Climate Crisis May Have Pushed World's Tropical Coral Reefs To Tipping Point Of 'Near-Annual' Bleaching

The Guardian - Graham Readfearn

Exclusive: Mass bleaching seen along Great Barrier Reef could mark start of global-scale event, expert warns

Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Sea temperatures over the reef were the highest on record this February. There are fears the world’s tropical coral reefs may have reached a tipping point of bleaching nearly every year. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo

Rising ocean temperatures could have pushed the world’s tropical coral reefs over a tipping point where they are hit by bleaching on a “near-annual” basis, according to the head of a US government agency program that monitors the globe’s coral reefs.

Dr Mark Eakin, coordinator of Coral Reef Watch at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Guardian Australia there was a risk that mass bleaching seen along the length of the Great Barrier Reef in 2020 could mark the start of another global-scale bleaching event.

Tropical coral reefs tend to be at a higher risk of bleaching during times when the Pacific Ocean is in a phase known as El Niño. The latest bleaching on the reef has hit during this cycle’s neutral phase.

“The real concern is with this much bleaching without tropical forcing,” Eakin said. “This may be a sign we’ve now tipped over to near-annual bleaching in many locations.”

“It’s quite concerning that we are getting this much heat stress across the Great Barrier Reef in an Enso [El Niño southern oscillation]-neutral year.

“What we are seeing on the Great Barrier Reef and potentially elsewhere is really being driven just by anthropogenic climate change.

“If we get another El Niño, the odds are almost 100% that we will see another global bleaching event.”

Aerial surveys of 1,020 individual reefs completed across the length of the 2,300km marine park confirmed last week a third mass bleaching event in only five years.

“That’s already pushing awfully close to near-annual bleaching,” added Eakin.

It’s been a shitty, exhausting day on the #GreatBarrierReef.

I feel like an art lover wandering through the Louvre....as it burns to the ground. pic.twitter.com/I0Mx7epLCe

— Terry Hughes (@ProfTerryHughes) March 26, 2020

Corals bleach when they sit in abnormally hot water for too long. Reefs and corals can recover from mild bleaching, but severe and prolonged heat stress can kill corals.

In back-to-back bleaching in 2016 and 2017, about half the reef’s corals died.

Eakin said that in January Coral Reef Watch’s models were warning that heat stress would build across the reef in February and March. Sea temperatures over the Great Barrier Reef were the highest on record this February.

Satellite data later confirmed the modelling results which, Eakin said, was received “with a sense of dread” among scientists.

“I was not ready to have another bleaching event this quickly,” he said.

Eakin said the agency’s modelling for the next four months was showing a “classic pattern of heat stress” that had preceded previous global bleaching events.

Heat was predicted to rise first in the southern Indian Ocean, then to south-east Asia and into the Coral Triangle.

He said it was “too early” to say if a global bleaching event was on the way, but “it would not really surprise me”.

Eakin said that when severe bleaching causes mass mortality of corals, “those events take a decade or more for recovery. We are seeing these events far too frequently”.

As the planet gains heat from increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, about 90% of that extra heat is taken up by oceans. In January, a study of heat down to 2km in depth concluded that 2019 was the warmest year on record.

Eakin said ocean heat content data showed the world’s oceans were gaining heat. “There’s so much heat that has been absorbed in the upper ocean that all the coral reefs are much closer now to their bleaching threshold. As result, it’s very easy to tip them over.”

Data from nine days of aerial surveys over the Great Barrier Reef, carried out in mid-March, are being analysed and compiled at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.

Dr Neal Cantin, a senior coral biologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, said because of the warming of the oceans caused by climate change, “we are already committed to more frequent and more severe bleaching in the next decade”.

Cantin said the Australian Institute of Marine Science would be carrying out monitoring of sites in the coming months to see which corals had survived this event and how 2020 had impacted recovery from previous bleaching.

“We need to understand the full extent of significant mortality,” he said.

Many areas of the Great Barrier Reef are known to have experienced severe bleaching this summer, likely killing many corals, but others, including tourist reefs near Cairns and the Whitsundays, only experienced mild bleaching. Most offshore reefs in the far north escaped bleaching entirely.

Scientists fear images of heat-stressed, bleached coral at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef taken in February could be the start of another mass bleaching event. Photograph: Dr Lyle Vail, Director of the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Research Station

“With mild bleaching, the animal survives but growth is slowed and they become more susceptible to disease,” said Associate Prof Tracy Ainsworth at the University of New South Wales.

She said mild bleaching can also impact the ability of the corals to spawn which can slow recovery from impacts.

“We have known for 20 years that probably by about 2020, we would start to see annual bleaching.”

Eakin added: “Even if the corals don’t die, bleached corals are injured and starving and they are more susceptible to disease. They will also reduce their reproductive output in a bleaching year and the year after.”

A 2019 study found bleaching in 2016 and 2017 had caused the numbers of new baby corals produced in 2018 to crash by 89%.

Cantin said that unlike in 2016 and 2017, the bleaching in 2020 appeared to have covered “the entire system” of the Great Barrier Reef.

Corals have a symbiotic relationship with algae that delivers nutrients and colour to the animal.

“Completely white coral means it has lost probably 95-100% of their symbiont algae and they will struggle to recover,” Cantin said.

“With moderate-level bleaching you will see the tips go white with some sections still having pigmentation left – they do have a good chance of surviving,” he said.

The Great Barrier Reef’s values as a world heritage-listed location are due for review at a meeting scheduled in China in June. Unesco has said that meeting is under review due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In December 2019, Australia submitted a report to the committee that conceded climate change had impacted the reef’s values as a world heritage site since it was first listed in 1981.

Links

• Great Barrier Reef’s latest bleaching confirmed by marine park authority
• 'Probably the worst year in a century': Australia's environmental toll of 2019
• Great Barrier Reef world heritage values damaged by climate change, government admits
• (AU) Great Barrier Reef’s Latest Bleaching Confirmed By Marine Park Authority
• (AU) Climate Change The Biggest Threat To Great Barrier Reef: Ley
• This Is No Time For Hunches – We Need Evidence And Expertise In Science
• AgForce Backs Calls For Review Of Consensus Science On Great Barrier Reef
• Great Barrier Reef Outlook Now 'Very Poor', Australian Government Review Says
• Great Barrier Reef Authority Urges 'Fastest Possible Action' On Emissions
• Morrison Government Experts Say Australia Must 'Do More' On Climate
• ‘Sadness, Disgust, Anger’: Fear For The Great Barrier Reef Made Climate Change Feel Urgent
• Radical Climate Action 'Critical' To Great Barrier Reef's Survival, Government Body Says
• Legal Protections Urged As Science Gears Up To Aid Great Barrier Reef

'Very Un-Antarctic': When The Icy Continent Was Not Very Cold At All

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

Temperatures soared over much of Antarctica this past summer, prompting researchers to declare the first heatwave ever recorded at Australia's Casey station.

While the Antarctic Peninsula is well known to be among the fastest warming regions of the planet because of climate change, the continent's east had been relatively sheltered from the global heating.

Antarctic heatwave. Antarctica’s plants and animals depend largely on melting snow and ice for their water supply. Picture: Sharon Robinson/UOW

In a paper published on Tuesday in Global Change Biology, scientists from the University of Wollongong (UOW), Australian Antarctic Division, University of Tasmania and University of Santiago, Chile, identified periods of very unusual warmth that affected Antarctica’s ecosystems.

While record Antarctic heat in February made headlines around the world, the first signs of the heatwave actually appeared in the east of the continent several weeks earlier.

Over the 23-26 January period, "Casey experienced minimum temperatures above zero and maximum temperatures above 7.5 degrees, with its highest maximum temperature ever, 9.2 degrees on 24 January, followed by its highest minimum of 2.5 degrees the following morning", Sharon Robinson, a UOW climate change biologist, said.

“In the 31-year record for Casey, this maximum is 6.9 degrees higher than the mean maximum temperature for the station, while the minimum is 0.2 degrees higher.”

Professor Robinson said Chilean counterparts studying the moss of King George Island also registered the spike in temperatures. While a typical December-February period, such as a year earlier, would see the mercury rising above 14 degrees for 3 per cent of the year, this past summer saw that proportion there jump to 14 per cent.

A tide gauge is deployed in an ice hole at Casey research station, the site of an Antarctic "heatwave" earlier this year. Credit:Imojen Pearce/AAD

Those readings were "not very Antarctic", she said, adding that for areas where the temperature usually remained below zero, "it's very worrying" since many plants such as mosses and animals have adapted to the normally frigid conditions.

The heatwave definition was based on a similar measure used in Australia of three days and nights of temperatures in the top 10 per cent of readings for that date.

The success of global efforts to reduced ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbon chemicals (CFCs) was one of the reasons for this summer's exceptional warmth along with the background climate warming.

As the ozone hole over Antarctica has closed, the strong westerly winds have abated, allowing the rising temperatures to reach regions - such as Casey station - that had previously been shielded, Professor Robinson said.

The past summer's heatwave "is probably a harbinger of the future, as we have stopped production of CFCs", she said. "A lot people think of Antarctic as pristine and protected but climate change gets everywhere, so it's not protected."

Links

• 'Dangerously close': Tipping points may trigger climate cascade
• Visualizing The Quantities Of Climate Change
• Guest Post: How Close Is The West Antarctic Ice Sheet To A ‘Tipping Point’?
• Antarctica Logs Hottest Temperature On Record With A Reading Of 18.3C
• Past Antarctic Ice Melt Reveals Potential For 'Extreme Sea-Level Rise'
• If Warming Exceeds 2°C, Antarctica’s Melting Ice Sheets Could Raise Seas 20 Metres In Coming Centuries
• Iceberg The Size Of Sydney Breaks Off Amery Ice Shelf In Antarctica
• Rare Weather Event Over Antarctica Driving Australia's Hot, Dry Outlook
• West Antarctica Is Melting—And It’s Our Fault

(US) Trump To Roll Back Obama-Era Clean Car Rules In Huge Blow To Climate Fight

The Guardian - Emily Holden

▶Announcement will allow vehicles to emit 1bn more tons of CO2
▶Experts say move will lead to more life-threatening air pollution

Motor vehicles drive on the 101 freeway in Los Angeles, California. Critics say the move will lead to more life-threatening air pollution and force Americans to spend more on gasoline. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

The Trump administration is rolling back the US government’s strongest attempt to combat the climate crisis, weakening rules which compel auto companies to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. Critics say the move will lead to more life-threatening air pollution and force Americans to spend more on gasoline.

The changes to Obama-era regulations will allow vehicles to emit about a billion more tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide – equivalent to roughly a fifth of annual US emissions.

The rollback is one of dozens Trump officials have ushered to completion, seeking to bolster the fossil fuel industry amid intense opposition from Democratic-led states and pushback from world leaders.

Experts say the world is far off track in dealing with the climate emergency, following a year of record-breaking heat, rising hunger, displacement and loss of life due to extreme temperatures and weather disasters.

Donald Trump is expected to laud the new rule as a boost to the US economy, which has been hit by the coronavirus pandemic. His administration says weakening the standards will make cars about $1,000 cheaper, leading Americans to buy new and safer models more frequently and resulting in fewer crash fatalities.

"Coronavirus preys on people with respiratory problems, and this dirty air rule will make more Americans vulnerable"
Miles Keogh, NACAA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief, Andrew Wheeler, said in a statement: “Now, more than ever, this country needs a sensible national program that strikes the right regulatory balance for the environment, the auto industry, the economy, safety, and American families.

“[This rule] does all of those things by improving fuel economy, continuing to reduce air pollution, and making new vehicles more affordable for all Americans.”

Researchers dispute such logic.

Miles Keogh, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, an organization of state and local air regulators, called the timing of the rule change “appalling”.

He said: “We know coronavirus preys on people with respiratory problems, and this dirty air rule will make more Americans vulnerable.”

The Obama administration required auto companies to make vehicles 4.7% more efficient each year. The Trump administration initially wanted to freeze any progress on fuel efficiency past 2020. But its final rule, written by the EPA and the Department of Transportation, sets an improvement rate of 1.5% per year – or an industry average of 40.4 miles per gallon by 2026.

That’s far less than the 2.4% per year by which the industry has said it will increase standards without any regulation.

The rollback has drawn opposition from nearly half of states and a significant portion of the auto industry. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia, representing about half of US residents, sued over the changes. They said weakening the standards would kill about 2,000 more people and cause 50,000 more cases of respiratory illnesses, while making the climate crisis worse.

California has long instituted more stringent auto standards than the federal government, but the Trump administration has revoked the state’s authority to do so. The state last year struck a deal with four companies – Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and BMW of North America – to exceed what Trump is asking for and require cars, trucks and SUVs to get nearly 50 miles per gallon on average by 2026.

Democratic-run states and environmental advocates are expected to challenge the new regulation. They are already fighting the Trump administration over its weakening of dozens of other environment and public health protections.

Ann Carlson, a professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, said the legal fight will be “one of the hardest fought, in part because it’s the most significant”.

Carlson believes the rollback is meant to maintain demand for gasoline, which is expected to fall as vehicles become more efficient and transition to electricity.

“You can make cars with zero emissions now, zero greenhouse gases that don’t run on petroleum, any more,” Carlson said. “So I think the big beneficiaries are absolutely the oil companies.”

The rule change comes as many communities around the US are seeing a decline in air quality, a result of climate change, wildfires, higher temperatures, regulatory rollbacks and poor enforcement of regulations, said Paul Billings, senior vice-president of advocacy for the American Lung Association.

“This will mean there will be more pollution associated with oil extraction, transport, refining – sort of all the way from the well to the pump,” Billings said. “This will mean high levels of smog, more coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, asthma attacks, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) exacerbations and also more particulate pollution.”

The effects will be worse on communities near oil processing facilities and highways, often people of color and poorer Americans.

Links

• New US measures threaten civil rights amid coronavirus pandemic
• Trump administration to roll back Obama-era pollution regulations'
• The war on coal is over': EPA boss to roll back Obama's clean power rules
• Automakers snub Trump to side with climate crisis, says Obama-era official
• Trump rolls back climate change rule that restricted new coal plants
• Trump races against clock to roll back major Obama-era environment rules
• How the Trump administration is rolling back plans for clean power
• California vows to 'fight this stupidity' as EPA moves to scrap clean car rules
• Trump to sign executive order undoing Obama's clean power plan

With The Climate Crisis And Coronavirus Bearing Down On Us, The Age Of Disconnection Is Over

The Guardian - Tim Hollo

With the climate crisis and coronavirus bearing down on us, the age of disconnection is over 

‘What started to become clear thanks to the fires was rammed home by Covid-19. We are only as healthy as the least healthy among us’ Photograph: Blend Images/Dave and Les Jacobs/Getty Images

Tim Hollo is executive director of the Green Institute and visiting fellow at The Australian National University’s School of Regulation and Global Government (RegNet).

Everything is connected. It’s hard to imagine right now that, just weeks ago, the truism of ecological politics was treated as hippy nonsense by mainstream politics.

Announcing the statutory review of the commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) last October, the Morrison government pitched it as an opportunity to weaken the Howard era laws even further and make it easier still for environmentally destructive projects to be approved. And, regardless of clear statements from scientists and strong advocacy by campaign groups, it looked like it would get away with it because, back then, we were still living in the age of disconnection when the environment and the economy could be seen as separate things, in competition with each other.

But then the summer arrived, delivering one after the other two massive wake-up calls. In the age of consequences, with the climate crisis and a deadly pandemic bearing down on us, it’s impossible to pretend that we are separate from each other and from the natural world.

A pandemic, more than almost any other phenomenon, shows that all our lives are inextricably intertwined, for now and forever, whether we like it or not. It brings into sharp focus the impossibility of trying to keep economics, health, environment, education and social justice treated as separate questions with separate answers. It heightens awareness of our vital need, as social beings, to stay connected to each other as well as we possibly can while keeping our physical distance.

It shows how the “efficient”, on-demand world that capitalism has constructed is so incredibly fragile that a series of shocks can bring it to the point of collapse. And with the rules of neoliberal economics being broken by governments the world over, it demonstrates that massive policy interventions, shifting the entire structure of the global economy, are possible.

With the complete focus right now on Covid-19, it takes an effort to cast our minds back to this summer’s bushfires. They were, of course, far larger and fiercer than ever before, over a season that started when we were barely out of winter. Where previously bushfires had affected a small number of people, this season the smoke blanketing Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne, and the repeated evacuation of summer holiday spots, meant that most Australians were affected.

Covid-19, among other things, shows us the consequences of deregulating markets in health services, food supply and more

This heralded a shift in thinking that went deeper than personal impact. Perhaps due to the remarkably low loss of human life compared with the scale of the disaster, there was a tremendous focus on the more than a billion mammals, birds and reptiles killed. We mourned the thousands of koalas and the numerous species being pushed towards extinction if their habitats aren’t restored.

The true legacy of this summer could be a vital turning point in recognising that “the environment” isn’t something “over there”. The environment is the air we breathe and the water we drink; it’s the soil in which we grow our food; it’s the animals we identify with and the landscapes imprinted on our souls; the environment is us, all of us, together, integrally connected with everyone and everything else on this beautiful blue marble floating in space.

Damage the environment and we damage ourselves. And not just some of us – all of us together. Continue to think in our compartmentalised, linear fashion, and we’ll keep missing what’s coming, be it weeks of smoke, runs on toilet paper, or deadly pandemics.

What started to become clear thanks to the fires was rammed home by Covid-19. We are only as healthy as the least healthy among us. Everything we do relies on extraordinary networks of activity by people we’ve never met, crisscrossing the globe. And responding to a health crisis that was likely triggered in part by environmental destruction has world-changing impacts on the economy, on education, on social justice, on geopolitics.

To bring us back to where we started, where does that leave the review of the EPBC Act?

We have an opportunity now to not just push for a new generation of environment laws, but to re-evaluate the whole deal, to cultivate a new political settlement based on ecological principles of living well together in harmony with the natural world, understanding our place as part of it as First Peoples did for millenniums, with an economy designed to serve people and planet.

As part of this, in the immediate term we need to advocate for vital improvements to the EPBC. It is extraordinary that the Howard legacy of deliberately excluding a project’s climate impacts from the triggers to require assessment still hasn’t been remedied. That must now be fixed, as must the fact that there is no mechanism for assessing the cumulative ecological impacts of various proposals. After this summer’s destruction of huge areas of remaining healthy ecosystems, we need to institute, in both legislation and the practice of assessment, a presumption of protection instead of a culture of managed destruction.

All this will, of course, be attacked as “green tape” and we have to be ready to actively defend it instead of changing the subject – and defend it on ecological grounds. Regulation is a vital part of the connective tissue which holds the body politic together. Removing it sees us fall apart. Covid-19 is, among other things, showing us the consequences of deregulating markets in health services, food supply and more.

Having that conversation in this way means we won’t just be advocating for marginal improvements, but will be working to change politics. We’ll be building into the political common sense the idea that corporations absolutely should be regulated to enforce environmental and social responsibilities, and that we can no longer consider shareholder profit to be their sole focus. That helps move our politics towards altering the DNA of corporations so they operate as part of the body politic rather than as cancer cells.

The flip side of this systemic shift is to institute legal rights for the natural world. If BHP has legal rights, why shouldn’t the Great Barrier Reef? Rights of nature is an increasingly mature legal field, instituted from New Zealand to Bolivia, India to parts of the US. We can and should at least insert them as a normative principle in the goals of the EPBC.

While we’re thinking at that level, a new ecological political settlement will need a rethink of federalism. Our system sees national and state governments cooperating to shut out community participation and scientific advice to facilitate destructive development. An effective regime based on a presumption of protection would see federal, state, territory and local governments enabling communities to collectively develop creative ideas at their local level, within the context of expert scientific advice, and coordinating those ideas at a regional and continental level.

If we shift environmental regulation from a process that is primarily responsive to demands of developers into a proactive, constructive, community-led system, we can see it morph from a defensive protection stance into one of active restoration, repair and regeneration. It can lead to the greening of cities and towns as we embrace the fact that habitats are not just “over there” but among us. It can create industrial jobs in coalmine rehabilitation. It can support regenerative agriculture, and cooperative sharing of scarce water. It can even open space for community-led conversations about relocation as the overheating world retreats from rising seas and inland desertification is inevitable.

Supporting and enabling communities to make decisions is also vital for rebuilding confidence in democracy, which has collapsed in recent years. The ongoing panic-buying response to Covid-19 suggests that the abject failure of government to provide leadership through the fires worsened this further. This is now an opportunity to rethink governance, reclaim agency for communities, build practices of trust and social cohesion, embedded in respect for expert advice.

Now it’s important to recognise that with this government we’re not going to get these kinds of changes. At best we might hold off the push to weaken the EPBC even further. But that shouldn’t stop us advocating for what we need. Quite the opposite.

Politics, like the natural world it operates within, is a system. It works in complex ways because all it is is the collected actions of humans, influenced by each other and by external impetuses such as the weather. Or viruses.

Donella Meadows, the modern mother of systems thinking, wrote that the most effective leverage point to change a system is “the mindset or paradigm out of which the system ... arises”. It’s critical, then, that we confront the paradigm which sees environmental protection as of marginal importance at best, and as a barrier at worst. It’s vital that we challenge the mindsets of human disconnection from and dominance over nature.

Over the past three months, a huge number of people made that conceptual leap. In recent weeks the crisis has become such that even mainstream politics finds it impossible to ignore.

At the same time, over this period numerous people decided to just get on with it, without waiting for government. In both bushfire response and the tremendous mutual aid response to Covid-19, millions of us are setting up local projects, or joining existing ones, that make life better, generate social cohesion, reduce our footprint, and cultivate an ethic of care – for ourselves, for each other, for the natural world we are part of.

If enough of us start doing this in our communities, and if enough submissions to the EPBC inquiry call for reforms that are embedded in ecological thinking, we will be putting a whole lot of small chocks under the lever. Each of those chocks is tiny. But together they can tip the balance.

All of a sudden, especially at a moment like this, change will come.

Links

• 'The forest is now terribly silent': land set aside for threatened species entirely burnt out
• Coronavirus: 'Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief
• Professor Sees Climate Mayhem Lurking Behind Covid-19 Outbreak
• Here’s What The Coronavirus Pandemic Can Teach Us About Tackling Climate Change
• (US) The Analogy Between Covid-19 And Climate Change Is Eerily Precise
• $2tn US Coronavirus Relief Comes Without Climate Stipulations
• Coronavirus: 'Nature Is Sending Us A Message’, Says UN Environment Chief
• How Changes Brought On By Coronavirus Could Help Tackle Climate Change
• 5 Lessons From Coronavirus That Will Help Us Tackle Climate Change
• (US) Editorial: Climate Change Is Just As Real As Covid-19. Now’s The Last, Best Chance For Our Government To Treat It That Way

The Coronavirus Outbreak Is Part Of The Climate Change Crisis

Al Jazeera - Vijay Kolinjivadi

Therefore, climate action should be central to our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Greenpeace activists display a banner near logging trucks during a protest against forest destruction at Bukit Tiga Puluh in Indonesia''s Jambi province on August 5, 2010 [File: Reuters/Beawiharta]

Vijay Kolinjivadi is a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Development Policy at the University of Antwerp.

The speed and scope of the coronavirus outbreak have taken world governments by surprise and left the stock market reeling.

Since the virus first appeared in China's Hubei province, it has infected over 700,000 people and killed more than 33,000 across the world in less than six months.

The interconnectedness of our globalised world facilitated the spread of COVID-19. The disruption this continues to cause has made evident societal dependence on global production systems.

The pandemic has forced governments into a difficult balancing act between ensuring public safety and wellbeing and maintaining profit margins and growth targets. Ultimately, the prospect of a large death toll and the collapse of health systems have forced countries to put millions of people on lockdown.

These sweeping and unprecedented measures taken by the government and international institutions could not but make some of us wonder about another global emergency that needs urgent action - climate change.

The two emergencies are in fact quite similar. Both have their roots in the world's current economic model - that of the pursuit of infinite growth at the expense of the environment on which our survival depends - and both are deadly and disruptive.

In fact, one may argue that the pandemic is part of climate change and therefore, our response to it should not be limited to containing the spread of the virus. What we thought was "normal" before the pandemic was already a crisis and so returning to it cannot be an option.

The common roots of COVID-19 and climate change

Despite the persistent climate denialism in some policy circles, by now it is clear to the majority across the world that climate change is happening as a result of human activity - namely industrial production.

In order to continue producing - and being able to declare that their economy is growing - humans are harvesting the natural resources of the planet - water, fossil fuels, timber, land, ore, etc - and plugging them into an industrial cycle which puts out various consumables (cars, clothes, furniture, phones, processed food etc) and a lot of waste.

This process depletes the natural ability of the environment to balance itself and disrupts ecological cycles (for example deforestation leads to lower CO2 absorption by forests), while at the same time, it adds a large amount of waste (for example CO2 from burned fossil fuels). This, in turn, is leading to changes in the climate of our planet.

This same process is also responsible for COVID-19 and other outbreaks. The need for more natural resources has forced humans to encroach on various natural habitats and expose themselves to yet unknown pathogens.

At the same time, the growth of mass production of food has created large-scale farms, where massive numbers of livestock and poultry packed into megabarns. As socialist biologist Rob Wallace argues in his book Big Farms Make Big Flu, this has created the perfect environment for the mutation and emergence of new diseases such as hepatitis E, Nipah virus, Q fever, and others.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that three out of four new infectious diseases come from human-animal contact. The outbreaks of Ebola and other coronaviruses such as MERS, for instance, were triggered by a jump from animal to human in disturbed natural habitats.

In the case of COVID-19, it is suspected that the virus was transmitted to humans at a "wet market" in the city of Wuhan, where wildlife was being sold.

The mass-scale breeding of wild animals, including pangolins, civet cats, foxes, wild geese, and boar among many others is a $74bn industry in China and has been viewed as a get-rich-quick scheme by its rural population.

The origin of the virus makes it a perfect example of how the way capitalism commodifies life to turn it into profit can directly endanger human life. In this sense, the ongoing pandemic is the product of unrestrained capitalist production and consumption patterns and is very much part of the deleterious environmental changes it is causing.

The failure to contain it is also due to the capitalist drive of the global economy. In the United States, some have claimed that profit losses from the freezing of economic activity are not worth closing the country for business for more than 15 days.

The World Bank Group has also recently stated that structural adjustment reforms will need to be implemented to recover from COVID-19, including requirements for loans being tied to doing away with "excessive regulations, subsidies, licensing regimes, trade protection...to foster markets, choice, and faster growth prospects."

Doubling down on neoliberal policies which encourage the unrestrained abuse of resources would be a catastrophic prospect in a post-COVID-19 world. The suspension of environmental laws and regulations in the US is already a frightening sign of what returning to "normal" means for the establishment.

Climate change is happening

Although both COVID-19 and climate change are rooted in the same abusive economic behaviour and both have proven to be deadly for humans, governments have seen them as separate and unconnected phenomena and have therefore responded rather differently to them.

The vast majority of countries around the world - albeit with varying degrees of delay - have taken strict measures to curb the movement and gathering of people in order to contain the virus, even at the expense of economic growth.

The same has not happened with climate change. Current climate change measures have taken little heed of the scale and progression of the environmental changes we are experiencing. Climate change does not follow four-year election cycles or five-year economic plans. It does not wait for 2030 or 2050 Sustainable Development targets.

Various aspects of climate change progress at different speeds and in different locations and although for some of us these changes might not be obvious or palpable, they are happening. There are also certain thresholds which if crossed will cause change to be irreversible - whether in greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere, the loss of insect populations or the melting of the permafrost.

And while we do not get daily updates on the death toll caused by climate change, as we do with COVID-19, it is much deadlier than the virus.

Global warming of 3C and 4C above pre-industrial levels could easily lead to a series of catastrophic outcomes. It could severely affect our ability to produce food by decreasing the fertility of soils, intensifying droughts, causing coastal inundations, increasing the loss of pollinators, etc. It could also cause severe heatwaves across the world, which have already proven increasingly deadly both in terms of high temperatures and the wildfires they cause, as well as more extreme weather phenomena like hurricanes.

Pursuing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, carbon offsetting schemes, incremental eco-efficiencies, vegan diets for the wealthy and other similar tactics will not stop climate change because they do not discourage mass industrial production and consumption but simply shift their emphasis. Such approaches will never work because they do not entail the necessary radical change of our high-powered lives that is required to force us to slow down and reduce our emissions.

The rapid response to COVID-19 around the world illustrates the remarkable capacity of society to put the emergency brake on "business-as-usual" simply by acting in the moment. It shows that we can take radical action if we want to.

Lockdowns across the world have already resulted in a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants. In China, for instance, the lockdown caused carbon dioxide to drop by at least 25 percent and nitrogen dioxide by 37 percent.

Taking action

Yet, this temporary decrease in greenhouse gases should not be a cause for celebration. The fact is that as a result of the lockdowns, millions of people have already lost their jobs and billions will probably struggle amid the economic downturn the outbreak is causing.

While some have called for climate change to be just as drastic as the one undertaken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it should not be. We need a just climate transition which ensures the protection of the poor and most vulnerable and which is integrated into our pandemic response. This would not only reverse the climate disaster we are already living in but also minimise the risk of new pandemics like the current one breaking out.

The just climate transition should involve economic reforms to introduce "planned degrowth" that puts the wellbeing of people over profit margins. The first step towards that is ensuring the stimulus packages that governments are announcing across the world are not wasted on bailing out corporations.

We must avoid at all costs a situation where unscrupulous big businesses and state actors are allowed free reign to reinforce appalling global inequality while the rest of civil society is quarantined at home.

We should demand that government funds are instead allocated to decentralised renewable energy production in order to start implementing the Green New Deal and create new meaningful jobs amid the post-COVID-19 economic crisis. In parallel, we should ensure the provision of universal healthcare and free education, the extension of social protection for all vulnerable populations and the prioritisation of affordable housing.

The current response to COVID-19 could help usher in some of these changes. It could get us accustomed to lifestyles and work patterns that minimise consumption. It could encourage us to commute and travel less, reduce household waste, have shorter work weeks, and rely more on local supply chains - i.e. actions that do not hurt the livelihoods of the working classes but shift economic activity from a globalised to a more localised pattern.

Obviously, the conditions surrounding COVID-19 are not ideal, but the rapid and urgent actions in response to the virus and the inspiring examples of mutual aid also illustrate that society is more than capable of acting collectively in the face of grave danger to the whole of humanity.

Links

• Professor Sees Climate Mayhem Lurking Behind Covid-19 Outbreak
• Here’s What The Coronavirus Pandemic Can Teach Us About Tackling Climate Change
• (US) The Analogy Between Covid-19 And Climate Change Is Eerily Precise
• $2tn US Coronavirus Relief Comes Without Climate Stipulations
• Coronavirus: 'Nature Is Sending Us A Message’, Says UN Environment Chief
• How Changes Brought On By Coronavirus Could Help Tackle Climate Change
• 5 Lessons From Coronavirus That Will Help Us Tackle Climate Change
• (US) Editorial: Climate Change Is Just As Real As Covid-19. Now’s The Last, Best Chance For Our Government To Treat It That Way

How Coronavirus Could Help Us Fight Climate Change: Lessons From The Pandemic

Forbes - David Vetter

Crisis factors: the global response to coronavirus could teach us much about how we should deal with climate change. Getty

It is a truly global emergency. By March 30, 2020, the coronavirus pandemic had claimed more than 35,000 lives worldwide, with about 750,000 confirmed cases across more than 170 countries.

The speed with which the virus has spread has taken most governments apparently by surprise: in less than three months, the outbreak has all but shut down economies worldwide, putting millions of people into isolation, emptying the streets and the skies.

In this rapidly emerging new reality, lessons are being learned. Coronavirus, constituting an emergency unprecedented in modern times, has much to teach us about how civilization should deal with global crises. And in the view of Brazilian economist and former chief financial officer of the World Bank Dr Joaquim Vieira Ferreira Levy, the immediate danger of coronavirus has a great deal in common with the threat of climate change.

“One: it’s global. Two: it affects different people in different ways. Three: it shows the importance of government,” Levy says.

The first point is obvious: climate change and coronavirus share a similar magnitude, affecting every country on earth. With regard to the second, Levy notes that both crises affect different nations, and different communities, with varying degrees of severity.

British Airways planes sit grounded at Bournemouth Airport on March 28, 2020, in England. As of March 30, coronavirus had claimed more than 35,000 lives worldwide. Getty Images

British Airways planes sit grounded at Bournemouth Airport on March 28, 2020, in England. As of March 30, coronavirus had claimed more than 35,000 lives worldwide. Getty Images

“For example, wealthy people in wealthy societies are able to simply go home and not worry too much about their jobs, while there are multitudes that are much more vulnerable than us,” he says. The same calculus applies, in broad strokes, to climate change, which affects disproportionately the developing world—in particular Asia.

Levy’s third point focuses on the role of government in coping with crises. “The response of government can aggravate or decrease the problem. In Wuhan, for example, we saw how important public structures were, in spite of all the weaknesses: the fact that you have these hospitals; the fact that there was a rapid rush to find a vaccine; to build new facilities.” Other governments, Levy notes, have been far slower to react, leading to huge loss of life in countries such as Italy and Spain.

As with COVID-19, so with the climate emergency: the global community’s response to climate change has been slow at best; downright obstructionist at worst. Dr Barbara Buchner, Global Managing Director at the Climate Policy Initiative, says the weak response could be a consequence of contemporary society’s aversion to preparedness.

“The problem with selling prevention is that it’s very hard to see its success,” Buchner says. “I’ve been working in the field of climate change for many years and it's been the same issue: climate change is invisible. But now we’re seeing some of the implications.”

The corollary with coronavirus is that governments have shown a tendency to wait until it’s too late to take serious action. Just as it has taken many nations too long to institute emergency protocols with the approach of coronavirus, meaningful climate action has been sluggish.

“With greenhouse gases you can’t see them; you can’t smell them; they don’t have an immediate health impact. It was very difficult to make the case for why we should reduce them,” Buchner says. “So we need to do a better job of explaining why these prevention and mitigation measures are critical for the economy, for people and for the health of everyone.”

“A crisis like this brings to people's minds that maybe the risk we’ve been talking about with climate change is not so far fetched”
Joaquim Vieira Ferreira Levy

This aversion to preparedness is connected closely to a phenomenon known in public health circles as the “paradox of prevention.” In defining this term, American physician Harvey Fineberg has identified several obstacles that stand in the way of a “practical acceptance of prevention,” including the crucial fact that when prevention succeeds, that success is invisible, leading to an absence of crisis.It is a phenomenon with which Emilie Mazzacurati, founder and CEO of Berkeley-based climate risk analysis firm Four Twenty Seven, is familiar.

“Something that I'd like for us to try to explore a little more is how good preparedness pays off,” Mazzacurati says. “With coronavirus, we have a case where staying in confinement means hopefully you get the virus under control, but then you get a lot of critics saying ‘we shut down the economy for nothing.’ But had we not, we’re talking about deaths in terms of six, seven figures.

“If you do things right, it means you’re never proven right because you’ve prevented bad things from happening.”

Invest in resilience or weather the storm: Environment Agency staff check on rising floodwaters in East Cowick, northern England on March 1, 2020. AFP via Getty Images

In Mazzacurati’s view, this is the story that has played out with climate denialism.

“In the U.S. we have an administration and large parts of the media that don’t listen to science. If enough people die maybe they'll review their thinking, but that’s a high price to pay,” she says.

Levy, too, thinks the public could draw parallels between the dual crises.

“A crisis like this brings to people's minds that maybe the risk we’ve been talking about with climate change is not so far fetched; that actually all these extreme weather episodes of the last five years add up to something,” he says. “So we may see an expectation that government should respond accordingly.”

That, says Barbara Buchner, is one reason why efforts at rebuilding in the wake of the pandemic must take into account longer-term strategies, and incorporate sustainability at their core.

“Obviously the first priority here must be to protect the public health,” Buchner says. But there is no greater second priority than using this crisis to really accelerate the low-carbon transition that is already ongoing, because climate change is threatening our very civilization.”

Buchner believes that any economic stimulus plan ought to be geared not only to jump-start the global economy but to invest further in post-hydrocarbon infrastructure.

“This in turn will create new economic opportunities and also address a set of challenges—including making businesses more sustainable,” she says. “I think ultimately the real question is: do we lock ourselves into the use of fossil fuels in our infrastructure choices today, or do we instead use this crisis as a moment to accelerate the transition that is already on its way?”

Buchner and Levy point out that in both the U.S. and in Europe, employment in the renewable energy industry has been outstripping that of fossil fuel-based industries for some years.

A technician working on an EPTE electrical facility in May, 2001 in São Paulo, Brazil. A droughtthat year aggravated an energy crisis that led to an overhaul of the country's energy regulations. AFP via Getty Images

But beyond capital investment, Levy is a keen proponent of regulatory reform, particularly in moments of crisis. Brazil, he notes, learned key lessons during another environmental crisis—namely the 2001 drought, in which a lack of rainfall led to that country’s all-important hydroelectric dams drying up, bringing widespread power cuts and delivering a crippling blow to the economy.

“We had to reduce the consumption of energy by 20% within the year. But instead of simply undergoing blackouts, we created market regulations. It was a huge amount of work, but it didn’t cost that much and improved the whole system. It also opened the way to renewables.” Indeed, according to analytics firm GlobalData, renewable energy now accounts for 82% of electricity consumed in Brazil.

“Reinforcing markets that are already strong; lowering trade restrictions where necessary—that’s the kind of thing that in normal times would be extremely complicated to do. But at this time, I think it’s worth taking the opportunity,” Levy says.

But do national governments have the foresight and the political will to push such changes through? This remains to be seen.

“I don’t think a lot of governments are going to feel terribly adventurous in how the money's spent,” says Mazzacurati. “Uncertainty and credit crunch means fewer investors looking for non-traditional investments like renewables or green technologies.”

“This shock is so profound, perhaps it’s going to make people rethink how we do things”
Emilie Mazzacurati

On the other hand, she says, “this shock is so profound, perhaps it’s going to make people rethink how we do things. We’re already seeing that economies can adapt when there are sufficient incentives for them to do so.” This adaptability is reflected in the willingness and ability of corporations, from LVMH and Nivea to Dyson and GM, to reconfigure to produce medical equipment.

Adaptability also applies at the government level, to the question of large-scale stimulus packages, Levy says. He notes that while governments may have at first been slow to respond with financial support, the wheels are now turning. For instance Germany, following years of austerity, has indicated it will use coronavirus stimulus cash to rebuild infrastructure while adhering to green commitments.

“Also in France,” Levy says, “if you tie in the fact that they’re very much committed with EU plans in terms of sustainability [with the European Green Deal] in terms of 2050, I’m sure they will find ways to use the money for projects that are already agreed upon—there just wasn’t this push of money.”

“For many people who experienced World War 2, they saw the importance of government for bringing business together,” Levy says, pointing to post-war schemes as the Marshall Plan, which was used to regenerate Europe after years of conflict. In that era, social programs were also expanded: in Britain, for example, the National Health Service was founded in order to meet the health needs of all Britons, regardless of their ability to pay.

Greek railway workers present U.S. ambassador Milton Katz with an olive branch to mark the European Recovery Program, otherwise known as the Marshall Plan, which was passed in 1948. Universal Images Group via Getty Images

“It’s fair to say that over the last few years we’ve been a little bit shortsighted and too complacent,” Levy says. “This doesn't mean you have to nationalize everything and become a permanent war economy, but you do have to put some value on some essential things.”

National and global crises such as coronavirus and climate change, he says, make the case for robust government, requiring coordination of invidivuals, public and private institutions. “People cannot do this on their own. It’s a common effort, and the way to organize it is through government.”

Yet there are indications that some nations are heading in another direction. The world’s largest economy, the United States, last Thursday suspended the enforcement of environmental protection rules. That, Mazzacurati says, bodes poorly not only for Americans but for the wider world.

“The suspension of the enforcement of environmental regulations by the EPA has the potential to layer on additional public health crises—for example in the event of a toxic spill or water contamination,” she says. “It may cause lasting damage to ecosystems or endangered species. It will likely drive greenhouse gas emissions because of methane leaks.”

Beyond that, Mazzacurati fears that the signal the EPA’s move sends could be harmful in the long term.

“The move creates a dangerous precedent by signaling that environmental regulations are optional,” she says. “The success of environmental regulations hinges on long-term predictability to drive investments in clean technologies and plant retrofits, so this undermines decades of efforts to shift industries towards cleaner practices.”

The coronavirus pandemic is arguably unprecedented in its rapid impact on all our lives. It is truly devastating in its consequences. But in responding to it, denying the threat of our other global emergency could prove even more deadly. For while both crises share crucial similarities, the distinctions are just as vital.

“Coronavirus is a wave, like any plague,” Levy says. “But climate change is much more permanent. When it comes, it will stay. It won’t be solved in a matter of weeks or months, but a matter of years.” Levy ends with the analogy of a porcelain cup dropping to the floor and breaking.

“You can try to stick it back together,” he says, “but it’ll never be the same again.”

Links

• Coronavirus: 'Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief
• Professor Sees Climate Mayhem Lurking Behind Covid-19 Outbreak
• Here’s What The Coronavirus Pandemic Can Teach Us About Tackling Climate Change
• (US) The Analogy Between Covid-19 And Climate Change Is Eerily Precise
• $2tn US Coronavirus Relief Comes Without Climate Stipulations
• Coronavirus: 'Nature Is Sending Us A Message’, Says UN Environment Chief
• How Changes Brought On By Coronavirus Could Help Tackle Climate Change
• 5 Lessons From Coronavirus That Will Help Us Tackle Climate Change
• (US) Editorial: Climate Change Is Just As Real As Covid-19. Now’s The Last, Best Chance For Our Government To Treat It That Way

United Nations: Climate Change Is The Defining Issue

United Nations

The wind farm “Los Granujales” in the South of Spain (Vejer de la Frontera, Cádiz). Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources like wind is one of the measures needed to slow down climate change. Vidar Nordli-Mathisen

Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. Without drastic action today, adapting to these impacts in the future will be more difficult and costly.

▶The Human Fingerprint on Greenhouse Gases
Greenhouse gases occur naturally and are essential to the survival of humans and millions of other living things, by keeping some of the sun’s warmth from reflecting back into space and making Earth livable. But after more than a century and a half of industrialization, deforestation, and large scale agriculture, quantities of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have risen to record levels not seen in three million years. As populations, economies and standards of living grow, so does the cumulative level of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions.
There are some basic well-established scientific links:

• The concentration of GHGs in the earth’s atmosphere is directly linked to the average global temperature on Earth;
• The concentration has been rising steadily, and mean global temperatures along with it, since the time of the Industrial Revolution;
• The most abundant GHG, accounting for about two-thirds of GHGs, carbon dioxide (CO₂), is largely the product of burning fossil fuels.

▶The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and United Nations Environment to provide an objective source of scientific information. In 2013 the IPCC provided more clarity about the role of human activities in climate change when it released its Fifth Assessment Report. It is categorical in its conclusion: climate change is real and human activities are the main cause.
■ Fifth Assessment Report The report provides a comprehensive assessment of sea level rise, and its causes, over the past few decades. It also estimates cumulative CO₂ emissions since pre-industrial times and provides a CO₂ budget for future emissions to limit warming to less than 2°C. About half of this maximum amount was already emitted by 2011. The report found that:

• From 1880 to 2012, the average global temperature increased by 0.85°C.
• Oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished and the sea level has risen. From 1901 to 2010, the global average sea level rose by 19 cm as oceans expanded due to warming and ice melted. The sea ice extent in the Arctic has shrunk in every successive decade since 1979, with 1.07 × 106 km² of ice loss per decade.
• Given current concentrations and ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases, it is likely that by the end of this century global mean temperature will continue to rise above the pre-industrial level. The world’s oceans will warm and ice melt will continue. Average sea level rise is predicted to be 24–30 cm by 2065 and 40–63 cm by 2100 relative to the reference period of 1986–2005. Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries, even if emissions are stopped.

There is alarming evidence that important tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in major ecosystems and the planetary climate system, may already have been reached or passed. Ecosystems as diverse as the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic tundra, may be approaching thresholds of dramatic change through warming and drying. Mountain glaciers are in alarming retreat and the downstream effects of reduced water supply in the driest months will have repercussions that transcend generations.
■ Global Warming of 1.5°C
In October 2018 the IPCC issued a special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C, finding that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society. With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, the report found that limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society. While previous estimates focused on estimating the damage if average temperatures were to rise by 2°C, this report shows that many of the adverse impacts of climate change will come at the 1.5°C mark.
The report also highlights a number of climate change impacts that could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC, or more. For instance, by 2100, global sea level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C. The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once per century with global warming of 1.5°C, compared with at least once per decade with 2°C. Coral reefs would decline by 70-90 percent with global warming of 1.5°C, whereas virtually all (> 99 percent) would be lost with 2ºC.
The report finds that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air.
▶United Nations legal instruments
■ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The UN family is at the forefront of the effort to save our planet. In 1992, its “Earth Summit” produced the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as a first step in addressing the climate change problem. Today, it has near-universal membership. The 197 countries that have ratified the Convention are Parties to the Convention. The ultimate aim of the Convention is to prevent “dangerous” human interference with the climate system.
■ Kyoto Protocol
By 1995, countries launched negotiations to strengthen the global response to climate change, and, two years later, adopted the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol legally binds developed country Parties to emission reduction targets. The Protocol’s first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. The second commitment period began on 1 January 2013 and will end in 2020. There are now 197 Parties to the Convention and 192 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
■ Paris Agreement
At the 21st Conference of the Parties in Paris in 2015, Parties to the UNFCCC reached a landmark agreement to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future. The Paris Agreement builds upon the Convention and – for the first time – brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate effort.
The Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
On Earth Day, 22 April 2016, 175 world leaders signed the Paris Agreement at United Nations Headquarters in New York. This was by far the largest number of countries ever to sign an international agreement on a single day. There are now 186 countries that have ratified the Paris Agreement.
▶2019 Climate Action Summit
On 23 September 2019, Secretary-General António Guterres convened a Climate Summit to bring world leaders of governments, the private sector and civil society together to support the multilateral process and to increase and accelerate climate action and ambition. He named Luis Alfonso de Alba, a former Mexican diplomat, as his Special Envoy to lead preparations. The Summit focused on key sectors where action can make the most difference—heavy industry, nature-based solutions, cities, energy, resilience, and climate finance. World leaders reported on what they are doing, and what more they intend to do when they convene in 2020 for the UN climate conference, where commitments will be renewed and may be increased. In closing the Climate Action Summit, the Secretary-General said “You have delivered a boost in momentum, cooperation and ambition. But we have a long way to go.”
“We need more concrete plans, more ambition from more countries and more businesses. We need all financial institutions, public and private, to choose, once and for all, the green economy.”
▶Nobel Peace Prize
In 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to former United States Vice-President Al Gore and the IPCC "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Secretary-General António Guterres calls for global action on climate change

Links

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• World Meteorological Organization
• Global Warming of 1.5 ºC
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
• Kyoto Protocol
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (pdf)
• ​​IPCC Fifth Assessment Report
• Climate Summit 2019
• Sustainable Development Goal 13: Climate Action