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| For 30 years we've completely failed to lower global emissions — we don't have the luxury of failing for the next 30. (ABC News: Jesse Thompson) |
Author
Michael Slezak is the ABC's national science, technology and environment reporter. |
While 1990 was arguably the peak of MC Hammer's career, it was also arguably the year international action on climate change began.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) handed down its first assessment report, which said scientists were "certain" greenhouse gases emitted by humans would warm the world.
Thirty years later, MC Hammer might feel like ancient history, but he puts into perspective how long we've been talking about climate action.
Earlier this year, I realised something shocking: If 1990 was the year we started acting on climate change, we are now halfway along our timeline for transitioning the world to a zero-carbon economy.
In the latest IPCC report, it is estimated that we need to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to have a reasonable chance of keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. That is as far in the future as 1990 is in the past.
In other words, we've spent as long dithering on climate as we have time to completely eliminate our contribution to climate-warming pollution: 30 years.
So with three decades gone, and 30 years to go, what have we achieved so far?
We've gone backwards
On the one hand, we have now mostly developed the technology required to achieve the transition. We've also put international frameworks in place that could guide it.
But where it matters — stopping the burning of fossil fuels, for instance — we've done nothing.
Actually, we've arguably done worse than nothing. We've emitted more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels since that 1990 report and hit single than we have during the rest of human history before 1990.
At this crucial point, the world has been shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic, and its economic fallout. But the inevitable response to that economic crisis is an opportunity, too.
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| Australia has recently experienced unprecedented bushfires, with the world now seeing what about one degree of warming can mean. (Australian Story: Ben Cheshire) |
It projected a massive drop in energy-related emissions from the COVID-19 fallout. It also said decisions made in the coming months will determine whether economic stimulus will see emissions rebound, or make 2019 the peak in global emissions.
"Governments have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reboot their economies and bring a wave of new employment opportunities while accelerating the shift to a more resilient and cleaner energy future," said Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA's executive director.
What did we know back then?
In that first IPCC report in 1990, it was estimated that if the burning of fossil fuels continued to accelerate steadily, the world would warm by about one degree by 2025.
They were right, except emissions increased faster than modelled and the world had warmed by one degree about a decade earlier.
That report, with its clear summary for policymakers, can be seen as the start of a sequence of events that led to all our international climate change agreements.
The year 1990 — or perhaps 1992, when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted — is the year after which there was no excuse for world leaders not understanding the significance of climate change.
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| Coral bleaching at Magnetic Island, North Queensland, in March 2020. (Supplied: Victor Huertas) |
Australia is among a handful of influential countries that have been widely criticised for failing to do that.
The years 2050 and 1990 are now equally far from today, but the world's response to climate change must be radically different in those two periods if we want to keep warming at 1.5 degrees — which is what most countries pledged to try to do as part of the Paris Agreement.
If we continue along our current path, the scientists who issued warnings — the IPCC — are clear about what will happen: By 2050, the world will be pushing two degrees of warming.
What does that mean on the ground?
Well, the world is now seeing what about one degree of warming means. Australia has recently experienced unprecedented bushfires and lost half the coral on the Great Barrier Reef.
Heat records are being broken at unprecedented rates, and cold records are vanishing into the past.
The transition to a zero-carbon world will bring both pain and opportunity.
Jobs will be lost in some industries, but transitioning those jobs to new industries must be a priority. And side-effects of stopping climate change can be cleaner air, more reliable electricity grids and safer work.
According to a coalition of organisations including the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry group and now the International Energy Agency, a recovery from the COVID-19 economic crisis can be achieved while bringing down emissions.
Building a safe world, they say, will not come at the expense of jobs and economic growth, but will instead build jobs and growth.
We have the technology and framework to change, and a business community largely prepared to do the work. But for 30 years we've completely failed to lower global emissions.
We don't have the luxury of failing for the next 30.
Links
- Australian bosses have started caring about climate change
- Who Is Really To Blame For Climate Change?
- Reversing The Climate Crisis Isn't On You. We Need To Change The Entire System
- (AU) Climate Change Policy: The Missing Middle
- (AU) Opinion: Old Friendships Alone Won't Save Us From Climate Change
- (AU) Climate Change Talk Has Been Around For 30 Years. Where's The Action?
- (AU) It’s Time Coalition Listened To Experts On Climate And Energy, And Plotted A Green New Deal
- Why Tackling Global Warming Is A Challenge Without Precedent
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