Lethal Heating: 04/17/21

17/04/2021

(AU SMH) What Keeps Climate Scientists Like Me Awake At Night - And Why The Next 10 Years Are So Critical

Sydney Morning Herald - Lesley Hughes

Author

Lesley Hughes, a spokeswoman for the Climate Council, is a professor of biology and pro vice-chancellor at Macquarie University.

Every day, thousands of Australians find or experience a bodily symptom that could be a harbinger of something serious. Perhaps a suspicious lump, or a mole that has changed colour, or unusual gut pain.

The sensible strategy, and one that most of us would take, would be to hightail it to our doctor at the earliest opportunity to get it checked out. Should the news be bad, most people would seek the life-saving treatment they need.

At 1C warming, Australians already confronts drought and catastrophic fires. We don’t want to countenance warming of 3C. Credit: Nick Moir

But what if you decide to wait – let’s say for a few years, or even a decade to two, perhaps to 2050 or beyond. By then, you might reason, imaging technology and treatments will have improved, so no point rushing things. This second strategy is clearly reckless, potentially putting your health, and perhaps life, in real danger - and unnecessarily so.

But this is exactly what our federal government is doing by delaying real action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – putting our livelihoods, our environmental support system, and our children’s futures at risk – and unnecessarily so.

The latest report from the Climate Council of Australia, Aim High, Go Fast: Why Emissions Need to Plummet This Decade, lays out the science behind the necessity of urgent near-term climate action. The diagnosis is in, now the treatment must be ramped up with a greater sense of urgency than ever before, and we have to do it in the next 10 years.

Why this decade? Imagine that the accumulated greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere is a mountain that we need to scale and then descend as quickly as possible. The problem is that this mountain is not a solid, stable piece of terrain but is getting higher and steeper every day. The longer we delay getting to the top and start to head down, the higher the mountain becomes, and the tougher the challenge.

Facing the climate ‘endgame’ in a world bound for 1.5 degrees warming

What we have to lose by not getting over the mountain has been laid out in forensic detail by climate scientists for decades – more frequent and severe weather events like floods, bushfires, heatwaves, droughts. Declining crops, loss of species, degraded ecosystems, and higher insurance bills are just some of the consequences.

For Australia, this could manifest in the loss of coral reefs, uncontrollable bushfires every year, a ravaged coastline, and uninsurable assets.

With just over 1C of global warming we have already lost half the hard coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef, a global icon that provides billions to the Australian economy and employs tens of thousands of people.

After the hottest and driest year on record in 2019, the Black Summer bushfires affected 8 million Australians, with more than 30 killed directly and another 400 deaths attributable to smoke inhalation. Half our ancient Gondwanan rainforests were burnt, probably irreparably, and three billion vertebrate animals were killed or displaced.

Unless we radically reduce emissions in the next few years, we are on track for about 3 degrees of warming by the end of this century. With the impacts of just over 1 degree already a clear and present danger, you don’t need to be a climate scientist to do the future maths.

All this should be serious enough to warrant significant action. But if I can stretch the mountain analogy a bit further, the thing that keeps climate scientists awake at night is the real prospect that the summit could become so high and so unstable that an avalanche – a tipping point – could be triggered.

At worst, a runaway greenhouse effect could take the Earth’s climate system beyond a point where human life and civilisation could be sustained.

Australia to use Biden summit to repair ‘climate wars’ damage

To do our fair global share, Australia needs to triple the level of its current ambition to cut emissions and aim for a 75 per cent reduction by 2030, and net zero by 2035. Net zero by 2050 is at least a decade too late.

This means no new coal mines, no “gas-led recovery”, no more magical thinking about some new method of carbon capture and storage. We’ve got the sun, wind, land and water. We’ve got the brains, the science and the technology to do it now.

US President Joe Biden’s upcoming climate summit is a golden opportunity for Australia to finally shed its status as – in his climate envoy John Kerry’s words – a “roadblock” to climate action.

We need to commit to a 2030 target that is ambitious and fair. There is no safe level of global warming, and every fraction of a degree of avoided heating will be measured in lives, ecosystems and communities saved.

What will happen to our cities (and beaches) at 3 degrees of warming?

With concerted action we can still hold global average temperature to well below 2C. We need to act in our national interest by being a leader of solutions, not clinging to 18th century technology.

The task ahead is undoubtedly challenging, but just as a healthy lifestyle has more benefits than just longevity, so too does concerted climate action – clean jobs, clean manufacturing, new export opportunities and regenerated landscapes.

Delay is the new denial. Putting off treatment for a serious medical problem is reckless.

The climate emergency must be approached with the same sense of urgency.

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(BBC) World's Wealthiest 'At Heart Of Climate Problem'

BBC - Roger Harrabin

Copyright PA Media

The world’s wealthy must radically change their lifestyles to tackle climate change, a report says.

It says the world's wealthiest 1% produce double the combined carbon emissions of the poorest 50%, according to the UN.

The wealthiest 5% alone – the so-called “polluter elite” - contributed 37% of emissions growth between 1990 and 2015.

The authors want to deter SUV drivers and frequent fliers – and persuade the wealthy to insulate their homes well.

The report urges the UK government to reverse its decision to scrap air passenger duty on UK return flights.

And it wants ministers to re-instate the Green Homes Grant scheme they also scrapped recently.

The document has come from the UK-based Cambridge Sustainability Commission on Scaling Behaviour Change.

It’s a panel of 31 individuals who study people’s behaviour relating to the environment. They were tasked to find the most effective way of scaling up action to tackle carbon emissions.

Their critics say the best way to cut emissions faster is through technological improvements - not through measures that would prove unpopular.

But the lead author of the report, Prof Peter Newell, from Sussex University, told BBC News: “We are totally in favour of technology improvements and more efficient products - but it’s clear that more drastic action is needed because emissions keep going up.

“We have got to cut over-consumption and the best place to start is over-consumption among the polluting elites who contribute by far more than their share of carbon emissions.

Copyright Getty Images

“These are people who fly most, drive the biggest cars most and live in the biggest homes which they can easily afford to heat, so they tend not to worry if they’re well insulated or not.

“They’re also the sort of people who could really afford good insulation and solar panels if they wanted to.”

Prof Newell said that to tackle climate change, everyone needs to feel part of a collective effort – so that means the rich consuming less to set an example to poorer people.

He continued: “Rich people who fly a lot may think they can offset their emissions by tree-planting schemes or projects to capture carbon from the air. But these schemes are highly contentious and they’re not proven over time.

The wealthy, he said, “simply must fly less and drive less. Even if they own an electric SUV that’s still a drain on the energy system and all the emissions created making the vehicle in the first place”.

Sam Hall, from the Conservative Environment Network, told BBC News: "It’s right to emphasise the importance of fairness in delivering (emissions cuts) - and policy could make it easier for people and businesses to go green - through incentives, targeted regulation and nudges.

“But encouraging clean technologies is likely to be more effective, and more likely to enjoy public consent, than hefty penalties or lifestyle restrictions."

But Prof Newell said existing political structures allowed wealthy firms and individuals to lobby against necessary changes in society that might erode the lifestyles of the rich.

The recent report of the UK Climate Assembly, for example, proposed a series of measures targeting carbon-intensive behaviours such as shifting away from meat and dairy produce; banning the most polluting SUVs; and imposing frequent flyer levies.

The Treasury told BBC News that a frequent flyer levy might require the government to collect and store personal information on each passenger.

This could raise issues of data processing, handling and privacy issues. It would also be hard to keep track of people with multiple passports.

But the commission’s report said: “The goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change cannot be achieved without radical changes to lifestyles and shifts in behaviour, especially among the wealthiest members of society.

“If change across society is to be brought about at the speed and scale required to meet agreed climate targets, we need to shrink and share: reduce carbon budgets and share more equally.”

The report is the latest in a long-running dialogue over what it means to be “fair” while tackling climate change.

Poorer nations such as India have consistently argued that they should be allowed to increase their pollution because it’s so much lower per person than emissions from rich nations.

The issue forms part of the tangled tapestry of negotiations behind next week’s climate summit organised by President Biden and the COP climate summit in the UK scheduled for November.

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(SMH AU) Damage Bill From Natural Disasters To Treble By 2061

Sydney Morning Herald - Matt Wade | Nick O'Malley

More frequent and intense natural disasters fuelled by climate change are forecast to cost NSW between $15.8 and $17.2 billion a year by 2061 – more than three times the current damage bill from weather-related destruction.

A NSW Treasury study on climate change risk predicts rising sea levels will expose between 39,000 and 46,000 properties in the state to coastal erosion or inundation by 2061, causing property damage and loss of land estimated at between $850 million and $1.3 billion each year.

Flooding along the Macdonald River last month. Credit: Janie Barrett

More prevalent heatwaves will also take a heavy economic toll in coming decades – between 700,000 and 2.7 million additional days of work are forecast to be lost every year by 2061 due to the higher frequency of very hot weather.

Agriculture in the state will also suffer. By 2061, lost production in agriculture due to changed rainfall patterns, runoff and temperatures is estimated to be between $750 million and $1.5 billion.

The forecasts are included in a new technical research paper that will inform the state government’s next intergenerational report, due to be published in mid-2021.

The research paper evaluated how climate change would affect natural disasters, sea level rise, heatwaves and agricultural production over the next 40 years under three global warming scenarios defined by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a lower warming scenario, an intermediate scenario and a higher warming scenario.

Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said the report showed that the state must continue to invest strongly in resilience initiatives.

“Australia has always been a land of extremes, and risk associated with our climate is something we deal with year in and year out,” he told the Herald.

“Just last month communities across the state battled floods following years of drought and some of the worst bushfires in recent memory.

“The report projects that these risks will likely continue and increase into the future, and that they will likely also carry significant costs for the state.”

In 2019 Mr Perrottet stood by an earlier address he had made to the conservative think tank the Centre for Independent Studies arguing that Labor and the Greens overspent on climate change bodies and downplaying the significance of Australia’s contribution to global warming.

According to the new report, bushfires are expected to increase more than other natural disasters, with the change in risk estimated at between 2 and 24 per cent by 2061 for NSW, depending on whether global warming is at the lower or higher end of the forecast range.

Sydney desalination plant churning out water even as dams remain full

Flood risk is projected to increase by up to 12 per cent by 2061 while the risks posed by severe storms – including hail and thunderstorms, east coast lows and the effects of tropical cyclones – is forecast to increase by between 2 and 5 per cent by 2061.

The report projects the total economic costs of natural disasters in NSW to increase to between $15.8 billion and $17.2 billion a year by 2061 (in real 2019-20 dollars), up from $5.1 billion in 2020-21.

However, the damage bill could vary greatly from year to year.

“If recent variability in the actual instance of natural disasters was repeated, total economic costs in any single year could range from $30 million to $75 billion (real 2019-20 dollars) under the intermediate warming scenario,” the report said.

‘Black water’: The three Australian sites that are ground zero for climate change

The spate of severe natural disasters in NSW during the past 18 months including drought, bush fires and floods has drawn attention to the threat climate change poses to the state’s economic and fiscal position.

“In 2019-20, economic output in the agricultural sector was the weakest in a decade following a prolonged drought, and the NSW government spent a record amount on natural disaster relief,” the Treasury report says.

The impact of climate change, particularly under higher warming scenarios, is expected to significantly intensify in the second half of the 21st century, a period beyond the scope of the Treasury study.

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