a result, the community remains ill-informed and unprepared for what is coming.</p>
<p> <br /></p><p><br /></p>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-25300966314939424222024-01-25T11:00:00.000+11:002024-01-25T11:00:51.656+11:00Humanity’s new era of “global boiling”: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzicQU3Cz8XvpIvAFalqlttHRQw4TnOEhQISLEuqaJN9EteVqIg4fxC7DVQbqfaAmABWkZHMJk6qihX8wluZjDn1rHlhC_FE5cLuwPlC6nQkwBQLJgcQX6njD6_sluYQYpeHvifFpdxq0U3r58I5ATV1MBoVbrwtbE4Hqe8QEjcUwsE1Jme_xu4TumA3o/s798/Boiling-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="505" data-original-width="798" height="405" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzicQU3Cz8XvpIvAFalqlttHRQw4TnOEhQISLEuqaJN9EteVqIg4fxC7DVQbqfaAmABWkZHMJk6qihX8wluZjDn1rHlhC_FE5cLuwPlC6nQkwBQLJgcQX6njD6_sluYQYpeHvifFpdxq0U3r58I5ATV1MBoVbrwtbE4Hqe8QEjcUwsE1Jme_xu4TumA3o/w640-h405/Boiling-.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table> </p><p>by <b>David Spratt</b> and <b>Ian Dunlop</b>, first published at <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/humanitys-new-era-of-global-boiling-climates-2023-annus-horribilis/" target="_blank">Pearls and Irritations</a></p><p>For climate change, 2023 was an “unprecedented” year, “absolutely
gobsmackingly bananas” and “scary” and “frightening”. And that was what
climate scientists said! The UN Secretary General called it the year in
which humanity crossed into a new climate era — an age of “global
boiling”.<span id="more-374359"></span></p>
<p>Climate disruption shocked climate scientists in 2023. “Surprising.
Astounding. Staggering. Unnerving. Bewildering. Flabbergasting.
Disquieting. Gobsmacking. Shocking. Mind boggling,” <a href="http://twitter.com/ed_hawkins/status/1709825752705753105"><span class="s1">said Prof. Ed Hawkins</span></a> when September 2023 exceeded the previous September record by a huge 0.5°C.</p>
<p>The decline in Antarctic sea-ice extent was much greater than model
projections, leading the National Snow and Ice Data Centre’s <a href="http://bbc.com/news/science-environment-66724246"><span class="s1">Walt Meier to exclaim:</span></a> “It’s so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind- blowing.”</p>
<p>Many records were set for new climate extremes — record heat,
rainfall and floods — with some of it driven by the destabilisation of
the polar jet stream. “We are hitting record breaking extremes much
sooner than I expected. That’s frightening, scary, and concerning, and
it really suggests that we’re not as aware of what’s coming as we
thought we were,” <a href="http://theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/28/crazy-off-the-charts-records-has-humanity-finally-broken-the-climate"><span class="s1">said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick</span></a> of the University of NSW.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p class="p3"><b>Records broken everywhere</b></p>
<p class="p3">With devastating extreme heat and storms and floods, 2023
was the first year 1.5°C warmer than the 1850-1900 baseline, and both
Antarctic sea-ice loss and record northern hemisphere sea-surface
temperatures were way beyond the ranges projected by climate models.</p>
<p class="p3">Datasets of global temperatures vary a little depending on method, but two of the most significant are <a href="http://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2023"><span class="s1">Berkeley Earth</span></a> which put 2023 at 1.54<span class="s2">°</span>C above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level, and <a href="http://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2023-hottest-year-record"><span class="s1">Copernicus/ECMWF</span></a> at 1.48<span class="s2">°</span>C.</p>
<p class="p3">Berkeley <a href="http://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2023"><span class="s1">said</span></a> that “<span class="s2">a
single year exceeding 1.5°C is a stark warning sign of how close the
overall climate system has come to exceeding this Paris Agreement goal.
With greenhouse gas emissions continuing to set record highs, it is
likely that climate will regularly exceed 1.5°C in the next decade.”</span></p>
<p class="p4">2023 was notable for:</p>
<ul class="ul1"><li class="li5"><span class="s2">Global average warming hitting the 1.5°C mark, and new monthly records for global temperature every month </span>from June to December. The October to December period was 1.74<span class="s2">°C.</span></li><li class="li5"><span class="s2">New national record high annual averages for an estimated 77 countries.</span></li><li class="li5">The first year that global average ocean surface temperatures exceeded 1<span class="s2">°C</span>, with <span class="s2">once-in-a-century levels of warmth in the North Atlantic.</span></li><li class="li5"><span class="s2">Two days in November </span>when<b> </b>global average temperature, for the first time ever, reached 2<span class="s2">°C</span> above the pre-industrial levels.</li><li class="li5">Catastrophic flooding from Greece to Beijing to Vermont,
and earlier in the year major flooding in New Zealand associated with a
rain bomb and then cyclone Gabrielle.</li><li class="li5">Severe wildfires in Europe, Russia, Maui and North America; fires in Canada burned 18.5 million hectares of land.</li></ul>
<p class="p5">The 2023 extremes were a shock. <a href="http://theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/28/crazy-off-the-charts-records-has-humanity-finally-broken-the-climate"><span class="s1">Prof. Katharine Hayhoe told</span></a> the <i>Guardian</i>
that: “We have strongly suspected for a while that our projections are
underestimating extremes, a suspicion that recent extremes have proven
likely to be true… We are truly in uncharted territory in terms of the
history of human civilisation on this planet.”</p>
<p class="p3"><b>Explanations for 2023 are incomplete, but warming is accelerating and 2024 is likely to be hotter</b></p>
<p class="p3">What happened in 2023 <a href="http://theclimatebrink.com/p/2023s-unexpected-and-unexplained"><span class="s1">was not what scientists’ models anticipated</span></a> at the beginning of the year and fell well outside the confidence intervals of any of the estimates. <a href="http://carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-2023-smashes-records-for-surface-temperature-and-ocean-heat"><span class="s1">Carbon Brief says</span></a>
that “while there are a number of factors that researchers have
proposed to explain 2023’s exceptional warmth, scientists still lack a
clear explanation for why global temperatures were so unexpectedly high…
researchers are just starting to disentangle the causes of the
unexpected extreme global heat the world experienced in 2023”.</p>
<p class="p3">One person who has a clear view is the former NASA climate chief <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8"><span class="s1">James Hansen who says</span></a> that “the 1.5 degree limit is deader than a doornail” and <a href="http://mailchi.mp/caa/how-we-know-that-global-warming-is-accelerating-and-that-the-goal-of-the-paris-agreement-is-dead"><span class="s1">warns that warming will accelerate</span></a> to 1.7°C by 2030 and “2°C will be reached by the late 2030s”.</p>
<p class="p3">For a long time Hansen has been saying that the impact of
sulfate aerosols — which are a byproduct of burning fossils fuels, cause
acid rain, and have a strong but short-term cooling effect by reducing
incoming radiation — is much greater than generally stated, so producing
less of them under “clean air” policies will contribute to accelerated
warming.</p>
<p class="p3">Whilst the orthodox estimates for aerosols are around
0.5°C of cooling, Hansen and his colleagues say it is likely above 1°C.
More on Hansen’s analysis may be found in the 2023 paper <a href="http://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889"><span class="s1"><i>Global warming in the pipeline</i></span></a>, which former UK Chief Scientist <a href="http://twitter.com/sir_david_king/status/1722693289378259294"><span class="s1">Sir David King says</span></a> is “one of the most important published on the state of the climate crisis in years”.</p>
<p class="p3">In Hansen’s view, the efforts to clean up maritime
shipping emissions by mandating fuel with much lower sulfur content
resulted in a “Faustian bargain”: as the sulfate cooling impact has
reduced, greater warming has been revealed. This was allied with
continuing high human greenhouse emissions, and the effects of the
developing El Nino, to produce the 2023 heat records.</p>
<p class="p3">Whether warming is accelerating has caused sharp differences between scientists, but Hansen’s view is gaining more support. A <a href="http://nature.com/articles/s41598-023-49353-1"><span class="s1">paper published at the end of 2023 showed</span></a> <span class="s3">a “robust acceleration of Earth system heating observed over the past six decades”, where the “</span>long-term acceleration of Earth warming aligns qualitatively with the rise in carbon dioxide (CO<span class="s4"><sub>2</sub></span>)
concentrations and the decline in aerosol concentration during the same
period, but further investigations are necessary to properly attribute
these changes”.</p>
<p class="p3">Two key indicators — an acceleration in the rate at which
the ocean is absorbing heat, and a spike in Earth’s Energy Imbalance —
suggest Hansen is on the right track.</p>
<ul class="ul1"><li class="li5"><b>Ocean heat content:</b> 90% of the heat generated by
the greenhouse effect warms the oceans (with only 2% to the atmosphere,
and the balance melting the polar ice and warming the land). With this
great store of heat, it is oceans that drive atmospheric warming.
Research published in 2023 <a href="http://nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42468-z"><span class="s1">showed that the rate of increase in ocean heat content has accelerated</span></a> over recent decades. Ocean temperatures started spiking in March-April 2023, and global temperatures in June. <span class="s5">The heat stored in the world’s oceans <a href="http://nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00081-0"><span class="s1">increased by the greatest margin ever in 2023</span></a>,
absorbing more heat than in any other year since records began.
Associated with the onset of a strong El Niño, the global sea surface
temperature <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-024-3378-5"><span class="s1">was an astounding 0.3°C above 2022 values</span></a> for the second half of 2023.</span></li><li class="li2"><b>Earth’s Energy Imbalance: </b> Earth’s energy
imbalance (EEI) is the difference between incoming energy from the sun
and the amount of heat radiating from Earth back into space. The CERES
project <span class="s2">uses satellites to estimate EEI. Their data suggests that <a href="http://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2023/"><span class="s1">EEI has more than doubled since 2000</span></a>, resulting in an acceleration of global warming’s impact on the Earth system. </span> If EEI is increasing over time, it should drive an increase in the world’s rate of warming.</li></ul>
<p>In the second part of this series, after a record breaking 2023, we ask the question: <i>Where is the climate heading?</i></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-12501209346334222342023-12-20T09:29:00.000+11:002023-12-20T09:29:20.154+11:00COP28 adalah "tragedi bagi planet ini" saat Sindrom Stockholm berlangsung<img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="767" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQzVsSm0MaFaATdFEKXZYorUuy3HkAA43cRaDC8CECcKY9lf8i05dAkPkVun9Y5lsXQEBlrPM2_rZfHPV5MqEusvh-Ehao5cEm5ZaxUl0cDT2EaO2hEKvhuCEABSSU3lrU4m7Hct_c8IgPrxBSadbg2ouk2ej3Yk4Czyxuqx-ECWNf3Oo5-gaecQA2BNE/w640-h426/COP28..webp" width="640" /><br /> <p></p><p>Oleh <b>David Spratt</b> dan <b>Ian Dunlop</b>, diterjemahkan oleh <b>Owen Podger</b>. </p><p>Aslinya: <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/cop28-a-tragedy-for-the-planet-as-stockholm-syndrome-took-hold/">https://johnmenadue.com/cop28-a-tragedy-for-the-planet-as-stockholm-syndrome-took-hold/</a></p><p>Hingga 100.000 orang — yang sebagian besar memperoleh status profesional dan pendapatan mereka dari politik, advokasi, dan bisnis terkait iklim — terbang ke Dubai untuk menghadiri acara pembuatan kebijakan iklim global tahunan COP28, Konferensi Para Pihak di bawah konvensi iklim Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa. Dan hasilnya?</p><p>Bencana yang tak tanggung-tanggung. Masyarakat adat, komunitas garis depan, dan kelompok keadilan iklim menegur (rebuked) kesepakatan itu sebagai tidak adil, tidak adil, dan "bisnis seperti biasa". Pada sesi terakhir, resolusi kompromi (compromise resolution) yang lemah dan tidak koheren antara negara BBM dan negara-negara kecil dan pendukung – yang tidak menyerukan penghapusan bahan bakar fosil – diterima tanpa perbedaan pendapat dan disambut dengan tepuk tangan meriah, bahkan ketika delegasi Pasifik dan pulau kecil dilarang oleh keamanan memasuki ruangan.</p><p>Terlalu banyak tanggapan fasih adalah variasi pada tumbuk (mash) "bergerak ke arah yang benar, tetapi lebih banyak yang harus dilakukan", dengan "cacat tetapi masih transformatif" satu contoh klasik. Dua hari setelah itu, presiden COP28, yang juga mengepalai perusahaan Minyak Nasional Abu Dhabi, mengumumkan Uni Emirat Arab akan mempertahankan rekor investasinya dalam produksi minyak bumi baru.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>Prof. Kevin Anderson dari University of Manchester menggambarkan adegan itu sebagai "lingkaran tak terbatas dari hari-hari COP Groundhog" (referensi film Groundhog Day dimana setiap pagi kembali kepada pagi hari sebelumnya). Tampaknya bentuk Sindrom Stockholm kembali terjadi dengan delegasi yang terkurung – selama beberapa dekade disandera oleh taktik penolakan dan penundaan dari produsen bahan bakar fosil dan ancaman veto dari pemerintah mereka yang ditangkap – bersorak hasil yang akan mendorong masyarakat di mana-mana lebih dekat dengan kehancuran peradaban.</p><p>Disonansi kognitif semacam itu adalah norma budaya pertemuan COP. Ini semua tentang hasil performatif terlepas dari kemanjuran. Terlepas dari lusinan "keberhasilan" seperti itu selama tiga dekade, emisi global masih meningkat. Politik adalah tentang inkrementalisme, kompromi, kesepakatan dan "realisme pragmatis" yang mengasumsikan bahwa seseorang dapat bernegosiasi dengan hukum alam dan melunakkan risiko eksistensial dengan perilaku seperti itu. Menghindari risiko iklim, raison d'etre yang seharusnya untuk COP, tidak dibahas atau dipahami oleh negosiator utama.</p><p>Banyak orang yang berkarir dalam kebijakan iklim akan merayakan hasil apa pun, karena melakukan sebaliknya berarti mengakui kegagalan sistemik COP, dan mempertaruhkan masa depan profesional mereka sendiri.</p><p>Tetapi banyak "di luar tenda" di Dubai – para ilmuwan, negara-negara yang paling rentan, aktivis muda dan organisasi masyarakat sipil dengan sedikit tulang belakang – tidak merayakannya; mereka menangis untuk masa depan umat manusia. Kevin Anderson menyimpulkannya: "Tidak diragukan lagi akan ada banyak keceriaan dan tamparan balik ... Tapi fisika tidak akan peduli."</p><p>Ada dua item besar dalam agenda: mengurangi emisi, terutama dari bahan bakar fosil, menjadi nol; dan keuangan. Pada yang pertama, delegasi Negara-Negara sepakat untuk "transisi dari bahan bakar fosil," tetapi kata-kata tentang "penghapusan" pemakaian minyak, batu bara dan gas yang dianjurkan oleh masyarakat sipil dan 130 dari 198 negara peserta tidak muncul.</p><p>Bahkan kemudian, ada banyak kartu keluar dari penjara. Yang besar adalah percepatan penangkapan dan penyimpanan karbon, yang diklaim oleh industri bahan bakar fosil akan memungkinkan produksi minyak, gas, dan batubara tanpa batas waktu, kecuali bahwa teknologinya tidak berhasil dalam skala besar. Lalu ada penerimaan subsidi bahan bakar fosil yang "efisien", dan bahasa seputar perlunya transisi "teratur" yang sekarang tidak mungkin sebagian besar sebagai akibat dari penolakan industri bahan bakar fosil selama beberapa dekade sampai sekarang.</p><p>Pendanaan iklim sangat penting, terutama bagi negara-negara berkembang dan paling rentan, melalui Dana Iklim Hijau (Green Climate Fund), dan dana Kerugian dan Kerusakan (Loss and Damage fund) yang mengakui tanggung jawab historis negara-negara berpolusi tinggi atas kerusakan yang ditimbulkan pada mereka yang telah berkontribusi paling sedikit terhadap masalah tetapi telah menanggung dampaknya secara tidak proporsional. Negara-negara kepulauan kecil mencirikan komitmen nasional terhadap dana ini hingga saat ini sebagai hal yang sepele dan mengecewakan, dan penolakan Australia untuk mendukung fasilitas pendanaan untuk kerugian dan kerusakan sebagai "pengkhianatan mendalam dan pelepasan tanggung jawabnya kepada tetangga-tetangganya di Pasifik".</p><p>Dari para ilmuwan, ada kemarahan dan kutukan. Mereka tahu bahwa setelah COP28, tingkat gas rumah kaca dan penggunaan batu bara keduanya mencapai rekor tertinggi pada tahun 2023. Dan mereka telah mendokumentasikan kesenjangan emisi dan kesenjangan produksi yang semakin besar antara janji dan tindakan oleh negara-negara dan rencana produsen bahan bakar fosil terbesar untuk terus memperluas produksi, yang COP tidak melakukan apa pun untuk mencegah secara praktis. </p><p>Michael Mann, dari University of Pennsylvania mengatakan bahwa "kurangnya kesepakatan untuk menghapus bahan bakar fosil sangat menghancurkan". Mike Berners-Lee dari Lancaster University menyebut COP28 "hasil impian industri bahan bakar fosil, karena terlihat seperti kemajuan, tetapi sebenarnya tidak". Martin Siegert dari University of Exeter mengatakan bahwa tidak membuat deklarasi yang jelas untuk menghentikan pembakaran bahan bakar fosil "adalah tragedi bagi planet ini dan masa depan kita. Dunia memanas lebih cepat dan lebih kuat daripada respons COP untuk menghadapinya." Dan dari Dr Friederike Otto dari Imperial College London: "Dengan setiap kata kerja yang samar-samar, setiap janji kosong dalam teks akhir, jutaan orang lagi akan memasuki garis depan perubahan iklim dan banyak yang akan mati."</p><p>Para ilmuwan dan pembuat kebijakan tampaknya hidup di dunia paralel, dan dalam arti tertentu itu benar. COP, yang diklaim diinformasikan oleh laporan IPCC, secara tidak proporsional bergantung pada skenario pengurangan emisi yang dihasilkan oleh Model Penilaian Terpadu (Integrated Assessment Models, IAM) yang menggabungkan energi, ekonomi, dan analisis dampak iklim yang segan. IAM lebih mencerminkan pandangan dunia sosial, teknologi dan ekonomi dari para model realitas fisik. Mereka sekarang telah dibantah secara yang meyakinkan dalam laporan dan analisis terbaru.</p><p>Model semacam itu menghasilkan proposisi absurd tentang “net zero 2050 [nol bersih 2050]" yang kompatibel dengan tujuan Paris untuk membatasi pemanasan hingga 1,5-2 ° C, yang telah menjadi roti dan mentega COP. Bahkan, tahun ini akan mendekati 1.5 ° C (dengan pemanasan 1.46 ° C hingga akhir November), dan tahun depan kemungkinan besar akan lebih panas. Mantan kepala iklim NASA James Hansen memperingatkan bahwa "pemanasan global 2°C akan tercapai pada akhir 2030-an" karena pemanasan yang dipercepat:</p><blockquote><p>"Enam bulan pertama El Nino saat ini adalah 0,39°C lebih hangat dari enam bulan yang sama dari El Nino 2015-16, tingkat pemanasan global 0,49°C/dekade, konsisten dengan perkiraan percepatan besar pemanasan global. Kami memperkirakan suhu rata-rata 12 bulan pada Mei 2024 akan menghilangkan keraguan tentang percepatan pemanasan global. Penurunan berikutnya dari suhu 12 bulan di bawah 1,5°C kemungkinan akan terbatas, mengkonfirmasikan bahwa batas 1,5°C telah dilewati."</p></blockquote><p>Ini seharusnya menjadi perhatian utama untuk hasil COP28, tetapi tidak pernah disebutkan. Juga tidak ada peringatan yang semakin mengerikan bahwa titik kritis besar sudah dimainkan. Lebih cepat dari perkiraan, dampak iklim memicu riam titik kritis dalam sistem Bumi. Dan mata buta beralih ke peringatan dari Universitas Stockholm David Armstrong McKay dan rekan-rekannya bahwa bahkan pemanasan global 1°C berisiko memicu beberapa titik kritis.</p><p>Secara pribadi, para ilmuwan terkemuka khawatir bahwa kita sedang menuju 4°C yang benar-benar eksistensial ketika risiko tertinggi yang sekarang muncul diperhitungkan. "Bisakah perubahan iklim antropogenik (perubahan iklim yang disebabkan oleh manusia) mengakibatkan keruntuhan masyarakat di seluruh dunia atau bahkan kepunahan manusia? Saat ini, ini adalah topik yang kurang dijelajahi yang berbahaya ... namun ada banyak alasan untuk mencurigai bahwa perubahan iklim dapat mengakibatkan bencana global," tulis ilmuwan iklim Australia terkemuka Will Steffen dan rekannya pada Agustus 2022.</p><p><br />Tidak ada di COP ini yang secara substansial menjauhkan kita dari lintasan itu. Bahkan, dengan menumbuhkan khayalan bahwa solusi "tertib" tetap mungkin, sebagai lawan dari perlunya mobilisasi skala darurat yang mengganggu, itu telah memperburuk keadaan.<br /> </p><p> </p><p> <br /></p>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-9052365178760608232023-12-20T09:17:00.001+11:002023-12-21T07:11:55.548+11:00COP28 a “tragedy for the planet” as Stockholm Syndrome took hold<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuLtkiROl1_yeJ7Riu6eAlN5huQbOjzpP-9cV7eq2hZAb7NjViCn3az93IQrXpyy_KJxcIqZz1DZZPpXINBRYlDQyInciq__PYhDDQ9bLu8mlH4SSRX9ynSq_LdX7trAasL4cUHCcKcYrN1s2uOI6xJ7VGctiFDTNOahVA4ZwtqHN7RaM9ZWuRRFhQjSo/s767/COP28..webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="767" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuLtkiROl1_yeJ7Riu6eAlN5huQbOjzpP-9cV7eq2hZAb7NjViCn3az93IQrXpyy_KJxcIqZz1DZZPpXINBRYlDQyInciq__PYhDDQ9bLu8mlH4SSRX9ynSq_LdX7trAasL4cUHCcKcYrN1s2uOI6xJ7VGctiFDTNOahVA4ZwtqHN7RaM9ZWuRRFhQjSo/w640-h426/COP28..webp" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">A self-congratulatory standing ovation greets a deeply-flawed final resolution at COP28 </span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>by <b>David Spratt </b>and <b>Ian Dunlop</b>, first published at <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/cop28-a-tragedy-for-the-planet-as-stockholm-syndrome-took-hold/" target="_blank">Pearls & Irritations </a></p><p>Up to 100,000 people — most of whom derive their professional
status and income from climate-related politics, advocacy and business —
flew into Dubai for the COP28 annual global climate policy-making
event, the Conference of the Parties under the United Nations’ climate
convention. And the result?<span id="more-371435"></span></p>
<p>An unmitigated disaster. Indigenous people, frontline communities and climate justice groups <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/13/indigenous-people-and-climate-justice-groups-say-cop28-was-business-as-usual">rebuked</a> the deal as unfair, inequitable and “business as usual”. At the final session, a weak and incoherent <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2023_L17_adv.pdf">compromise resolution</a>
between petrostates and smaller states and advocates — which did not
call for the phase-out of fossil fuels — was accepted without dissent
and greeted with a self-congratulatory standing ovation, even as Pacific
and small island delegates <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-14/pacific-islands-cop28-agreement-climate-change-sultan-al-jaber/103227422">were barred by security from entering the room</a>.</p>
<p>Too many glib responses were variations on the “moving in the right direction, but more needs to be done” mash, with “<a href="https://www.theenergymix.com/change-in-tone-has-cop-decision-moving-in-right-direction-as-negotiators-work-overnight/?utm_source=The+Energy+Mix&utm_campaign=6459622a26-TEM_RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dc146fb5ca-6459622a26-510013110">flawed but still transformative”</a>
one classic example. Within two days the COP28 president, who also
heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil company, announced the United Arab
Emirates would <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/15/cop28-president-sultan-al-jaber-says-his-firm-will-keep-investing-in-oil">keep up its record investment</a> in new oil production.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>Prof. Kevin Anderson of the University of Manchester <a href="https://twitter.com/kevinclimate/status/1735329275857760686">described</a>
the scene as “the infinite loop of the COP GroundHog days”. It seemed a
form of Stockholm Syndrome again took hold with cooped-up delegates —
for decades held hostage to the denial-and-delay tactics of the
fossil-fuel producers and the threat of veto from their captured
governments — cheering an outcome which will push societies everywhere
closer to civilisational breakdown.</p>
<p>Such cognitive dissonance is the COPs’ cultural norm. It is all about
a performative outcome regardless of efficacy. Despite dozens of such
“successes” over three decades, global emissions are still rising. The
politics is about incrementalism, compromises, deals and “pragmatic
realism” which assume that one can negotiate with the laws of nature and
mollify an existential risk by such behaviour. Avoiding climate risk,
the supposed raison d’etre for COPs, is neither discussed nor understood
by the key negotiators.</p>
<p>Many people with a career in climate policy will celebrate any
outcome, because to do otherwise would be to admit to the COPs’ systemic
failure, and risk their own professional future.</p>
<p>But many “outside the tent” in Dubai — the scientists, the most
vulnerable states, the young activists and the civil society
organisations with some spine — did not celebrate; they wept for
humanity’s future. Kevin Anderson <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/weak-tea-climate-scientists-push-back-against-cop28-cheer-4d120501">summed it up</a>: “No doubt there will be lots of cheer and back-slapping… but the physics will not care.”</p>
<p>There were two big items on the agenda: reducing emissions, mainly
from fossil fuels, to zero; and finance. On the first, national
delegates agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels,” but words about
the “phaseout” of oil, coal and gas advocated by civil society and 130
out of 198 participating countries, did not appear.</p>
<p>Even then, there were get-out-of-jail cards aplenty. The big one was
the acceleration of carbon capture and storage, which the fossil fuel
industry claims will allow the production of oil, gas and coal
indefinitely, except that the technology does not work at scale. Then
there is the acceptance of “efficient” fossil fuel subsidies, and
language around the need for an “orderly” transition which is now
impossible largely as a result of fossil fuel industry denialism over
many decades.</p>
<p>Climate finance is essential, especially for the developing and most
vulnerable nations, through the Green Climate Fund, and a Loss and
Damage fund which recognises the historic responsibility of
high-polluting nations for the damage inflicted on those who have
contributed least to the problem but have disproportionately borne the
impacts. Small island states <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/15/cop26-pacific-delegates-condemn-monumental-failure-that-leaves-islands-in-peril">characterised</a>
the national commitments to these funds to date as trivial and
disappointing, and Australia’s refusal to support a funding facility for
loss and damage as “a deep betrayal and abdication of its
responsibilities to its Pacific neighbours”.</p>
<p>From scientists, there was anger and condemnation. They know that
after 28 COPs the level of greenhouse gases and coal use both hit a
record high in 2023. And they have documented the growing <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022">emissions gap</a> and <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/production-gap-report-2023">production gap</a> between promises and actions by nations and the plans of the largest fossil fuel producers <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2023/12/the-stark-choice-facing-climate-conference-a-livable-climate-or-more-oil-and-gas/#post-heading">to keep on expanding production</a>, which the COP has done nothing to practically prevent.</p>
<p>Michael Mann, of University of Pennsylvania <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/14/failure-cop28-fossil-fuel-phase-out-devastating-say-scientists">said </a>
that “the lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels was
devastating”. Mike Berners-Lee of Lancaster University called COP28 “the
fossil fuel industry’s dream outcome, because it looks like progress,
but it isn’t”. Martin Siegert of the University of Exeter said that not
making a clear declaration to stop fossil fuel burning “is a tragedy for
the planet and our future. The world is heating faster and more
powerfully than the COP response to deal with it.” And from Dr
Friederike Otto of Imperial College London: “With every vague verb,
every empty promise in the final text, millions more people will enter
the frontline of climate change and many will die.”</p>
<p>The scientists and the policymakers appear to live in parallel
worlds, and in a sense they do. The COPs, claiming to be informed by
IPCC reports, disproportionately rely on emission-reduction scenarios
generated by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) which incorporate
energy, economy and a reticent analysis of climate impacts. IAMs reflect
more the social, technological and economic worldviews of the modellers
than they do the physical realities. They have now been convincingly
debunked in recent <a href="https://reneweconomy.com.au/slow-2050-net-zero-scenarios-not-worth-the-paper-theyre-written-on-say-economists/">reports</a> and <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-not-to-interpret-the-emissions-scenarios-in-the-ipcc-report/">analysis</a>.</p>
<p>Such models produce <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/_files/ugd/148cb0_714730d82bb84659a56c7da03fdca496.pdf">absurd propositions about “net zero 2050”</a>
being compatible with the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5–2°C,
which have become the bread-and-butter of COPs. In fact, this year will
nudge 1.5°C (with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-2023-will-be-warmest-year-record-eus-copernicus-2023-12-06/">warming of 1.46°C to end November</a>), and next year will very likely be hotter. Former NASA climate chief James Hansen <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/how-we-know-that-global-warming-is-accelerating-and-that-the-goal-of-the-paris-agreement-is-dead?e=3763203384">warns</a> that “global warming of 2°C will be reached by the late 2030s” <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/global-warming-acceleration-el-nino-measuring-stick-looks-good?e=3763203384">due to accelerated warming</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The first six months of the current El Nino are 0.39°C
warmer than the same six months of the 2015-16 El Nino, a global warming
rate of 0.49°C/decade, consistent with expectation of a large
acceleration of global warming. We expect the 12-month mean temperature
by May 2024 to eliminate any doubt about global warming acceleration.
Subsequent decline of the 12-month temperature below 1.5°C will likely
be limited, confirming that the 1.5°C limit has already been passed.”</p></blockquote>
<p>This should have been the core concern of the COP28 outcome, but it
was never mentioned. Neither did increasingly dire warnings that <a href="https://global-tipping-points.org/">big tipping points</a> are already in play. <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/papers" target="_blank">Faster than forecast</a>, climate impacts are triggering a cascade of tipping points in the Earth system. And a blind eye was turned to <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950">warnings</a>
from Stockholm University’s David Armstrong McKay and his colleagues
that even global warming of 1°C risks triggering some tipping points.</p>
<p>Privately, eminent scientists worry that we are heading towards a
truly existential 4°C when the now-emerging high-end risks are accounted
for. “Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal
collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a
dangerously underexplored topic … yet there are ample reasons to suspect
that climate change could result in a global catastrophe,” <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108146119">wrote</a> the eminent Australian climate scientist Will Steffen and colleagues in August 2022.</p>
<p>Nothing at this COP has substantially moved us away from that
trajectory. In fact, by fostering the delusion that “orderly” solutions
remain possible, as opposed to the necessity of a disruptive
emergency-scale mobilisation, it has made matters worse.</p><p></p><p><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-32041203256536872602023-12-07T07:12:00.003+11:002023-12-07T07:12:47.658+11:00How climate disruption turns strategic priorities upside down<p> by <b>Ian Dunlop</b> and <b>David Spratt</b>, first published at<a href="https://johnmenadue.com/the-paris-agreement-is-dead-australia-must-change-its-strategic-priorities/" target="_blank"> Pearls and Irritations</a></p><p>Second of a two-part series.</p><p><em></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFyaCK9ig9yBZrbfj8dbqjDTHTRf-Q-7Bc1dAJoOI1F_4NUtpTreen12Ms2KNm0yYGvl0WlnHU0Qc-gPm8JtfFSP1oblt7Fivoq7T5O7Cjw_rbfy4Ii5TsMWWUdENLhFitIQenueSn8y23HM7OMASjqlNV_niHsQIkUnugmUAITXeh9MsHRYrE_xkVKdA/s798/climate-change.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="509" data-original-width="798" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFyaCK9ig9yBZrbfj8dbqjDTHTRf-Q-7Bc1dAJoOI1F_4NUtpTreen12Ms2KNm0yYGvl0WlnHU0Qc-gPm8JtfFSP1oblt7Fivoq7T5O7Cjw_rbfy4Ii5TsMWWUdENLhFitIQenueSn8y23HM7OMASjqlNV_niHsQIkUnugmUAITXeh9MsHRYrE_xkVKdA/w400-h255/climate-change.jpeg" width="400" /></a></em></div><em>The <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2023/11/cop-out-why-petrostate-hosted-climate.html" target="_blank">first article</a> in this series</em> highlighted the risks of
accelerating climate change, and the existential threat humanity now
faces because of global leaders’ collective failure to take timely
action, culminating in the COP28 meeting in Dubai not acting decisively
to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.<p></p>
<p>The bottom line is that a 1.5°C average global surface temperature
increase will be approached this year and, without radically accelerated
action, the world is headed toward a catastrophic 3°C of warming,
bringing the curtains down on contemporary civilisation.</p>
<p>In short, the Paris Agreement is dead and the imperative for
emergency action has never been greater. This demands a fundamental
change to Australia’s strategic priorities.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p><strong>Human security not national security</strong></p>
<p>Climate change is the greatest threat facing Australia, of a far
higher magnitude than geopolitical issues around the US, China, Taiwan,
Ukraine and now Israel which have dominated the political agenda since
the last election. This is starkly underlined by the latest scientific
research on tipping points, cascading risks and escalating
climate-related disasters.</p>
<p>The government’s paranoia, that it will be accused of being soft on
defence, has resulted in the continual prioritising of national security
on conventional geopolitical grounds, particularly the AUKUS agreement,
whilst the Opposition helpfully beats the drums of war. The real
threat, climate change, is either ignored, downplayed or securitised as
with the recent Office of National Intelligence climate security risk
assessment which the government insists should remain classified on
spurious national security grounds. Allowing national security to
dominate political debate has been a fundamental strategic error,
obscuring the climate reality.</p>
<p>Ironically, the failure of the government to spend serious time
understanding and communicating the real climate risks Australia faces
is leaving the community totally unprepared to face the threat ahead.
Extensive resources, urgently needed to develop climate preparedness and
resilience, are being mis-allocated to the defence/industrial complex,
whilst communities have yet to recover from the trauma of past disasters
such as the Lismore floods and South Coast bushfires. It is a national
disgrace that people can still be sleeping in tents and cars two years
after the event, whilst largesse is heaped upon ephemeral submarines
which will probably never materialise even three decades hence. We need
to get our priorities straightened out.</p>
<p>All countries and regions – whether the US, China, Russia, Europe,
Africa or small Pacific islands – have the same problem. Overcoming the
climate threat requires unprecedented global co-operation instead of
conflict and militarisation. Otherwise, civil war and the societal
collapse, which is already happening, will escalate dramatically.</p>
<p>The latest government initiative – the offer for Tuvalu residents to
resettle in Australia as climate impacts increase – is a case in point.
It recognises Australia’s role in creating the climate crisis and the
potentially existential impact on Pacific nations. Albeit addressing the
cause of the problem rather than the symptoms, by halting Australian
fossil fuels expansion and rapidly reducing our domestic and exported
emissions, would have been far more appropriate. But the <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/tuvalu-a-good-deed-gone-bad/">agreement</a>
then obscenely gives Australia a veto right over Tuvalu’s security
arrangements with any other country, putting it right back into the
national security frame and wiping out its climate credibility.</p>
<p>The response to climate risks must not succumb to the knee-jerk call
for even more fortress-building from the security establishment, but to
reframe our security priorities as the protection of the population’s
fundamental rights to food and water, shelter and work, with emergency
climate action on top of the agenda as necessary to sustain such goals
over this century.</p>
<p>In short, the focus should shift to human security in the broad
sense, rather than national security in a narrow militaristic sense. If
conventional national security thinking continues to dominate globally
and is given the priority it currently enjoys, there is no solution to
the existential climate threat humanity faces.</p>
<p><strong>A climate rapprochement</strong></p>
<p>The recent thawing in relations between the US and China, and our
Prime Minister’s travels to both countries provide a valuable starting
point for a climate rapprochement.</p>
<p>At the September G20 summit in New Delhi, the Prime Minister <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/anthony-albanese-urges-world-leaders-at-g20-to-do-more-after-record-summer/vuke3byzu">emphasised</a>
the urgency of climate action. Discussions between US President Biden
and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the November 2023 APEC meeting also
encompassed joint climate action, as subsequently indicated in the <a href="https://www.state.gov/sunnylands-statement-on-enhancing-cooperation-to-address-the-climate-crisis/#:~:text=Sunnylands%20Statement%20on%20Enhancing%20Cooperation%20to%20Address%20the%20Climate%20Crisis,-Media%20Note&text=Recalling%20the%20meeting%20between%20President,to%20address%20the%20climate%20crisis.">Sunnylands Statement</a>.</p>
<p>So far these sentiments are focused on process, lacking recognition
of the full range of climate risks and the need for sustained emergency
action.</p>
<p>COP28 will fail to achieve outcomes remotely in line with the
scientific imperatives, in part because the science and its risks are
being downplayed, and a lowest-common-denominator decision-making
process is delivering unenforceable voluntary agreements and promises
which, if the history of previous COPs is any guide, will not be kept.</p>
<p>The greatest step forward at this point would be an agreement between
the two largest global emitters, the USA and China, to set aside their
geopolitical differences and prioritise real climate action.</p>
<p>Australia, with long-standing strategic links to the US, and
extensive trade ties with China, has a unique opportunity to act as an
honest broker to assist in such a development. It would be in
Australia’s national interests to do so.</p>
<p>This would require Australia to break its addictive reliance on the
US defence relationship, set aside its national security paranoia, adopt
a more independent, sovereign, stance and be prepared to act for the
global common good.</p>
<p>This requires principled leaders with integrity, foresight, courage
and moral standing. Does the Albanese government have the fortitude and
capability to take up this challenge? And is the Opposition prepared to
accept the science and support the government in the interests of the
Australian people, rather than spewing forth climate denialism for
political advantage?</p>
<p>If not, we are in big trouble.</p><p></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-13435139357597639142023-12-04T08:19:00.000+11:002023-12-04T08:19:26.572+11:00The stark choice facing climate conference: A livable climate or more oil and gas?<p> by <b>David Spratt,</b> first published at <i><a href="https://thebulletin.org/2023/12/the-stark-choice-facing-climate-conference-a-livable-climate-or-more-oil-and-gas/#post-heading" target="_blank">The Bulletin</a></i></p><p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_w59XDKsdIz-F5HitqW2tcsbCBBnJfSsVdzLhCgoARSGdeR331WyHh-SO9Lsew6NbARStT-_QgutSuBHyzYcxCGa7YzTrW5Wa8C-s7R-eSEx-yaB83iROLGPuLTxG3If6LxzaiTznxm585PdCPTv0uF4_meThq12l5aZjxc4GDB9p4vC68nDUbIEX2E4/s1420/Guardianj%20COP%20story.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="1420" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_w59XDKsdIz-F5HitqW2tcsbCBBnJfSsVdzLhCgoARSGdeR331WyHh-SO9Lsew6NbARStT-_QgutSuBHyzYcxCGa7YzTrW5Wa8C-s7R-eSEx-yaB83iROLGPuLTxG3If6LxzaiTznxm585PdCPTv0uF4_meThq12l5aZjxc4GDB9p4vC68nDUbIEX2E4/s320/Guardianj%20COP%20story.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Guardian</i> story, 3 December 2023<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Looking for ideas for a new streaming video series on climate politics? Try this:</p><div>
<p></p><blockquote><p>Over three decades, global emissions of climate-warming greenhouse
gases increase by half, despite repeated promises by nations to cut
them. Now it is crunch time, with petrostates determined to increase
their oil and gas production while poor and vulnerable nations say that,
for their peoples, such a course will mean the end of life as they have
known it. In 2023, the stage is set for a clash over the human future.</p>
<p>Small island states are aghast that dirty deals result in a
petrostate winning the presidency for an annual global climate
policymaking get-together, amid deepening fears of another year of
political failure and as the clock ticks down. And then, just days
before the conference is to start, leaked documents show that the host
state—the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf—has used its position
to push new oil trade deals with senior government officials and
business leaders from around the world. There is uproar. Will the
conference president, who is also the chief executive officer of the
UAE’s state-owned oil company, confront the media and declare it is all
“fake news”? He does, with a straight face, and the show goes on, with
crumbling credibility.</p></blockquote><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>The just-described series of events might make a good streaming
series, but it’s not fiction, but fact. In the United Arab Emirates this
month, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil
Company, is presiding over the 28th meeting of the Conference of the
Parties of the 1994 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a
meeting generally known as COP28.</p>
<p>Oil and gas account for 27 percent of the UAE economy and half of the
country’s exports. In the region, beaches are being floodlit for
night-time bathing because the days are unbearably hot, and large
portions of the region may be <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/24/the-middle-east-is-becoming-literally-uninhabitable/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">uninhabitable</a>
later this century. Yet the UAE plans to increase oil production
capacity by a quarter this decade, and gas capacity by 150 percent.</p>
<p>Al-Jaber is presiding over a conference whose goal is to prevent
dangerous climate change, which since the 2015 Conference of the Parties
in Paris would mean keeping global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees
Celsius above preindustrial average temperatures. In reality, a safe
limit would be much lower. In the wake of extraordinary and extreme
climate events around the world in 2023, this year’s warming is likely
to nudge 1.5 Celsius, and be higher in 2024 as the El Niño sets in. With
continuing high emissions and great inertia in the energy and political
systems, the world could hit 2 degrees Celsius of warming in the late
2030s, <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/how-we-know-that-global-warming-is-accelerating-and-that-the-goal-of-the-paris-agreement-is-dead?e=3763203384" rel="noopener" target="_blank">predicts</a> James Hansen, the former head of climate research at NASA.</p>
<p>Scientists at the University of New South Wales <a href="https://climateextremes.org.au/briefing-note-15-can-we-limit-global-warming-to-1-5c/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">warn</a> that “an equilibrium climate under <em>current</em>
carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations would have a sea level 5–25 metres
higher.” And global heating will likely hit the world food supply long
before a 1.5 degree Celsius level is reached, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/12/global-heating-likely-to-hit-world-food-supply-faster-than-expected-says-united-nations-desertification-expert" rel="noopener" target="_blank">according to</a>
the president of the UN’s desertification conference, Alain-Richard
Donwahi of Ivory Coast. This year, the world’s largest rice
exporter—India—banned rice exports because of extreme climate hits to
production, and the European Union will have to import olive oil as a
result of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/28/europes-local-olive-oil-supply-runs-almost-dry-after-summer-of-extreme-weather">wildfires and soaring summer temperatures</a>.</p>
<p>Clearly the current climate conditions are already dangerous, but
COP28 participants desperately avert their gaze, mouthing platitudes
about carbon budgets and the 1.5 degrees Celsius path remaining viable.
Meanwhile, the world’s largest fossil fuel producers remain
laser-focused on pumping more oil and gas. The scientific imperative to
drive fossil fuel down to zero at emergency speed doesn’t get a place at
the discussion table.</p>
<p>The recent UN report on the gap between political words and deeds, “<a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/production-gap-report-2023" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Phasing up or phasing down</a>,”
starkly presents the contradiction. It says that government pledges
would reduce planet-warming emissions by a (still-inadequate) half by
2050, but their actual plans and projections would result in no decrease
by 2050, with oil and gas use up and coal down. The intentions of the
world’s five largest fossil fuel producers are clear—and
civilization-threatening.</p>
<p>In China, oil production is projected to be flat to 2050, but gas
will increase more than 60 percent from 2020 to 2050, while coal use
will remain high till 2030 then decline sharply to about 30-40 percent
of current levels by 2050.</p>
<p>In the United States, oil production will grow and then remain at
record levels to 2050, and gas is projected to continuously and
significantly increase to 2050; coal production in 2050 will be about
half the current level.</p>
<p>Projections for Russia are available only to 2035, with coal and gas
production projected to increase significantly, while oil remains flat.
Oil and gas production constitute 19 percent of the economy.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia’s plan is to increase oil and gas capacity: Oil
production is projected to grow by 26 to 47 percent by 2050, with gas up
40 percent between 2019 and 2050. Oil and gas production make up half
of the Saudi economy.</p>
<p>And Australia is one of the world’s top two liquified natural gas and
coal exporters. Gas production is projected to stay above the current
level for the next 15 years, with coal remaining high over the same
period, above 450 million metric tons annually.</p>
<p>Compounding the words-versus-deeds problem, every member state at the
COP has the power of veto over outcomes and wordings, handing the
petrostates the capacity to undermine the stronger stances of the most
vulnerable states. The history of the COP process is one of the
petrostates wielding their power to produce lowest-common-denominator
outcomes inconsistent with scientific reality.</p>
<p>The contradiction is unresolvable as things stand. Perhaps the COP
meetings have had their day, and other approaches, including bilateral
agreements between key players, can provide new leadership and higher
ambition.</p>
<p>If the COP process is to be relevant, then at the very least it needs
to fundamentally change the way it works. Key changes would focus on
the consensus rule that gives such extraordinary powers to petrostates,
and on limits of access for the fossil fuel lobbying industry at the
COPs. A <a href="https://www.clubofrome.org/impact-hubs/climate-emergency/cop-reform/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">proposal</a>
by the Club of Rome—endorsed by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and former Ireland President Mary Robinson, among other prominent
figures—emphasizes both the need for capacity to respond to our current
emergency situation and to respect the goal of Paris of 1.5 degrees
Celsius by holding countries to account for financing the transition.
The proposal also supports a science-based approach in the COP process,
with more regular updates about new developments and smaller, more
frequent meetings to ensure governments are not the only voices heard
during official discussions.</p>
<p>If the current COP could move in this direction, there may be hope
for it. But if political bluster fueled by addictions to oil and gas
hold sway, the culture of failure will persist, with severe consequences
for humanity’s future.</p>
</div><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-69246352979940659892023-11-24T09:02:00.001+11:002023-11-25T13:19:59.695+11:00COP-out: Why the petrostate-hosted climate talkfest will fail on key emissions-reduction task<p>by <b>David Spratt</b> and <b>Ian Dunlop</b>, first published at <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/cop-out-why-the-petrostate-hosted-climate-talkfest-will-fail/">Pearls and Irritations</a> <br /></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7UXxoplHZxU9UQSttWP4NqxSpZnUTVygTFgEOLKeWdOA5UxOW2yLdo6LD92j6LUjA1QZzs1ehREecsxWmsXvPGkQjPIDJJrBQM65ekYW98eq8-nU9OPQ5-jnVxG1Qw5zM9lV7t5T57KYFgabpcEcfNzsxMtynwc-qlWeNAXMOEgYd058_vxzVVpuhSZo/s1970/NYT%20beach%20story.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1380" data-original-width="1970" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7UXxoplHZxU9UQSttWP4NqxSpZnUTVygTFgEOLKeWdOA5UxOW2yLdo6LD92j6LUjA1QZzs1ehREecsxWmsXvPGkQjPIDJJrBQM65ekYW98eq8-nU9OPQ5-jnVxG1Qw5zM9lV7t5T57KYFgabpcEcfNzsxMtynwc-qlWeNAXMOEgYd058_vxzVVpuhSZo/w400-h280/NYT%20beach%20story.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">N<i>ew York Times</i> story on extreme heat in COP host nation</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />After a succession of record-breaking months of unprecedented heat
including 1.8°C for September, global warming in 2023 as a whole will
likely tip 1.5°C, with 2024 even hotter as the effect of the building El
Nino is felt more fully. Already hundreds of thousands have died and
millions displaced, primarily in countries least responsible for climate
change. The annual <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41888-1#Sec2">economic cost</a> globally is in the hundreds of billions.
<p></p><p>So what will the 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties
(COP28) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),
starting 30 November in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), say about this?
And in particular what will Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of the UAE state
oil company ADNOC, who will preside over the international negotiations,
say?<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>Probably nothing; instead there will be much blather about
reaffirming the commitments at the Paris COP in 2015 “to hold the
increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C, and to pursue
efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. And lots of “net
zero” posturing based on <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/dor">sham Integrated Assessment Models</a>, and farcical assumptions about <a href="https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/web.sas.upenn.edu/dist/0/896/files/2023/06/OffsetPaper7.0-6-27-23-FINAL2.pdf">bodgy carbon offsets</a>,
carbon capture and storage (CCS), bioenergy with CCS, machines to draw
carbon from the atmosphere, and the like. All given unwarranted
credibility by the Sultan’s advisers, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/top-consultancy-undermining-climate-change-164237731.html">Mckinsey & Co</a><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/top-consultancy-undermining-climate-change-164237731.html">.</a></p>
<p>The private sector will doubtless be lauded for its efforts, despite
the fact that the world’s largest companies’ net zero pledges are <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2023/11/15/influencemap-study-greenwashing-corporate-climate-commitment-net-zero-greenwash/">false promises</a>, and Wall Street’s climate efforts are <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-23/why-wall-street-s-climate-efforts-are-falling-far-short-of-net-zero-targets">built to fail</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile in the real world, provisional data from CopernicusECMWF shows 17 November 2023 as the <a href="https://twitter.com/OceanTerra/status/1726342052961493328">first day above 2°C</a> (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline) since modern humans evolved.</p>
<p>What definitely won’t be said is that the petrostates — including the
USA, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Canada, Nigeria, and those across North Africa
and the Gulf — are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/08/insanity-petrostates-planning-huge-expansion-of-fossil-fuels-says-un-report">hell-bent on increasing oil and gas production</a>,
despite the disastrous consequences. The COP process is one of
consensus decision-making, so each petrostate has the power of veto over each COP decisions, ensuring that the culture of failure will endure.
And Australia, despite lofty rhetoric about climate leadership, is
rushing to join the club.</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the 2022 COP27 meeting in Egypt being captured by
the fossil fuel industry, there have been increasing calls for <a href="https://www.clubofrome.org/impact-hubs/climate-emergency/cop-reform/">fundamental reform</a>
to the COP process. As oil prices have increased in light of the
Ukraine conflict, major oil companies such as Shell, Exxon and BP have
all reneged on their meagre climate commitments and intend to increase
production, prompting <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/7/6/i-thought-fossil-fuel-firms-could-change-i-was-wrong">condemnation</a>
for breach of trust. Yet fossil-fuel-producing nations and companies
continue to swear undying commitment to achieving net zero emissions by
2050.</p>
<p>With emissions again at record levels, and projections that emissions
by 2050 may be two-thirds or more of what they are today on current
actions, the world will fly past 2°C faster than expected. In a recent
communication, the eminent former NASA climate science chief James
Hansen <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/how-we-know-that-global-warming-is-accelerating-and-that-the-goal-of-the-paris-agreement-is-dead?e=3763203384">warned</a>
that: “The warming by 2030 will be about 1.71°C. Global warming of 2°C
will be reached by the late 2030s, i.e., within about 15 years”. Some
people say this is an outlier view, but Hansen has been conspicuously
right most of the time over a distinguished career. In any case, the
existential nature of the climate threat means that precautionary action
should be taken now to avoid <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2023/09/betting-against-worst-case-climate-scenarios-is-risky-business">plausible worst-case scenarios</a>.</p>
<p>When we look back in five, ten, fifteen years, is it likely that the
average global warming trend during 2023 and 2024 will be seen to have
been close to 1.5°C, with the rate of warming accelerating from now on?
In our <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2023/10/one-swallow-doesnt-make-spring-so-has.html">estimation</a>, yes.</p>
<p>There are several reasons for this. First, the projections of continuing high emissions:</p>
<ul><li>Carbon dioxide <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-emissions-global-warming-carbon-dioxide-coal-494ef490f16abe381ea2a4107f779670" rel="noopener">emissions reached a record high in 2022</a> and are <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/global-emissions-predicted-to-hit-new-high-in-2023-scientists-warn">projected to rise</a> in 2023;</li><li>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/08/insanity-petrostates-planning-huge-expansion-of-fossil-fuels-says-un-report">UNEP “gap” report</a>
finds on current plans that emissions will be as high in 2050 as today,
with petrostates planning huge expansion of fossil fuels; and the US
(now the world’s largest fossil fuel producer) behind more than a third
of global oil and gas <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/12/us-behind-more-than-a-third-of-global-oil-and-gas-expansion-plans-report-finds">expansion plans</a>;</li><li>The US Energy Information Administration finds that for USA, energy emissions in 2050 will be <a href="https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/narrative/index.php#ExecutiveSummary">80% of today’s levels</a>;</li><li>The International Energy Agency says that stated policies will result globally in <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2023">oil and gas production in 2050 as high as 2020 levels</a><u>,</u> albeit coal is halved, but emissions show little change;</li><li>The <a href="https://www.oecd.org/env/indicators-modelling-outlooks/oecdenvironmentaloutlookto2050theconsequencesofinaction-keyfactsandfigures.htm">OECD concludes</a>
that a world economy four times larger than today is projected to need
80% more energy in 2050, and without new policy action the global energy
mix in 2050 will not differ significantly from today, with the share of
fossil energy at about 85%, renewables including biofuels just over
10%, and the balance nuclear;</li><li><a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/11/climate-paris-agreement-dnv">DNV sees</a>
stationary energy-related emissions cut 46% by midcentury, but the
world is “less likely than ever” to meet Paris Agreement goals;</li><li>A study of three dozen national plans found 90% of targets were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/15/from-the-oceans-to-net-zero-targets-were-in-denial-about-the-climate-crisis">not credible</a> and unlikely to be achieved.</li></ul><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig0a8Tzb5R8ysgpje8j-A1CjXX0MV5lFWHBVDwUkI0H5QRluarBdQd6rtpME6PXVTR9koUf5jbufhv7BNyZ-yNCJz1yb1G5rngzdAOr2ab0MnMkp4SjKjWqj1qO7xPdv4DS9dcGcqH2GppD-zSrFGVEtMGYUuKJqb5rOSiffDx8QnfRd5g6JUyiLaLAfk/s986/Spratt%20chart%201.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="986" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig0a8Tzb5R8ysgpje8j-A1CjXX0MV5lFWHBVDwUkI0H5QRluarBdQd6rtpME6PXVTR9koUf5jbufhv7BNyZ-yNCJz1yb1G5rngzdAOr2ab0MnMkp4SjKjWqj1qO7xPdv4DS9dcGcqH2GppD-zSrFGVEtMGYUuKJqb5rOSiffDx8QnfRd5g6JUyiLaLAfk/w400-h219/Spratt%20chart%201.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Chart 1: <i>Phasing down or phasing up? Emissions Gap Report 2023</i> projections for coal, oil and gas<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table> <br />There are also two compelling charts, which add weight to the
likelihood of an acceleration in the warming rate. The first is the
Earth’s Energy Imbalance — an indicator of the level of future warming —
which is rising rapidly in part due to decreasing aerosols, suggesting
that the rate of warming will increase:<p></p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-369518" class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_369518" style="width: 600px;"><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Screen-Shot-2023-11-22-at-9.30.31-am.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-369518" height="316" src="https://johnmenadue.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Screen-Shot-2023-11-22-at-9.30.31-am.png" width="400" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-369518"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Chart 2: Earth’s Energy Imbalance, based on NASA CERES EBAT-TOA All-sky Ed4.2 net flux data. (Leon Simons)<br /></span></figcaption></figure></div>
<p>The second is the fact that heat is being taken down into the ocean at an accelerating rate, as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/%20s41467-023-42468-z">explained</a>
in the paper “Recent acceleration in global ocean heat accumulation by
mode and intermediate waters”. Because 90% of the heat trapped by the
greenhouse effect warms the oceans, this is a good indication of a
fastening pace in the future:</p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><figure aria-describedby="caption-attachment-369519" class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_369519" style="width: 600px;"><a href="https://johnmenadue.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Screen-Shot-2023-11-22-at-9.33.17-am.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-369519" height="400" src="https://johnmenadue.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Screen-Shot-2023-11-22-at-9.33.17-am.png" width="339" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-369519"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Chart 3: Heat is being taken down into the ocean at an accelerating rate. (Li et al, NCC, 14:6888).</span></figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Many of the petrostates are highly dependent on fossil fuel revenue
to fund their strategic ambitions, so there is every reason to believe
they will pump all the oil and gas they can. So it is unsurprising
that a<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/20/world-facing-hellish-3c-of-climate-heating-un-warns-before-cop28"> new UN report</a> says the world is heading towards 3°C and perhaps a good deal more, <a href="https://www.aslcg.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ASLCG_MIA_Report.pdf">bringing down the curtains</a> on contemporary civilisation.</p>
<p>Eight years after Paris, the evidence is overwhelming that <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/_files/ugd/148cb0_714730d82bb84659a56c7da03fdca496.pdf">“net zero 2050” was always a bad target</a>, that <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/_files/ugd/148cb0_999447b69dde477a83b500dde076fbc6.pdf">there is no carbon budget left</a>, and that <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/_files/ugd/148cb0_2a1626569b45453ebadad9f151e031b6.pdf">major system tipping points have already been passed</a>, or are now within range in the short-term.</p>
<p>COP28 will not produce a statement that says a word about any of
this. If there is to be a modicum of truth-telling, front and centre of
the COP outcome would be recognition that fossil fuel expansion is a
death trap, that zero emissions fast is absolutely necessary, and that
unprecedented interventions to mitigate 1.5°C climate overshoot are now
required. That is the focus of another new report <a href="https://ccag.earth/s/The-Overshoot-201123.pdf"><i>The Overshoot: Crossing the 1.5C threshold and finding our way back</i></a>, from the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. The report again emphasises the need for a <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/3rs">three-pronged strategy</a> to reduce, remove and repair.</p>
<p>In the Gulf, petrostates are now installing floodlights on beaches
and encouraging night-time use because it is simply becoming too hot to
use during the day. “In a city where weather that would constitute a
deadly heat wave in Europe is just a typical summer day, official ‘night
beaches’ have become a popular way to cool down”, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/world/middleeast/dubai-beaches-nighttime-global-warming.html">reports</a>
the New York Times. Perhaps the COP delegates could adjourn for a
midnight skinny dip, and experience first-hand what the future holds.</p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17579440972803022382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-18837491500407744452023-10-26T09:03:00.001+11:002023-10-30T07:51:36.247+11:00Climate activists deserve our support, say 70 Australian and international researchers in public statement<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipgPxqKfaQfb-b-EEwnKiorbv_NgpEd1gXUA2l1G3N60TQUCyP2B8f2ZB-ujEMMWxzlBbHLYabGbEJ0yIwxNu2z4oz-eZFyFRPnOuyvyRIAl6ecH66UX4fgpIiZC95hY-xX7_L-oWYVSfOUfYHL4cH3OZUoM1ossxHCVptc6EDTOHL76N1B4pRbVxK1cE/s2090/SR%20image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="936" data-original-width="2090" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipgPxqKfaQfb-b-EEwnKiorbv_NgpEd1gXUA2l1G3N60TQUCyP2B8f2ZB-ujEMMWxzlBbHLYabGbEJ0yIwxNu2z4oz-eZFyFRPnOuyvyRIAl6ecH66UX4fgpIiZC95hY-xX7_L-oWYVSfOUfYHL4cH3OZUoM1ossxHCVptc6EDTOHL76N1B4pRbVxK1cE/w640-h286/SR%20image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Seventy scholars from 16 countries have signed a public letter in support of climate activists taking non-violent direct action and speaking out about the potentially (and increasingly likely) civilisation-ending risk of accelerating climate disruption.</p><p>Discussing the open letter, Professor Colin Butler, of the Australia National University, explains that "Peril lies in understating the risk to global civilisation from unabated climate change (and other aspects of limits to growth); I call on my colleagues to show leadership and courage." </p><p>Focusing on the unfair treatment of climate activists, Professor in
Science Education, Dr Caroline Smith, from the University of Tasmania
said: "Shooting the messengers is a disgraceful state of affairs. We
send congratulations and strength to those courageous scientists who
continue to speak out for all our futures." <span></span></p><a name='more'></a> Climate scientist Dr Wolfgang Knorr of Lund University in Sweden said that we need of both politicians and experts "nothing more than honesty - say you don't care about the climate crisis, or act in way that does justice to the vastness of the threat".<p></p><p>In the Netherlands, Dr Lummina Horlings, Professor of Socio-Spatial Planning (University of Groningen) said: "We should be grateful to activists such as Extinction Rebellion who play an active role to stop the subsidy of fossil fuels."</p><p>French Agronomist Dr Etienne-Pascal Journet said while the climatic and ecological upheaval has never been so obvious, "propaganda against the wise, courageous and peaceful activists is abounding, supported by various lobbies, think tanks, the government, and opportunistic political parties." And Pierre-Henri Gouyon, Professor of Ecology at the Natural History Museum of France said: "Trying to warn humanity of the climate and biodiversity crisis should be 'haloed' not criminalised."</p><p>Reflecting how global heating threatens to disrupt everything in society, the open letter is signed by academics from many disciplines, not just climatology. It comes after the <a href="https://rebellion.global/blog/2023/10/19/reflections-5-years-on/" target="_blank">public statement </a>issued by the co-founders of activist group Extinction Rebellion, Gail Bradbrook, Roger Hallam and Clare Farrell, about the unhelpful pressures on them from some climatologists over recent years and the need for more courageous truth telling in a world with a rapidly changing climate. <br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Statement: Climate activists deserve our support</h3><p>Around the world, peaceful environmental activists are being vilified by the media, prosecuted by the state and, in some countries, murdered with impunity. Worldwide, one environmental activist is being killed every other day [1], and people who seek to defend our planet are losing their freedoms to do so [2]. Sadly, a globalist-funded network of propaganda against such activists has distorted the media, social media and political responses [3]. </p><p>That is despite the now rapidly changing climate proving that humanity owes climate activists our gratitude and leaders owe them an apology [4]. In this age of consequences, the appropriate response must be to gather environmental activists in dialogue with scientists and wider civil society, to explore why the activists often better assessed the risks from environmental change, why societies were so resistant to that truth, and how to enable better decision making in future. </p><p>As researchers who signed the initial <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/06/a-warning-on-climate-and-the-risk-of-societal-collapse" target="_blank">‘Scholars’ Warning on Societal Disruption and Collapse’</a> three years ago [5], we have been aware of the limitations of institutionalised scientific research to provide insight into both the reality and risks in highly complex systems, such as the global environment. For instance, we knew that both the consensus and averaging requirements of the reporting from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) led to downplaying data and findings that were crucial to understanding the world’s climate [6]. </p><p>The recent speed and impact of global heating demonstrates that those generalist scholars and citizen scientists associated with campaign groups like Extinction Rebellion, were better able to identify the risks to humanity, and were often better able to bring this to the attention of the public than employed climatologists.</p><p>Although hundreds of scientists have welcomed such activism [7], it is a tragedy that some senior climatologists criticised peaceful activists in recent years, inadvertently undermining their credibility with the public and encouraging draconian legislation and punishments [8]. </p><p>We lament this misleading and counterproductive approach to science communication by some of our senior colleagues. Instead, we congratulate those scientists who have themselves become protestors, like members of Scientist Rebellion, and encourage others to join them [9].</p><p>It is neither conspiracy-minded nor disrespectful towards scientists to agree with the extensive scholarship showing us that research silos, hierarchies, and funding considerations lead to suboptimal conclusions on real world implications.</p><p>There is an urgent need not to allow the same siloed and hierarchical approaches that hampered institutional climatology in the past to dominate its future in this new era of societal disruption [10]. Because there is a lot still to be done to reduce harm, despite the tragic circumstances facing us all. Life on Earth, including humanity, will not tolerate further institutionally-caused blind spots on catastrophic threats. </p><p>Therefore, as signatories, we call for more efforts to bring well-researched activists together with generalist scholars and career scientists, to better understand the complex system that is the biosphere and climate.</p><p>To support that, not only do we invite new signatories for the Scholars’ Warning declaration, but also welcome public apologies from those scholars who used their status to undermine the sense of both hazard and urgency that the environmental activists were promoting over recent years. As activists are being persecuted and prosecuted right now, the time for such apologies is also right now. </p><p>[70 scientists from 16 countries signed, with their names listed below].</p><p><b>Notes</b></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>The NGO Global Witness claims that, on average, somewhere in the world an environmental activist is killed every other day, with 177 known to have been murdered in 2022. <a href="https://geographical.co.uk/news/177-environmental-activists-killed-in-2022">https://geographical.co.uk/news/177-environmental-activists-killed-in-2022</a></li><li>In the West, peaceful environmental activists are being criminalised and prosecuted like never before. Many face custodial sentences this autumn. Even peacefully reminding juries of the law is being criminalised in Britain. “There are a number of human rights that are currently not being respected by EU states,” said Michel Forst, the U.N. special rapporteur on environmental defenders. <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-governments-crackdown-climate-change-activists-action-last-generation-extinction-rebellion/">https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-governments-crackdown-climate-change-activists-action-last-generation-extinction-rebellion/</a> </li><li>Backed by some of the world's largest anti-environmental corporations, The Atlas Network of think tanks has successfully been promoting the demonisation of environmental activists. <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/175488/meet-shadowy-global-network-vilifying-climate-protesters">https://newrepublic.com/article/175488/meet-shadowy-global-network-vilifying-climate-protesters</a> </li><li>Ocean and air temperature anomalies and associated impacts are frightening. See: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66857354" target="_blank">World breaches key 1.5C warming mark for record number of days</a> </li><li>See <a href="http://www.scholarswarning.net">www.scholarswarning.net</a> </li><li>This has been known for many years, and actively ignored by many top scientists and those that wish to align with them. From 2017, see <i><a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/whatliesbeneath" target="_blank">What Lies Beneath? The Scientific Understatement of Existential Climate Risk</a> </i>and Chapter 1 of <i>Deep Adaptation</i> on bias and limits in climatology.</li><li>Unfortunately criticism of climate activists and their analysis of the situation has even been expressed publicly by some scientists who previously supported them. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/19/environment-protest-being-criminalised-around-world-say-experts">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/19/environment-protest-being-criminalised-around-world-say-experts</a> </li><li>On this problem we note the important statement from XR co-founders <a href="https://rebellion.global/blog/2023/10/19/reflections-5-years-on/">https://rebellion.global/blog/2023/10/19/reflections-5-years-on/</a></li><li>See <a href="https://scientistrebellion.org/">https://scientistrebellion.org/</a> </li><li>See the 2023 report from the Post Carbon Institute: <i><a href="https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/welcome-to-the-great-unraveling/" target="_blank">Welcome to the Great Unraveling: Navigating the Polycrisis of Environmental and Social Breakdown</a></i>. </li></ol><p><b>Signatories</b>, in their personal capacity</p><p>Dr. Makere Stewart-Harawira, Professor, Indigenous, Environmental and Global Studies, University of Alberta, Canada<br />Dr Wolfgang Knorr, Climate Scientist, Lund University, Sweden. <br />Dr. Colin Butler, Honorary Professor of Public Health, Australian National University, Australia<br />Dr. Lummina Horlings, Professor Socio-Spatial Planning, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.<br />Dr. Pascal Maugis, Climatologist, LSCE, France<br />Dr. Carlos de Castro, Professor of Physics, University of Valladolid, Spain.<br />Dr. Wolfgang Nitschke, Senior Scientist, CNRS, France<br />Dr. Jem Bendell, Emeritus Professor, University of Cumbria, UK.<br />Dr. Pierre-Henri Gouyon, Professor of Ecology, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, France<br />Dr. Michal Palasz, assistant researcher, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland<br />Dr. Deena Metzger, Teacher/Writer, Daré, USA<br />Dr. JP Sapinski, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Université de Moncton, Canada<br />Dr. Els van Ooijen, Psychotherapist, Nepenthe Consulting, Netherlands<br />Dr. Supot Chunhachoti-ananta, Lecturer, Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand<br />Dr. Tomáš J Oberding PhD, Teaching Faculty, University of Phoenix, USA<br />Dr. Sandra Niessen, founding member, Research Collective for Decolonizing Fashion, Netherlands<br />Dr. Metje Postma, Lecturer, Leiden University, Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Netherlands<br />Dr. Jörn Altmann, Professor, Seoul National University, South Korea<br />Dr. Heather Sullivan-Catlin, Professor of Sociology, State University of New York – Potsdam, USA/Germany<br />Dr. Martin Siefkes, Research Associate, University of Technology Chemnitz, Germany<br />Dr. Johannes Scheppach, Doctor, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Germany<br />Dr. Peter Choate, Professor Social Work, Mount Royal University, Canada<br />Dr. Noel B. Salazar, Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology, KU Leuven, Germany<br />Dr. Philippe Ricordeau, public health doctor, France<br />Dr. Marshall Tuttle, Lecturer in Music, Retired, Langston University, USA<br />Dr. Ghislaine Bouvier, Assistant Professor, Bordeaux University, France<br />Dr. Richard Parncutt, personal, University of Graz, Austria<br />Dr. László A. Rampasek, CEO, OurOffset Nonprofit LLC, Hungary.<br />Dr. Haris Shekeris Researcher, SUCH (Sustainable Change Research Network)<br />Dr. Etienne-Pascal Journet, Researcher in Agronomy, CNRS, France.<br />Dr. Rebecca Johnson, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, University Hospitals Birmingham, UK<br />Dr. Jeremy Jimenez, Assistant Professor of Education, SUNY Cortland USA.<br />Dr. Sylvain Weill, Assistant professor, ENGEES, Strasbourg, France<br />Dr. Steven Salmony, Pittsboro, AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, USA<br />Dr. Stef Craps, Professor of English Literature, Ghent University, Belgium<br />Dr. Stephen Martin, Visiting Professor in Learning for Sustainability, University of the West of England, UK.<br />Dr. Stephen Sterling, Emeritus Professor of Sustainability Education, University of Plymouth, UK<br />Dr. Cédric Sueur, Professor, Université de Strasbourg, France.<br />Dr. Jake Farr, Psychologist, Leading Through Storms, UK<br />Dr. Dietmar Weinmann, Physicist, CNRS, France.<br />Dr. Dalila Bovet, Ethologist, Université Paris Nanterre, France.<br />Dr. Philippe Marquet, associate professor, univ. Lille, France.<br />Dr. Aimee Maxwell, Psychologist, Deep Adaptation Forum, Australia.<br />Dr. Irene Malvestio, postdoc, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.<br />Dr. Hedy Bryant, Facilitator and educator, HARK Facilitation Services, Australia.<br />Dr. Andrew Mathewson, Biologist, University of Washington, USA.<br />Dr. Elspeth Crawford, retired lecturer, University of Edinburgh, UK.<br />Dr. Arthur Weaver, independent scientist.<br />Dr. Ruth Irwin, Professor of Education, RMIT University, Australia.<br />Dr. Martin Weinel, Research Associate, Cardiff University, UK.<br />Dr. Yin Paradies, Professor of Race Relations, Deakin University, Australia.<br />Dr. Sean Kelly, Professor and author, California Institute of Integral Studies, USA<br />Dr. Carr Everbach, Chair of Environmental Studies; Engineering Professor, Swarthmore College, USA.<br />Dr. Shawn Rosenheim, Professor of English, Williams College, USA.<br />Dr. Elizabeth Manchester, researcher, independent<br />Dr. Matt Colborn, Tutor, Alef Trust, UK.<br />Dr. Chong Kee Tan, Founder, Labishire Homestead Commons, USA.<br />Dr. Andrew Boswell, Independent Scientist & Consultant, Climate Emergency Planning and Policy<br />Dr. Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, Adjunct Tourism Management, University of South Australia, Australia.<br />Dr. Marco Massetti, Responsable técnico de energía y sostenibilidad, FUNDACIÓ FICAT, Barcelona, Spain.<br />Dr. Fred Rohrer, Lecturer, Pedagogical University St.Gallen, Switzerland.<br />Dr. Judith McNeill, Retired, University of New England, Canada.<br />Dr. Joel Dubin, Professor, University of Waterloo, Canada.<br />Dr. Cathy Fitzgerald, Founder-Director, Haumea Ecoversity, Ireland.<br />Dr. David Phillips, Professor, University of Southampton, UK.<br />Dr. Greg Lennon, Scientist, CarLen5050.<br />Dr. Caroline Smith, Adjunct in science education, University of Tasmania, Australia.<br />Dr. Shana Melnysyn, Research Grants manager, University of California Humanities Research Institute, USA.<br /><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-23740273927302347042023-10-18T08:00:00.003+11:002023-10-18T08:09:53.903+11:00One swallow doesn’t make a Spring, so do a few super-warm months mean global warming has really hit 1.5°C?<p><b>by David Spratt</b></p><p>One swallow doesn’t make a Spring. And a week, a month, or even a year of global warming above 1.5°C does not make that the long-term trend.</p><p>In this field, a trend is an average over a longer term, by scientific convention 30 years, though sometimes shorter periods may be used. From this point of view, a trend can’t be determined till way after the event when the running averages can be calculated. It’s similar for tipping points — you generally can’t say they have been breached till you have the observational evidence some time after the event — and then it is too late.</p><p>So a more pertinent question is this: when we look back in five, ten, fifteen years, is it likely that the global warming trend during 2023 and 2024 will be seen to have been 1.5°C or above?</p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a> James Hansen, the former climate chief for NASA — and sometimes affectionately known as the godfather of contemporary climate change research — has a stunning answer. <p></p><p>We are now moving into a new El Nino period, in which warming is enhanced as some heat is transferred from the oceans to the atmosphere. In such events — in which a single cycle generally runs from one northern hemisphere autumn to the next — warming gradually builds and reaches its peak in the post-Christmas period, as seen in the diagramme below. (There can also be multi-year El Nino events.)</p><p>In his most recent monthly e-newsletter, Hansen and his colleagues <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/el-nino-fizzles-planet-earth-sizzles-why" target="_blank">plot</a> this year’s monthly temperatures against previous recent El Ninos:</p><p> <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwSQt7kesG3yH8s0nB87gJgOrZ2sf0__iTmA4WmPaULzpmU1euXmxmzcoN85p_wPnhwg7ggvHJN8izBubH6bYN3cW5mDeTnbgBMm81R-thJqZcn6t-ZrADXpsNZwaKkRjDCBgon6HW90ZKnN8rloban1PPJIcBqse2B3Gu3exRYUKDxcG-Dvca8e7fR9A/s795/cbd0604c-6ac8-183b-5ec4-a81d9b93f8bb.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="795" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwSQt7kesG3yH8s0nB87gJgOrZ2sf0__iTmA4WmPaULzpmU1euXmxmzcoN85p_wPnhwg7ggvHJN8izBubH6bYN3cW5mDeTnbgBMm81R-thJqZcn6t-ZrADXpsNZwaKkRjDCBgon6HW90ZKnN8rloban1PPJIcBqse2B3Gu3exRYUKDxcG-Dvca8e7fR9A/w640-h243/cbd0604c-6ac8-183b-5ec4-a81d9b93f8bb.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Hansen et al. report that “the September global temperature anomaly leaped to more than +1.7°C relative to the 1880-1920 mean, which exceeds the prior warmest September in the period of instrumental data by about +0.5°C”.” In some databases, the warming is found to be 1.8°C. </p><p>Hansen et al. have been warning for years that we are entering a period of accelerated warming, driven by continuing high human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, combined with less temporary cooling from sulfate aerosols as clean air policies drive down the use of high-sulfate fossil fuels, such as bunker fuel used in commercial shipping. </p><p>Looking at the August figures, they <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/uh-oh-now-what-are-we-acquiring-the-data-to-understand-the-situation" target="_blank">wrote</a> that they “anticipate acceleration of the long-term global warming rate by at least 50%, i.e., to at least 0.27°C/decade, mainly due to reduction of human-made aerosols (fine airborne particles).”<br /></p><p>Their projected of accelerated warming is shown as the yellow band in the following diagram, with the estimated el Nino peak as a purple block. The yellow band shows warming of 1.5-1.6°C by 2030.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhstQ6_wgeH1vdZtcuIDVxbP_Ox6FNCT2IoY7JGVdWj9YIYUyTFBwQNcVrU0N9YGlbN86h5GKUygs51B4M9sxPvTHpAlGF_5m4WuUKRAzkYn5NEHFnEECE0Vj88L4xyjYZYMSgSoegJd3ZlkLtVARQ7wHwMMEnSR4fEGXnS2EPKsS7O6NAtvHArwtqb8ls/s563/cfc214de-c327-a175-66a1-820bb31b690d.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="563" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhstQ6_wgeH1vdZtcuIDVxbP_Ox6FNCT2IoY7JGVdWj9YIYUyTFBwQNcVrU0N9YGlbN86h5GKUygs51B4M9sxPvTHpAlGF_5m4WuUKRAzkYn5NEHFnEECE0Vj88L4xyjYZYMSgSoegJd3ZlkLtVARQ7wHwMMEnSR4fEGXnS2EPKsS7O6NAtvHArwtqb8ls/w640-h430/cfc214de-c327-a175-66a1-820bb31b690d.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />The last four months — June to September — have been more than 0.4°C warmer than any previous similar period in the instrumental record. They say that:<p></p><blockquote><p>The average anomaly of the past 4 months (+0.44°C relative to the same months in 2015, the origin year of the 2015-16 El Nino) is probably more important. If this relative anomaly is maintained through this El Nino (through Northern Hemisphere 2024 spring) the peak 12-month mean global warming will reach +1.6-1.7°C relative to 1880-1920. Decline of global temperature following an El Nino peak is 0.2-0.3°C. <br /></p></blockquote><p>Their conclusion is straight-forward but stunning: "Thus, if this El Nino peak is as high as we project it will be, global temperature will oscillate about the yellow region. <b>The 1.5°C global warming level will have been reached, for all practical purposes</b>” (emphasis added).</p><p>If this is the case, "there will be no need to ruminate for 20 years about whether the 1.5°C level has been reached, as IPCC proposes. On the contrary, Earth’s enormous energy imbalance assures that global temperature will be rising still higher for the foreseeable future."</p><p>Berkeley Earth says it is likely that 2023 will exceed 1.5°C (see diagramme below).</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XNj1eM6WjqS1P2jGZu-TOH08Cq6nQS2az9mHCxI8TKiOFIZSjakEkxvfNWbd8CGhO8WBbOYPij919DzakK23vo2-vSMuokbdYiCeaPk1uH3TXs32FnCZo732XD5jRHccY1GOz9Bgn0MbQhiomhiGQwIYVi7mI6c8vuLayCt-HQMAbxBI98YhQQPto8c/s1024/F8KT7GNWIAArl3x-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="1024" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XNj1eM6WjqS1P2jGZu-TOH08Cq6nQS2az9mHCxI8TKiOFIZSjakEkxvfNWbd8CGhO8WBbOYPij919DzakK23vo2-vSMuokbdYiCeaPk1uH3TXs32FnCZo732XD5jRHccY1GOz9Bgn0MbQhiomhiGQwIYVi7mI6c8vuLayCt-HQMAbxBI98YhQQPto8c/w640-h360/F8KT7GNWIAArl3x-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> <p></p><p>And the Earth’s Energy Imbalance — an indicator of the level of future warming — is rising rapidly and in an unprecedented manner, which would suggest the rate of warming will increase: </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizLQSrauatoTkwbFpVIYSoAL4v-dQ4RZCgyqc78jScnl0B6h_HjLHTLTlR_GvcmD6JxpU4MQY8lJcstF3eD0zjKXhxWE6iqrjGZqeo6orvtb9fRLWpvDXHnS_X-lfBW2P-vCBr3mTAqKtP4NXo1fOj3kq7p2z8SPNH1AIPiuyw4MIz0XatsRbqBI2ol-o/s1200/F5_BJslaMAAbaAA%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="829" data-original-width="1200" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizLQSrauatoTkwbFpVIYSoAL4v-dQ4RZCgyqc78jScnl0B6h_HjLHTLTlR_GvcmD6JxpU4MQY8lJcstF3eD0zjKXhxWE6iqrjGZqeo6orvtb9fRLWpvDXHnS_X-lfBW2P-vCBr3mTAqKtP4NXo1fOj3kq7p2z8SPNH1AIPiuyw4MIz0XatsRbqBI2ol-o/w640-h442/F5_BJslaMAAbaAA%20copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>As to whether the rate of warming is accelerating, most in the scientific community have had a wait-and-see response to Hansen’s analysis. But now some are beginning to agree with him. </p><p>The European Space Agency's Copernicus Climate Change Services <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/05/1203821716/earth-is-on-track-for-its-hottest-year-yet-according-to-a-european-climate-agenc" target="_blank">says</a> that “satellite measurements of Earth’s energy imbalance — the difference between energy entering the atmosphere from the sun and the amount of heat leaving — show a strong increase in the amount of heat trapped over the past two decades. If Earth’s energy imbalance is increasing over time, it should drive an increase in the world’s rate of warming.”<br /></p><p>Prof. Ed Hawkins <a href="https://twitter.com/ed_hawkins/status/1709825752705753105" target="_blank">responded</a> to the September figures with: “Surprising. Astounding. Staggering. Unnerving. Bewildering. Flabbergasting. Disquieting. Gobsmacking. Shocking. Mind boggling.”<br /></p><p>“The Earth right now is far warmer than the previously measured record for this time of year. Even with a growing El Niño, the pace and size of the uptick that we've seen this year is pretty shocking,” <a href="https://twitter.com/RARohde/status/1706275263951052980" target="_blank">said</a> Dr Robert Rhode.<br /></p><p>And there is another debate about whether the developing El Nino can explain the large jump in warning. Warming normally reaches it peak in the post-Christmas period, so it is somewhat unusual that such leaps in monthly temperatures would be observed early in the El Nino cycle.</p><p>Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf <a href="https://twitter.com/rahmstorf/status/1711263550470037791" target="_blank">says</a> “it is clear that the anomalously high global temperatures of the past four months (above the global warming trend) can’t be explained by El Niño, if we take past El Niño events as examples”.<br /></p><p>And Dr Matt Patterson of Oxford <a href="https://twitter.com/mattpattclimate/status/1710323300226798074" target="_blank">concurs</a>: “Can the strong El Nino explain high September global temperatures? My very rudimentary analysis suggests it can only explain a relatively small amount of the 'jump'.”.<br /></p><p>Prof. Michael E. Mann who has been insisting that there is no observed acceleration in warming and no poorly-understood factors behind the recent temperature data <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelemann/status/1710321123827589375" target="_blank">says</a> that: “If the October global surface temperature anomaly comes in close to the record September value, I'll reconsider the possibility that there is something unusual & not easily explained i.e. in terms of El Nino & natural variability on top of steady, long-term human-caused warming.”<br /><br /><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-35521164768804592862023-09-28T08:37:00.002+10:002023-09-29T09:11:52.620+10:00Did Penny Wong really just suggest China is an ‘existential’ threat?<p>by <b>David Spratt</b>, first published at <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/penny-wong-suggests-that-china-is-an-existential-threat-really/" target="_blank">Pearls&Irritations</a><br /></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHfPHQZtLl9-0Lb9F3A9Gg2HsqjtilF5zzaAWbOm8FwDh7dmymS2MYaRSBVz311m3VbJ9y5QhBiq2bm-40h_VUs3Al0PUewoPGcku3sfwDqackFyIYhSGExa2LNL-OA3Oe8m-XoAKmt72l8eUgE18g1PdZDpFJ6B-WWlBsVyLswxlsHB1P1x8LxmgB_VM/s799/is-this-tomorrow-unknown.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="564" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHfPHQZtLl9-0Lb9F3A9Gg2HsqjtilF5zzaAWbOm8FwDh7dmymS2MYaRSBVz311m3VbJ9y5QhBiq2bm-40h_VUs3Al0PUewoPGcku3sfwDqackFyIYhSGExa2LNL-OA3Oe8m-XoAKmt72l8eUgE18g1PdZDpFJ6B-WWlBsVyLswxlsHB1P1x8LxmgB_VM/w283-h400/is-this-tomorrow-unknown.jpg" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poster and cover of Cold War comic book, 1947<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The Australian Government has a big problem with its security narrative. Preparing for a putative war with China is the nation’s top security priority, while the government’s knowledge of the growing existential threat of climate disruption and their security consequences remains a closely-guarded secret.<p></p><p>It is embarrassing for the government that it will not share in any meaningful way the assessment of climate–security risks <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/are-australias-climate-security-risks-too-hot-to-handle/" target="_blank">delivered to the Prime Minister’s Office</a> last November by the Office of National Intelligence (ONI), even in a declassified version. As our allies have done. Nor has it outlined any substantial policy responses.</p><p>The ONI report, if it ever sees the light of day, will likely portray climate disruption as the greatest threat to Australia, the region and its peoples, both in terms of likelihood and impact.</p><p>So how can the government square the ledger? Elevate China to become an existential threat, too? Preposterous as that may seem, this appears to be the purpose of <a href="https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/speech/national-statement-united-nations-general-assembly" target="_blank">Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s speech</a> to the UN General Assembly in New York on 23 September. </p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>Take a close look at the words spoken by Wong:</p><p></p><blockquote>“Even as we face the existential threat of climate change… The world faces another existential threat… And that is the risk of conflict between great powers.<br />“[T]he modern arms race forever transformed the scale of great power competition, and pushed all of humanity to the brink of Armageddon. In 1962, one of those close calls spurred the construction of conflict prevention infrastructure between the US and the Soviet Union: guardrails that responsibly managed Cold War competition and kept it from careering into conflict.<br />“The Indo-Pacific is home to unprecedented military build-up, yet transparency and strategic reassurance are lacking. Tension is rising between states with overlapping claims in the South China Sea, and disputed features have been militarised. And North Korea continues to destabilise with its ongoing nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile launches, threatening Japan, the Republic of Korea and the broader region.<br />“When you add dangerous encounters in the air and at sea, including between nuclear powers, we are faced with a combination of factors that give rise to the most confronting circumstances in decades.”</blockquote><p></p><p>So her story slides from existential climate risks … to existential nuclear risks … to an unprecedented military build-up due rising tensions “between states with overlapping claims in the South China Sea”.</p><p>Note the passive voice, as if Australia were a bystander rather an active participant in this militarisation. </p><p>What is being said here? There are three possible interpretations. </p><p>The first is that confrontation with China may lead to nuclear war. I am not sure that most Australians understand that the government thinks that AUKUS and the US-led confrontation with China may end up in the use of weapons of mass destruction, nor would they be happy about such a prospect. </p><p>The second is that the Foreign Minister is simply saying that nuclear war is an existential threat, which would be a statement of the obvious well recognised for three-quarters of a century. </p><p>Or is there a sleight of hand here, a thinly-disguised imputation that any regional conflict involving China is an existential threat — shorthand: “China is an existential threat” — without weapons of mass destruction being involved? If that were the case, wouldn’t China’s primary opponent and provocateur — the United States — then also be an “existential” threat?</p><p>If so, that is an Orwellian redefinition of the term “existential”, and a case of false equivalence. Civilisation wrecking climate disruption is now a realistic end-game; nuclear war with China is low odds.</p><p>The Stockholm-based Global Challenges Foundation (GCF) produces an annual assessment of catastrophic risk. Their most recent is <a href="https://globalchallenges.org/updates/a-year-of-colliding-consequences-the-global-catastrophic-risks-report-2022/" target="_blank"><i>Global Catastrophic Risks 2022: A year of colliding consequences</i></a>, in which the risks are divided into three categories.</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Current risks from human action: Weapons of mass destruction — nuclear, chemical and biological warfare — catastrophic climate change and ecological collapse. </li><li>Natural catastrophes: Pandemics, asteroid impacts and supervolcanic eruptions are known to have caused massive destruction in the past. </li><li>Emerging risks, including artificial intelligence (AI). It notes that while AI might not seem like an immediate source of concern, “we should remember that challenges widely recognised as the greatest today — climate change and nuclear weapons — were unknown only 100 years ago, and late response — as in the case of climate change — has increased the risk level considerably”.</li></ul><p>“Catastrophic” is a wider term than “existential”. As the report notes, an existential risk strictly defined is one “that threatens the premature extinction of Earth-originating intelligent life”, but there is also a “weak” existential risk that may contribute to the “destruction of humanity's long-term potential". It is this latter definition that more readily applies to climate disruption and to most of the risks analysed by the GCF. </p><p>In <i>Global Catastrophic Risks 2022</i>, China is mentioned (along with other nuclear powers) in the section on weapons of mass destruction, and in sections relating to climate disruption and population and fertility. There is no discussion of a regional war including China or anyone else being existential in and of itself. </p><p>Then there is the question of likelihood. The world is this decade <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/_files/ugd/148cb0_1a1c67b4f3c64cf2be87979e3144a58d.pdf" target="_blank">charging past 1.5°C degrees of climate warming</a> on the way to 2°C before 2050 given the continuing global political failure to reduce emissions, which are still rising. Potsdam Institute Director Johan Rockström <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/10/22/with-one-week-till-cop26-climate-talks-experts-set-out-whats-at-stake/?sh=10a8a171585d" target="_blank">warns that getting to 2°C means 3°C is likely</a>: “If we go beyond 2°C, it’s very likely that we have caused so many tipping points that you have probably added another degree just through self-reinforcing changes.” </p><p>And 3°C is close to existential in that coastal cities and nations will be under metres of water, over one-third of the planet around the equatorial regions <a href="http://aol.co.uk/news/current-climate-path-lead-collapse-103729716.html" target="_blank">will be uninhabitable due to extreme heat</a>, and <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/age-consequences" target="_blank">water availability will decrease sharply in the lower-latitude dry tropics and subtropics</a>, affecting almost two billion people worldwide and making agriculture nonviable in the dry subtropics. US national security think-tanks <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/age-consequences" target="_blank">concluded</a> that 3°C of warming and even a 0.5 metre sea-level rise would likely lead to “outright chaos” and “nuclear war is possible”.</p><p>If the Foreign Minister is drawing an equivalence between this scenario — which is probable — and conflict with China, because both are “existential”, that sounds like an amateurish attempt to disguise the dissonance of the government’s security narrative. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-84525124637150276522023-09-10T13:05:00.004+10:002023-09-12T07:31:58.786+10:00Decarbonising? Only just.<p>By David Spratt<br /><br />The scientific imperatives are overwhelming. The planet has just experienced its first month with warming more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial temperature zone, and the hottest winter on record in Australia. </p><p>Extraordinary events with the North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures and with Antarctic sea-ice are way outside scientific projections and expectations. The Canadian bushfires are blowing away all records. And on it goes, as Joelle Gergis describes in her <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2023/september/jo-lle-gergis/summer-ahead" target="_blank">recent essay</a> for <i>The Monthly</i>. </p><p>Policymakers tell us we are on the path to decarbonising the energy sector and the economy, but the reality is different from those carefully-manicured expectations. Take one example. Governments, including that of the USA, will make all sorts of pledges and noises about being committed to net zero emissions by 2050. Or more accurately, as Prof.Kevin Anderson puts it, “not zero”.</p><p>Then have a look at this chart from the US Energy Information Administration on projected energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to 2050 for the USA. The central, or reference case, is for emissions to have fallen just 20% over the next 30 years! No wonder, when the US is <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/28/republicans-gas-prices-oil-production-00111626" target="_blank">pumping oil faster than ever</a>.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj71iBknYqv9tZNqbOhltWpWY_OtTWNODuoClVzNxffY-rRg7q5upTFSWh7aZFqXPAQi6lVz2ikm6uHFkLZrQF9_d6vD98IRrUWsCir5nh1LhjJWgs9-PD9-PhW9c88g91v8rCTOXeMTrulXZYzMjney46rBePeuCh0MNx93lDeOk_0jC9-0yt7zHhBs98/s1096/US%20data.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1096" height="328" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj71iBknYqv9tZNqbOhltWpWY_OtTWNODuoClVzNxffY-rRg7q5upTFSWh7aZFqXPAQi6lVz2ikm6uHFkLZrQF9_d6vD98IRrUWsCir5nh1LhjJWgs9-PD9-PhW9c88g91v8rCTOXeMTrulXZYzMjney46rBePeuCh0MNx93lDeOk_0jC9-0yt7zHhBs98/w640-h328/US%20data.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Click on chart for higher-resolution image</span></b><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span><a name='more'></a></span><p></p><p>And then there is China, where a continuing coal spree means the world’s biggest carbon emitter is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/29/china-coal-plants-climate-goals-carbon" target="_blank">approving the equivalent of two new coal plants a week</a>. </p><p>In Australia, the positive impact from the deployment of renewable energy is largely being offset by rising emission from new and expanding coal and gas projects. If land use changes are excluded and actual emissions are counted, Australia’s emissions have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2023/aug/30/australia-quarterly-greenhouse-emissions-data-survey" target="_blank">declined just 1.6% in total since 2005</a>. </p><p>It is part of a wilder picture. Shane White, who researches energy data and runs <a href="http://worldenergydata.org">worldenergydata.org</a> has recently done updates on energy and decarbonisation trends. Take the global carbon intensity of energy supply (calculated by dividing annual carbon dioxide emissions from energy by annual total energy supply), as illustrated here, and calculated using Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2023: <br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvczbaJAiR_E96AsuxgChXDWDL6-0KozTVvrRQSgPuuUkZesvLEpgje9Cqkoh0VR5K0v2_xLNGsaTPcHkukltDybCko4P_eJx8l8IBSKneuXPqzui8ZZGEcU3qiOqoaJxOzXbPTGieASwZYvYAB9ChNIzx3V1PT6yz_TeOO91G-149csCZQbhCDqHTZc/s1458/Intensity.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1332" data-original-width="1458" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvczbaJAiR_E96AsuxgChXDWDL6-0KozTVvrRQSgPuuUkZesvLEpgje9Cqkoh0VR5K0v2_xLNGsaTPcHkukltDybCko4P_eJx8l8IBSKneuXPqzui8ZZGEcU3qiOqoaJxOzXbPTGieASwZYvYAB9ChNIzx3V1PT6yz_TeOO91G-149csCZQbhCDqHTZc/w400-h365/Intensity.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Click on chart for higher-resolution image</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p>It shows that the world energy system decarbonised from 1965 to 2000, but then re-carbonised from 2001 to 2011. After that carbon intensity didn’t reduce to the level of 2001 until 2016. Over the last 50 years, the average decline has been 0.34% a year relative to the 1972 figure. Will it decrease? At an increasing rate? It should, but that will depend on rapidly bending down the use of fossil fuels.</p><p>Here the data is confronting. As illustrated, between 1990 and 2020 the share of fossil fuels in annual gross world energy consumption (i.e. final energy) by share fell from 82.2% to 79.6%, or less that 3% in 30 years. The data used is from the IEA.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtDcVCuDyvwassYIMKkUUhGSWAiFTE9Pf0X0dqXRWB2xHN2ormUhmb2O_BEXKr9v-6r66oMnGeJ9BJ-NfG2sNE3QT8LdLeRi6Lo7VrCOkhaJgslUS_ywgzUhgkZgCc_aAjFxpMy3f4YTAXr05NiHArBMxxG_tthjgjWt_oEdVZAtr6YgZMuN2SPoMly8Q/s1876/Charts2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1856" data-original-width="1876" height="634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtDcVCuDyvwassYIMKkUUhGSWAiFTE9Pf0X0dqXRWB2xHN2ormUhmb2O_BEXKr9v-6r66oMnGeJ9BJ-NfG2sNE3QT8LdLeRi6Lo7VrCOkhaJgslUS_ywgzUhgkZgCc_aAjFxpMy3f4YTAXr05NiHArBMxxG_tthjgjWt_oEdVZAtr6YgZMuN2SPoMly8Q/w640-h634/Charts2.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Click on chart for higher-resolution image</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Finally, there is the question of the trends in fossil fuel production. Here the data is from the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2023 and compiled by Shane at <a href="http://www.worldenergydata.org/world-fossil-fuel-production-and-primary-energy">www.worldenergydata.org/world-fossil-fuel-production-and-primary-energy</a>.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8f5ZN59FrrpU3EcnZ-lHvDaoGKJKeU2lXt9zm6z9baPFTT6Cqs9ceTSWFLgcVe9YJBAupfKECzCnrVHio4Gcz2qCxyDl-fLOoJ42z2UDrrpe90ovA-o3zAZa5kJoD3a6iuPDqCCxAeRsVnRHty45xDe4xA9PJlDyi-EG08nQcaCUQUOd3qXCVbS9XHKo/s2742/3%20figures.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="904" data-original-width="2742" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8f5ZN59FrrpU3EcnZ-lHvDaoGKJKeU2lXt9zm6z9baPFTT6Cqs9ceTSWFLgcVe9YJBAupfKECzCnrVHio4Gcz2qCxyDl-fLOoJ42z2UDrrpe90ovA-o3zAZa5kJoD3a6iuPDqCCxAeRsVnRHty45xDe4xA9PJlDyi-EG08nQcaCUQUOd3qXCVbS9XHKo/w640-h210/3%20figures.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Click on chart for higher-resolution image</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>And Australia’s role? “Australia has become the largest exporter of metallurgical coal and LNG, and the 2nd largest exporter of thermal coal. Expansion of these exports on a prodigious scale is a priority for both major Australian political parties,” <a href="https://www.worldenergydata.org/australias-fossil-fuel-exports/" target="_blank">says</a> White. <br /></p><p><br /><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-12722401603638539742023-09-05T09:03:00.001+10:002023-09-05T09:22:55.848+10:00Betting against worst-case climate scenarios is risky business<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcvcWPJBWm5NsRJZSklExq6WCymST5piDdeH0tBU5E4tkGoRjijE_bJK-tU-FfC3_ot1VuBRgD2RvnmpHtB7cgJWE3AHrlpxJOXjEJkYoF7q2Tnct9Nk4DdPYu1VGBMSW-HsHdSm9ULNZlHzruGxR4AfT0nhHgej-pEkGYoZVYuYVyFkU2KQ7-zPvq-6w/s1920/Dice-v7.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1277" data-original-width="1920" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcvcWPJBWm5NsRJZSklExq6WCymST5piDdeH0tBU5E4tkGoRjijE_bJK-tU-FfC3_ot1VuBRgD2RvnmpHtB7cgJWE3AHrlpxJOXjEJkYoF7q2Tnct9Nk4DdPYu1VGBMSW-HsHdSm9ULNZlHzruGxR4AfT0nhHgej-pEkGYoZVYuYVyFkU2KQ7-zPvq-6w/w400-h266/Dice-v7.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="wp-caption">Illustration by Erik English</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />As the world is hit my mind-boggling, even-more-extreme climate events, records are busted and some events are way beyond scientific expectations, it’s time to ask the question: "Are the worst-case scenarios coming true too often, and what does that for the way we approach climate risks in policy making?"<br /><br />And this is relevant to the way the Australian government constructs its emission-reduction targets, based on some very risky analysis.<br /><br />The IPCC and the climate-economy models it uses to produce carbon budgets and emission scenarios focus on the probabilities, not the possibilities. Is this a fatal mistake? <span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p> These issues are explored in a new article in the “The Bulletin” (US): <br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://thebulletin.org/2023/09/betting-against-worst-case-climate-scenarios-is-risky-business"><b>Betting against worst-case climate scenarios is risky business</b></a></span><br /></p><blockquote>"Would you live in a building, cross a bridge, or trust a dam wall if there were a 10 percent chance of it collapsing? Or five percent? Or one percent? Of course not! In civil engineering, acceptable probabilities of failure generally range from one-in-10,000 to one-in-10-million.<br /><br />"So why, when it comes to climate action, are policies like carbon budgets accepted when they have success rates of just 50 to 66 percent? That’s hardly better than a coin toss.<br /><br />"Policy-relevant scientific publications, such as those produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, focus on the probabilities—the most likely outcomes. But, according to atmospheric physicist and climatologist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, “calculating probabilities makes little sense in the most critical instances” because “when the issue is the survival of civilization is at stake, conventional means of analysis may become useless.”<br /><br />"Have scientists and policy makers given too much weight to middle-of-the-road probabilities, instead of plausible-worst possibilities? If so, it’s an appalling gamble with risk. Humanity could end up the loser."</blockquote><b><a href="https://thebulletin.org/2023/09/betting-against-worst-case-climate-scenarios-is-risky-business">Read the full article</a> <br /></b><a href="https://thebulletin.org/2023/09/betting-against-worst-case-climate-scenarios-is-risky-business">ttps://thebulletin.org/2023/09/betting-against-worst-case-climate-scenarios-is-risky-business</a><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="https://thebulletin.org/biography/david-spratt/">Articles at The Bulletin</a> </b>by David Spratt <br /></li><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts<br /></li></ul><p><span class="wp-caption"><br /></span></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17579440972803022382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-19147944039626232432023-08-30T07:37:00.002+10:002023-09-05T09:23:45.572+10:00Thinking in boxes, Australian Government's Intergenerational Report misleads and fails to connect the climate dots<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpji6Lr4Rman9kDDZC88D8DoRrR0bMXzj7QsCitaSPGlvZOSZWkTeACE4LT2rp2eQYcdgzffiV9dF6c7mL6o7rrzrljQwGiVZan7zs9rKIgIEq9bwqONuyfkCQ3BzlonVqg9SySJKXoSTU-NAIKa2cp6hu-lo3Q5ERx4N4vlzvrdyBS5NCJYAFiENosaM/s576/box.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="576" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpji6Lr4Rman9kDDZC88D8DoRrR0bMXzj7QsCitaSPGlvZOSZWkTeACE4LT2rp2eQYcdgzffiV9dF6c7mL6o7rrzrljQwGiVZan7zs9rKIgIEq9bwqONuyfkCQ3BzlonVqg9SySJKXoSTU-NAIKa2cp6hu-lo3Q5ERx4N4vlzvrdyBS5NCJYAFiENosaM/s320/box.jpg" width="320" /></a></p>by <b>David Spratt </b>and <b>Ian Dunlop</b>, first published at <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/fatal-mistake-intergenerational-report-misleads-on-climate-risks/" target="_blank"><i>Pearls & Irritations</i></a><br /><p></p><p>The Australian Government’s public analysis of climate risk, our greatest threat, is dangerously misleading. The <a href="http://treasury.gov.au/publication/2023-intergenerational-report">Intergenerational Report 2023</a>
(IGR) is a prime example. By dumbing down the implications of climate
change with simplified economic models, the IGR and similar reports are
institutionalising the global failure to face climate reality.<span id="more-362528"></span></p>
<p>The US inquiry into the 9/11 World Trade Centre attack in New York
concluded that the greatest government shortcoming was the intelligence
agencies’ failure to “connect the dots”. The Brookings Institute <a href="http://brookings.edu/articles/9-11-and-the-reinvention-of-the-u-s-intelligence-community">explains</a>
that “thinking in silos” meant that “pieces of the puzzle were to be
found in many corners of the US government but no one connected the dots
well enough or in a timely enough manner to predict with sufficient
accuracy the attack that came”.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>The IGR claims to canvass the big impacts on the Australian economy
and budget over the next 40 years, but in focusing on economic detail it
misses the systemic global climate risks that will upend the Australian
economy and fails to connect the most critical climate dots.</p>
<p>It is a classic example of “thinking in silos” identified in the 2016 UK report <a href="http://procurious.com/blog-content/2016/04/Thinking-The-Unthinkable-Report.pdf"><i>Thinking the unthinkable</i></a>
as one factor that led to “a new fragility at the highest levels of
corporate and public service leaderships”, in that their ability to
spot, identify and handle unexpected, non-normative events has become
“perilously inadequate at critical moments”.</p>
<p>The IGR says climate warming will have “profound impacts” with “some
costs… unavoidable”, but also presents “new opportunities and economic
challenges” with Australia “well positioned with renewable energy
potential and abundant natural resources” to “take advantage of the
opportunities emerging from the global net zero transformation”.</p>
<p>The media coverage of the IGR had one big number, typically headlined as <a href="http://smh.com.au/politics/federal/global-warming-to-cost-australia-up-to-423-billion-over-40-years-20230823-p5dyvx.html">“Global warming to cost Australia up to $423 billion over 40 years”</a>.
Sounds impressive, but over 40 years that is only 0.5% of current GDP
each year on average, and that figure was just a rough estimate of the
impact of decreases in labour productivity levels caused by climate
disruption. In the absence of other big numbers, and an inquisitive
media, it was easy for readers to mistake it for the whole story,
whereas it is a relatively minor component.</p>
<p>Other key impacts identified were a one-to-three percent decline in
crop yields, a 6–25 percent drop in tourist arrivals, and the increasing
cost of more extreme climate impacts, including a cumulative $130
billion of Government spending on Disaster Recovery Funding
Arrangements. And that was about it.</p>
<p>A footnote acknowledged that only “selected impacts” had been
examined in ”a partial assessment of the physical impact”, excluding
“health impacts, biodiversity loss, storm surge and sea level rise,
amongst many others”. Another silo.</p>
<p>The report suggests, rather disingenuously, that Australia is on
board with global actions to hold warming to well below 2°C, which
current policy patently demonstrates is not so. Government enthusiasm
for domestic and export fossil fuel expansion hardly meets the need for
“deep, rapid and immediate greenhouse gas reductions”.</p>
<p>The IGR reasserts the need to achieve the 1.5–2°C goal but seems
unaware that this horse has already bolted. The world has just recorded
its first 1.5°C month (July), may get close to an annual average 1.5°C
in 2023-24, with the longer term warming trend reaching 1.5°C by the end
of this decade.</p>
<p>Emissions reductions alone will not stop Earth charging past 2°C;
that task would have required a halving of emissions between 2020 and
2030, but the latest projections suggest that emissions may simply
plateau this decade. If the rate of warming accelerates, as seems
likely, the trend will pass 2°C well before 2050, and by 2063 — the end
point of the IGR’s 40-year time frame — it may be heading towards 3°C.</p>
<p>A prudent, precautionary, approach to climate risk management would
focus on this scenario, because it is now the most likely, and the most
damaging. The IGR does acknowledge that “as temperature increases
approach 2°C, the risk of crossing thresholds which cause nonlinear
tipping points in the Earth system, with potentially abrupt and not yet
well understood impacts, also increases”, but that insight is left
dangling. What would this mean for the economy? Not a word. Another
silo.</p>
<p>So what will Australia likely face by 2063? It will include heat extremes in the northern quarter of Australia <a href="http://nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01132-6">beyond the niche of historically experienced temperatures</a>, fatal for people and agricultural stock without mechanical cooling. A <a href="http://chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021">2021 UK risk assessment</a>
concluded that by mid-century global food demand would be up 50
percent, but crop yields down 20 to 30 percent, an equation that would
result in global famine and a food cost-of-living crisis making our
current problems look like a picnic.</p>
<p>That same report found that by 2050 climate disruption would drive
political instability and greater national insecurity, and fuel regional
and international conflict. Supply lines? Lost markets? Global
financial crisis? The mass forced displacement of people? We don’t have
to put a dollar figure on that to understand the consequences.</p>
<p>The IGR, by dumbing down the implications of climate change with simplified economic models, repeats the <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/dor">same mistakes</a>
made by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, and
the Central Banks’ Network for Greening the Financial System, which are <a href="http://breakthroughonline.org.au/dor">institutionalising the global failure</a> to face climate reality.</p>
<p>The report gives the impression that 2, 3 or even 4°C temperature
increases would be relatively benign, readily adapted to with some
free-market policy juggling. The reality is that 3°C would be
catastrophic and 4°C beyond the limits of human survivability in many
parts of the world, Australia included. American security analysts have
concluded [csis.org/analysis/age-consequences] that 3°C would likely
lead to “outright chaos” and “nuclear war is possible”. What of the
economy then?</p>
<p>It is likely that the climate-security assessment carried out by the
Office of National Intelligence (ONI) in 2022, which focussed on
regional risks, would have come to similar conclusions. But the ONI
report lies locked away on national security grounds, in its own silo,
never to see the light of day even in a redacted form according to the
Prime Minister. It is obvious that the intergenerational report was not
informed by the ONI assessment, which it should have been.</p>
<p>There is nothing that the Australian Government has put into the
public arena that frankly sets out the climate threat. Contrary to the
political transparency and honesty we were promised, the Australian
community is being deliberately kept in the dark about this greatest
challenge.</p>
<p>The climate threats to the Australian economy are systemic, networked
into the global climate and human systems as a whole, rather than to
individual components. Physical climate system impacts are compounding
and creating second-order cascading effects at the economic, social and
political levels.</p>
<p>Lacking a big picture understanding of these systematic risks as a
framework within which to assess economic impacts, the IGR flounders. A
similar disease is infecting the early stages of the government’s
domestic climate risk assessment currently underway.</p>
<p>There is a pattern here. Siloed thinking is a fatal mistake.</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts</li></ul><p> </p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-31780308179231065412023-08-23T18:11:00.001+10:002023-09-05T09:23:58.517+10:00Australia’s greatest security threat is a Canberra secret<p>by <b>David Spratt</b>, first published at <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8317503/why-is-this-govt-keeping-secrets-about-the-biggest-threat-to-our-future" target="_blank">The Canberra Times</a> and <a href="https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/8317503/why-is-this-govt-keeping-secrets-about-the-biggest-threat-to-our-future/" target="_blank">Newcastle Herald</a><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxrie7Eb2kuOJl20q6EV96RZzexSM6EiaJChGYW_Xkqaq7cCITGIkhVkcx7YvB9XG70obxfnfIrXsEeJlWIOfjOitbG62gsyX11IBb9ji2mAnK5aikm3BdmtqUgbPJao7vbnMKQEjIvvqpx2B_Ao7hTYGr12vM4wcnRgR0HPKd1SmgaepuMges8a-ZX3A/s498/shhhh.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="496" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxrie7Eb2kuOJl20q6EV96RZzexSM6EiaJChGYW_Xkqaq7cCITGIkhVkcx7YvB9XG70obxfnfIrXsEeJlWIOfjOitbG62gsyX11IBb9ji2mAnK5aikm3BdmtqUgbPJao7vbnMKQEjIvvqpx2B_Ao7hTYGr12vM4wcnRgR0HPKd1SmgaepuMges8a-ZX3A/s320/shhhh.png" width="319" /></a></div><br />It's a no-brainer: China is the greatest threat to Australians' future.<p></p><p>The government and the opposition and the Sinophobic commentators tell us so. Often. </p><p>Then there is AUKUS, the Quad, the endless regional hand-shaking, more joint military exercises, nuclear-powered submarines and upgraded US bases in Australia's north.</p><p>But there is a much greater security threat that the government seems determined to keep secret.</p><p>The World Economic Forum each year surveys public and private sector global leaders on the biggest risk the world faces and publishes the results. Their <a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-report-2023/">2023 survey</a> finds that the biggest three risks in the decade from now were all climate-related, whilst "geo-economic confrontation" (read China) came in ninth.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>In 2021, the respected UK think tank Chatham House <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/2021-09-14-climate-change-risk-assessment-quiggin-et-al.pdf" target="_blank">analysed the risks of climate disruption</a> and came to a startling conclusion: global demand for food would increase 50 per cent by 2050, while crop yields would fall 20 to 30 per cent due to drought and desertification, extreme heat and chronic water shortages. </p><p>The average proportion of global cropland affected by severe drought would likely rise to 32 per cent a year by 2050, and in Australia closer to 40 per cent a year. </p><p>The report concluded that cascading climate impacts will "drive political instability and greater national insecurity, and fuel regional and international conflict".</p><p><a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/NIE_Climate_Change_and_National_Security.pdf" target="_blank">US intelligence agency reports</a> identify south and central Asia, the Pacific small island states and Indonesia as "highly vulnerable countries" of concern for climate disruption. South Asia, China and Indonesia are identified by the World Resources Institute as countries where water stress will be "extremely high" by 2040.</p><p>Retired Admiral Chris Barrie, former Chief of the Australian Defence Force, has said repeatedly that brutal climate impacts will produce state instability and failure in both Asia and the Pacific, including in some of the most populous nations. This is especially true for those with semi-democratic governments and existing insurgencies, either domestically or in neighbour states.</p><p>There will be a further retreat to authoritarian and hyper-nationalist politics, the diminution of instruments of regional cooperation, and increased risks of regional conflict, including over shared water resources from the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau. This would encompass India, Pakistan, China and south-east Asian nations.</p><p>Given these prospects, it was a welcome relief that the Albanese government shortly after coming to office ordered Australia's first climate-security risk assessment. This was delivered by the Office of National Intelligence to cabinet in November 2022.</p><p>Since then the Prime Ministers' Office has refused to release a declassified version of the report, despite the fact that our allies have released declassified versions of their climate-security analyses.</p><p>Nor has anyone in the government been willing to speak publicly about the main findings, or the issue more broadly.</p><p>A federal government cone of silence has descended over the greatest threat to the human security of Australians, their wellbeing, health and safety in a hotter world. If a government's first duty is to "protect the people", surely the first step is to level with them about the risks we face. </p><p>It seems that even parliamentarians, including those who sit on the foreign affairs and defence committees, have not been fully briefed on the national intelligence report. </p><p>It is inconceivable that MPs and senators could do their job of formulating and reviewing policy and performance on this greatest of all threats if the national security committee of cabinet will not share with them intelligence analysis on the form and severity of that risk.</p><p>Orders by both the Greens and Pocock for the production of the report to the Senate were voted down, with Labor joining with the Coalition to oppose the move. Senator Pocock said that "we are not getting an open and transparent conversation about the big issues of risk", whilst the Greens said the security report would help parliamentarians to "weigh up predicted wars, water shortages and supply chain collapses against every new coal and gas approval".</p><p>Labor's resistance to revealing the intelligence office findings has two likely causes. First, that the report's frank intelligence assessment has deeply shocked cabinet members, exposing the gross inadequacy of the government's current climate stance; and secondly, that it undermines their preferred security narrative focusing on China.</p><p>Concealing the intelligence analysis is the opposite of good security policy governance. It means we face a threat that we cannot even talk about.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts</li></ul><p><br /><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-92074652144742379132023-08-08T08:44:00.001+10:002023-09-05T09:24:11.075+10:00Are we failing to see the wood for the trees on climate risks?<p> by <b>David Spratt</b>, first published at <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/are-we-failing-to-see-the-wood-for-the-trees-on-climate-risks/" target="_blank">Pearls and Irritations</a></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBfoX1b4JJKfhTQw_l8-Nb4mi-U9WU36iSrjIcuGiz5yTb-nNjxFn8trcmPlohIwNFcNAV6Gf2H41rwC44i5eRrBMePxAvyqsu2gDIMzLR0bRDNTDDtD7g5Nl_aMBL2gfFJMSjkfduJsmZ61x2KvT0Z_vqZTDOjhPYJL5JwKeNmfDsR_MjIQm4QDJGhS0/s816/NCRA%20BT%20cover.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="612" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBfoX1b4JJKfhTQw_l8-Nb4mi-U9WU36iSrjIcuGiz5yTb-nNjxFn8trcmPlohIwNFcNAV6Gf2H41rwC44i5eRrBMePxAvyqsu2gDIMzLR0bRDNTDDtD7g5Nl_aMBL2gfFJMSjkfduJsmZ61x2KvT0Z_vqZTDOjhPYJL5JwKeNmfDsR_MjIQm4QDJGhS0/s320/NCRA%20BT%20cover.png" width="240" /></a></div><br />Extreme climate impacts are exploding in this year’s Northern
Hemisphere summer. We urgently need to understand how climate disruption
will affect Australians: their safety and well-being in the face of
ever-more-extreme climate events, the viability of public and private
infrastructure, communications and logistical systems, challenges to
food security, and much more.<span id="more-360717"></span><p></p>
<p>The Australian Government is spending $28 million to assess climate
risks to the nation’s future. But the National Climate Risk Assessment
(NCRA) initiated by the Department of Climate Change, Energy,
Environment and Water is poorly conceived, won’t do the job and should
not proceed in its present form.</p>
<p>It proscribes mitigation (emissions reduction) options and says the
focus is on adaptation and resilience responses only. A bit like telling
the frog it can do what it likes as it sits in a pan of slowly heating
water, as long as it does not jump out to save itself.</p>
<p>A recent report for the UK government by <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021">Chatham House on climate risks</a>
concluded that before 2050 it is likely that impacts will “become so
severe they go beyond the limits of what nations can adapt to”. Which
may leave the NCRA’s adaptation-only mandate dangerously detached from
reality.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p>
<p>The NCRA will largely focus on “domestic” climate risks separately
from what happens globally. But this results in “thinking in silos” that
focuses on local detail while missing the big picture, a case of
failing to see the climate wood for the trees.</p>
<p>Many climate risks that manifest in Australia will have their origins
far away. For example, in a globalised market a persistent
international food crisis would hit Australia hard — through escalating
prices and supply shortages — in a manner that would make today’s
cost-of-living crisis look like a warm-up act.</p>
<p>It is only by first understanding and integrating the systemic risks —
that is, the big-picture risks of large-scale disruptions to the
climate and human systems as a whole — that the “micro” and domestic
impacts can be properly understood.</p>
<p>Extreme climate events have consistently been beyond climate model
projections and happening faster than forecast, of which the current,
astounding global surge in land and ocean heat extremes is but one
frightening example.</p>
<p>Australia’s 2019-20 “Black summer” bushfires were of an intensity not
projected to occur till late this century; current extreme events in
Australia were not projected to occur till the 2030s.</p>
<p>When threats exist to the very foundation of modern human societies
and the complex and fragile globalised networks within which they
co-exist, the normal approach to risk assessment management is not
appropriate. The existential possibilities require a special emphasis on
examining the plausible worst-case scenarios, which in turn define the
actions that need to be taken to prevent, prepare and protect against
their occurrence. There is no evidence the NCRA will do this.</p>
<p>Then there is the vexed question of using management consultants for
sensitive work about Australians’ future security and system
vulnerabilities. Historically this would have been done internally,
prior to the Australian Public Service and agencies being denuded of
expertise by successive conservative governments.</p>
<p>Much has been made recently of the corruption implicit in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/14/deloitte-misuse-of-government-information-senate-inquiry-pwc-scandal">PWC’s and Deloitte’s misuse </a>of
confidential information in their consulting role to government. But
the far bigger danger to sound national governance is the consultants’
role in facilitating poor government policy and in undermining public
service capability, which is a <a href="https://marianamazzucato.com/books/the-big-con">global problem</a>.</p>
<p>When the Morrison government launched “The Australia Way”
emissions-reduction climate plan in 2021, with vague targets and lack of
urgency, one of the world’s top <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/climate-catastrophe-now-inevitable-without-emergency-action/">consulting companies</a>, McKinsey & Co, lent credibility to the charade. The price was a taxpayer-funded $6 million consulting fee. <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/mckinsey-advising-on-net-zero-modelling-to-limits-transparency-labor-20211115-p5994b">McKinsey</a> was already under internal criticism for the disconnect between its supposed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/business/mckinsey-climate-change.html">values</a> around climate change and its actual consulting advice to clients.</p>
<p>Deloitte have been retained to advise on the NCRA. Deloitte promotes
its expertise in analysing the economic consequences of climate impacts
with an in-house model. The danger here is putting the cart before the
horse, in that complex economic analysis based on dubious cost–benefit
assumptions may be given precedence over a scientifically rigorous
assessment of the physical threats, as has long been the practice in
private sector approaches to climate <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/dor">risks</a>.</p>
<p>The climate-economy-financial system models used by bankers,
regulators and big corporations are badly flawed and lead to chronic
underestimation of the risks. Such models are poor at incorporating
abrupt, non-linear and cascading change, so their projections about <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/530407a">future climate impacts</a> and economic costs are likely to be of little use.</p>
<p>A new report from the <a href="https://actuaries.org.uk/news-and-media-releases/news-articles/2023/july/04-july-23-emperor-s-new-climate-scenarios-a-warning-for-financial-services/">peak body for UK actuaries</a>
and the University of Exeter warns that: “Many climate-scenario models
in financial services are significantly underestimating climate risk…
There is a disconnect between climate science and the economic models
that underpin financial services climate-scenario modelling, where model
parsimony has cost us real-world efficacy.”</p>
<p>The Australian government should take heed and change course, so that
its climate risk methodology does not fall into the same trap. It
should pause, review the assessment process, and reassess the
involvement of the large management consultancies in the climate policy
sphere to ensure they are “fit-for-purpose”.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts</li></ul><p></p><p><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-49260887771202964972023-08-04T10:16:00.005+10:002023-09-05T09:24:25.521+10:00The Australian Government refuses to say what it knows about climate-security threats, so we gave policymakers a helping hand<p><b>By David Spratt</b><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxk0bPwULC7-exloiEJy-hvZY9OSrXtli3K_r5IW_XEp2ca2u5JI0sf80eQDl-8UxeNcZz7zixCiWIigZB1xM8euKsz9Y9f_YC4wQkHFsFoyz1wsSQfYZvcbFOkad3jxw7k1g0L7QEgCMLNuuz1a6HlV-z8o8eJFplp7xSP-jw8DzYJE19yLtCNP6dwJs/s790/Brief.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="588" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxk0bPwULC7-exloiEJy-hvZY9OSrXtli3K_r5IW_XEp2ca2u5JI0sf80eQDl-8UxeNcZz7zixCiWIigZB1xM8euKsz9Y9f_YC4wQkHFsFoyz1wsSQfYZvcbFOkad3jxw7k1g0L7QEgCMLNuuz1a6HlV-z8o8eJFplp7xSP-jw8DzYJE19yLtCNP6dwJs/s320/Brief.png" width="238" /></a></div><p>Last year the Australian Government asked the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) to assess climate-related security risks. Due to time constraints, ONI looked at the global and regional picture, but not the domestic one, and their report was given to the government last November. </p><p>Eight months later, the Prime Minsters’ Office has decreed that the report is not to be released, even in a declassified form. This is contrary to the practice of the government that the prime minister likes to call our best ally, which regularly releases climate and security assessments, such as <a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2021/item/2252-odni-releases-national-intelligence-estimate-on-climate-change" target="_blank">Climate Change and International Responses Increasing Challenges to US National Security Through 2040</a>. Likewise, the Pacific Islands Forum has just published a <a href="https://www.forumsec.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Pacific-Climate-Security-Assessment-Guide.pdf" target="_blank">Pacific Climate Security Assessment Guide</a>. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a>So Australia looks like the odd person out. Nobody else seems to have a problem telling the people who elected them what the biggest threat to their future well-being, health and human security looks like. <p></p><p>And the reason for “going dark”? More than any other, it is because what ONI told the government very likely contradicts the official and vigorously prosecuted official line that China is the greatest threat to Australia. Even the US Defence Secretary acknowledges climate is an existential threat. As did a 2018 Australia Senate Inquiry. And the UN Secretary General. And <a href=" https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0" target="_blank">leading scientists</a>: “we are in a climate emergency… this is an existential threat to civilization. China is not, not even close. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6locLi18APqCveqf2Sc7U1fKjZCLj965lT9AdlP-n8JWyp4PW_MdIp3zWPxUCHxxG3_yswy88Uv274iZDTGv1FW11evqjcbwqLUrdCrL98o4RsdcxsbHYFAqXlB85dIxKuWDnCcdyi3vh_bxFXjWsgEtfMGKk39rOmtui_XgAX-TfTtYjwWsrLuQHucs/s934/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-04%20at%2010.10.26%20am.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="934" data-original-width="640" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6locLi18APqCveqf2Sc7U1fKjZCLj965lT9AdlP-n8JWyp4PW_MdIp3zWPxUCHxxG3_yswy88Uv274iZDTGv1FW11evqjcbwqLUrdCrL98o4RsdcxsbHYFAqXlB85dIxKuWDnCcdyi3vh_bxFXjWsgEtfMGKk39rOmtui_XgAX-TfTtYjwWsrLuQHucs/w438-h640/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-04%20at%2010.10.26%20am.png" width="438" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Top-10 risks in 10 years from WEF 20230 survey</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The World Economic Forum each year surveys public and private sector global leaders on the biggest risk the world faces and publishes the results. In the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-report-2023/">Global Risks Report 2023</a>, the survey finds that the biggest risks identified in the decade from now are overwhelmingly climate or climate related (see chart).<p>Now the big problem with the government’s “black hole” approach to climate-security risks is that with no declassified version of the ONI assessment having been released — even as a version of the Defence Strategic Review was made public — other political parties have not been briefed, nor have the relevant committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives.</p><p>How then can members of parliament discharge their duties and oversee policy-making and departmental performance in the defence, climate, immigration, intelligence and foreign affairs portfolios? They can’t.</p><p>So Breakthrough thought we might help those parliamentarians understand what is likely in the ONI assessment, so this week we published a Briefing Note, <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/briefings" target="_blank">What does Australia’s first climate and security risk assessment say?</a></p><p>The release got some good media coverage, including from <i>The Guardian</i> in <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/03/climate-crisis-australia-must-ready-for-devastating-regional-disruption-mps-told" target="_blank">Climate crisis: Australia must ready for ‘devastating’ regional disruption, MPs told</a>, and coverage in the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/devastating-climate-fuelled-disruption-across-asia-pacific-/102685024" target="_blank">ABC RN Drive programme</a>. <br /></p><p>In summary, The Briefing Paper says that:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The Australian Government received its first climate and security risk assessment, carried out by the Office of National Intelligence (ONI), in late 2022.</li><li>The assessment should inform policymakers and the public on the greatest threat to Australians’ future, but the government has refused to release a declassified version.</li><li>The ONI report is likely to have said that the world is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals, the risks are compounding and the impacts will be devastating in the coming decades.</li><li>In the Asia-Pacific region, states will fail and climate impacts will drive political instability, greater national insecurity and forced migration, and fuel conflict.</li><li>There will likely be a further retreat to authoritarian and hyper-nationalist politics, the diminution of instruments of regional cooperation, and increased risks of regional conflict, including over shared water resources from the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, encompassing India, Pakistan, China and south-east Asian nations.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/briefings" target="_blank">Download</a> What does Australia’s first climate and security risk assessment say?<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts</li></ul><p><br /><br /><br /></p><p></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17579440972803022382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-86984373750715172682023-06-28T16:52:00.002+10:002023-06-29T08:50:22.815+10:00 What scientists say... <p>Scientists in their own words provide a compelling way to communicate often-complex ideas. So we have put together a small collection of useful quotes, with more to come.</p><p>You can find them at the <a href="https://www.climatecodered.org/p/what-scientists-say-about-climate.html"><b>Links & Info</b> tab</a> on the navigation bar. Here is a selection. <br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Societal collapse<br /></h3><p>Prof. HANS JOACHIM SCHELLNHUBER, August 2018 <br />"Climate change is
now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between
taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late
and bear the consequences.”<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Foreword to <i>What Lies Beneath</i><br /> <a href="http://breakthroughonline.org.au/whatliesbeneath">breakthroughonline.org.au/whatliesbeneath</a></span></p><p>Dr JOELLE GERGIS<br />"It’s
extraordinary to realise that we are witnessing the great unravelling;
the beginning of the end of things. I honestly never thought I’d live to
see the start of what sometimes feels like the apocalypse. The Earth is
really struggling to maintain its equilibrium. It’s possible that we
are now seeing a cascade of tipping points lurching into action as the
momentum of instability takes hold and things start to come apart.”<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> Living with extremity as the new normal </i><br /> <a href="http://griffithreview.com/articles/elemental-summer-a-season-of-chang">griffithreview.com/articles/elemental-summer-a-season-of-chang<span></span></a></span></p><a name='more'></a> <p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Future warming and what is safe </h3><p>Prof. WILL STEFFEN<br />“It is clear from observations of climate
change-related impacts in Australia alone—the massive bushfires of the
2019-2020 Black Summer, the third mass bleaching of the Great Barrier
Reef in only five years, and long-term cool-season drying of the
country’s southeast agricultural zone—that even a 1.1°C temperature rise
has put us into a dangerous level of climate change.”<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <i>The Earth System, the Great Acceleration and the Anthropocene</i><br /> <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-78795-0_2">link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-78795-0_2</a></span><br /></p><p>Prof. NERILIE ABRAM <br />"People
and ecosystems are already suffering from the impacts of climate change
across the world, and these impacts will worsen unless we move quickly
to radically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. But we've also let
this problem get to the point where rapid emission reductions alone
won't be enough—we also need to develop ways to remove large amounts of
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to preserve critical parts of the
Earth system while we still can."<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Reducing carbon emissions not enough, expert warns<br /> phys.org/news/2021-06-carbon-emissions-expert.html</span> </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Tipping points and cascades </h3><p>Prof. TIMOTHY LENTON and colleagues<br />“The evidence from tipping points
alone suggests that we are in a state of planetary emergency: both the
risk and urgency of the situation are acute […] If damaging tipping
cascades can occur and a global tipping point cannot be ruled out, then
this is an existential threat to civilisation.”<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against</i></span><br /><br />Prof. JOHAN ROCKSTRÖM<br />“If
we go beyond 2°C it’s very likely that we have caused so many tipping
points that you have probably added another degree just through
self-reinforcing changes… The moment that the Earth system flips over
from being self-cooling — which it still is — to self-warming, that is
the moment that we lose control.”<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> COP26: Why The UN Climate Conference Matters Like Never Before</i><br /> <a href="http://forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/10/22/with-one-week-till-cop26-climate-talks-experts-set-out-whats-at-stake/">forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/10/22/with-one-week-till-cop26-climate-talks-experts-set-out-whats-at-stake/</a></span> </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Existential risk management</h3><p>LUKE KEMP and colleagues<br /></p><p>“Prudent
risk management requires consideration of the bad-to-worst-case
scenarios… We know that temperature rise has “fat tails”:
low-probability, high-impact extreme outcomes. Climate damages are
likely to be nonlinear and result in an even larger tail. Too much is at
stake to refrain from examining high-impact low-likelihood scenarios.”<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span>Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios</i><br /><a href="http://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108146119"></a></span><a href="http://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108146119"></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108146119"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span>pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2108146119</a></span><br /><br />Prof. HANS JOACHIM SCHELLNHUBER, <br />“When the issue is the survival of civilization is at stake, conventional means of analysis may become useless.”<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span>'It’s nonlinearity - stupid!'</i><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://theecologist.org/2019/jan/03/its-nonlinearity-stupid"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span>theecologist.org/2019/jan/03/its-nonlinearity-stupid</a></span> </p><br /><p></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17579440972803022382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-2384819801158141092023-06-21T09:58:00.003+10:002023-09-05T09:25:10.946+10:00Three climate interventions: Reduce, remove, repair<p style="text-align: left;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9TdfCZyolqy3Y020Hktdf-R5kXAjH1jCM6p-8aKHPv5013LV3v_CVjI9gY0Ue6G4VDSv0M4dsYgQ0AAVPoiReqJfB342kUbNfe6FKva08i4HTup7p8xxpkaYr7IEQrsJbFMnVHO4url8ZBXRBTtFeyx6zFI9tfJdmJVCcz7gb1yhm02o6pHMJrkgCAV0/s1234/Three%20Rs.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1018" data-original-width="1234" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9TdfCZyolqy3Y020Hktdf-R5kXAjH1jCM6p-8aKHPv5013LV3v_CVjI9gY0Ue6G4VDSv0M4dsYgQ0AAVPoiReqJfB342kUbNfe6FKva08i4HTup7p8xxpkaYr7IEQrsJbFMnVHO4url8ZBXRBTtFeyx6zFI9tfJdmJVCcz7gb1yhm02o6pHMJrkgCAV0/w400-h330/Three%20Rs.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Courtesy Climate Crisis Advisory Group</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />In September 2022, Stockholm University’s David Armstrong McKay and his colleagues <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950" target="_blank">concluded</a> that even global warming of 1-degree Celsius risks triggering some tipping points, just one data point in an alarming mountain of research on tipping points presented in the last year and a half. Clearly, even the current level of warming of around 1.2°C is unacceptably dangerous.<p></p><p style="text-align: left;">To protect small-island states, the Great Barrier Reef, Antarctica, Greenland, the Amazon — indeed to provide protection for the many places and people we care about — requires returning to a climate similar to the relatively stable Holocene conditions of the last 9000 years and fixed human settlement, during which time carbon dioxide (CO2) levels did not exceed 280 parts per million (ppm) CO2. it also requires preventing a cascade of tipping points in the meanwhile.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span></span> For example, in 2022 a group of Australian scientists <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01446-x" target="_blank">suggested</a> that from a geologic perspective: “a justifiable aim for a future climate is one akin to pre-industrial conditions.” Other evidence <a href="https://iccinet.org/thresholds/" target="_blank">points</a> to the need to return to pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm, for example in relation to the cryosphere.<br /><br />If this were the goal, activists and policymakers would be advocating a “three levers” approach to reversing global warming: a strategy to rapidly <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60ccae658553d102459d11ed/t/60d421c67f1dc67d682d8d29/1624515027604/CCAG+Launch+Paper.pdf" target="_blank">“reduce, remove and repair”</a>. That means:<p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Reducing emissions to zero</b> at emergency speed;</li><li><b>Removing carbon by drawdown</b> to return atmospheric conditions to the Holocene zone; and </li><li>The urgent research to identify <b>safe interventions that protect and repair vital systems</b> and, in the shorter term, aim to prevent warming reaching a level that triggers a cascade of calamitous tipping points that are irreversible on human timescales.<br /></li></ol><p style="text-align: left;">The harsh reality is that <b>the first two levers by themselves</b> — zero emissions and drawdown — <b>are not sufficient to stop the Earth system charging passed 1.5°C in the next decade</b> or so, regardless of the emissions path, and to significantly higher temperatures — likely more than 2°C around mid-century — with truly catastrophic impacts for some peoples, regions and natural systems. In essence:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Warming to date plus the observed Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) at the top of the atmosphere adds up to about 2°C for today’s level of greenhouse gases. And the paleoclimate record suggests the current level of CO2 is sufficient for 3°C or more of warming in the longer term. </li><li><b>Thus a strategy of mitigation (emissions elimination only) will not prevent catastrophic outcomes.</b></li><li>A safe-level of greenhouse gases to preserve and restore vital climate systems may require returning to the pre-industrial level of around 280 ppm. Large-scale carbon drawdown is essential in achieving this goal, but this cannot be done at a scale and speed fast enough to prevent more tipping points being activated and the possibility of a cascade of consequences leading to enhanced warming. </li></ul><p style="text-align: left;">Thus a ‘third lever’ of action is required: the urgent scaling up of research and investigation into an additional range of climate interventions that aims to rapidly cool the planet is required, including solar radiation management (SRM) cooling. If shown to be efficacious, SRM could play a vital role in flattening the warming peak whilst allowing time to achieve zero emissions and carbon drawdown on a path back to a safe, liveable climate.</p><p style="text-align: left;">There is a near-term risk that warming may also trigger the “Hothouse Earth” scenario, in which climate system feedbacks and their mutual interaction drive the Earth System climate to a “point of no return”, whereby further warming would become self-sustaining (that is, without further human-caused perturbations). Scientists have <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1810141115" target="_blank">warned</a> that this is possible even in the 1.5–2°C range. </p><p style="text-align: left;">At 1.5°C, “we're at risk of crossing irreversible thresholds on unique and threatened systems”, <a href="https://phys.org/news/2022-06-irreversible-shifts-climate-experts.html" target="_blank">says</a> Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQYDbjSci_VkRn06BgfuLskMjRIZkmMGRUUlOQQFGUvShhaFupsOxLXpi04sQDoEg4xgxmwPJPEdlAJWOZcW7pM_x75ou7eTTPQ1gRXs-msyVDRNI5VVdzbRIx1mnlJP05C1dhjPQYeX8MkeVPozoe0Kc3sTRAkgoLOXRxTtzs7AEi4I4z-i_gbKwAoKM/s928/Flattening%20the%20curve.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="928" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQYDbjSci_VkRn06BgfuLskMjRIZkmMGRUUlOQQFGUvShhaFupsOxLXpi04sQDoEg4xgxmwPJPEdlAJWOZcW7pM_x75ou7eTTPQ1gRXs-msyVDRNI5VVdzbRIx1mnlJP05C1dhjPQYeX8MkeVPozoe0Kc3sTRAkgoLOXRxTtzs7AEi4I4z-i_gbKwAoKM/w400-h293/Flattening%20the%20curve.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2016.0454" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image credit</span></a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>As illustrated, even as the world moves to zero emissions, and CO2 levels start to decrease by natural processes and by CDR, albedo modification can flatten the level of peak warming — and perhaps help avoid existential climate impacts and extreme damage — until the other processes fully kick in. <p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2009/geoengineering-climate/" target="_blank">Climate intervention </a>is the “deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change”. Climate interventions, also termed geoengineering, climate restoration and climate repair, fall into two broad categories: CO2 removal and albedo modification.</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Carbon dioxide removal<br /></h3><p style="text-align: left;">Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) involves taking the excess CO2 out of the atmosphere and the ocean, and storing it safely and securely in biomass, soils or rock formations, or in neutralised or stable forms in the oceans. CDR techniques may be classified as nature-based solutions, and technical solutions, and include: </p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Nature-based solutions</b></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Ecosystem sequestration</b>, in which ecosystems can be restored or created to use photosynthesis to capture CO2 and store it in biomass, for example in peatlands, terrestrial forests and shallow saltwater ecosystems such as mangroves, kelp and seagrass. Re/forestation and wetlands restoration is well-established, safe and the most cost-efficient CDR option at present.</li><li><b>Regenerative land management</b> practices that enhance water retention and soil carbon, which are proven and cost effective, including the use of biochar to store carbon and rejuvenate soils.</li><li><b>Marine up-welling</b>, which extends the scale of marine kelp, sea grasses and seaweed farms, offering new carbon sinks, plus production of food for cattle which increases milk yields whilst lowering methane emissions from livestock. Biomass allowed to drift down to the deep ocean would remain for hundreds of years or millenia.<b> </b></li><li><b>Ocean iron fertilisation</b>, in which fertilising deep ocean areas with light sprinklings of iron dust can generate, in a matter of months, green, plankton-rich forests, accompanied by burgeoning fish stocks and a huge variety of marine wildlife. One result is more organic matter settling in the deep ocean.<b> </b></li><li><b>Enhanced mineralisation</b>, mimicking a process in nature where silicate rock weathering on land binds CO2. Crushed carbonate rock can also be exposed to CO2 dissolved in water to create bicarbonate ions that can be stored in the ocean. This has been demonstrated in the laboratory and in small scale field trials, but has yet to be demonstrated at scale.</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Technical solutions</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Negative emissions construction</b>, the increased use of plantation timber (and potentially new forms of concrete and road materials) to store carbon in the built environment.</li><li><b>Ocean alkalinization</b>, the adding of alkaline substances — minerals such as olivine, or artificial substances such as lime or some industrial byproducts — to seawater to enhance the ocean’s natural carbon sink by converting dissolved CO2 into stable bicarbonate and carbonate molecules. This idea is at an early stage of development. <b> </b></li><li><b>Direct chemical capture</b> by machines, to store in geological formations or in immobile form in the ocean or ocean sediments, which is now at the demonstration stage, but cost and energy use are currently prohibitive.<b> </b></li><li><b>Bioenergy </b>with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), the use of crops to manufacture bioenergy, with underground storage of CO2. This technology is unproven at scale or cost, but a favourite of policymakers and incorporated into Integrated Assessment Models and the Paris Agreement as a means of justifying a longer life for the fossil fuel industry via BECCS “offsets” for continuing carbon pollution. <br /></li></ul><p style="text-align: left;">Some of these techniques have well-known safety profiles and are at a high technical readiness level, whilst others are unproven at scale and cost or speculative, and need technological development, safety testing and suitability evaluation.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Until emissions reach zero, CDR complements decarbonisation in mitigating the rate of increase of CO2. After that point, CDR can reduce the absolute level of CO2, but it is a relatively slow process, and not a primary tool in countering a locked-in temperature rise of 1.5°C by around 2030, and likely warming of 2°C before 2050 unless there is a radical reduction in emissions far beyond current national commitments. <br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Repair with albedo modification </h3><p style="text-align: left;">Albedo modification (AM) is the reflection of more sunlight away from the planet. Options include: </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Enhancing surface reflection with mirrors</b>, such as the Mirrors for Earth's Energy Rebalancing (MEER) project which is at an early stage of research development, but appears to not be bounded by material or energy use constraints. MEER addresses the imminent urgency of climate change due to temperature increase and weather extremes while reshaping energy production and consumption to renewable energy.</li><li><b>Marine cloud brightening</b> (MCB) to increase reflectivity, in which saltwater spray is added to the lower atmosphere which has a high water vapour content, making existing clouds whiter (more reflective) or helping new clouds to form in a clear sky. Field research on MCB to protect the Great Barrier Reef is under way, and the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge is urgently researching MCB as a means of cooling the Arctic. </li><li><b>Solar radiation management</b> (SRM), more accurately described as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which increases the amount of stratospheric aerosols to reduce incoming solar radiation. This in a way mimics the cooling effect of major volcanic eruptions that inject sulphur dioxide gas into the stratosphere creating small particles of sulphuric acid that reflect some sunlight back to space; when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines exploded in volcanic eruption in 1991, it cooled the planet by 0.6°C for about 15 months due to the particulate matter released.There is strong evidence that SAI, if applied at a scale, could significantly reduce or fully eliminate the earth’s overheating in a relatively short period of time. SAI is the most studied form of albedo modification, with hundreds of published research papers, but with potentially significant risks.</li><li><b>Increasing reflection of the terrestrial surface</b>, everything from ice whitening to more reflective human infrastructure such as roofs.</li><li><b>Decreasing the amount of high-altitude cirrus clouds</b> to allow more out-going radiation.</li><li><b>Space-based methods</b>, which are highly speculative. </li></ul><p>Some of these are at the early stage of research, whilst others have been more extensively researched, such as SAI. All are at a relatively low level of technical readiness. </p><p>Unlike CDR, albedo modification cannot reverse warming by reducing the CO2 level, nor does it have a direct effect on ocean acidification caused by rising levels of CO2. However, as an interim measure, it could, in theory, “reduce some harm done by climate change during the time it takes for societies to implement deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions while also potentially developing and deploying CDR systems. It could also, in theory, cool the climate quickly and thus prove highly valuable should society at some point face rapid changes in climate that cause unacceptable damage.” </p><p><b>Intervention research and advocacy groups</b></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Centre for Climate Repair at University of Cambridge, <a href="https://www.climaterepair.cam.ac.uk/">https://www.climaterepair.cam.ac.uk/</a></li><li>The Degrees Initiative, <a href="http://degrees.ngo">degrees.ngo</a></li><li>Silver Lining, <a href="http://silverlining.ngo">silverlining.ngo</a></li><li>Climate Crisis Advisory Group, <a href="http://scag.earth">scag.earth</a></li><li>Climate Overshoot Commission, <a href="http://overshootcommission.org">overshootcommission.org</a></li><li>MEER, <a href="http://meer.org">meer.org</a></li><li>Priority Program on Climate Engineering, German Research Foundation, <a href="http://spp-climate-engineering.de/index.php/focus-program.html">spp-climate-engineering.de/index.php/focus-program.html</a></li><li>Implications and Risks of Engineering Solar Radiation to Limit Climate Change, European Commission, <a href="http://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/226567">cordis.europa.eu/project/id/226567</a></li><li>European Transdisciplinary Assessment of Climate Engineering, Potsdam IASS, i<a href="http://ass-potsdam.de/de/forschung/eutrace">ass-potsdam.de/de/forschung/eutrace</a></li><li>Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals, UK university consortium, <a href="http://iagp.ac.uk">iagp.ac.uk</a></li><li>Exploring the Potential and Side Effects of Climate Engineering, Norwegian Research Council, <a href="http://norceresearch.no/en/projects/exploring-the-potential-and-side-effects-of-climate-engineering-expect">norceresearch.no/en/projects/exploring-the-potential-and-side-effects-of-climate-engineering-expect</a></li><li>Harvard’s Solar Engineering Research Program, <a href="https://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu">https://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu</a></li><li>Geoengineering Centre, Queen’s University, <a href="http://queensu.ca/research/centres-institutes/geoengineering-centre">queensu.ca/research/centres-institutes/geoengineering-centre</a></li></ul><p><br /><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts</li></ul><p><br /><br /><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-54853581029654550252023-06-12T08:58:00.003+10:002023-09-05T09:25:29.590+10:00Dramatic Arctic sea-ice news should not be a shock: We were warned.<p><b>by David Spratt</b></p><p>It's almost unthinkable. The Arctic Ocean blue all over in summer, with none of the eight million square kilometres of sea-ice — a thin frozen white crust floating on the ocean surface — that covered it in summer just 40 years ago.</p><p>No wonder it made headlines this month when researchers found, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/06/06/arctic-sea-ice-melting/" target="_blank">reported</a> by <i>The Washington Post</i>, that "a summer in which the Arctic Ocean features almost entirely open water could be coming even sooner than expected and may become a regular event within most of our lifetimes".</p><p>The research is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38511-8" target="_blank">"Observationally-constrained projections of an ice-free Arctic even under a low emission scenario"</a>, and was published in <i>Nature </i>on 6 June 2023. It projected "an ice-free Arctic in September under all [emission] scenarios considered", including low greenhouse gas emission scenarios. In other words, even if emissions are sharply reduced, the Arctic will be ice-free at the end of the northern summer in September in coming decades.<br /><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>If emissions decline only slowly or continue to rise (as looks likely), then the first ice-free summer could be in the 2030s, a decade earlier than projections reported by the IPCC. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBglgMqEz832vu02cBIw5QtVN5pF-V3cp4Pg9BKh5AI3YODAR5EZJ8jvR15QIi3rIhBoQ4ZZb4Im8FbS--_Jnl7AR6WjJE4gcN0xKLTh2tiAEqgVadDiIiGPaJfBXyNg8-yXeNswTO_9bDo-YyVdmJnXEcxqa_IQ-pIKMM7J7JgzQrEQtZNMw-ZpXn/s621/2_National_Page39Left-e.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="621" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBglgMqEz832vu02cBIw5QtVN5pF-V3cp4Pg9BKh5AI3YODAR5EZJ8jvR15QIi3rIhBoQ4ZZb4Im8FbS--_Jnl7AR6WjJE4gcN0xKLTh2tiAEqgVadDiIiGPaJfBXyNg8-yXeNswTO_9bDo-YyVdmJnXEcxqa_IQ-pIKMM7J7JgzQrEQtZNMw-ZpXn/w400-h321/2_National_Page39Left-e.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Observations of annual average Arctic sea ice extent <br />for the period 1900
to 2008. The gray shading indicates <br />less confidence in the data before
1953. <br />Source: US Global Change Research Program 2009.</span></td></tr></tbody></table>Arctic sea-ice fluxes from a greater extent in the cold, dark winter months to a smaller extent in the warmer, 24-hours-a-day light of the northern summer. The annual average extent was relatively stable in the first half of the 20th century, but started to steadily decrease from the 1950s, with a dramatic collapse in 2007 (see chart at right), which I will return to shortly.<p></p>The new research is a shock to many, because it is now clearer that the Arctic, and the global climate system it influences, will suffer almost unimaginable change. One consequence of a sea-ice-free Arctic summer is the large amount of additional heat in the region as reflective ice is replaced by the heat-absorbing, dark ocean surface. <p>Greenland is already passed a tipping point for accelerating ice-mass loss, but that will speed up in sea-ice-free conditions. And that means not only a faster rate of sea-level rise, but an increasing flow of fresh cold water into the north Atlantic which will further slow the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC, sometimes colloquially called the Gulf Stream, which transport equatorial ocean heat up the north America coast and to Europe).</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPy0HtWEF-pnhR8ushFtfVRFbQXjEzRjdDmrpzzhgkkbvsFXLmj2hvhFvCSEJvttU-aMu-XB4DZFxFtWVjaw5LZHumix1_k5RHK87IHfp8dirFcPWDaDtH0VtkemtNUDXsQtFaMbaXSWM/s1600/jet+stream.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPy0HtWEF-pnhR8ushFtfVRFbQXjEzRjdDmrpzzhgkkbvsFXLmj2hvhFvCSEJvttU-aMu-XB4DZFxFtWVjaw5LZHumix1_k5RHK87IHfp8dirFcPWDaDtH0VtkemtNUDXsQtFaMbaXSWM/s400/jet+stream.jpg" width="306" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arctic melt has pushed the
Jet Stream into <br />
a more meandering, S-shape pattern, dragging <br />
down and
stalling cold and wet conditions <br />
over Europe</td></tr>
</tbody></table><p>And then there is the destabilisation of the Jet Stream, which has and will increasingly result in more and more extreme sub-Arctic climate events. This cascade of system-level climate consequences was outlined in our recent report, <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/_files/ugd/148cb0_1a1c67b4f3c64cf2be87979e3144a58d.pdf" target="_blank">Hotter, Higher, Faster</a> and in this <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2023/02/faster-higher-hotter-what-we-learned_24.html" target="_blank">blog</a>. </p><p>In September 2007, there was a calamitous drop in the summer Arctic sea-ice extent, such that one well-respected glaciologist responded at the time in shock that the sea-ice appeared to be shrinking "100 years ahead of schedule".</p><p>At the time I was transfixed by the event, because the implications changed everything. It was clear that the sea-ice had no hope of existing in summer at 2°C of warming, which at that time was the climate policy-makers' target. The evidence was that its tipping point had already passed, and what would be safe for the Arctic and its ecosystem was warming of less than 0.5°C, a measure which has already been exceeded. The policy-making paradigm was being turned upside down, but few wanted to notice.</p><p>The Arctic need to be cooled, urgently, but who wanted that conversation? The case for cooling is even <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2023/04/the-case-for-climate-cooling-and-some.html" target="_blank">more compelling</a> today. <br /></p><p></p>This was early in my days of writing about climate, and I decided to put down on paper what was happening, what the very good science journalists at that time were saying, and of course what scientists were, and had previously, said about sea-ice and Greenland. The result was a short report, <i><a href="http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/78620862" target="_blank">"The Big Melt: Lessons from the Arctic summer of 2007"</a></i> of 16 pages. <br /><p></p><p>Within a few days, it had been downloaded 20,000 times. This was totally unexpected. The dramatic Arctic story was capturing peoples' interest, and there was a bigger story to tell, too. </p><p>That understanding led to a decision to write a longer report on other, under-reported, aspects of unexpected and non-linear climate change; a project which within months morphed into the book<i> "Climate Code Red: The case for emergency action"</i>, with Philip Sutton. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQReuUc_934fOJhB_xelfu2ruXKDxZAMRob5TvGbxndKtDXtDBkoeXK9XsuzZPGKGxuX53OrJ6YgUOro59ADrFnvjjooBKmMpCA5Bn_yJJdec8kTeKP6Hm5IFQPSvdxl4Idb5H-X0g8alc3PxtoyXs4lfxrIMBLiw2vGlGNYy4m0gnQaVz_pR8BQ6z/s1190/Big%20melt%20cover.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1190" data-original-width="836" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQReuUc_934fOJhB_xelfu2ruXKDxZAMRob5TvGbxndKtDXtDBkoeXK9XsuzZPGKGxuX53OrJ6YgUOro59ADrFnvjjooBKmMpCA5Bn_yJJdec8kTeKP6Hm5IFQPSvdxl4Idb5H-X0g8alc3PxtoyXs4lfxrIMBLiw2vGlGNYy4m0gnQaVz_pR8BQ6z/s320/Big%20melt%20cover.png" width="225" /></a></div><p></p><p>When the news stories were published last week about the new sea-ice projections, I sat down and re-read <i>"The Big Melt"</i> for the first time in 15 years. What is remarkable is that the cause of the shock today was well understood a decade-and-a-half ago, if one bothered to find out or listen to scientists. </p><p>Take this example which has proven to be right on the money: "In December 2006, data was presented to a American Geophysical Union
conference suggesting that the Arctic may be free of all summer ice by
as early as 2030 and likely by 2040." <br /></p><p>This event has been coming for a long time, and the alarm bells have been ringing loudly since at least 2006-7. We ignore history at our peril. </p><p>So, below, I have republished the relevant sections from <i>"The Big Melt"</i>. <br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">"The Big Melt" (2007) Extract</h3><p><b>The accelerating loss of the Arctic ice sheet </b></p><blockquote><p>"We are all used to talking about these impacts coming in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. Now we know that it's us." – Professor Martin Parry, co-chairman of the IPCC impacts working group (Adam, 2007b) </p></blockquote><p>Events in the Arctic in the northern summer of 2007 have profound consequences for climate policy, the credibility of the IPCC, the assessment of projected sea-level rises and the question as to whether we may have already passed one or more of the critical "tipping points" for dangerous anthropogenic interference. </p><p>In its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC said that "Arctic sea ice is responding sensitively to global warming. While changes in winter sea ice cover are moderate, late summer sea ice is projected to disappear almost completely towards the end of the 21st century" (IPCC, 2007a: 776). </p><p>But even before they were drafted, the 2007 IPCC projections were well behind the physical reality in the environment. In late 2005, Tore Furevik of the Geophysical Institute in Bergen had graphically demonstrated that "the recent [Arctic] sea-ice retreat is larger than in any of the (19) IPCC models" (Furevik, 2005). In December 2006, data was presented to a American Geophysical Union conference suggesting that the Arctic may be free of all summer ice by as early as 2030 and likely by 2040 (Holland, Bitz et. al., 2006) – setting up "a positive feedback loop with dramatic implications for the entire Arctic region" (Amos, 2006). </p><p>This was affirmed by studies published in March and May 2007 (Serreze, Holland et al., 2007; Stroeve, Holland, et al., 2007) which led Penn State climatologist Richard Alley to comment that the ice sheets appear to be shrinking "100 years ahead of schedule" (Spotts, 2006). </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIj42-RzxKaA2wVQ1psKI5VpydIwp0bNWVs5-gWodYHHFGP58LvmroW6Wo-HFpi0t8OjkOJuWlCkF1oe9eKuHYmhSL5A_BgcSCR1F0o4XZIGYHGrVa_c82v0EqfAchyBRd5MMYkvV8EaY3cJgdreEnKHsOGuDrpWhItPDtiWcC8flzFlKAuP7I8WZB/s1486/Big%20melt%20image%20page.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1486" data-original-width="1050" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIj42-RzxKaA2wVQ1psKI5VpydIwp0bNWVs5-gWodYHHFGP58LvmroW6Wo-HFpi0t8OjkOJuWlCkF1oe9eKuHYmhSL5A_BgcSCR1F0o4XZIGYHGrVa_c82v0EqfAchyBRd5MMYkvV8EaY3cJgdreEnKHsOGuDrpWhItPDtiWcC8flzFlKAuP7I8WZB/s320/Big%20melt%20image%20page.png" width="226" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image page from "The Big Melt"</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Despite the warnings, experts were "shocked" at the extent of Arctic ice-sheet loss during the 2007 northern summer; Mark Serreze, an Arctic specialist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) at Colorado University in Denver, told the Guardian: "It's amazing. It's simply fallen off a cliff and we're still losing ice" (Adam, 2007a). <p></p><p>The 2007 sea ice minimum on 16 September was 4.13 million square kilometers, compared to the previous record low of 5.32 million square kilometers in 2005, representing a precipitous decline of 22 per cent in two years: "The minimum for 2007 shatters the previous five-day minimum set on September 20–21, 2005, by 1.19 million square kilometers (460,000 square miles), roughly the size of Texas and California combined, or nearly five United Kingdoms" (NSIDC, 2007). This loss of ice extent of more than 20 per cent in two years compares to the decreasing trend in ice area of 7 per cent per decade between 1979 and 2005 (Alley, 2007). The ice retreat is likely to be even bigger next summer because this winter's freeze is starting from such a huge ice deficit (Revkin, 2007). </p><p>NSIDC research scientist Walt Meier said it was "the biggest drop from a previous record that we've ever had and it's really quite astounding... Certainly we've been on a downward trend for the last 30 years or so, but this is really accelerating the trend" (McCarthy, 2007). As well, large areas of the Arctic sea ice are now only one metre deep, which means the thickness of the ice has halved since 2001 (Bjornes, 2007) and down from a thickness of 3.5 metres in the early 1960s, and around about 2.5 metres in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Blakemore and Sandell, 2006). The decrease in both extent and thickness suggests that the summer sea ice has lost more than 80 per cent of its volume in 40 years. When the sea ice thins to around half a metre in thickness, it will be subject to even more rapid disintegration by wave and wind action. </p><p>Serreze says we may have already reached the tipping point when there is a rapid sea ice disintegration: "The big question is whether we are already there or whether the tipping point is still 10 or 20 years in the future... my guts are telling me we may well be there now" (Connor 2007b) and "an educated guess right now would be 2030" for the transition to an ice-free Arctic summer (McCarthy, 2007). His colleague at Colorado, Ted Scambos, agrees that "that 2030 is not unreasonable... I would not rule out 2020, given non-linearity and feedbacks" (Scambos, 2007). These views are supported by Ron Lindsay of the University of Washington: "Our hypothesis is that we've reached the tipping point. For sea ice, the positive feedback is that increased summer melt means decreased winter growth and then even more melting the next summer, and so on" (Connor and McCarthy, 2006). </p><p>Australian-of-the-Year Tim Flannery suggests that "at the trajectory set by the new rate of melt, however, there will be no Arctic icecap in the next five to 15 years" (Flannery, 2006). Dr Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in California, whose research focuses on modelling the processes of Arctic sea ice loss, projects a blue Arctic Ocean free of sea ice by the summer of 2013 (Revkin, 2007), the main reason being that the modeled thickness and volume appear to be decreasing at a much faster rate than the satellite derived ice extent (Maslowski, 2007). Maslowski's work suggests the sea ice is significantly being thinned by the effect of warming seas beneath, not just higher air temperatures. </p><p>"The reason so much (of the Arctic ice) went suddenly is that it is hitting a tipping point that we have been warning about for the past few years," says NASA's James Hansen; Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says Arctic sea ice has "already tipped"; while Paal Prestrud of Oslo's Center for International Climate and Environmental Research says "I'd say we are reaching a tipping point or are past it for the ice. This is a strong indication that there is an amplifying mechanism here" (Doyle, 2007). </p><p>The central point is that Arctic is now irreversibly headed to total summer sea ice loss very quickly, way beyond the expectation of the IPCC whose Arctic scenarios are no longer credible [see figure], and of most scientists' views only two-to-three years ago. It is an instance of the non-linearity in climate systems that should reinforce the need for strict adherence to the precautionary principle in assessing what is likely to constitute dangerous human interference, and how we should respond in constructing emission scenarios and policies to avoid it. </p><p><b>Stability of the Greenland ice sheet</b> </p><p>Global warming so far has been greatest in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, particularly in the sub-Arctic boreal forests of Siberia and North America (ACIA 2005). Arctic temperatures will rise much more quickly than the global average: for a global warming of 2°C, the area-mean annual temperature increase over the Arctic (60-90°N) is likely to be between 3.2° and 6.6°C (0.45° to 0.75°C per decade, and possibly even as large as 1.55°C per decade) (New, 2006). </p><p>The view that a 2°C global temperature increase will be hard to avoid is widespread: from Nicholas Stern (Stern, 2006a: 4) to the co-chair of the IPCC's impacts working group, Martin Parry (Adam, 2007b). But well before two degrees average global warming, a high momentum melting of much of the Greenland ice sheet will be underway (Hansen, 2005). Greenland's critical melt threshold is a regional temperature rise of 2.7 degrees (Gregory, Huybrechts et al, 2004), but with its temperature increase at least 2.2 times the global average (Chylek and Lohmann, 2005), that point will have been triggered at just over a one degree global rise. [Nevertheless, the 2001 IPCC report thought that neither Greenland nor Antarctica would lose significant mass by 2100.] </p><p>The loss of the Arctic sea ice "100 years ahead of schedule" raises two questions of significance about the Greenland ice sheet: what will the effect on the timing of the Greenland tipping point be; and what will be effect on the rate of ice loss from Greenland (which if fully achieved would raise the global sea level by 5–7 metres)? </p><p>Rising Arctic regional temperatures resulting from sea ice loss and the albedo effect (white reflective ice replaced by dark, heat-absorbing sea) are already at "the threshold beyond which glaciologists think the (Greenland) ice sheet may be doomed"; this accelerated melting "is caused by meltwater penetrating crevasses and lubricating the glaciers' flow... The ice is in effect sliding into the ocean on rivers of water," an effect not included in models of the effect of global warming on the Arctic (New Scientist, 2006). A recent study found that the Greenland ice cap "may be melting three times faster than indicated by previous measurements" and that "the mass loss is increasing with time" (Young, 2006). Greenland experienced more days of melting snow in 2006 than the island had averaged over recent decades (Saupe, 2007), the edges of the ice-sheet are melting up to 10 times more rapidly than earlier research had indicated, and the ice sheet height is falling by up to 10 metres a year (Shukman, 2007). As well, the Greenland ice cap is melting so quickly that it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break off, with "a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea" (Brown, 2007). </p><p>James Hansen notes that "Ice sheet disintegration starts slowly but multiple positive feedbacks can lead to rapid non-linear collapse" and than "equilibrium sea level rise for ~3°C warming _(25±10 m = 80 feet) implies the potential for us to lose control" because "we cannot tie a rope around a collapsing ice sheet" (Hansen 2006a, Hansen 2006b). </p><p>At this point there is a methodological problem: climate scientists have had difficulty modelling _ice- sheet streams and dynamics (Oppenheimer & Alley, 2004). Robert Corell, a US-based Arctic scientist and member of the IPCC says of Greenland: "Nobody knows now how quickly it will melt... This is all unprecedented in the science... Until recently we didn't believe it possible, for instance, for water to permeate a glacier all the way to the bottom. But that's what's happening. As the water pools, it opens more areas of ice to melting" (Hilton, 2007). With the uncertainty and lack of verifiable projections, at an official level little is said, or what is said is dangerously conservative. This is what the 2007 IPCC report did in regard to sea-level rises, where its projection of a 18-59 cm rise by 2100 was based on models which do not "include the potential for increasing contributions from rapid dynamic processes in the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, which have already had a significant effect on sea level over the past 15 years and could eventually raise sea level by many meters. Lacking such processes, models cannot fully explain observations of recent sea level rise, and accordingly, projections based on such models may seriously understate potential future increases" (Oppenheimer, O’Neill et al., 2007). <br /> </p><p>But the lack of tested projections is not to say that large parts of Greenland may not have already passed their "tipping point", just because there are not strict, verifiable models to support the assertion. The same was true of the Arctic sea ice, which was why the conservatism of the scientific method meant that there was a failure to predict the events until they were all but upon us, at which point even those scientists who had speculated as to what was about to happen were "shocked" at the sea ice loss in the northern summer of 2007. </p><p>Thus James Hansen identifies a "scientific reticence" that "in at least some cases, hinders communication with the public about dangers of global warming... Scientific reticence may be a consequence of the scientific method. Success in science depends on objective skepticism. Caution, if not reticence, has its merits. However, in a case such as ice sheet instability and sea level rise, there is a danger in excessive caution. We may rue reticence, if it serves to lock in future disasters" (Hansen, 2007a). </p><p>But there are useful sources other than models for thinking about the likely future rate of loss of the Greenland ice sheet, including expert elicitations and paleoclimatology. In response to the deep concerns about the 2007 IPCC Working Group 1 Summary for Policymakers, it has been proposed that the base of inputs be broadened "to give observational, paleoclimatic, or theoretical evidence of poorly understood phenomena comparable weight with evidence from numerical modeling. In areas in which modeling evidence is sparse or lacking, IPCC sometimes provides no uncertainty estimate at all. In other areas, models are used that have quantitatively similar structures, leading to artificially high confidence in projections (e.g., in the sea-level, ocean circulation, and carbon-cycle examples above). One possible improvement would be for the IPCC to fully include judgments from expert elicitations" (Oppenheimer, O’Neill et. al., 2007). </p><p>One expert elicitation suggests: "Could the Greenland ice sheet survive if the Arctic were ice-free in summer and fall? It has been argued that not only is ice sheet survival unlikely, but its disintegration would be a wet process that can proceed rapidly. Thus an ice-free Arctic Ocean, because it may hasten melting of Greenland, may have implications for global sea level, as well as the regional environment, making Arctic climate change centrally relevant to definition of dangerous human interference" (Hansen & Sato, 2007). Off the record, Arctic climate researchers will say this is not an unreasonable view; on the record they will say there are no verifiable models which produce this result. These statements are not in contradiction. </p><p>So, for example, Eric Rignot, a lead author of a paper (Rignot & Kanagaratnam, 2006) showing a doubling of loss from the Greenland ice sheet over a decade, was moved to comment that "These results absolutely floored us... The glaciers are sending us a signal. Greenland is probably going to contribute more and faster to sea-level rise than predicted by current models" (New Scientist, 2006). Another informed opinion comes from Robert Correll of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, who reports, as mentioned above, that the Greenland ice cap is melting so quickly that it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break off, such that "scientists monitoring events this summer say the acceleration could be catastrophic in terms of sea-level rise and make predictions this February by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change far too low" (Brown, 2007). </p><p>As for paleoclimate record, global average temperatures are within 1°C of those that thawed much of Greenland's ice cap some 130,000 years ago, when the planet last enjoyed a balmy respite from continent-covering glaciers, and sea were 5–6 metres higher than today. Global warming appears to be pushing vast reservoirs of ice on Greenland and Antarctica toward a significant, long-term meltdown, and the world may have as little as a decade to take the steps to avoid this scenario (Spotts, 2006; Hansen, 2005; Hansen, Sato et al, 2006). </p><p>To recap, it is reasonable to expect the very rapid loss of the Arctic sea ice, with a significant impact on regional temperatures due to the albedo effect. It is also reasonable to expect, as a consequence, an acceleration of the rate of loss of the Greenland ice sheet, which may already be at or near its disintegration tipping point for a large part of the ice sheet, a situation that was previously not expected for a long time. The precautionary principle suggests that we fully take into account the possibility of these outcomes, especially for their wider impact on the climate system (NASA, 2007), and on the sea-level rise the loss of the Greenland ice sheet will produce, perhaps in as little as a century or so. </p><p>[Extract ends]</p><p></p><p><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts</li></ul><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-81600550379710386992023-06-05T08:12:00.007+10:002023-09-05T09:25:41.635+10:00 James Hansen’s new climate bomb: Are today’s greenhouse gas levels enough to raise sea levels by 60+ metres?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPnhC_OrDuvGmYDepbGHObFhwrKRuwnBs30jFQAQQPaao7gnsQuCtmu2eG8v29XWyfZopaFtswMPe9fNe-5FRf5NvmKWHbOH4nLGSSHq6gQAiY8EXUdH3xOMOAfPDXpFEotyOs-SgkbGx9kZ7UsmeQKSYMb-MSBKHbA02zn5bN_yy5bny7T8Cl8FAv/s650/soh.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="650" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPnhC_OrDuvGmYDepbGHObFhwrKRuwnBs30jFQAQQPaao7gnsQuCtmu2eG8v29XWyfZopaFtswMPe9fNe-5FRf5NvmKWHbOH4nLGSSHq6gQAiY8EXUdH3xOMOAfPDXpFEotyOs-SgkbGx9kZ7UsmeQKSYMb-MSBKHbA02zn5bN_yy5bny7T8Cl8FAv/w640-h360/soh.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />By David Spratt<br /><br />Prof. James Hansen is sometimes affectionately referred to as the ”godfather” of modern climate science, so when he drops a bomb, there is bound to be shock and awe. <p></p><p>And that’s what has happened with the recent release by Hansen and his colleagues of a draft of a new paper which finds that the climate is much more sensitive to increases in greenhouse gas that generally thought. This new analysis means that the current level of greenhouse gases, if maintained, would be enough in the longer term to melt all ice sheets and push up sea-levels by more than 60 metres.</p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>Now the proposition that the current level of carbon dioxide has been enough in past climates to raise sea levels by tens of metres is not new. In <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-earth-082420-063026" target="_blank">“Atmospheric CO2 over the past 66 million years from marine archives”</a> (2021), James W.B. Rae et al found that the last time CO2 was as high as it is today enough ice melted to raise sea level by 20 metres and it was warm enough for beech trees to grow on Antarctica. And in 2020, <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G47681.1/586769/A-23-m-y-record-of-low-atmospheric-CO2" target="_blank">“A 23 m.y. record of low atmospheric CO2”</a> concluded that today's carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are actually higher than they have been for the past 23 million years.</p><p>But back to the new draft paper, which is long and complex, and is primarily concerned with “climate sensitivity”, so that is where we should start.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Climate sensitivity</b></span><br /></h3><p>Climate sensitivity is an estimate of the temperature response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels, in the present case from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm) to 550 ppm.</p><p>Studies vary, but <b>Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity</b> (ECS) has been generally estimated to be around 3°C. The respected <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-climate-wont-warm-as-much-as-we-feared-but-it-will-warm-more-than-we-hoped-143175" target="_blank">Sherwood paper</a> of 2020 found a range of 2.6–3.9°C.</p><p>However ECS is a measure of sensitivity with short-term feedbacks only, which are active on a decadal basis, such as changes in clouds, water vapour, changing sea-ice extent and so on.</p><p>Including factors such as “slow” feedbacks (carbon stores) and albedo changes (reflectivity), warming may be as high as 5–6°C for a doubling of carbon dioxide for a range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. <br /></p><p>This longer-term sensitivity, on a century-to-millennium basis was termed by Hansen as <b>Earth System Sensitivity </b>(ESS). With unprecedented rates of change in the levels of greenhouse gases, such long-term feedbacks are becoming active in much shorter time frames, that is decades rather than centuries.</p><p>[For background, see <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2014/06/carbon-budgets-climate-sensitivity-and.html" target="_blank">“Carbon budgets, climate sensitivity and the myth of ‘burnable carbon’"</a> and <a href="https://www.climatecodered.org/2018/01/new-study-on-climate-sensitivity-not.html" target="_blank">“New study on climate sensitivity not what poor media headlines, deniers are saying”</a>.]</p><p>Hansen and colleagues, basing their analysis on the study of climate history (paleoclimatology), have for two decades consistently estimated ECS at around 3°C, and the longer term ESS at around 6°C, saying that ESS is around double ECS. See, for example, the 2013 paper, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.2012.0294" target="_blank">“Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide”</a>.</p><p>By trapping heat reflecting from the Earth's surface, a doubling of CO2 increases net radiation (the climate forcing) by an average 4 watts per metre (W/m2) over the Earth’s surface. So with an ECS of 3°C, in the short term an energy imbalance of 1 W/m2 is equivalent to about 0.75°C of warming, a figure that Hansen has used on many occasions. </p><p>[Climate forcing may be understood as a physical process affecting the Earth’s climate through one or more forcing factors. For example at present, a perturbation (change) in the Earth’s energy system resulting from an imbalance between incoming and outgoing radiation caused by many factors but principally an increase in the “blanket” of human-caused greenhouse gases, with associated warming.]</p><p>As a side point, it is worth noting that Earth’s current energy imbalance compared to pre-industrial, including short-lived gases such as methane, is > 4 W/m2, suggesting equilibrium warming of 3°C without long-term feedbacks. Of course, some of that forcing from short-lived gases may diminish, and decrease that figure, but human-cause CO2 emissions are still being emitted at an undiminished rate.</p><p>So the big issue with the new Hansen et al. (not yet peer-reviewed) draft paper, <a href="https://columbia.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0ebaeb14fdbf5dc65289113c1&id=c5aca25026&e=3763203384" target="_blank">“Global warming in the pipeline”</a>, is the conclusion that “Fast-feedback equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is 1.2 ± 0.3°C (2σ) per W/m2”. </p><p>That’s a big change, from 0.75 W/m2 to 1.2 ± 0.3°C W/m2, an increase of half, with big implications for the level of future warming. </p><p>That figure means that today’s energy imbalance of ~4 W/m2 would eventually lead an equilibrium to around 5°C of warming (short feedbacks only), and 10°C in the long term: “Equilibrium global warming including slow feedbacks for today’s human-made greenhouse gas (GHG) climate forcing (4.1 W/m2) is 10°C, reduced to 8°C by today’s aerosols” the draft says. <br /></p><p>Hansen has <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/equilibrium-warming-committed-warming?e=3763203384" target="_blank">made it clear</a> that this is not a statement about committed warming [“The word “committed” or “commit” does not appear in our paper…”], but a warning.</p><p>The draft paper also points to data that the observed rate of decadal warming of 0.18°C per decade from 1970 to 2010 has doubled to 0.27°C since 2010, a trend that will continue due to the decreased impact of sulfate aerosols. The draft paper says: “Under the current geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will likely pierce the 1.5°C ceiling in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050.” </p><p>This should not be contentious given the amount of data available supporting such outcomes (some of it summarised <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2023/02/faster-higher-hotter-what-we-learned.html" target="_blank">here</a>), but some scientists have been critical, leading Hansen to <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/equilibrium-warming-committed-warming?e=3763203384" target="_blank">declare</a>:<br /></p><blockquote><p>“Their claim that current scientific literature points to eventual global warming being kept ‘well below 2°C’ as being consistent with real world trends and policies is egregious, an uncritical acceptance of models and the assumptions that went into them.”</p></blockquote><p>[For background on the role of decreasing aerosols, see for example <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2023/04/the-case-for-climate-cooling-and-some.html" target="_blank">“The case for climate cooling, and some eye-watering charts”</a> (chart 3).] </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Lessons from climate history <br /></h3><p>But back to the main point, the draft’s estimate of higher climate sensitivity. This is <a href="https://mailchi.mp/caa/equilibrium-warming-committed-warming?e=3763203384" target="_blank">based</a> on a new analysis of climate forcing and temperature variations in past climates, by comparing glacial and interglacial equilibrium climate states: <br /></p><blockquote><p>“One merit of our analysis of Cenozoic (past 66 million years) climate is that it reveals that the present human-made GHG (greenhouse gas) forcing is already greater than the GHG forcing at the transition from a nearly unglaciated Antarctica to a glaciated continent. Yes, if we leave atmospheric composition as it is today, sea level will eventually rise about 60 metres (200 feet). However, it’s not the new equilibrium at +200 feet that’s of most concern, it’s the chaos that ensues once ice sheet collapse begins in earnest.”</p></blockquote><p>In their <i>Pipeline</i> draft, Hansen et al. say that “our principal motivation in this paper is concern that IPCC has underestimated climate sensitivity and understated the threat of large sea level rise and shutdown of ocean overturning circulations, but these issues, because of their complexity, must be addressed in two steps. Our present paper addresses climate sensitivity and warming in the pipeline, concluding that these exceed IPCC’s best estimates.”</p><p>So what’s the new paleoclimatological evidence on which they rely, noting that this paper is a draft and not yet peer-reviewed?</p><p>The paper draws together some new evidence of conditions during two recent glacial–interglacial periods: from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene (LGM–Holocene) from 20,000 to 7000 years ago, and from the Eemian interglacial compared with the prior glacial maximum (PGM–Eemian), from around 140,000 to 123,000 years ago. </p><p>“We evaluate ECS by comparing stable climate states before and after a glacial-to-interglacial climate transition. GHG amounts are known from ice cores and ice sheet sizes are known from geologic data”, says the draft paper. This leads to conclusions that the initial ECS estimate is 1.22°C per W/m2 for the LGM–Holocene, and 1.36°C per W/m2 for the PGM–Eemian. </p><p>These higher results appear to be principally driven by higher estimates of the total temperature change in each case, based on recent research: “Recent advanced analysis techniques allow improved estimates of paleo temperatures.” This is estimated as 7°C of warming for the LGM–Holocene between 20,000 and 7000 years ago, higher than the existing literature.</p><p>ECS can vary with the Earth’s state. If the planet is already ice-free, for example, then the ice–albedo feedback — in which heat melts ice sheets, and their reflective surface is replaced by a darker terrain that absorbs more heat — is no longer operable. However, the author’s note that “ECS is rather flat between today’s climate and warmer climate, based on a study covering a range of 15 CO2 doublings using an efficient GCM developed by Gary Russell.” </p><h3 style="text-align: left;"> A 60-metre sea-level rise? <br /></h3><p>The draft paper then has a long section looking at climatology over the Cenozoic era, from 66 million years ago till today. One focus is the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), an interval of global warming that occurred around 56 million years ago, when the planet was ice-free. [The Antarctic ice sheet did not start to form until about 35 million years ago, as the planet proceeded along its long-term cooling descent from the PETM.]</p><p>The authors say that: “The PETM event provides an invaluable benchmark for assessing the eventual impact of the human-made climate perturbation and the time scale for natural recovery of the climate system.” Their conclusions are startling:</p><blockquote><p>“We conclude that human-made climate forcing has reached the level that drove PETM climate change; today’s 1.2°C global warming is but a fraction of the equilibrium response to gases now in the air. The greater warming in the pipeline and its impacts are not inevitable… because climate’s delayed response allows preventative actions. Better understanding of the PETM will aid policy considerations, but we must bear in mind two major differences between the PETM and human-made climate change. First, there were no large ice sheets on Earth in the PETM era. Today, ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland make the Earth system sensitivity (ESS) greater than it was at the time of the PETM… Equilibrium response to today’s human-made climate forcing includes deglaciation of Antarctica and Greenland, with sea level 60 metres (about 200 feet) higher than today and the potential for chaotic climate change this century. The second major difference between the PETM and today is the rate of change of the climate forcing. Most of today’s climate was introduced in a century, which seems to be 10 times or more faster than the PETM forcing growth.”</p></blockquote><p>In summary, today’s climate forcing is similar to that of the PETM when the planet was ice-free. So if today’s forcing is maintained or increases, and stays that way for long enough, the planet is likely to be ice-free, raising sea-levels by more than 60 metres.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Aerosols and the need for cooling <br /></h3><p>Finally, the paper returns to the vexed question of how large is the temporary cooling (masking of warming) provided by atmospheric aerosols which have a strong, short-lived cooling effect. I have discussed this many times, including in this post: <a href="http://www.climatecodered.org/2021/09/renowned-climate-scientist-warns-rate.html " target="_blank">“Renowned climate scientist warns rate of global warming during next 25 years could be double what it was in the previous 50”</a>.</p><p>Hansen et al. conclude that “Our best estimate for ECS, 1.2°C per W/m2, yields a gap of 1.5°C between expected and actual warming in 2022. Aerosols are the likely cooling source.” If that is the case, Hansen’s worry, expressed over decades — that the aerosols forcing is likely to be higher rather than lower — will have been realised, and the <a href=" http://www.climatecodered.org/2013/03/doubling-down-on-our-faustian-bargain.html " target="_blank">“Faustian bargain”</a> even more deadly that we thought. <br /></p><p>In its final section, the paper draws the conclusion that should be obvious to everyone: to protect the Earth and its ecosystems, and human society, atmospheric conditions need to return to those that made that fixed-settlement society possible, the Holocene, where CO2 levels were ~ 280 ppm, not the 420 ppm at present: “The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature”. This requires a dramatic drawdown of CO2 to cool the planet:</p><blockquote><p>“A new plan is essential. The plan must cool the planet to preserve our coastlines. Even today’s temperature would cause eventual multimeter sea level rise, and a majority of the world’s large and historic cities are on coastlines. Cooling will also address other major problems caused by global warming. We should aim to return to a climate close to that in which civilization developed, in which the nature that we know and love thrived. As far as is known, it is still feasible to do that without passing through an irreversible disaster such as many-meter sea level rise.”</p></blockquote><p>Hansen has an unsurpassed record as a climate scientist: from his ground-breaking 1988 Congress testimony, his leadership of NASA’s climate work, his big-picture analysis drawing together observations, models and paleo studies, and his fearlessness in saying what he thinks and calling out politically-mediated <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/2/2/024002" target="_blank">scientific reticence</a>. He has often been ahead of his time and <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2021/20210614_ForewordHansen.pdf" target="_blank">made many big calls</a>, sometimes dismissed at the time, but later found to be right on the money.</p><p>This draft paper will be subject to a lot of scrutiny and some revision, but I doubt if the big conclusions will be substantially changed. It will be dismissed by some, as was the <a href="https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/16/3761/2016/" target="_blank">“superstorms” paper </a>of 2016, but the projections in that paper of rapid increase in surface ocean heat content and slowing of the Southern Ocean overturning circulation have been vindicated by recent data. </p><p>Hansen has not so far been known to be significantly wide of the mark. If that remains true, this paper has profound implications for climate science, policymaking and strategy. If current climate models are too insensitive to climate forcings —with problems around aerosol forcing, ocean mixing and cloud feedbacks —and their outputs are of limited use, then ideas of remaining carbon budgets for 2°C are even further out the window. </p><p>Of course, amongst the most important findings is the fact that “present human-made GHG (greenhouse gas) forcing is already greater than the GHG forcing at the transition from a nearly unglaciated Antarctica to a glaciated continent”, or in other words, the current level of greenhouse gases is enough in the longer term to create an ice-free planet with sea levels 60 metres higher than today. </p><p>I wonder if policymakers could even get their heads around that proposition, let alone act on it?<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts</li></ul><p><br /><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-41105030336099343672023-05-31T09:15:00.002+10:002023-09-05T09:26:09.846+10:00Why markets fail on fossil fuel pollution, heralding an era of climate disruption<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkO1AG6Dacz-lRePX3lEc27975p87hmJJTqsktp8Dz_mw2WE2dzbUrG0rgvM-zdw3hzcGLDO7IBNG77a-eTX3frNjH1DRpzWog-E6E2tSohmuJw_RBf92IIF7W4OCAKciJIx1_-yPAGxsfB-rjHTPm7dCj1idDFzLY28y2heEoCN2qV1meQsDXj6Yi/s348/FV%20cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkO1AG6Dacz-lRePX3lEc27975p87hmJJTqsktp8Dz_mw2WE2dzbUrG0rgvM-zdw3hzcGLDO7IBNG77a-eTX3frNjH1DRpzWog-E6E2tSohmuJw_RBf92IIF7W4OCAKciJIx1_-yPAGxsfB-rjHTPm7dCj1idDFzLY28y2heEoCN2qV1meQsDXj6Yi/s320/FV%20cover.jpg" width="257" /></a></div><br />For more than 30 years, policy-makers have believed, and relied on, market mechanisms to respond to rapidly rising fossil fuel emissions and a heating planet. They have failed, and an era of climate disruption is now upon us. This post is an extract on "Markets and disruption" from a recent article, <b><a href="https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/filozofski-vestnik/article/view/12054/11185" target="_blank">"Reclaiming 'Climate emergency'"</a></b>, published (in English) in a special issue on emergencies of the Slovenian journal <a href="https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/filozofski-vestnik" target="_blank"><i>Filozofski vestnik</i></a> in March 2023.<br /><p></p><p><b>by David Spratt</b><br /><br />Markets crave stability and fear disruption. Yet the world is entering an era of instability and uncertainty driven in part by climate-related financial risks, preventing the market generation of reliable prices. Energy markets provide just one example. </p><p>In 2011, Paul Gilding <a href="https://www.paulgilding.com/the-great-disruption" target="_blank">concluded</a> that it was an illusion to think the contradictions can be resolved within the current economic frame and that disruption and chaos was now inevitable as system failure occurs. Five years earlier, Nicholas Stern had <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/the-economics-of-climate-change-the-stern-review/" target="_blank">said</a> that "paths requiring very rapid emissions cuts are unlikely to be economically viable" and disruptive because “it is difficult to secure emission cuts faster than about 1% per year except in instances of recession.” <span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Analyst Alex Steffen <a href="https://alexsteffen.substack.com/p/discontinuity-is-the-job" target="_blank">concludes</a> that:<p></p><blockquote><p>It is no longer possible to achieve [an] orderly transition, to combine action at the scale and speed we need with a smooth transition and a minimum of disruption [...] We are not now capable of designing a future that works in continuity with our existing systems and practices while producing emissions reductions and sustainability gains fast enough to avoid truly dire ecological harm. This is an option that no longer exists.</p></blockquote><p>And the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/26/prepare-for-disorderly-shift-to-low-carbon-era-firms-and-investors-told" target="_blank">assesses</a> that "there is ‘no longer any realistic chance’ for an orderly transition for global financial markets because political leaders will be forced to rely on ‘handbrake’ policy interventions to cut emissions.”</p><p>So, when all is said and done, the choice is social collapse and economic disruption due to the failure to act fast enough, or economic disruption as a necessary consequence of emergency-level fast change. There is no third way.</p><p>Yet climate policymaking has been built on two foundational pillars: a bedrock assumption that change should be slow and incremental in a manner that not does disrupt growth or inhibit the market, or leave capital stranded; and that levers for change should be market-focused, thus the emphasis on such mechanisms as carbon prices, tradeable offsets, tax credits, new markets for carbon capture and storage with or without bioenergy, and even <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-15/whale-conservation-funded-by-carbon-markets-scientists-push-back" target="_blank">commodifying nature</a>. This is reflected in IPCC reports and the preferred net-zero-2050 scenarios of central bankers and the fossil fuel industry.</p><p>The major fossil fuel producers and nations have ensured that their sector is not targeted by policymakers. The COP 21 Paris Agreement, for example, 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, although responsibility for forcing others to adapt is not mentioned, and both liability and compensation are explicitly excluded.</p><p>Instead, emphasis is given to speculative, but potentially highly-profitable, market-based solutions. There is no better example than most economy–energy–climate Integrated Assessment Models’ (IAMs) scenarios, which have <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/dor" target="_blank">come to dominate</a> IPCC mitigation pathway reports and net-zero-2050 paths. They contort a path towards the Paris targets by — in the best Orwellian tradition — “overshooting” the target and then returning to it by century’s end through an undue reliance on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), a technological imaginary that would pay oil and gas producers to pump gigantic volumes of carbon dioxide into wells they have emptied of fossil fuels. The focus is on the “efficiency” of the market; in the IPCC’s most recent Working Group 3 report, the expression “cost-effectiveness” is mentioned 173 times. </p><p>Depending on how modellers perceive the roots of the problem to be solved, they <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618306546" target="_blank">will</a> “design the model structure, including possible instruments and relationships within the model accordingly […] Hence, the very structure of a model depends on the modeller’s beliefs about the functioning of society.” IAMs are based on faith in the efficacy and efficiency of market-driven change and so privilege particular pathways, and entice policymakers into thinking that the forecasts the models generate have some kind of scientific legitimacy. </p><p>IAMs project only gradual physical changes, in which climates will “migrate” slowly, yet we are now in an era of physical disruption, cascades and fast change. The models, <a href="https://www.woodwellclimate.org/a-price-but-at-what-cost" target="_blank">says</a> financial analyst Spencer Glendon, quoting Thomas C. Schelling, “probably cannot project discontinuities because nothing goes into them that will produce drastic change. There may be phenomena that could produce drastic changes, but they are not known with enough confidence to introduce into the models.” Thus the very models that underpin climate policymaking are not fit for purpose. </p><p>Mathematical models of the climate and the economy use quantifiable, probabilistic risk analysis to reduce complexity and high levels of uncertainty to numerical expressions and formulae, but cannot adequately express non-linear processes in the climate system. Schellnhuber <a href="https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/whatliesbeneath" target="_blank">describes</a> a "probability obsession", which he says makes little sense in the most critical instances, in part because "we are in a unique situation with no precise historic analogue." </p><p>Corporate and state climate policies and scenarios lack appropriate non-probabilistic risk-management approaches to both the physical and social risks, and exhibit an inadequate understanding of the high-end possibilities. Mostly, they are based on IPCC processes and methods, which are scientifically reticent and a poor basis for understanding the full range of potential outcomes.</p><p>Neo-classical economics assumes an idealised world of market participants operating with "perfect knowledge" to produce smooth change and optimal outcomes via efficient prices. If risk is quantifiable, then it can be priced, so that uncertainty is tamed by the market. But markets so far have been poor at recognising and pricing risks and <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2015/breaking-the-tragedy-of-the-horizon-climate-change-and-financial-stability.pdf," target="_blank">suffer from</a> the “tragedy of the horizon” and the “tragedy of the commons”: hence greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at worst-case rates. </p><p>The global economy relies on endless layers of systems that were built within the stable climate of the past, but “investing in an environment where tomorrow doesn’t look like today is very tricky,” as Dickon Pinner, a senior partner at global management consultants McKinsey, acknowledges. Pinner <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/will-big-business-finally-reckon-with-the-climate-crisis" target="_blank">says</a> that if investors do not change direction now, then governments will likely “have to pull that lever hard […] and I think that would cause a lot of massive, massive disruption.” </p><p>Climate change is not a market optimisation problem, it’s a risk problem — the risk of the loss of capitalism — <a href="http://fintech.tv/climate-risk-and-the-capital-markets">says</a> Spencer Glendon. He also <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/will-big-business-finally-reckon-with-the-climate-crisis" target="_blank">notes</a> that the economics of climate change “will be seen as one of the worst mistakes humans have made.”</p><p>Thus the current, market-dominated approaches to managing climate risks are not efficacious, and another approach — that of state-led mobilisation — is necessary but barely on the agenda. <br /><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts</li></ul><p><br /><br /><br /><br /> </p><p><br /> </p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1429546711699806111.post-27740128089004465322023-05-04T19:57:00.001+10:002023-09-05T09:26:33.966+10:00Are climate–security risks too hot to handle for the Albanese government?<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02ov20Mh6zjzlOO9Nrq6bvZBgwnBaeJHIhjOLR-h-OWFdVAUENwlpXS4QTYeP4MIV8TgwSW-XUzWolJaz0-RX1NhFFqbRkq7zRI0EmXecFVDBNZZeTGcHmrlp-HoVmgKs6sQCY9Q2dL6awwXS8no7QiHQkzesfQSPGgnHDFcDGWcznFS0NCsIEaOx/s2560/pakistan-heat-wave_asim-afeez-bloomberg-getty-scaled.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1707" data-original-width="2560" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02ov20Mh6zjzlOO9Nrq6bvZBgwnBaeJHIhjOLR-h-OWFdVAUENwlpXS4QTYeP4MIV8TgwSW-XUzWolJaz0-RX1NhFFqbRkq7zRI0EmXecFVDBNZZeTGcHmrlp-HoVmgKs6sQCY9Q2dL6awwXS8no7QiHQkzesfQSPGgnHDFcDGWcznFS0NCsIEaOx/w640-h427/pakistan-heat-wave_asim-afeez-bloomberg-getty-scaled.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Heat wave in Karachi, Pakistan, June 29, 2015. Credit:Asim Afeez/Bloomberg</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />by <b>David Spratt</b> <p></p><p>[An abridged version of this article was first published by <a href="https://johnmenadue.com/are-australias-climate-security-risks-too-hot-to-handle/" target="_blank">Pearls&Irritations</a>]</p><p>The Australian government is keen to talk about defence, big submarines, China and national security. And renewable energy, big batteries, electric cars and big hydrogen. But put the two together — security and climate — and an odd thing happens. When it comes to the biggest threat to the nation, that of climate-related risks to human and regional security, there is a big black hole in the government’s discourse. </p><p>When a declassified version of the Defence Security Review (DSR) was released on 24 April, there was a glaring omission. A short chapter on climate change focussed exclusively on domestic climate risks, specifically emergency responses to climate-warming-enhanced extreme events such as bushfires and floods, and why the defence forces should not be amongst the first responders.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a>There was hardly a word about the much bigger climate-related security risk across the Indo-Pacific region: states and alluvial deltas and cities inundated by rising seas, a chronic water shortage and declining crop yields even as food demand increases, social breakdown and the forced displacement of millions of people. There was nothing in the DSR to demonstrate that the government understood or was preparing for climate-related security risks in the region, or their mitigation.<p></p><p>When the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group in 2021 <a href="https://www.aslcg.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ASLCG_MIA_Report.pdf" target="_blank">advocated for a climate and security risk assessment</a> as a first step in dealing with the biggest threat to Australia’s people and to the region, the Albanese-led opposition was enthusiastic. The idea was incorporated into Labor election policy, and a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/22/anthony-albanese-to-order-intelligence-chief-to-examine- security-threats-posed-by-climate-crisis" target="_blank">climate-security risk assessment was ordered</a> from the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) soon after winning office in May 2022. </p><p>ONI’s assessment reportedly focused on the region and did not include domestic risks, but since it was delivered to the government in late 2022 not a substantial word has been said about it. No declassified version of the ONI assessment has been released, even as a version of the DSR was made public. Other political parties have not been briefed, nor have the relevant Senate, House of Representatives or Joint Standing Committees of the parliament.</p><p>In a state of imposed ignorance, how can members of parliament discharge their duties to oversee policy-making and departmental performance in the defence, climate, immigration, intelligence and foreign affairs portfolios?</p><p>It is almost as if the government sees climate-related security risks as an astronomical black hole. Fly too close to the issue, the event horizon or black hole boundary, and you disappear into the endless void, never to be seen again? </p><p>Does the government fear that if it publicly elaborates what its intelligence agencies told it about the chaos, social breakdown and conflict of a hotter world, it risks losing control of a manicured framing of its climate change policies as efficacious? Get too close to the realities of existential, security-related climate consequences, and you arrive at the boundary of an uncontrolled event where the laws of conventional politics and policy-making break down?</p><p>By the government’s lack of public reaction, it is a reasonable assumption that ONI’s assessment provides a brutal account of the threats, as it needed to be given the evidence. Eyes opened wide with a rush of adrenalin when the penny dropped that climate risks were altogether of a different category than a narrative about solar and wind and batteries, and yes, the expansion of the gas industry. </p><p>Did it become clear that ONI’s assessment undermined the government preferred climate narrative and should not see the light of day? A government keen to display its national security credentials promotes a nuclear submarines, AUKUS and China agenda, but the biggest threat of regional climate disruption exists only by its absence, as a void in the middle of this security policy debate.</p><p>So what did the ONI report say that has led to the cone of silence being lowered over their assessment?</p><p>A comparable assessment of climate risks is that undertaken by the UK’s premier, government-funded security think-tank, Chatham House, in its<a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021" target="_blank"> 2021 climate risk assessment</a>. At the very least, the ONI report would need to be consistent with the Chatham House conclusions, which in essence were that the world is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals, the risks are compounding and without immediate action the impacts will be devastating in the coming decades.</p><p>The UK assessment said that impacts likely to be locked in for the period 2040–50 unless emissions drastically decline before 2030 — which is very unlikely to happen on current indications — include:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>A 30% drop in crop yields by 2050, while food demand will be 50% higher; </li><li>The average proportion of global cropland affected by severe drought (greater than 50% yield reductions) will likely rise to 32% a year;</li><li>Almost 700 million people a year by 2040 are likely to be exposed to droughts of at least six months’ duration, nearly double the global historic annual average; and</li><li>Cascading climate impacts will “drive political instability and greater national insecurity, and fuel regional and international conflict”.</li></ul><p>Climate impacts are happening faster than forecast; the bushfires of Australia’s 2019-20 “black summer” were of an intensity not projected to occur till the end of the century. According to Prof. David Karoly, Australia today is <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/australia-climate-at-worst-case-2030-scenarios" target="_blank">experiencing the “worst case” climate scenarios for 2030</a>. Many system-level positive <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(23)00004-0" target="_blank">feedbacks are not fully accounted for in climate models</a>, and certain important consequences of warming, including ice sheet collapse, sea level rise, and the rise in extreme weather events <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20032023/ipcc-report-ar6-climate-change" target="_blank">are poorly represented in the model</a>s. </p><p>A recent, landmark report found that the world is facing an imminent water crisis, with demand expected to outstrip the supply of fresh water by 40% by the end of this decade. Losing glacial mass, the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau will no longer be able to serve as the water towers of Asia. If the world continues on its high-emissions trajectory, as is likely, then in the end<a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/04/08/what-happens-when-we-run-out-of-water-thanks-to-climate-change-a-dystopian-premise-is-coming-true/" target="_blank"> we can expect “a substantial — that is, nearly 100% loss — of water availability to downstream regions</a> of the Tibetan Plateau" which will imperil the water supplies for "central Asia, Afghanistan, Northern India, Kashmir and Pakistan by the middle of the century" says Prof. Michael E. Mann.</p><p>India and China, where groundwater levels are already dropping precariously, will face catastrophic water shortages. China is already a net importer of food, with 20% of the global population but only 7% of potable water. The dry subtropics will slowly desertify, including in northern China, Central Asia and the Middle East. Extreme heat events, beyond the human capacity to endure, will increasingly strike across Asia, including in Pakistan and northern India. But perhaps also in south-east Asia. Droughts will become more frequent and intense; cyclones and floods more damaging.</p><p>With food demand outstripping supply, prices will rise sharply and the poorest and more vulnerable will be most affected, as is the case in East Africa and across the Sahel today. The pattern is familiar: food shortages and riots, social breakdown, militarisation of the emergency, starvation, mass forced displacement, millions in camps fleeing conflict, and a growing inability to fund food relief programs or build resilience for an even hotter climate. </p><p>The rate of warming is accelerating and so will the rate of sea-level, amplified by crucial polar ice sheets passing their tipping points. Asia is the most vulnerable region in the world for inundation. The lower Mekong rice bowl is already salinating, low-lying Pacific islands will increasingly become non-viable and some of the world’s biggest coastal cities — including Shanghai, Mumbai and Bangkok — are highly vulnerable, as is Bangladesh.</p><p>How will all this play out? The analysis is not easy. Physical climate impacts and system-level changes compound and cascade, and their non-linearity makes projections difficult. Translating those physical changes into social and security consequences is an imprecise task. What we do know is that there will be outcomes that virtually no-one will see coming, such as happened with drought and desertification in eastern Syria compounding with the dynamics of the Arab Spring to unleash a war in Syria that displaced half its population; and half of them spilling into neighbouring countries and the EU bloc, precipitating a cascading political crisis.</p><p>So the security consequences are in a way radically unknown, but here is a sketch of some plausible outcomes:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Social crises in which rising food prices as a consequence of growing shortages lead to domestic protests, social instability, internal displacement and/or forced migration. Imagine a dynamic similar to the Arab Spring spreading across Central and South Asia: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, for example.</li><li>Severe economic jolts caused by conflict, labor displacement and lower productivity, inundation and destruction of economic infrastructure, and disruption to supply chains, including in the South China Sea.</li><li>A worsening of extreme and concurrent climate events with impacts beyond the response capacity of national governments; and increasing opportunities for China to lend a helping hand to vulnerable states, especially as Australia’s disaster relief capacity is underfunded and overwhelmed. </li><li>A further retreat to authoritarian and hyper-nationalist politics, the diminution of instruments of regional cooperation, and increased risks of regional conflict, including over shared water resources from the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, encompassing India, Pakistan, China and south-east Asia nations. </li><li>State instability and failure in both Asia and the Pacific, including in some of the most populous nations, especially those with semi-democratic governments and existing insurgencies either domestic or in neighbouring states.</li><li>Increasing repressive measures by the state apparatus directed towards peasants, workers and the poor rising up against food and energy shortages, with Australia called upon to protect such “fragile” states by bolstering their repressive capacities.</li><li>Fracturing of the regional anti-China alliance being sculptured by the United States.</li><li>Refugee/forced displacement crises magnitudes greater than the world has hitherto experienced.</li></ul><p>ONI, with its extensive resources, has the capacity to paint a bigger and more complete picture, and it is one that needs to see the light of day in order to understand and mitigate the risks.</p><p>If we don’t know what ONI assessed, the Australian people and its economic institutions will plunge into a future dominated by climate-related security risks in a state of ignorance, way past the event horizon. </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><a href="http://eepurl.com/iyYWyQ">Subscribe to the Climate Code Red email list</a></b> for notifications of new posts</li></ul><p><br /><br /><br /></p><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu><menu id="fcltHTML5Menu1" type="context"><menuitem command="context" label="Textise it"></menuitem></menu>David Spratthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10764602207638453984noreply@blogger.com