17/12/2020

2020 In Climate Change

Wikipedia

Summaries
  • The December 2020 Lancet Countdown review concluded that trends in 2020 showed "a concerning paucity of progress" in numerous sectors, including "a continued failure to reduce the carbon intensity of the global energy system, an increase in the use of coal-fired power, and a rise in agricultural emissions and premature deaths from excess red meat consumption. These issues (were) in part counteracted by the growth of renewable energy and improvements in low-carbon transport."

    Despite increasing climate suitability for infectious disease transmission and falling crop yield potential, "the global response has remained muted" but "2020 will probably be an inflection point for several of the indicators (to be) presented during the coming decade".

    The survey further noted that "the nature and extent of the economic impact and response to the COVID-19 pandemic will have a defining role in determining whether the world meets the commitments of the Paris Agreement".
Measurements and statistics
  • Siberia recorded its second warmest January-June temperatures on record—more than 5°C (9°F) above average—including up to 10°C (18°F) above average in June. Verkhoyansk, located north of the arctic circle, recorded a temperature of 38°C (100°F) on 20 June. An analysis showed that, without human-induced climate change, these January-June temperatures would happen less than once in every 80,000 years.

  • The September 2020 monthly average CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa station was 411.29 ppm (up from 408.54 ppm in September 2019), and at Cape Grim in Tasmania, 410.8 ppm (up from 408.58 ppm in 2019).

  • In December, the WMO reported the global mean temperature for January to October 2020 was about 1.2°C above the 1850–1900 baseline, with 2020 likely to be one of the three warmest years on record despite the normally cooling effect of La Niña.

  • End-of-winter Arctic sea ice extent was the 11th lowest, and the end-of-summer extent the second lowest, in the 1979-2020 satellite record.

  • NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) reported that, through September, the U.S. experienced 16 weather and climate-related events, each costing at least a billion dollars, tying the full-year figures for 2011 and 2017, and exceeding the 1980–2019 inflation-adjusted average of 6.6 such events.
Events and phenomena
  • COVID-19 pandemic:
    • As a direct consequence of the pandemic, an 8% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions was projected for 2020, which would be the largest 1-year decline on record. However, this reduction was a result of reduced economic activity, not the decarbonization of the economy required to respond to climate change.

    • The Global Carbon Project estimated that global daily CO2 emissions may have been reduced by 17% during the most intense periods of COVID-19 shutdowns, but the WMO's Greenhouse Gas Bulletin indicated that this short-term impact cannot cause 2020's annual figure to exceed the 1 ppm natural inter-annual variability.
  • Australia bushfires:
    • A model-based analysis of heat and drought conditions underlying these Australian bushfires found that anthropogenic climate change had caused the probability of extreme heat to increase by at least a factor of two, and the risk of a Fire Weather Index being "severe" or worse to increase by at least 30%.

    • Smoke in the stratosphere from the Australian bushfires induced planetary-scale blocking of solar radiation larger than any previously documented wildfires, with the same order of radiative forcing as produced by moderate volcanic eruptions.
  • U.S. wildfires:
  • 2020 Atlantic hurricane season:
    • This included 30 named storms (a record), 13 hurricanes (second highest on record), and record water levels in several locations.

Actions and goals

Political, economic, cultural actions
  • In April 2020, Austria and Sweden closed their last coal-fired power plants.

  • In May 2020, the Energy Information Administration announced that U.S. annual energy consumption from renewable sources exceeded coal consumption for the first time since before 1885.

  • In the first half of 2020, the EU generated 40% of its electricity from renewables, and 34% from fossil fuels.

  • After October 2020's Hurricane Delta struck Puerto Morelos, Mexico, an insurance company issued a payout (17 million pesos, or US$850,000) on a policy covering a coral reef, the policy taken out to cover damages from hurricanes whose severity was expected to increase due to climate change.

  • 4 November 2020 marked the completion of the process by which U.S. President Trump withdrew the country from the Paris climate agreement, the U.S. becoming the only country in the world to do so. President-elect Joe Biden vowed to recommit to the Paris accord on the first day of his presidency.

  • On 27 November 2020, Tasmanian minister for energy Guy Barnett announced that the Australian island state had achieved 100% self-sufficiency in renewable energy.

  • On 3 December 2020, the Danish government voted to immediately end new oil and gas exploration in the Danish North Sea as part of a plan to phase out fossil fuel extraction by 2050, guaranteeing an end to Denmark’s fossil fuel production. Denmark's vote followed similar actions by France (2017) and New Zealand (2018).

  • 12 December 2020 was the fifth anniversary of the 2015 Paris Agreement; countries review and update their national commitments every 5 years.

  • On 12 December, UN secretary general António Guterres told world leaders at the Climate Ambition Summit that they should all declare a state of climate emergency until the world reaches net-zero CO2 emissions (only about 38 had already made such declarations). Guterres noted that G20 countries were spending 50% more in their COVID-19 stimulus packages on fossil fuels and CO2-intensive sectors than they were on low-CO2 energy.
Mitigation goal statements
  • In January 2020, the U.K.'s National Health Service announced its commitment to become the world’s first net zero health system.

  • In 2020, it was projected that to reach the Paris Climate Accord's 1.5°C target, the 56 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) emitted in 2020 would need to drop to 25 GtCO2e by 2030, requiring a 7.6% reduction every year—an increase in national government ambition of a factor of five.

  • Before the November 2020 U.S. presidential election, Joe Biden called climate change an existential threat to health, the economy and national security, proposing to make the U.S. carbon neutral by 2050; incumbent Donald Trump continued to question climate science, actually promoting fossil fuels.

  • The U.N.'s Emissions Gap Report 2020 stated that, by 2030, annual emissions would need to be 15(range: 12–19) GtCO2e lower than current unconditional NDCs imply for a 2°C goal, and 32(range: 29–36) GtCO2e lower for the 1.5°C goal. Current NDCs "remain seriously inadequate to achieve the climate goals of the Paris Agreement and would lead to a temperature increase of at least 3°C by the end of the century".

  • On 11 December, EU leaders agreed to reduce greenhouse gases by 55% by 2030 (measured against 1990 CO2 emission levels); the European Parliament had called for a 60% cut, and Greenpeace and Global 2000, 65%.

  • At the 12 December 2020 Climate Ambition Summit, China’s leader Xi Jinping said that by 2030, said China would reduce its carbon intensity by over 65 percent, having said in September that China would achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060.
Adaptation goal statements
  • At least 51 countries had developed plans for national health system adaptation planning. However, only 9% of countries reported having the funds to fully implement their plans.
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