31/01/2021

Climate Crisis: World Is At Its Hottest For At Least 12,000 Years – Study

The Guardian - 

Scientists say temperatures globally at highest level since start of human civilisation
   
The world’s continuously warming climate is revealed also in contemporary ice melt at glaciers, such as with this one in the Kenai mountains, Alaska (seen September 2019). Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images


The planet is hotter now than it has been for at least 12,000 years, a period spanning the entire development of human civilisation, according to research.

Analysis of ocean surface temperatures shows human-driven climate change has put the world in “uncharted territory”, the scientists say. The planet may even be at its warmest for 125,000 years, although data on that far back is less certain.

The research, published in the journal Nature, reached these conclusions by solving a longstanding puzzle known as the “Holocene temperature conundrum”. Climate models have indicated continuous warming since the last ice age ended 12,000 years ago and the Holocene period began.

But temperature estimates derived from fossil shells showed a peak of warming 6,000 years ago and then a cooling, until the industrial revolution sent carbon emissions soaring.

This conflict undermined confidence in the climate models and the shell data. But it was found that the shell data reflected only hotter summers and missed colder winters, and so was giving misleadingly high annual temperatures.

“We demonstrate that global average annual temperature has been rising over the last 12,000 years, contrary to previous results,” said Samantha Bova, at Rutgers University–New Brunswick in the US, who led the research.

“This means that the modern, human-caused global warming period is accelerating a long-term increase in global temperatures, making today completely uncharted territory. It changes the baseline and emphasises just how critical it is to take our situation seriously.”

The world may be hotter now than any time since about 125,000 years ago, which was the last warm period between ice ages. However, scientists cannot be certain as there is less data relating to that time.

One study, published in 2017, suggested that global temperatures were last as high as today 115,000 years ago, but that was based on less data.

The new research examined temperature measurements derived from the chemistry of tiny shells and algal compounds found in cores of ocean sediments, and solved the conundrum by taking account of two factors.

First, the shells and organic materials had been assumed to represent the entire year but in fact were most likely to have formed during summer when the organisms bloomed. Second, there are well-known predictable natural cycles in the heating of the Earth caused by eccentricities in the orbit of the planet.

Changes in these cycles can lead to summers becoming hotter and winters colder while average annual temperatures change only a little.

Combining these insights showed that the apparent cooling after the warm peak 6,000 years ago, revealed by shell data, was misleading. The shells were in fact only recording a decline in summer temperatures, but the average annual temperatures were still rising slowly, as indicated by the models.

“Now they actually match incredibly well and it gives us a lot of confidence that our climate models are doing a really good job,” said Bova.

1.0C Difference in temperature compared with the last 1,000 years
Guardian graphic. Source: Bova et al, Nature, 2021

The study looked only at ocean temperature records, but Bova said: “The temperature of the sea surface has a really controlling impact on the climate of the Earth. If we know that, it is the best indicator of what global climate is doing.”

She led a research voyage off the coast of Chile in 2020 to take more ocean sediment cores and add to the available data.

Jennifer Hertzberg, of Texas A&M University in the US, said: “By solving a conundrum that has puzzled climate scientists for years, Bova and colleagues’ study is a major step forward. Understanding past climate change is crucial for putting modern global warming in context.”

Lijing Cheng, at the International Centre for Climate and Environment Sciences in Beijing, China, recently led a study that showed that in 2020 the world’s oceans reached their hottest level yet in instrumental records dating back to the 1940s. More than 90% of global heating is taken up by the seas.

Cheng said the new research was useful and intriguing. It provided a method to correct temperature data from shells and could also enable scientists to work out how much heat the ocean absorbed before the industrial revolution, a factor little understood.

The level of carbon dioxide today is at its highest for about 4m years and is rising at the fastest rate for 66m years. Further rises in temperature and sea level are inevitable until greenhouse gas emissions are cut to net zero.

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(AU) Business Council Of Australia Supports Zali Steggall’s Climate Change Bills

NEWS.com.au - Sarah McPhee

An independent MP’s proposal for drastic action on climate change has received the unexpected backing of a powerful lobby group. 

A new report from CSIRO and BOM has warned us about the worsening effects of climate change.

Public hearings into climate change legislation proposed by independent MP Zali Steggall have begun in Canberra today, backed by a business group representing chief executives from the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors.

The private members’ bills, released in February last year but introduced in parliament in November, include a long-term target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Ms Steggall also wants to see an independent Climate Change Commission established.

With hearings on Friday and on Monday, February 1, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy has promised an independent review of the proposed legislation.

“We have recently managed inquiries into nuclear energy, bushfires, Scope 3 emissions and feral cats, and so the Committee is well placed to now deliberate on the proposed climate change bills,” chair Ted O’Brien said in a statement.

“As a Committee, we’ll do what we always do,” he said. “We won’t draw any conclusions prematurely, but rather assess the information with dispassionate independence.”

Independent Member for Warringah Zali Steggall. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP Source: AAP

There are more than 700 publicly available submissions to the inquiry including from the Law Council of Australia, the Australian Medical Association, the Property Council of Australia and prominent TV personality Osher Günsberg.

Another notable submission is a three-page document from the Business Council of Australia, which has a membership of “CEOs of Australia’s top companies” such as AGL, BHP, BlueScope, Fortescue Metals Group, Origin Energy and Rio Tinto.

Members hail from sectors including mining, retail, manufacturing, infrastructure, information technology, financial services and banking, energy, professional services, transport, and telecommunications.

Signed by BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott, the submission states the bills ensure environmental sustainability “but also the need to manage the economic and social impacts”.

“The proposed legislation adopts a science-based, risk-management approach to addressing climate change … which is aligned with how businesses and their shareholders, increasingly, are responding to climate-related risks,” Ms Westacott writes.

“Having a very clear set of government policy ‘goalposts’ would enable company directors to focus their resources and efforts more efficiently with respect to climate-related transition risks.”

Ms Westacott said investors’ needs are “twofold”, being “a clearly articulated policy destination; and a policy pathway for achieving this destination”.

She said the climate policy response would benefit the community by providing opportunities for new jobs, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic-induced recession.

It raised six aspects requiring “careful interpretation” to be consistent with “an efficient, least-cost climate policy response for Australia”, including that “sectoral policies” should not prevent “emissions mitigation and adaptation efforts being optimised across sectors”.

The parliamentary inquiry public hearings are being held on Friday and Monday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage Source: News Corp Australia
Ms Steggall said the sheer number of submissions to the inquiry, totalling 6500, demonstrates “how broad the support is for a sensible plan to tackle emissions reduction and management of climate change risk”.

“The inquiry’s two public hearings offer a significant opportunity for the public to hear from the private and public sectors on the impact of climate change and how we tackle it and make a difference,” she said.

“As we have seen in the UK, climate change policy can be bipartisan.

“The world is heading to net zero by 2050 led by US President Joe Biden. It’s time Prime Minister Scott Morrison sets Australia on the right path.

“Dragging this out and delaying significant emissions reduction will only cost more and increase risks to our communities.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman Source: Supplied
In an interview with The Weekend Australian last week, Mr Morrison said he would not be updating the country’s medium-term emissions reduction targets ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in December.

“It is about whether you can produce hydrogen at the right cost, it is about whether (carbon capture and storage) can be done at the right cost, it is whether we can produce low emissions steel and aluminium at the right cost,” Mr Morrison said.

“That is how you actually get to net zero. You don’t get there by just having some commitment.

“That is where the discussion has to go and I think the Biden administration provides an opportunity to really pursue that with some enthusiasm.”

Late last year, Energy Minister Angus Taylor told ABC Radio a “net zero across-the-board 2050 target” would mean a 2030 target around 43 per cent.

“That will destroy jobs, that will require taxes, that will impose costs on Australian energy consumers and raise the price of electricity in this country,” he said.

Australia is party to the Paris Agreement, aiming to keep global warming to well below 2C.

Ms Steggall won the blue-ribbon Sydney seat of Warringah in 2019, held by former prime minister Tony Abbott since 1994.

Her proposed legislation is backed by the Greens and several crossbenchers including Rebekha Sharkie, Andrew Wilkie and Helen Haines.

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(AU) ‘Breathtaking’: What Joe Biden’s Sweeping Climate Plan Means For Scott Morrison

The Guardian - 

As the US president vows to push the rest of the world to do more on climate change, the prime minister will face increasing pressure to measure up

Joe Biden has declared climate change an existential threat to the planet and pledged to put ‘environmental justice’ at the heart of all decision-making. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock
When John Kerry, the United States’ new special presidential envoy for climate, stepped up to speak to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday he had Australia on his mind.

The former secretary of state had been struck by an article in the New York Times by the author Michael Benson that described satellite images of the “flame vortexes” that spiralled into the atmosphere as the continent’s wildlife burned a year ago, sending a plume across New Zealand and into the Pacific.

It was, Kerry said, evidence of the urgency of climate change “literally all around us”.

He quoted Benson: “In the end Australia’s fires killed dozens of people, destroyed 5,900 buildings and quite likely, according to the best science, rendered some of the country’s endangered species extinct.

“With shocking iconographic precision, that unfurling banner of smoke said: ‘The war has started, we’re losing’.”

The expectation that Joe Biden would move quickly to reverse US recalcitrance on the climate crisis under Donald Trump has built since his election, but even those expecting an ambitious re-positioning have been stunned by the pace and breadth of the changes made.

The new president made a detailed and multi-part executive order on Wednesday, a week after signing papers to re-join the Paris agreement on his first day in office.

Observers who spoke with Guardian Australia about the plan emphasised the comprehensiveness of the Biden administration’s vision.

The order embeds dealing with the climate emergency across all government operations, with a particular focus on its importance in foreign policy and national security.

It underscores the scale of the international pressure the Morrison government is likely to face this year if it maintains its resistance to making the science-based commitments expected under the 2015 climate pact.

Where the Morrison government prefers not to use the term “climate change”, having banished it from the ministry and its main emissions reduction policy, Biden declared it an “existential threat to the planet” and his order says there is only “a narrow moment to pursue action at home and abroad” to avoid “the most catastrophic impacts” and to seize opportunities to create jobs.

His instructions include pausing and reviewing oil and gas drilling on federal land, doubling energy from offshore windfarms by 2030, moving federal government agencies from fossil fuel to clean cars, setting a goal of conserving at least 30% of lands and oceans by 2030, and ordering a national intelligence estimate on the economic and security implications of climate change.

The White House will introduce an office of domestic climate policy to coordinate Biden’s agenda, a national climate taskforce comprising of 21 government agency leaders and an environmental justice interagency council to address racial and economic inequities exacerbated by climate change and air and water pollution. 

It hopes to pass a $2tn clean energy package, with 40% of investments aimed at disadvantaged communities.

Bill Hare, chief executive of Berlin-based Climate Analytics and an adviser to developing countries on climate change for decades, says the scope of Biden’s actions so far has been surprising.

“It’s more than people thought they would do,” he says. “It’s comprehensive and coherent. Breathtaking really is the word.”

Martijn Wilder, a former chair of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and founding partner of the climate advisory firm Pollination, says he believes Biden’s plan is “the most comprehensive plan by any government ever on climate change”, and people were yet to fully grasp its significance, particularly in terms of national security and foreign policy.

How Biden intends to wield his influence internationally will become clearer in the lead up to a major economies climate summit he plans to host on Earth Day, 22 April. 

He has set the summit as a deadline to announce a new emissions reduction target for 2030 to put the US on the path to net zero by 2050. He has already promised a carbon-free power supply by 2035.

In contrast, Scott Morrison has said he will not increase what is widely seen as an unambitious 2030 emissions target (a 26-28% cut below 2005 levels) this year. 

The government has pulled out of the global climate fund, and continues to resist a mid-century net zero emissions target despite it being backed by more than 120 countries collectively responsible for about three-quarters of global GDP.

There is a growing expectation Morrison may relent on that point before a year-ending UN climate summit in Glasgow. 

But scientists and parts of the international community say a net zero target for 2050 would mean little unless backed by a detailed plan to get there, including deeper emissions cuts this decade. 

A group of policymakers and scientists this week released an analysis warning Australia should be aiming for net zero emissions well before 2050 if it was to take a science-based approach.
This isn’t a fly-by-night effort. This is a serious change to government operations and ... it is going to have a profound effect globally
Howard Bamsey
Reports have suggested the government believes it will not come under pressure from the US to do more on climate after an initial phone call between Kerry and the emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, which is said to have included discussion about establishing a working group on developing low-emissions technology.

Analysts largely dismiss this as bravado or wishful-thinking, but it is unclear how forceful and direct any pressure would be.

John Morton, a former senior director for energy and climate change in Barack Obama’s national security council and now a Washington DC-based partner in Pollination, says Biden has left no doubt in his first 10 days that he plans to do exactly what he promised on climate.

His rhetoric before taking office included using “every tool of American foreign policy to push the rest of the world” to do more.

“Climate is a top priority for his government. I think it would be foolhardy to expect the Biden administration would not pursue it in its interactions with Australia. It will with every country, but particularly countries with significant means and significant fossil fuel and extractive industries,” Morton says.

“Australia obviously fits into both of these categories. I think Australia has to expect this will play a central role in how the US deals and hopes to interact collaboratively with it.”

Hare says it is unlikely US will accept a belated commitment to a net zero goal for 2050 as a substantial shift in Australia’s stance. “They’ll want to see an improvement in the 2030 target,” he says.

John Kerry, the United States’ new special presidential envoy for climate, said the Australian bushfires were evidence of the urgency of climate change ‘literally all around us’. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images
The international push for Australia to do more is not coming from the US alone. Morrison was embarrassed when rejected for a speaking slot at a leaders’ climate ambition summit in December due to Australia’s perceived lack of ambition, and is likely to come under similar pressure ahead of a G7 meeting in Cornwall in June.

The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has invited the leaders of Australia, India and South Korea to attend every session of the summit in what is seen as an attempt to turn the forum into a D10 meeting of major democracies.

Diplomatic sources say Britain has made clear climate and energy will be a top priority at the summit, and it plans to push for commitments on both net zero emissions by 2050 and deeper cuts and financial commitments to help developing countries for 2030.

With every G7 member having already adopted a carbon neutrality goal, the expectation is the three guests will be pressed to put their names to an ambitious communique.

Morrison appeared to pre-emptively respond to this push in an interview with the Australian last week in which he argued the political debate over whether to act on climate change was over, and it was now just a matter of how - and, by implication, when – emissions were reduced.

He said he would tell the G7 and G20 that his priority was to take action by developing technology, not committing to new emissions goals.

It puts him directly at odds with Kerry, who stressed this week that all countries must increase ambition before meeting in Glasgow in November “or we will all fail”.

Howard Bamsey, a former Australian special envoy on climate change and executive director of the green climate fund, now an honorary professor at the Australian National University, says an underlying message from the US beyond the specifics is the extent to which its plans had been considered and mapped out before taking office.

In one sense, this isn’t surprising. Many of the people in key roles are former Obama administration officials, and Biden signalled his plans on climate change in advance in a way no other incoming president has.

Bamsey says people should be reassured that his administration is clear in what it is doing, and that Kerry has emphasised it was being realistic about what could be achieved.

It also means it is more likely to follow through.

“This isn’t a fly-by-night effort. This is a very serious change to government operations and now they have put it in a national security setting it is going to have a very profound effect globally,” Bamsey says. “It’s really hard to see the Australian government keep resisting.”

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