Carbon Footprints Are Hard To Understand — Here’s What You Need To Know

The Conversation - Seth Wynes

Well-meaning individuals often make poor choices when it comes to reducing their carbon footprint. (Shutterstock)

Author Seth Wynes is a PhD Candidate, Geography, University of British Columbia

Imagine drinking endless orange juice from concentrate because you’re convinced this is the best way to lose weight. In moderation, orange juice is fine, but it wouldn’t be a doctor’s first recommendation for a patient wanting to shed pounds.

Much as we don’t want people to believe that the solution to the obesity pandemic is more orange juice, we also don’t want them to believe that the best way to fight climate change is to recycle more.

While recycling and turning off the lights are good steps towards a more sustainable society, they are not nearly as important for the climate on an individual basis as reducing meat consumption, air travel and driving. Well-meaning individuals often make poor choices when it comes to reducing their carbon footprint.

Air travel vs. recycling

My colleagues and I surveyed students at the University of British Columbia and a sample of North Americans recruited from the online platform Mturk, to determine if they could correctly identify actions that would curb their individual greenhouse gas emissions.

Our participants were more educated and more liberal than the general population but since we want to understand the perceptions of people who are at least a little motivated to engage in pro-climate actions, this is actually the right group of people to survey.

In the study, we first asked participants to describe the single most effective action they could take to reduce the emissions that cause climate change. Many referred to driving less, which is indeed a high-impact action, and recycling, which is not.

Perceptions of most effective climate action
Number of participants perceiving an action to be the most effective

they can take in fighting climate change

Chart: Seth Wynes Source: Wynes, Zhao and Donner, 2020, Climatic Change Get the data 

Few mentioned air travel, which can make up a huge portion of an individual’s carbon footprint. For example, a return flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, can generate over 4,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents. Political actions (like voting) that are needed to make large structural change also received little attention.

Common misconceptions

Next, we provided participants with 15 actions and asked them to categorize the actions as low-, medium- or high-impact (with low being less than one per cent of a person’s carbon footprint, and high being greater than five per cent).

Actions involving personal vehicles were correctly perceived as quite important for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But only 32 per cent of the sample correctly identified switching from plastic to canvas bags (the equivalent of orange juice for dieting) as a low-impact action. Reducing air travel and meat consumption were incorrectly ranked in the bottom half of the suggested actions.



In line with past research on the “availability heuristic,” (a mental shortcut where people give extra importance to examples that spring to mind easily) people might have been focusing on choices where the harms are highly visible or on actions that are symbolic of environmentalism but not related to climate. For example, littering creates no emissions, but we found it was perceived similarly to a high-pollution flight across the Pacific Ocean.

Focusing on what matters

Finally, we asked participants to make trade-offs between sets of different actions, like comparing how long you would need to purchase food without any packaging in order to save the same amount of emissions as one year not eating meat. Around half of participants said one to two years. The real answer is at least a decade.

We found that even people who were very concerned about climate change were unable to make accurate trade-offs. This is relevant for people who engage in moral licensing, “I recycle, so I can fly for vacation,” or people trying their best to optimize their carbon budget, “I drove out of my way to buy second-hand clothing because it has a smaller carbon footprint.”

These misunderstandings matter. People who understand that meat has a large climate impact are more willing to eat less of it. In a study of Swedes who had given up or reduced their air travel, many cited the realization that flying occupied a large part of their “carbon budget” as a motivator for their choice.

We want people to focus on meaningful actions so they don’t spend effort and money on distractions. But we also want people to adopt low-carbon lifestyles because people who do tend to support the policies that oblige everyone else to pollute less.

Ezra Klein describes the value in changing the culture of more meat and bigger SUVs at the same time as we try to change policies: “We are not going to, as a society … vote for things that make us feel like bad people.”

Lifestyle changes and more

The term “carbon footprint” has come under criticism, because the oil industry used it in the past to redirect responsibility from itself onto consumers. But following the belief that climate hawks should oppose any tactic from a major polluter does not require abandoning every effort to change lifestyles.

Some large corporations are worried that these lifestyle changes could cut deep into their bottom lines. Before the pandemic jeopardized the entire industry, airlines were taking careful steps to manage the lost business caused by a growing guilt (“flight shame”) among people for the carbon footprint of air travel.

Climate impact of lifestyle changes
Bars indicate tonnes of CO2 equivalents

Chart: Seth Wynes Source: Wynes and Nicholas 2017, Environmental Research Letters Get the data

Even if you’re convinced that lifestyle change is a distraction from political action, and there is some peer-reviewed evidence to this effect, these results suggest that people are still putting disproportionate stock in trivial lifestyle changes, and not much in voting for climate policy.

So what do we do? We can test ways to incentivize lifestyle change while increasing policy support, ideally with resources that don’t take away from political action. That could include projects on university campuses, in corporate offices and in grade schools (twelve-year-olds can’t vote, but they can learn what constitutes a sustainable meal and how to cook it).

In one study, for example, participants were given feedback on their food purchases in terms of “lightbulb minutes”: how much greenhouse gases are produced by one minute of lightbulb use. This led to a positive shift in their consumption choices. Similarly, people booking their flights could be told the fraction of their annual carbon budget that will be used up by a single trip.

These approaches are helpful because they bring attention to climate change but don’t rely on individuals mastering the difficult subject of carbon footprints on their own.

Climate activists, especially youth, tend to care about individual action. We might as well use that as an opportunity to encourage lifestyle changes that actually matter, and to increase support for tough climate policies that are already overdue.

Links

• 5 ways families can help tackle climate change
• Flight shaming: how to spread the campaign that made Swedes give up flying for good
• How well do people understand the climate impact of individual actions?
• Here’s how you can actually help stop climate change
• Help the climate, change your diet: A cross-sectional study on how to involve consumers in a transition to a low-carbon society
• Grounded – Beyond Flygskam (Flight Shame)
• Does ‘flight shame’ affect social norms? Changing perspectives on the desirability of air travel in Germany
• Consumers underestimate the emissions associated with food but are aided by labels

(AU) Methane Released In Gas Production Means Australia's Emissions May Be 10% Higher Than Reported

The Guardian - Adam Morton

Analysis shows the government, which has committed to a ‘gas-led recovery’, has failed to properly account for methane’s effect on global heating

The Woodside gas plant in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Analysis of Australia’s greenhouse gas accounting has shown it is underestimating the impact of gas production on emissions by as much as 10%. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/Reuters

Australia’s greenhouse gas accounting underestimates national emissions by about 10%, largely due to a failure to properly recognise the impact of methane released during gas production, an analysis has found.

In late June, the energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, amended laws to reflect a scientific consensus that methane – a highly potent but short-lived greenhouse gas that leaks during gas processing – plays a greater role in heating the planet than previously thought.

The change is expected to increase Australia’s reported annual emissions by about 3% compared with what they otherwise would have been.

Tim Baxter, a former University of Melbourne climate law expert, now a senior researcher with the Climate Council, said the government update was belated as it was based on a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published six years ago.

But he said the change did not fully reflect the panel’s conclusions, including that methane from fossil fuels was more damaging than from living sources, and was yet to factor in more recent peer-reviewed evidence that methane’s heating role was even greater than estimated in 2014.

Baxter found that if the methane emitted in Australia was measured according to the latest science it would increase annual emissions by more than 50m tonnes a year, the equivalent of Sweden’s total carbon pollution. His analysis is included in a submission to the New South Wales authorities on the controversial Narrabri gas project and will form the basis for an upcoming report.

He said the Morrison government, which is backing a “gas-fired recovery” from the Covid-19 recession and is considering whether to underwrite new gas infrastructure including major pipelines, was failing to report the full impact of its emissions.

“It’s no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention that the federal government is miles behind when it comes to keeping up with the science of climate change,” Baxter said.

“It is still ignoring the extra impact of fossil fuel methane compared to other sources and still failing to consider the full impact of those emissions on natural feedbacks. The government is several steps behind key scientific developments that have occurred over the past seven years.”

Methane lasts in the atmosphere for only about 12 years but is much more potent than carbon dioxide. Scientists have found the level of atmospheric methane had increased significantly since 2007 after a relatively flat period, but they are unsure why.

Gas emits about half the carbon dioxide released from coal when burned, but Global Energy Monitor, a US research and advocacy group, found the role of fugitive methane emissions from new gas developments in global heating was likely to be as large as or larger than the expansion of coal power.

A spokesman for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources said it was simplistic for Baxter to conclude that methane impacts were underestimated in government data. He said Australia was acting in line with a 2018 international agreement that the warming power of methane and other gases set out in the IPCC’s 2014 report would be reflected in greenhouse reporting by 2023. “The analysis is not accurate,” the spokesman said.

On Tuesday, 25 leading scientists released a letter to the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, warning his advocacy for increased use of gas-fired electricity was at odds with the Paris agreement and not consistent with a plan to secure a safe climate.

“There is no role for an expansion of the gas industry,” they wrote. “The combustion of natural gas is now the fastest-growing source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the most important greenhouse gas.”

Finkel responded that he shared their vision for the expansion of renewable energy but he believed it would be “faster, more economical and more reliable” if supported by gas-fired electricity generation “in the near to medium term”. The chief scientist said he had not commented on an expanded role for gas in industry – backed by the government and Scott Morrison’s handpicked National Covid Coordinating Commission – having focused solely on the electricity grid.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) last month found additional gas-fired power was an option, but not essential, for an electricity grid increasingly based on renewable energy, and gas prices would need to stay at lower levels than expected if new gas was to compete with pumped hydro, batteries and other alternatives.

The prime minister repeated his strong support for gas in parliament on Tuesday. He said gas was an important transition fuel and expanding the supply was critical to Australia’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 recession. “That is why we want to see more of it and get more out of the ground,” he said.

The update announced by Taylor increased the estimated warming potential of methane – effectively, how much heat it traps – from 25 times greater than carbon dioxide to 28 times greater, calculated over a century. The change matters because methane emissions are converted to their “carbon dioxide equivalent” and then counted in national CO₂ emissions.

The 2014 IPCC report suggested the warming power of methane from fossil fuels was 30 times greater than CO₂. The warming power of “biogenic methane” – released from living organisms such as cows – was 28 times greater.

A later reassessment, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in 2016, found it was greater still: 34 times greater than CO₂ for “fossil methane” and 32 times greater for biogenic methane.

Baxter said these figures were still not truly representative as they did not factor in the feedback effects caused when greenhouse gases are released. The IPCC report in 2014 cited research that found the feedback from methane emissions increased its warming potential by a further 20%. Baxter calculated this would lift the warming rate for biogenic methane to 39 and for fossil methane to 40.

He said the additional, unexplained methane in the atmosphere suggested the emissions from the gas industry were being systematically underreported.

Links

• Collinsville coal power plant will never proceed as renewables are cheaper, Liberal MPs say
• Santos’ claim Narrabri CSG development will lower prices misrepresents government evidence, thinktank says
• Australia's chief scientist rejects experts' letter warning him not to back gas
• ‘No purpose’ to Coalition’s climate policy after big polluters increase emissions by 1.6m tonnes
• Climate Council Submission to the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission hearing into the proposed Santos Narrabri Gas Project (pdf)
• Booming LNG industry could be as bad for climate as coal, experts warn
• Australia's chief scientist rejects experts' letter warning him not to back gas
• Radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: A significant revision of the methane radiative forcing

(AU) More Bushfires, Less Volcanoes: Young Australians Need To Learn About More Relevant Disasters

The Conversation - Annette Gough | Briony Towers

Shutterstock

Authors Annette Gough is Professor Emerita of Science and Environmental Education, RMIT University Briony Towers is Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

Young people are increasingly frightened by the spectre of natural hazards and disasters, but they see schools as failing to equip them with the skills they need for these events.

That’s according to the recent Our World, Our Say national report, which surveyed 1,477 Australians aged 10 to 24.

While almost two-thirds (64%) of respondents said they have experienced at least three hazard events such as bushfires, heatwaves and drought in the past three years, a staggering 88% believe they’re not being taught enough to protect themselves and their communities.

In fact, they say they’re learning more about earthquakes in class than more relevant hazards, such as bushfires, floods, drought and tropical cyclones. And they are not wrong.

Young people want to learn about natural hazards and disasters that are relevant to them. After all, it’s their future, and changes in their education can help them thrive in a world of rapid social, environmental and technological change.

They don’t feel heard

The Our World, Our Say survey was conducted by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience and World Vision Australia.

Students want politicians to give them a voice on climate change. AAP Image/Erik Anderson

Along with issues in the curriculum, the survey also shows young people are deeply worried about climate change and see an urgent need to “reduce the intensity and frequency of disasters through climate action”.

On this front, most of the survey respondents feel Australia is not doing enough.Adding to their frustrations, survey respondents feel ignored by politicians. Nearly 90% said government leaders aren’t listening to their concerns, and that they don’t have a voice on climate change and disaster risk.

What do young people learn at school?

The devastating Black Summer bushfires demonstrated you need not live in the bush for bushfires to affect you. Yet the coverage of bushfires in the Australian Curriculum (and its state and territory adaptations) is sparse, especially when compared with the coverage of earthquakes and volcanoes.

The Australian Curriculum for Science for Year 6 has students investigating major geological events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis in Australia, the Asia region and throughout the world.

In Year 8 they investigate the role of science in the development of technology related to earthquake prediction. In Year 9 they expand on their learning of earthquakes, and other geomorphological hazards (volcanic eruption, earthquake, tsunami, landslide, avalanche) related to tectonic plates.

The main coverage of bushfires is in Year 5 Humanities and Social Sciences, where students study “the impact of bushfires or floods on environments and communities, and how people can respond”.

Even here the teacher can choose to study floods instead of bushfires. The frequency and intensity of both bushfires and floods are increasing with climate change, so students need to be learning about both.

Learning about bushfires is also an option in Year 8 Geography, but it’s included as an alternative to studying earthquakes and volcanoes.

Thick bushfire smoke on January 3 2020. You don’t have to live in a fire-prone area to be affected by bushfires. EPA/NASA

The only coverage of bushfires in the Science curriculum is in Year 9 where students investigate how ecosystems change as a result of events such as bushfires, drought and flooding. Once again, bushfires are an option, rather than a requirement.

Students are facing increased extreme weather events around Australia, including intense heavy rainfall, high fire danger days and high intensity storms. We must ensure current and future generations of school students have the knowledge and skills to prevent, mitigate and adapt to this future.

Climate change education is also missing

The Our World, Our Say survey respondents are also right about the curriculum not covering climate change.

Climate change-related topics in national and state curricula are found only in the senior secondary (Years 11 and 12) and secondary (Years 7 to 10) Humanities, Geography and Science learning areas, with many being optional.

There is no explicit mention of climate change in the Foundation to Year 6 curriculum, and the Australian Education Council recently removed the references to climate change in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration.

But according to the Paris Agreement on climate change, Australia has a moral imperative and legal obligation to include climate change education in its curriculum. And, as the school strikes have demonstrated, students want to learn about climate change.

Students can be agents of change

Australia is a signatory to the United Nations’ Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which says disaster risk knowledge must be incorporated into formal and non-formal education.

The Sendai Framework also recognises children and youth as agents of change who should be given the opportunity to contribute to disaster risk reduction through school curricula.

Greta Thunberg’s speech to UN Climate Change COP24 conference.

Australian research from 2018 reinforces this. It found when disaster education positions children and youth as agents of change, they not only learn essential knowledge and skills, but also make extremely valuable contributions to risk reduction activities in their households, schools and communities.

They can create workshops or games to educate others about disaster planning and preparedness; produce short films or books showcasing local knowledge or hazard management strategies; and present recommendations for youth-centred emergency management planning to decision-makers.

They’re doing it right overseas

Australia could learn from New Zealand where a climate change curriculum has been released.

It aims to increase awareness of climate change and understand the response to and impacts of climate change globally, nationally and locally. It also explores opportunities to contribute to reducing and adapting to climate change impacts on everyday life.

We can also learn from Europe, where the EU Horizon 2020 Project developed a framework for child-centred disaster risk management. It started from the premise that, under Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children and young people have the right to be heard on matters that affect them.

If the education of young people in Australia is about preparing them “to thrive in a time of rapid social and technological change, and complex environmental, social and economic challenges”, as the Australian Education Council recently proclaimed, then it’s clear schooling is failing them.

Links

• Our World, Our Say: National survey of children and young people on climate change and disaster risk (pdf)
• Scientists hate to say ‘I told you so’. But Australia, you were warned
• Australian Curriculum: Understand how Science works
• The terror of climate change is transforming young people's identity
• Bushfire education is too abstract. We need to get children into the real world
• Ever wondered what our curriculum teaches kids about climate change? The answer is 'not much'
• Students striking for climate action are showing the exact skills employers look for
• A familiar place among the chaos: how schools can help students cope after the bushfires

Why We Believe Planting 1 Trillion Trees Can Save The Planet

TIME - Jane Goodall | Marc Benioff

Authors Jane Goodall DBE, is founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace Marc Benioff is the co-owner of TIME and the chair and CEO of Salesforce

For more than six months, a pathogen has swept through nearly every country in the world, unleashing an unprecedented global health and economic emergency.

At the same time, another potentially more lethal emergency continues to threaten us: the warming of the planet.

While the impacts of the climate crisis have been more gradual than the spread of COVID-19, there is no doubt that our world is changing.

Millions of people have suffered losses from catastrophic droughts, hurricanes and floods. It’s not just that our own health and economies are being threatened; it’s that climate change is reshaping a planet that will not support the lives of future generations.

The climate-science community has demonstrated that if we do not make significant progress in combatting this crisis, global temperatures could rise above the critical 1.5°C threshold, permanently damaging the natural systems that sustain us.

And, like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change disproportionately affects our more disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, exacerbating existing economic and racial inequalities.

The truth is, we know how to fight the climate crisis: reduce emissions, become carbon neutral, clean up oceans and develop a sustainable relationship with the natural world to restore the biodiversity of key habitats. Climate scientists, environmental organizations and even governments have, each in their own way, worked out how to tackle every one of these steps. Their implementation requires a combination of technology, policy, funding and coordination.

By far the most cost-effective of all the big solutions is to protect and restore forests. Forests extract and store CO2 from the atmosphere and produce the oxygen we breathe. But these complex ecosystems have been systematically destroyed. We have already lost nearly half the world’s trees, most within the last 100 years. And most of the remaining trees—about 3 trillion—are still under threat, even though they are a critical tool in the fight against climate change.

At this moment in time, massive fires have yet again erupted around the world, from California to the Congo Basin to the Amazon. Far too many of these fires are intentionally set because agricultural profits have been prioritized over the health of our planet. A call to stop deforestation is more important than ever before.

That’s why forward-thinking corporate leaders who understand the urgent need to heal our planet are supporting environmentalists who have been in the fight for decades. We’ve joined forces—a businessperson and a conservationist—to support the Trillion Tree challenge (1T.org), an effort to bring together old and new partners to add momentum to the regreening of our planet and plant 1 trillion trees around the world by 2030. Companies joined by NGOs and youth movements as well as a number of governments, such as the U.S., have pledged their support for this solution. Those involved will be able to share best practices, with a major goal of maintaining biodiversity standards.

This effort could capture an estimated 200 gigatonnes of carbon over the coming decades, an amount equal to two-thirds of the pollution produced since the Industrial Revolution. But it will take time for young trees to capture the same amount of CO2 as mature forests. That is why we need many new partners to join the tens of thousands of efforts already under way.

Planting 1 trillion trees won’t be easy, but each one of us can make a difference in this fight. We can plant trees in backyards and neighborhoods, or donate to one of the many responsible programs that have long been restoring and protecting forests and woodlands in almost every country around the world.

Our challenge is clear. We can protect and restore our forests while also investing in jobs and global economies. But our success will depend on one another; together we can create the kind of change needed to heal our planet.

Links

• 15 Astounding Facts About Trees
• Fast-Growing Mini-Forests Spring Up In Europe To Aid Climate
• The African Country That Inspired More And More Countries To Plant Billions Of Trees
• Pakistan Combats Massive Unemployment By Hiring People To Plant 10 Billion Trees
• Australian Forest Study May Challenge Climate Change Optimism
• (AU) We Must Fight Climate Change Like It’s World War III – Here Are 4 Potent Weapons To Deploy
• (UK) Climate Change: Will Planting Millions Of Trees Really Save The Planet?
• Greta Thunberg Tells Davos Leaders That Planting Trees Isn't Enough As Donald Trump Talks Up Economy
• Opinion: Current Proposals To Plant Trees To Fight Climate Change Are Badly Misguided
• Examining The Viability Of Planting Trees To Help Mitigate Climate Change 

Antarctica: 60% Of Ice Shelves At Risk Of Fracture, Research Suggests

The Guardian - Patrick Barkham

Collapse of shelves would accelerate loss of Antarctic ice sheet and increase sea-level rise

Fracture at the front of Ross ice shelf, the largest in Antarctica. A platform of ice nearly four times the size of the UK is at risk of collapse. Photograph: Martin Wearing/PA 

Approximately 60% of Antarctica’s ice shelves could be vulnerable to fracture, accelerating the loss of the Antarctic ice sheet and increasing sea-level rise, according to a paper.

Antarctica’s ice shelves, floating extensions of the ice sheet, help slow the flow of ice into the ocean. But if these shelves fracture and then collapse, the flow of melting glaciers into the oceans accelerates.

A study published in the journal Nature has mapped areas where ice shelves hold back upstream ice and are susceptible to “hydrofracture”, where meltwater flows into crevasses and fissures in the ice and enlarges them, potentially triggering the collapse of the ice shelf.

This process could accelerate the loss of Antarctic ice more than some climatic models predict as atmospheric warming increases. The study follows scientists’ recent announcement that Earth has lost 28tn tonnes of ice from its surface since 1994.

Most climatic models do not include the impact of hydrofracturing in their calculations, although one 2016 paper did account for them in a simpler way than the new study.

Hydrofracturing can only occur if the surface of an ice shelf is inundated with meltwater. Large pools of meltwater have existed in many areas of Antarctica for decades without causing the collapse of an ice shelf because the flow of water into surface fissures is slow or refreezes.

A tributary ice stream flowing from the Transantarctic mountains into the Ross ice shelf. Photograph: Martin Wearing/PA

While some areas are not susceptible to fracture, Ching-Yao Lai of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and colleagues identified that 60% of the Antarctic ice shelf was both slowing the flow of ice into the ocean and also vulnerable to fracture.

While fractures in the ice are visible in satellite imagery, manual mapping is impractical because of the extent of the ice. So Lai and colleagues used machine learning to identify fracture-like features in satellite pictures of Antarctica, before modelling which fractures were vulnerable to hydrofracturing.

They developed a model to predict where fractures could form and found close agreement with the fractures mapped by their machine learning algorithm.

Lai said: “We predicted that the ice-shelves areas that can collapse due to hydrofracture are mostly the crucial part of ice shelves that hold back the upstream flow of ice sheets. Thus the loss of these ice-shelf areas due to hydrofracture can substantially affect the flow of ice sheets into the ocean.

“But predicting how much and how fast the loss of Antarctic ice and sea-level rise will occur due to the hydrofracturing process will require coupling our new fracture model with an ice-sheet and climate model, which is an important next step.”

The researchers hope their fracture model can help create more accurate models of the fate of the ice sheets, which together with climatic modelling will produce more accurate predictions of sea-level rise, which scientists believe could exceed one metre by the century’s end.

The researchers warned that while many areas of Antarctic meltwater were not currently likely to cause the hydrofracture of the ice beneath, with global heating these areas could become newly at risk in the future.

“Increased meltwater ponding in resilient locations will not lead to widespread hydrofracturing according to our analysis,” the authors wrote. “However, predictions of future melt suggest that melt rates seen in locations that experience meltwater ponding today could become widespread by 2100 under high-emissions scenarios.”

Links

• The sounds of melting icebergs and whale songs: a journey into Antarctica
• Climate Change: Satellites Record History Of Antarctic Melting
• Carbon Emissions Are Chilling The Atmosphere 90km Above Antarctica, At The Edge Of Space
• Biggest Ice Sheet On Earth More Vulnerable To Melting Than Thought
• First Active Leak Of Sea-Bed Methane Discovered In Antarctica
• 'Nowhere To Hide': South Pole Warms Up With Climate Change A Factor
• Climate Change Is Turning Antarctica's Snow Green And The Effects Can Now Be Seen From Space
• Doomsday: By 2300, Global Sea Levels Could Rise by An Astounding 16 Feet
• Satellites Show Melting Ice Sheets In Antarctica And Greenland Have Contributed To 14 mm Sea Level Rise In 16 Years
• 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

(AU) Climate Crisis: Business, Farming And Environment Leaders Unite To Warn Australia 'Woefully Unprepared'

The Guardian - Adam Morton

An extraordinary statement by 10 groups says the nation’s future prosperity is at risk without a coherent response

Leaders representing the breadth of Australian society are calling on Australian governments to act immediately to reduce and manage climate risks. File photo of the Port Kembla steelworks. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Business, industry, farming and environmental leaders have joined forces to warn Australia is “woefully unprepared” for the impact of climate change over the coming decades and to urge the Morrison government to do far more to cut emissions and improve the country’s resilience.

An extraordinary statement by 10 organisations, several with close ties to the Coalition, said climate change was already having a “real and significant” impact on the economy and community. The groups, representing the breadth of Australian society, called on the federal and state governments to act immediately to reduce and manage the risks.

Organisations including the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, the National Farmers’ Federation, the Australian Aluminium Council and the ACTU said public debate about the cost of doing more to reduce emissions had too often not considered the cost of climate change to the economy, environment and society.

They cited evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that emissions would need to be net-zero by 2050 if the goals of the Paris agreement are to be achieved, and said Australia must adopt that target.

The statement, issued under the Australian Climate Roundtable banner, said Australia’s future prosperity would be at risk unless it had a coherent national response to the crisis.

“The scale of costs and breadth of the impact of climate change for people in Australia is deeply concerning and will escalate over time,” it said. “It is in Australia’s national interest that we do all we can to contribute to successful global action to minimise further temperature rises and take action to manage the changes we can’t avoid.”

The groups, some of which have been involved in past campaigns to slow action on climate change, agreed to the statement after holding five climate-themed expert workshops. They heard from climate scientists and organisations including the Reserve Bank, the Australian Energy Market Operator and Insurance Australia Group.

The statement said the expert advice made clear temperatures were increasing, extreme climate-related events such as heatwaves and bushfires were becoming more intense and frequent, and natural systems were suffering irreversible damage. Some communities were now in a constant state of recovery from successive natural disasters with growing economic ramifications.

It said inaction would lead to unprecedented economic damage to Australia and its regional trading partners, heightened risks to financial stability – particularly as the insurance industry became compromised – and significant threats to the agriculture, forestry, tourism and fishing industries.

There would be severe pressure on government budgets due to a dramatic fall in tax revenue and a rise in natural disasters that demanded emergency response and recovery spending and there would be major and long-lived social and health impacts, including loss of life.

The roundtable concluded Australia must play its fair part in international efforts to limit average global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, or at most to well below a 2C increase.

That meant setting a target of net-zero emissions by mid-century and introducing policies to meet it that aimed to lift social equity and the country’s global competitive advantage in a zero-emissions world.

The Morrison government has rejected calls that it back the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. The target has been adopted by more than 70 countries, all Australian states and a growing number of business and investors, including fossil fuel companies. National emissions have dipped 1.5% since the Coalition was elected in 2013 after falling about 14% in six years under Labor.

The roundtable said even with ambitious global action Australia faced escalating costs due to unavoidable climate change from historical emissions, and must act swiftly to improve resilience. It said the country was “woefully unprepared” for the scale of threats that would emerge as it lacked a systemic government response at any level.

The groups recommended climate change response become a standing item at national cabinet meetings and that the government order a biannual climate vulnerability assessment similar to that undertaken in the US and New Zealand. They said the climate crisis needed to be addressed as the country tackled the Covid-19 economic recovery.


The Green Recovery: how Australia can ditch coal (without ditching jobs)

Other members of the roundtable are the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Australian Energy Council, the Investor Group on Climate Change and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Innes Willox, the chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, said the evidence was deeply concerning. “The urgency of (the risk of huge costs) should drive all Australian governments to lift our game on adaptation and put net zero emissions by 2050 at the heart of their plans for prosperity,” he said.

The business council chief, Jennifer Westacott, said: “Putting Australia on the path to net zero emissions by 2050 can be an opportunity to drive billions of dollars of new investment, create new jobs, create new industries, boost our resilience and build the stronger regions we’ll need to supercharge our recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The roundtable said it planned a second series of workshops on what a successful transition to net-zero emissions would look like. It said the country risked losing investment to countries with clearer targets and transition roadmaps if it did not act.

“We are prepared to work with all stakeholders to help Australia rise above decades of delay and come together to address one of the greatest challenges the nation has ever faced,” it said.

A spokesperson for the emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, said the government was committed to the Paris agreement and its policies, including a technology investment roadmap and recommendations by businessman Grant King, would help it beat its 2030 climate goal of a 26-28% cut below 2005 levels.

Scientists and analysts have found Australia would need to cut its emissions by at least 45% by 2030 to play its part under the Paris pact.

Labor’s climate spokesman, Mark Butler, said: “If Scott Morrison or the ‘moderate Liberals’ have any backbone they will listen to this statement and commit to net zero emissions by 2050.”

The Insurance Council of Australia said on Thursday the industry had received more than 297,780 claims relating to bushfire, flood and hailstorm catastrophes last summer, with losses totalling almost $5.4bn. The chief executive, Rob Whelan, said it was the worst natural disaster season he had experienced in 10.5 years in the role.

Links

• Australian Climate Roundtable
• Far-Reaching Climate Change Risks To Australia Must Be Reduced And Managed (pdf)
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Global Warming of 1.5 ºC
• Coalition condemned for failing to deliver promised environmental standards
• Joint venture looks to invest billions in 'natural capital' projects to help combat climate change
• (AU) Scientists Fear Surge In Supersized Bushfires That Create Their Own Violent Thunderstorm
• 'This Pandemic Is Nothing Compared To What Climate Change Has In Store'
• (AU) Australia's Wildfires Provide A Scorching Warning On Climate Change To The Rest Of Earth
• (AU) Australia Could Fall Apart Under Climate Change. But There’s A Way To Avoid It
• Climate Crisis: 11,000 Scientists Warn Of ‘Untold Suffering’

These African World Heritage Sites Are Under Threat From Climate Change

The Conversation - Joanne Clarke | Elizabeth Edna Wangui | Grace W. Ngaruiya | Nick Brooks

Grand Old Mosque of Djenné, Mali. UNESCO

Very few academics or policy makers are talking about the impact of climate change on heritage. Yet heritage is essential for social wellbeing, for identity creation, for safeguarding traditional knowledge and livelihoods and for sustainable development.

The conversations taking place are mainly on the effects of climate change in wealthier countries. One recent study estimates that only 1% of research on the impacts of climate change on heritage is related to Africa. Yet climate change has already resulted in loss and damage to African heritage.

Three of us are contributing authors to the Africa chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change’s sixth assessment report. Our research for the report has drawn our attention to the total lack of quantifiable data on the impacts of climate change on heritage in sub-Saharan Africa.

So we teamed up with a climate scientist with years of experience working on the continent and set about highlighting the threat of different kinds of climate change and climate variability to heritage in Africa.

Restoring the mosque of Djenné in Mali. MICHELE CATTANI/AFP via Getty Images 

Our research is conclusive. Without significant intervention some of Africa’s most important heritage will be lost as a result of the direct and indirect impacts of climate change over the coming decades.

There is a need for research into the impacts of climate change on different forms of cultural heritage in Africa, and to highlight the possible harmful effects these losses will have on society more generally.

The next ten years will be a critical period in which research agendas can be developed that will have a practical application for the management of African heritage in the face of climate change.

The bad news

Coastal erosion and sea-level rise have damaged African World Heritage Sites. The Roman city of Sabratha on the Libyan coast and the colonial forts along the coastline of Ghana are slipping into the sea. Natural sites are also under threat. Relict Guinean coastal forests have largely disappeared, partly through coastal erosion.

By 2050, Guinea, The Gambia, Nigeria, Togo, Bénin, Congo, Tunisia, Tanzania (including Zanzibar) and the Comoros will all be at significant risk from coastal erosion and sea-level rise.

The view from the heart of Stone Town in Zanzibar. ALEXIS TOUREAU/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Villages and towns associated with the historic Swahili Indian Ocean trading networks are all forecast to suffer significant loss from sea-level rise and coastal erosion in the coming decades. These are almost all located on the coasts of Mozambique, mainland Tanzania, Kenya, the Comoro Islands, Zanzibar and Madagascar.

A host of unique heritage locations are built on coral, sand or mud – all at elevations less than 10 metres above sea level. These include Ibo Island in the Quirimbas Archipelago in northern Mozambique, Shanga and Pate islands in Kenya, Pemba and the ruins of Kaole in Tanzania, Mahilaka in Madagascar and Suakin in Sudan.

A combination of underlying geology and low elevation make these sites extremely vulnerable to coastal erosion.

Stone Town of Zanzibar,Tanzania. UNESCO

In addition, low-lying World Heritage Sites that are densely populated, such as Lamu Old Town and the Stone Town of Zanzibar, are located in regions of Africa predicted to be most severely impacted by shoreline retreat.

Inland of the coast, the World Heritage mud-built town of Djenné, on the Inland Niger Delta, is suffering multiple threats, exacerbated by climate change. Rock art sites in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park in South Africa are experiencing biodeterioration due to microbial activity arising from increased humidity.

But African heritage is predominantly lived heritage, which presents unique opportunities for heritage conservation.

Why a site like Djenné matters

Take Djenné in Mali, a town composed almost entirely of earthen buildings. Because of its unique vernacular architecture and its iconic mosque, it was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1988.

There has been a conspicuous degradation of its mud architecture. The reasons are complex but climate change has definitely worsened the process of loss.

The mud for Djenné’s earth architecture comes from the floodplains of the river Bani just outside town. Erika Alatalo

The lowering of the high water stand of the Inland Niger Delta has meant high quality mud has become scarcer. Mud bricks must be sourced further afield at greater cost, which locals simply can’t afford. The result is buildings being repaired in cheaper materials such as concrete and fired clay bricks.

Traditional building methods are often perceived as being at odds with modernity and globalisation. But earthen buildings such as those at Djenné emit fewer greenhouse gases, consume less energy and maintain a high level of internal thermal comfort. They are more sustainable against climate change than brick and breeze block construction.

Some hope

Heritage has unseen potential. Traditional custodianship and community engagement will be at the forefront of a sustainable future.

The good news is that five years ago the World Heritage Convention adopted Unesco’s World Heritage and Sustainable Development Policy. The policy is built on the principles of human rights, equality and long-term sustainability. It’s potentially groundbreaking for African heritage, which has been beset by a colonial legacy of centralised heritage management.

Lamu Old Town, Kenya. UNESCO

It represents an opportunity for the restoration of traditional custodianship and local community engagement in heritage management. As heritage is reinserted into local lifeways, communities are able to reengage with traditional ways of doing things, which are often much more in tune with the environment.

In this, African countries have the opportunity to be at the forefront of sustainable development.

And in our intergovernmental climate report, the Africa chapter has for the first time included heritage in its assessment. It identifies heritage as critical for a sustainable future.

Resetting the research agenda towards a sustainable heritage in the face of climate change will not only enable reengagement with the past, but will help mitigate the impacts of climate change beyond heritage.

Links

• Securing the Future of Cultural Heritage by Identifying Barriers to and Strategizing Solutions for Preservation under Changing Climate Conditions
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - Africa
• African heritage in a changing climate
• World Heritage Africa Region
• The World Heritage Convention
• Why the future of Africa's forests and savannas is under threat