20/08/2018

Take Unprecedented Action Or Bear The Consequences, Says Eminent Scientist And Advisor

Climate Code Red - David Spratt* | Ian Dunlop*

“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.”
Those are the challenging words from Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, for twenty years the head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and a senior advisor to Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union.  In the foreword to a new report, Schellnhuber says the issue now "is the very survival of our civilisation, where conventional means of analysis may become useless”.
The report, What Lies Beneath: The understatement of existential climate risk, is released today by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration.
Schellnhuber describes climate warming as an “existential risk”, and says the report highlights crucial insights which may lurk at the fringes of conventional policy analysis but which have a new resonance in today’s circumstances, “a unique situation with no precise historic analogue” in which “the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is now greater, and the Earth warmer, than human beings have ever experienced”.
He says it is hardly surprising that a trend towards “erring on the side of least drama” and an understatement of risks has emerged in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) after delivering their five Assessment Reports over the last three decades. This he attributes, in part, to the statistical “probability obsession” of orthodox science, where repeating the same experiment on an object many, many times can identify the likelihood of various outcomes.
He says that if this were applied literally to climate warming:
Strictly speaking, we would have to redo the Industrial Revolution and the greenhouse-gas emissions it triggered a thousand times or so, always starting with the Earth system in its 1750 pre-industrial state.  Then calculate the averaged observed outcome of that planetary experiment in terms of mean surface-temperature rise, global biological productivity, total number of climate refugees, and many other variables. This is a nonsensical notion.
Schellnhuber argues that calculating probabilities makes little sense in the most critical instances, such as the methane-release dynamics in thawing permafrost areas or the potential failing of entire states in the climate crisis. Rather, he says, we should “identify possibilities, that is, potential developments in the planetary make-up that are consistent with the initial and boundary conditions, the processes and the drivers we know.”
This calls for a new approach, with less emphasis on climate models in endless runs, and a new focus on such methods as scenario planning, where the consequences of a number of future possibilities, including those which may seem highly unlikely, but have major consequences, are evaluated. This way, he says, "one can overcome the probability obsession that not only fantasizes about the replicability of the singular, but also favours the familiar over the unknown and unexpected".



As well, according to Schellnhuber, when researchers come up with an entirely new thought, experts tend to reflexively dismiss it as “speculative”, which is effectively a death warrant in the academic world. This in turn means that “scientific progress is often driven from the periphery, or occasionally, by eminent personalities whose seniority is beyond doubt. This does not at all imply that hypotheses need not be vindicated in due course, but out-of-the-box thinking is vital given the unprecedented climate risks  which now confront human civilisation.”
The proximity of such out-of-the-box events was brought home by the recent publication of the “Hothouse Earth” paper, in which sixteen scientist, including Prof. Schellnhuber, warn that even hitting 2 degrees Celsius of warming might flip the climate system into a mode of carbon-cycle feedbacks that take climate warming beyond any human capacity to reign it in.
Schellnhuber concludes that it is “all the more important to listen to non-mainstream voices who do understand the issues and are less hesitant to cry wolf. Unfortunately for us, the wolf may already be in the house.”
What Lies Beneath analyses why:
  • Human-induced climate change is an existential risk to human civilisation: an adverse outcome that will either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential, unless dramatic action is taken.
  • The bulk of climate research has tended to underplay these risks, and exhibited a preference for conservative projections and scholarly reticence.
  • IPCC reports tend toward reticence and caution, erring on the side of “least drama”, and downplaying the more extreme and more damaging outcomes, and are now becoming dangerously misleading with the acceleration of climate impacts globally.
  • Why this is a particular concern with potential climatic “tipping points”, the passing of critical thresholds which result in step changes in the climate system. Under-reporting on these issues is contributing to the “failure of imagination” in our understanding of, and response to, climate change.
Written by: David Spratt & Ian Dunlop
Foreword by: Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
DOWNLOAD (pdf)

*David Spratt is the Research Director for Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration
*Ian Dunlop is a senior member of the Breakthrough Advisory Board

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World Is Finally Waking Up To Climate Change, Says 'Hothouse Earth' Author

The Guardian - 

Report predicting spiralling global temperatures has been downloaded 270,000 times in just a few days
Johan Rockström, director of Stockholm Resilience Centre. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
The scorching temperatures and forest fires of this summer’s heatwave have finally stirred the world to face the onrushing threat of global warming, claims the climate scientist behind the recent “hothouse Earth” report.
Following an unprecedented 270,000 downloads of his study, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said he had not seen such a surge of interest since 2007, the year the Nobel prize was awarded to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“I think that in future people will look back on 2018 as the year when climate reality hit,” said the veteran scientist. “This is the moment when people start to realise that global warming is not a problem for future generations, but for us now.”
The heatwave has dominated headlines across the northern hemisphere this summer. New temperature records have been set in Africa and cities in Australia, Taiwan, Georgia and the west coast of US.
Heat stroke or forest fires have killed at least 119 in Japan, 29 in South Korea, 91 in Greece and nine in California. There have even been freak blazes in Lapland and elsewhere in the Arctic circle, while holidaymakers and locals alike have sweltered in unusually hot weather in southern Europe.
Coming amid this climate chaos, the “hothouse Earth” paper by Rockström and his co-authors struck a chord with the public by spelling out the huge and growing risk that emissions are pushing the planet’s climate off the path it has been on for 2.5m years.
Rockström, who is based in Potsdam, Germany, said the paper’s release had accidentally been delayed, but the timing proved serendipitous. “It came out at a time when temperatures in Germany reached 38C so people could personally experience a heatwave. But this is just the beginning.”
Even in the US, which president Donald Trump has vowed to pull out of the Paris accord, public opinion surveys have shown a growing acceptance of climate science. Last year’s mega-typhoons and a hot May helped 73% of the public to acknowledge the reality of climate change, including a record 60% who now recognise that the causes are manmade.
With millennials overwhelmingly in favour of tougher action, several pollsters are predicting that climate could be a factor in the midterm elections in the autumn.
Rockström said he was concerned about the widening gap between scientists’ increasingly alarmed descriptions of climate destruction and leaders’ weak statements of what is politically possible.
“Politicians prefer small problems that they can solve and get credit for. They don’t like big problems that, even if they succeed, leave the rewards for their successors,” he said. “But once you pile up public pressure, politicians find it hard to avoid taking responsibility.”
The hothouse paper spells out the actions that governments need to take, including carbon laws that aim to halve emissions every decade and stronger safeguards for natural sinks, such as oceans and forests that are currently being lost.
“This is very dangerous. We are not just doing wrong ourselves with emissions, we are also killing our best friends – forests and oceans – that might ease the impact,” Rockström says.
He and others have drawn up a detailed action plan will be unveiled ahead of the Californian climate summit in September.
It will include more ambitious targets than those outlined in the Paris accord, which aims to keep temperature rises below 2C. 49 countries’ emissions have already peaked, but overall government commitments to date are lagging so much that the world is on a course for 3C of warming, at which level the risk of reaching an irreversible tipping point gets higher.
The authors say it is economically and technologically feasible to make more drastic emissions cuts that can keep warming at 1.5C.
“What is unrealistic is to be on a trajectory towards 3C,” said Johan Falk, innovation fellow at Future Earth and Stockholm Resilience Centre. “Solutions exist, but they have to be adopted by the leadership of countries and companies.”
With the world now believed to be in an “anomalously warm” phase until at least 2022, Rockström says the global public will increasingly feel the impacts of climate change and, he hopes, demand more urgency from their governments.
On 8 September, climate groups are calling for a mass mobilisation ahead of the California summit. Asked if he thinks scientists should attend, Rockström has little hesitation. “There’s a time to sit down and work at your desk and there’s a time to get up and leave the area where you are comfortable. That time is now.”

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Malcolm Turnbull Removes All Climate Change Targets From Energy Policy In Fresh Bid To Save Leadership

Fairfax - David Crowe

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has staged another dramatic retreat on energy policy in the face of a dire threat to his leadership, removing climate change targets from the National Energy Guarantee in his second policy reset in four days.
The revised scheme will go ahead without federal legislation to stipulate a 26 per cent cut to greenhouse gas emissions under changes aimed at averting a challenge from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Treasurer Scott Morrison and Minister for Environment and Energy Josh Frydenberg at Parliament House. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen


Asked on Monday morning whether his leadership was under threat, the Prime Minister declared: "I enjoy the confidence of the cabinet and my party room."
Mr Turnbull also said he had the support of Mr Dutton following reports that the Home Affairs Minister was being asked to challenge for the leadership and was inclined to run, with his supporters claiming he had majority support in the Liberal party room.
"Peter Dutton was at our leadership team meeting this morning. He is a member of our team, he has given me his absolute support," Mr Turnbull said.
The changes do not abandon the government’s commitment at United Nations talks on climate change but postpone any attempt to legislate the 26 per cent target alongside the NEG, in the belief the cuts can be delivered by 2030 without the need for tougher rules.
Mr Turnbull told a press conference on Monday morning it was clear legislation, including an emissions target, would not pass the Parliament.
"In politics you have to focus on what you can deliver," Mr Turnbull said.
The decision postpones a divisive federal bill that has split the government over whether to legislate the Paris commitment, with former prime minister Tony Abbott and others threatening to cross the floor in a move that could trigger a leadership spill.


An exclusive Fairfax-Ipsos poll shows the Coalition has suffered a massive slump in its primary vote over the past month amid open disputes on energy and speculation over the leadership. 

Mr Turnbull raised the idea last Friday of imposing the 26 per cent cut by regulation in a federal bill to support the NEG, departing from a plan put to the Coalition party room last Tuesday to set the target by legislation.
The approach outlined on Monday is to set the target in legislation and allow it to be changed by regulation, subject to findings by regulators on what the amended target would do to household electricity prices.
While this remains Mr Turnbull's policy, it will not be put to the Parliament unless and until it has majority support, a stance that will delay it indefinitely and avoid a trigger for disaffected Liberals to cross the floor.
"We are not going to propose legislation purely for the purpose of it being defeated," Mr Turnbull said.
Treasurer Scott Morrison said the government could not rely on Labor to pass the bill to set the emissions target, pointing to Labor's refusal over weeks and months to declare how it would vote on the issue, given it prefers deeper cuts of 45 per cent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels in the electricity sector.
Mr Turnbull insisted the government's energy policy remained the same but it would not present the bill on the emission target unless it was sure it would be carried by the Parliament.
Asked if he would bring on the bill if Opposition Leader Bill Shorten declared his support to guarantee the numbers in Parliament, Mr Turnbull said: "Let's wait and see what Labor does."
Mr Shorten said it was "unfair" for the government to argue it could not reach a bipartisan agreement because Labor had been open to negotiation on an emissions intensity scheme in 2016, a clean energy target in 2017 and the latest policy this year.
Asked if Labor would vote for the emissions reduction bill if the government put it to Parliament, Mr Shorten hedged by saying he could not be sure of the government's policy.
The reset means Mr Turnbull’s energy policy will be dominated by rules to cap default electricity prices for customers and increase financial penalties for the big three energy suppliers – AGL, EnergyAustralia and Origin.
The policy will also promise to underwrite new projects that add more reliable power to the electricity grid, as long as the projects come from competitors to the big three. This could include coal, gas, hydro or a combination of solar and wind and battery power.
"Power bills are one of the biggest cost of living pressures facing Australian families and, indeed, businesses," Mr Turnbull said. "Cheaper power has always been our number one priority when it comes to energy policy.
"Each and every one of these measures is designed with just one purpose in mind - making sure you get the best deal on electricity."
He cited estimates from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that the new measures would mean savings of hundreds of dollars for domestic and commercial energy users.
The new package includes a drastic new power for the ACCC to improve competition, allowing it to force energy providers to sell assets if they have too much market power.
Mr Turnbull said these were "new powers of last resort" but would allow the regulator to issue directions about an energy company's operations, require the "functional separation" of its assets and ultimately force the sale of its assets if required.
Critics of Mr Turnbull's earlier energy plan held out on giving their approval to the new position and warned against accepting a deal with Labor.
Tasmanian Liberal Senator Eric Abetz said he wanted to see the policy after it went through federal cabinet and was put to the Coalition party room.
"It would be most concerning if Labor were to say 'yes we support you in that regard' and we were to have that target," Senator Abetz told Sky News after the Prime Minister's press conference.
The warning highlights the danger for Mr Turnbull if Labor dares him to bring on the emissions bill and test the numbers on the floor of Parliament, given the warnings from conservatives against any outcome whereby the government and Labor vote together to legislate the cuts to emissions.

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