Along with COVID-19, much of the focus in 2021 was on climate change and how the world, including Australia, is going to reach those crucial targets
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The impacts of climate change continued apace globally, with devastating flooding, fires, droughts and heatwaves experienced by millions of people across the globe.
Meanwhile, world leaders, delegates and activists from nearly 200 nations arrived in Glasgow on October for COP26 – the biggest climate event of the year.
But after two weeks of negotiations over emissions, carbon trading and reparations for climate damage – world still isn’t on track to avert a climate crisis or to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
And Australia was singled out as a climate change “pariah” for its failure to strengthen its 2030 target to reduce emissions further and move away from fossil fuel production.
As 2021 comes to a close we asked three experts to look back at the year. Professor Jacqueline Peel is the Director of Melbourne Climate Futures, Professor John Wiseman is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, and Dr Andrew King is a Climate Extremes Research Fellow at the School of Earth Sciences and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.
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2021 saw an increase in extreme weather events that broke records
around the world. Picture: Getty Images
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PROFESSOR JACQUELINE PEEL
2021 has been an enormously consequential year for climate action in Australia
and internationally. After more than a decade of unproductive climate policy ‘wars’
in Australia, we end the year with an official truce.
Both sides of the political divide in Canberra have embraced the need for Australia to reach net zero emissions by 2050. This was inconceivable just 12 months ago.
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Both sides of the political divide have embraced the need for
Australia to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Picture: Getty Images |
Attention now turns to short-term actions to reduce emissions, including 2030 targets and policies.
International events played a major role in driving Australian policy progress this year, bookended by the COP26 Summit – the world’s “last, best chance” to keep alive the goal of no more than 1.5°C of global warming.
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Coal also crossed a threshold in 2021, with new pledges on coal phaseout and phase-down emerging at COP26, and support for stopping coal financing by major international players like China and the USA.
The Australian government will remain under pressure to update its “nationally determined contribution” and 2030 target heading into COP-27 in Egypt next November.
Keeping ‘1.5°C alive’ and averting the worst impacts of climate change – vital for vulnerable communities in Australia and our Indo-Pacific region – is still possible but the road ahead is steep and the clock is ticking. There’s never been a more important time for concerted action, on all fronts, to ensure a safe, sustainable climate future.
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| Keeping ‘1.5°C alive’ is vital for vulnerable communities in Australia and our Indo-Pacific region. Picture: Getty Images |
PROFESSOR JOHN WISEMAN
There were many moments I felt proud to be Australian in 2021.
Grace Tame’s
award as Australian of the Year for her advocacy for survivors of sexual
assault.
Patty Mills
heroic leadership of the Boomers at the Tokyo Olympics.
But watching Australia win the Colossal Fossil award for the country with the worst climate action record at COP26 in Glasgow was less inspiring.
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But 2021’s Australian climate action news wasn’t all bad.
State governments and cities further strengthened renewable energy plans. Legal challenges requiring governments and business to address the full extent of climate risk began to have real impact. Support for climate action independents began to build. The School Strike 4 Climate movement continued to demonstrate the vital role that young people will play in driving climate action.
Scientific evidence about the speed of climate action needed to avoid catastrophic global warming remains crystal clear. For Australia, that means a 2030 emissions reduction target of at least 75 per cent.
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The Australian government’s 2030 emission reduction goal stayed
firmly stuck at 26-28 per cent. Picture: Getty Images
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The 2022 Australian election provides our next crucial opportunity to open this door.
DR ANDREW KING
At COP26 in Glasgow, leaders re-affirmed their aim to keep global warming to
well below 2°C and preferably below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
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Until now, most climate projections have been based on model simulations where the world continues to warm well beyond the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C and 2°C limits, but this is different from the intention of the Paris Agreement under which global warming should stop rather than continue.
In our recent paper, we proposed a new framework which allows us to make climate projections for a world where human-caused carbon dioxide emissions fall to zero and we stabilise global temperatures in line with the Paris Agreement.
We anticipate this will have a large impact on climate projections as the ocean warms up very slowly over centuries and this alters our weather patterns.
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As the ocean warms up, this will alter our weather patterns and
impact climate projections. Picture: Getty Images |
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Even after COP26, the ambition required to meet the Paris Agreement is a long way off from being met, so policies to support strengthened pledges are needed from nations across the world – including Australia.
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