The Great Barrier Reef is all but doomed, with between 70 and 99 per
cent of corals set for destruction unless immediate “transformative
action” is taken to reverse global warming, according to a new report.
The Australian Academy of Science says the more ambitious target of the
Paris Climate Agreement of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees has now
slipped out of reach and is “virtually impossible”.
Coral bleaching near Lizard Island on the Great Barrier
Reef during 2016. Credit: EarthJustice,
EJA
“Limiting the temperature rise to the lower Paris Agreement target is
exceedingly difficult, and with only three or four more years of
emissions at current levels remaining, the target has become virtually
impossible to achieve,” says
The Risks to Australia of a 3C Warmer World.
If 1.5 degrees of warming was sustained, the Great Barrier Reef would
cease to exist as we know it, says one of the authors, Ove
Hoegh-Guldberg, a biologist and climate scientist specialising in coral
reefs.
At 1.5 degrees of warming, the reef would shrink by 70 to 90 per cent.
At 2 degrees, just 1 per cent of the reef would survive.
If warming was stabilised, surviving corals suited to warmer
temperatures may eventually return to cover the reef.
Should it continue
unabated, corals would vanish entirely to be replaced by other organisms
such as seaweeds and bacteria, said Professor Hoegh-Guldberg.
“It’s questionable that this would produce the $5 billion in income the
reef now produces in tourism,” he said.
Another of the authors, Distinguished Professor Lesley Hughes of
Macquarie University, said at current rates of emissions the world is
likely to burn through its 1.5 degree “carbon budget” by 2025.
According to the report, the earth has already warmed by 1.1 degrees
since the beginning of the industrial era.
However, warming does not impact on the world uniformly and, according
to Professor Hughes, Australia is already experiencing 1.4 degrees
warming.
“The observations that we are seeing of things like unprecedented
bushfires and regular frequent bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef are
consistent with the predictions that have been made previously about a
1.5-degree world,” she said.
“This is already a difficult world and really the main point of the
academy report was to show that if you think this is difficult, then
imagine double or triple the warming that we’ve had.” Coral 'IVF' at Great Barrier Reef continues In a world-first, researchers have successfully pioneered
small-scale coral restoration using a technique dubbed Coral
IVF.
In this scenario Black Summer fires would likely be an annual event and one
in a 100-year floods would happen more commonly.
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said it would be “disastrous” for politicians and
policymakers to consider the report an excuse for giving up on reducing
emissions.
Rather, he said it was further evidence that governments needed to shift
from “gradualism to transformative action”.
This meant committing not only
to net zero targets by 2050, but substantial annual cuts guided by a
significant reductions target for 2030.
Professor Frank Jotzo, another contributor to the paper and director of the
Australian National University’s Centre for Climate Economics and Policy,
said he agreed 1.5 degrees was likely out of reach, but serious and
immediate action could still see the world stabilise at between 1.5 and 2
degrees, which would make a huge difference to the quality of life on earth.
According to Professor Jotzo the unprecedented growth of wind and solar
power over the past few years showed not only that the world has the
technology to replace fossils with clean energy, but the energy produced
will be cheaper than for traditional fossil sources such as oil and gas.
As a result we can afford to spend on storage technologies such as batteries
and pumped hydro, he said.
At the Paris Climate Conference in 2016 Australia signed up to the agreement
to keep global warming below 2 degrees and as close to 1.5 degrees as
possible.
At the time Australia committed to reduce its emissions by 26-28
per cent based on 2005 levels by 2030.
The agreement included a so-called
ratchet mechanism designed to encourage nations to raise their targets.
Over the past year the number of countries with targets of net zero by
mid-century has leapt from about 25 per cent to 75 per cent.
Now, pressure is mounting on countries to make 2030 targets more ambitious.
Professor Jotzo said he believes that the US, which is hosting a climate
summit of 40 world leaders this month, will probably double its 2030 target
by around 50 per cent, increasing pressure on Australia to significantly
raise its target.
A spokesman for Energy and Emissions Reductions Minister Angus Taylor said
global warming was “a global problem requiring a global solution”.
“The only pathway for all countries to get to net zero is by getting low
emissions technologies to commercial parity with existing alternatives,” the
spokesman said.
“When developing countries are no longer forced to choose between growth and
decarbonisation, then global emissions will fall.
“Australia has strong targets, an enviable track record, and a responsible
plan to get the cost of low emissions technologies down.”
Sixty different species of native trees are being planted in the
Yarra Yarra diversity corridor, north of Perth.
(Supplied: Russell Ord)
Key Points
Demand for Australian carbon
offset providers is growing
A 200km 'tree highway' will
spread across the northern Wheatbelt
Pressure is growing for more
action on climate change at the federal level
As pressure builds on the Australian Government to do more to tackle climate
change, a growing number of businesses are taking the initiative, volunteering
to curb their carbon footprint and offset their emissions.
They say it's not just to save the planet.
It's about protecting their viability in an increasingly climate-conscious
international market.
Georgiana Rogers works for Carbon Neutral, a Perth-based carbon services
provider, which is enjoying something of a purple patch.
Its client base has grown by 230 businesses and organisations, up 40 per cent,
over the past year.
Carbon Neutral's Georgiana Rogers says businesses are taking the
initiative to reduce carbon emissions.
(Supplied: Russell Ord)
On behalf of its clients, the company has planted 30 million native trees and
shrubs at a massive reforestation project in Western Australia's Wheatbelt,
since 2008.
Carbon Neutral's ambition is to plant a 200-kilometre highway of
trees across the northern Wheatbelt, north of Perth.
(Supplied: Russell Ord)
"The science [on climate change] is now pretty much universally accepted,"
Ms Rogers said.
"Businesses are really picking this up.
''They're not waiting for the federal government in Australia – they are
understanding and seeing the writing on the wall."
A total of 14,000 hectares of trees have been planted in WA's
northern Wheatbelt so far as part of the Yarra Yarra
project. (Supplied: Russell Ord)
The company's Yarra Yarra project is restoring degraded and saline farmland to
ultimately create a 200km-long biodiversity corridor.
Shareholder pressure prompts climate action
Ms Rogers said there had been a lull in interest during what she called the
"barren years", with divisive debate in Australia on climate change creating
uncertainty.
However, she said the tide was turning fast, with pressure on businesses to
reduce their carbon footprint coming from shareholders, among others.
"If businesses are wanting to get investment from capital funds, they are
increasingly being asked what are they doing about the climate," she said.
Rhys Arangio from Austral Fisheries says the company plants about
200,000 trees a year to offset its carbon emissions.
(Supplied: Russell Ord)
One of the company's clients is Austral Fisheries, which operates in the
Northern Prawn Fishery in Australia's north and fishes for Patagonian Toothfish
and Mackerel Icefish in the Southern Ocean.
Austral became the first fishing business in the world to be certified as carbon
neutral in 2016.
Since then, it has been voluntarily spending about $500,000 a year on planting
trees at the Yarra Yarra project to offset its emissions, mainly from the
roughly nine million litres of diesel it burns across its fleet of boats.
The catalyst to act was the impact climate change was already having on its
operations, according to senior manager of environment and policy Rhys Arangio.
"In the Gulf of Carpentaria across the top of Australia, there was massive
mangrove dieback in 2016," Mr Arangio said.
"And then in the Southern Ocean in that same year, there was a marine heatwave …
that really cut our catch rates in half for that twelve months."
Austral Fisheries CEO David Carter has become a strong advocate for
businesses taking climate action.
(Supplied)
The company's CEO David Carter said the decision also came from an awareness
that business could make a difference, where politics had failed.
"Put simply, we said: 'If we've made the mess, we clean it up'," Mr Carter
said.
"And in our case, that's about 200,000 trees a year."
The company is also trying to curb its emissions and has recently added a hybrid
electric vessel to its fleet.
Austral Fisheries spent about $50 million dollars on its first
hybrid electric fishing vessel Cape Arkona.
(Supplied: Austral Fisheries)
Mr Carter said many in business had traditionally held the view that climate was
the province of greenies and activists.
But increasingly, it was
about "risk and money".
"At a big end of town level, there's the TCFD, which is the Taskforce on Climate
-related Financial Disclosures and that reveals to the market how strategically
they are planning to deal with their emissions exposure," he said.
"If you are not doing the right thing in this space, you are going to find
access to capital increasingly difficult and access to talent and graduates
increasingly difficult."
Mr Carter pointed to mining magnate Andrew Forrest's recent pledge to become a
major producer and exporter of green hydrogen and steel as a sign of how quickly
the dynamics were changing.
"The sort of increased stridency of the Andrew Forrest messaging is being
reflected in many boardrooms around the country and around the world," he said.
Small businesses getting on board
At the other end of the spectrum, small businesses are also signing up in a less
formal way to offset their emissions.
Marion O'Leary runs an organic skin care business from a studio in her backyard
in the West Australian port city of Fremantle.
She buys a tree for every customer who spends over a certain amount to try to
offset her company's emissions, which mainly come from the importation of
ingredients.
Mokosh owner Marion O'Leary buys native trees to sequester carbon
and offset her company's emissions.
(ABC News: Claire Moodie)
She's chosen to invest mainly in the Yarra Yarra biodiversity project.
"Since we started in 2019, we have bought 2,760 trees so we are pretty proud of
that," she said.
"It's very tangible for the customer that they are seeing a tree for each
purchase."
Ms O'Leary said she had become disheartened over what she perceives to be a lack
of progress on climate change in Australia.
Although she believes her business is carbon neutral, she has decided against
signing up for the significant cost involved in going through the Federal
Government's formal system to become certified.
This organic skincare company in Fremantle plants trees for its
customers to offset its carbon emissions.
(ABC News: Claire Moodie)
"I think it's something we could do down the track but it's quite a big thing to
take on for a small business," she said.
"Buying trees is a way to offset our emissions and also make our customers feel
that by buying some of our product, they are also offsetting some of their own
emissions too."
Few signed up to federal scheme
In total, 180 businesses are currently certified under the Federal Government's
scheme "Climate Active", with 260 certifications for products and services
between them.
This is up from 86 businesses and 128 certifications in November 2019.
Only Australia's biggest 200-odd polluters are currently regulated and the
Federal Government sets a maximum amount of emissions they can produce.
However, there are a number of options available to companies before they are
penalised for exceeding those levels, including asking for their maximum
emissions levels to be raised or even seeking an exemption.
In other parts of the world, pressure is mounting to commit to stricter
emissions targets.
President-elect Joe Biden has re-committed the US to the Paris Climate
pact and has called a leader's summit for later this month.
The European Parliament has also
endorsed a plan, which could see Australian exporters slapped with new carbon tariffs.
Growing demand for tree planting
Louise Tarrier has "the best job in the world" working for Carbon Positive, a
Perth-based charity that plants trees in Western Australia and New South Wales
and helps businesses and individuals measure, curb and offset their emissions.
The group has planted about six million trees in its 20-year history and, like
Carbon Neutral, is finding that its services are in growing demand.
Louise Tarrier of the charity, Carbon Positive, says many small
business operators say they want to offset their carbon emissions
for their children.
(ABC News: Claire Moodie)
"People are starting to wake up to the idea that they might want to sequester
their carbon and reduce their carbon emissions," she said while walking through
a community plantation of native trees in Guildford, in Perth's outskirts.
"I have certainly noticed a big difference this last year.
"Whether it's due to more social media, people like Greta Thunberg, for example,
or just a growing awareness of the climate changes we're experiencing in our
day-to-day lives."
Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica will reach a tipping point, leading to an
irreversible and quick retreat with massive consequences for global sea level,
according to a study published in the leading journal in this field,
The Cryosphere.
Pine Island Glacier is a large fast-flowing ice stream draining an
area of West Antarctica about two thirds the size of the UK. At the moment, it
is the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica and accounts for a quarter of all
ice lost in the region.
Satellite measurements have shown that Pine Island Glacier Basin contributes
more water to the sea than any other basin in the world, and this is getting
worse due to the recent acceleration of the ice stream.
It’s been the
subject of debate for years whether this area of Antarctica could ever reach a
tipping point in terms of ice melting and go over an irreversible point from
which it would be impossible to recover.
Worryingly, if this were to happen, it could result in the collapse of the
entire West Antarctic Ice sheet. This event alone could result in a rise of over
three meters in the global sea level.
Now, researchers from
Northumbria University, UK, have actually shown that this could be a harsh and
brutal reality. Using an ice flow computer model created by the glaciology
group, the researchers were able to predict and identify tipping points within
the ice sheets.
“The potential for this region to cross a tipping
point has been raised in the past, but our study is the first to confirm that
Pine Island Glacier does indeed cross these critical thresholds”, said lead
author Dr Sebastian Rosier, from Northumbria’s Department of Geography and
Environmental Sciences.
“Many different computer simulations around the world are attempting to quantify
how a changing climate could affect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet but identifying
whether a period of retreat in these models is a tipping point is
challenging.
Our
@NUGeog
researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West
Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible
retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level.
Using this model, the team identified three distinct tipping points. The first
and second are relatively small, but they still could lead to a considerable
sea-level rise and would be difficult to recover. The third, however, would lead
to a complete collapse of the Pine Island Glacier, potentially causing an
increase of 1.2C in the water temperature.
For the researchers, changing wind patterns in the Amundsen Sea combined with
long-term warming in the Circumpolar Deep Water could be enough to expose Pine
Island Glacier to warmer water for long periods of time, making temperatures
changes virtually inevitable.
“The possibility of Pine Island Glacier entering an unstable retreat has been
raised before, but this is the first time that this possibility is rigorously
established and quantified”, said Prof Hillary Gudmundsson, Professor of
Glaciology and Extreme Environments.
The researcher is thrilled that this has finally been proven, but the findings
are alarming. “Should the glacier enter unstable irreversible retreat, the
impact on sea level could be measured in metres, and as this study shows, once
the retreat starts, it might be impossible to halt it.”
A growing number of climate economists say the world should take “immediate
and drastic action” to tackle climate change, according to a survey.
A partially submerged car is pictured on a flooded street
after Hurricane Florence struck Piney Green, North Carolina, U.S.,
September 16, 2018. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Key Points
Failing to tackle climate change could cost the world $1.7 trillion a year by 2050, according to 738 economists.
A recent survey shows that three-quarters of economists from
around the world strongly agreed that drastic action should be taken
immediately.
Two-thirds said the costs of investing toward that global goal of net-zero by 2050 would be outweighed by the economic benefits.
Failing to do so could cost the world some $1.7 trillion a year by the middle
of this decade, escalating to about $30 trillion a year by 2075, according to
estimations by the 738 economists from around the world surveyed by New York
University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.
“People joke about how economists can’t agree on most things,” said Derek
Sylvan, the institute’s strategy director and one of the authors of the
survey. “But we seem to find a pretty strong level of consensus” on the
economic importance of climate action.
Three-quarters of respondents strongly agreed that drastic action should be
taken immediately, compared with just half of economists polled by the same
institute in 2015.
For another question on reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, two-thirds said
the costs of investing toward that global goal would be outweighed by the
economic benefits, which would include preventing natural disasters,
preserving coastal infrastructure and assets and protecting food supplies.
Aerial photo shows damaged and destroyed homes after Hurricane
Michael smashed into Florida's northwest coast in Mexico Beach,
Florida, U.S., October 12, 2018. REUTERS/Dronebase
To avoid catastrophic climate change, scientists say the world needs to reach
net-zero emission by 2050 -- meaning people are adding no more emissions to
the atmosphere than they are removing.
Sylvan said he was surprised that so many saw net-zero action as “economically
desirable, even on the pretty short timeline that we’re talking about.”
Most of the international climate economists questioned for the survey in
February said they had become more concerned about climate change over the
last five years. The most common reason they gave was the escalation in recent
extreme weather events, which have included climate-linked wildfires and heat
waves.
The world saw more than 7,300 major natural disasters between 2000 and 2019,
which killed some 1.2 million and cost $3 trillion in damages, according to
the U.N. Office on Disaster Risk Reduction. That compares with about 4,200
disasters, leading to 1.19 million killed and $1.6 trillion in losses during
the 20 years previous, the data show.
A wind-driven wildfire burns near power line tower in Sylmar,
California, U.S., October 10, 2019.
REUTERS/Gene Blevins
“Some places are more exposed, and current levels of income matter a
great deal,” said Michael Greenstone, an economist at the University of
Chicago and the director of the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago.
The fallout from climate change will impact people and nations.
Economic disparities make it hard to apply simple cost-benefit analyses, he
said. For example, a poor family will feel economic losses more acutely than a
wealthy family.
“How do we think about a dollar of climate damage to (billionaires) Bill Gates
or Jeff Bezos versus a family of four living below the poverty line? I think
as a society we have to make a judgment about that.”
It was clear humans were warming the planet for some time -- now we have
official confirmation.
A simplified animation of Earth’s planetary energy balance: A planet’s energy budget is balanced between incoming (yellow) and outgoing radiation (red). Credit: NASA.
By now it should be no surprise to learn that the planet is warming very
rapidly.
The vast majority of this warming is not natural,
over 99% of scientists say, but rather the result of heat-trapping greenhouse gases released by human
activity such as burning fossil fuels.
Yet with all the thousands of studies about climate change and its connection
with human activity, it was only recently that researchers at NASA have
provided direct observations of the driving force of climate change.
Since the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century when humans’ appetite
for
coal
and other fossil fuels was first stirred, the concentration of CO2 in the
atmosphere has skyrocketed from 280 parts per million (ppm) to over 415 ppm
today.
We know beyond a doubt that greenhouse gases such as CO2, methane, or water
vapor trap heat in the atmosphere, thereby raising surface temperatures. We
also know that CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing at a pace 100 times faster
than it should naturally.
At the same time, human activity is also responsible for air pollution, such
as particulate matter that we all know is detrimental to our health, as well
as that of wildlife. But some of this air pollution is in the form of
aerosols, which are minute particles suspended in the atmosphere where they
reflect incoming sunlight back into space. In other words, this kind of
pollution has a global cooling effect.
Aerosols are thus a force of cooling, whereas greenhouse gases produce
heating. The difference between the energy absorbed by the atmosphere, of
which greenhouse gases are a major contributing factor, and the energy
radiated back to space by factors such as aerosols is known as “radiative
forcing”.
When radiative forcing is zero, this means that the
planet’s energy system is in balance, so the atmosphere shouldn’t warm nor
should it cool.
When radiative forcing is positive, this means
that Earth’s system is off balance and warming.
What NASA has done
in its recent study is to quantify the individual radiative forcings using
satellite observations in order to determine exactly how much each component
warms or cools the planet.
For decades, scientists have devised models of climate change predicting how
the temperature will change as a function of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere.
Unsurprisingly, the new NASA study found that radiative
forces match these models after it combined data from NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), which studies the flow of radiation at the top of Earth’s atmosphere, with
other data sources such as ocean heat measurements.
“This is the first calculation of the total radiative forcing of Earth
using global observations, accounting for the effects of aerosols and
greenhouse gases,” said Ryan Kramer, first author on the paper and a
researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “It’s
direct evidence that human activities are causing changes to Earth’s
energy budget.”
Another nail in the coffin
Scientists unanimously agree that human activity is the only thing that can
explain the steep rise in the average global temperature on Earth, which has
increased by a little more than 1° Celsius (2° Fahrenheit) since 1880.
Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly
0.15-0.20°C per decade.
Although the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is overwhelming, this
was actually the first study to present direct rather than indirect evidence
in favor of this explanation for the warming we’re currently experiencing. Up
until now, direct evidence that changes in greenhouse gases affect the
atmosphere’s ability to transfer heat was only available in localized
settings.
According to the study, human activities have caused radiative forcing on
Earth to increase by about 0.5 Watts/square meter between 2003 to 2018.
“Creating a direct record of radiative forcing calculated from
observations will allow us to evaluate how well climate models can
simulate these forcings,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of
NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. “This will allow us to make more confident
projections about how the climate will change in the future.”
Karen Joyce is Senior Lecturer - Remote sensing and spatial information, James Cook University
Stefan W Maier is Adjunct Research Fellow, James Cook University
Australia is home to around 2% of the world’s mangrove forests and is the
fifth
most mangrove-forested country on Earth. Mangroves play a crucial role in the
ecosystem thanks to the dizzying array of plants, animals and birds they feed,
house and protect.
In other words, mangroves are some of our
most precious ecosystems. Despite their importance, there is much we don’t know about these complex
wetland forests. For example, when does their growing season start? And, how
long does it last?
Usually, answering these types of questions requires frequent data collection
in the field, but that can be costly and time-consuming. An alternative is to
use satellite images. In the future, this will allow us to track the impacts
of climate change on mangroves and other forests.
Mangroves play a crucial role in the ecosystem thanks to the
dizzying array of plants, animals and birds they feed, house and
protect.Nicolas Younes
What is phenology?
Our research used
satellite images to study the life cycles of mangrove forests in the Northern
Territory, Queensland, and New South Wales. We compared the satellite images
with field data collected in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and found a
surprising degree of variation in mangrove life cycles.
We’re using the phrase life cycle, but the scientific term is “phenology”.
Phenology is the study of periodic events in the life cycles of plants and
animals. For example, some plants flower and fruit during the spring and
summer, and some lose their leaves in autumn and winter.
Phenology is important because when plants are growing, they absorb carbon
from the atmosphere and store it in their leaves, trunks, roots, and in the
soil. As phenology is often affected by environmental conditions, studying
phenology helps us understand how climate change is affecting Australian
ecosystems such as mangrove forests.
So how can we learn a lot in a short amount of time about mangrove phenology?
That’s where satellite imagery comes in.
How we use satellites to study mangrove phenology
Satellites are an excellent tool to study changes in forest health, area, and
phenology. Some satellites have been taking images of Earth for decades,
giving us the chance to look back at the state of mangrove forests from 30
years ago or more.
You can think of satellite images much like the photo gallery in your
smartphone: you can see many of your family members in a single image, and you
can see how everyone grows and “blooms” over time. In the case of mangroves,
we can see different regions and species in a single satellite image, and we
can use past images to study the life cycles of mangrove forests.
For example, satellite images depicted below, which use
data from the Australian government’s National Maps website, show how mangroves forests have changed in the Kimberley region of Western
Australia between 1990 and 2019. You can see how the mangrove forest has
reduced in some areas, but expanded in others. Overall, this mangrove forest
seems to be doing pretty well thanks in large part to the fact this area has a
reasonably small human population.
Images: NationalMap/Data61
Our study of satellite
images of mangrove forests in the Northern Territory, Queensland, and New
South Wales - and how they compared with data collected on the ground - found
not all mangroves have the same life cycles.
For instance, many mangrove species grow new leaves only once per year, while
other species grow new leaves twice a year. These subtle, but important
differences will allow us to track the impacts of climate change on mangroves
and other forests.
Satellite images of mangrove forests reveal not all mangroves
have the same life cycles. Here we see mangroves at different
growth stages.Nicolas Younes
Science cannot yet tell us exactly how mangrove phenology will be affected by
climate change but the results could be catastrophic. If mangroves flower or
fruit earlier than expected, pollinators such as bats, bees and birds may
starve or move to a different forests. Without pollinators, mangroves may not
reproduce and can die.
The next step in our research is to figure out how climate change is affecting
the life cycles of mangroves. To do this, we will use satellite images of
mangroves across Australia and factor in data on temperature and rainfall.
We think rising temperatures are causing longer periods of leaf growth, a
theory we plan to test by studying data from now with satellite images from
the 80s and 90s.
The next step in our research is to figure out how climate change
is affecting the life cycles of mangroves.Shutterstock
Satellite monitoring can’t do it all
Satellites can tell us a lot about how a mangrove forest is faring. For
example, satellite images captured a dieback event (depicted below, using
data from the Australian government’s National Maps website) that happened between 2015 and 2016, when around 7,400 hectares of
mangroves died
in the Gulf of Carpentaria
due to drought and unusually high air and sea temperatures.
Images: NationalMap/Data61
But satellite monitoring is not enough on its own and cannot capture the
detail you can get on the ground. For example, satellites cannot capture the
flowering or fruiting of mangroves because flowers are often too small and
fruits are often camouflaged. Also, satellites cannot capture what happens
under the canopy.
It is also important to recognise the work of researchers on the ground.
Ground data allows us to validate or confirm the information we see in
satellite images. When we noted some mangrove forests were growing leaves
twice per year, we validated this observation with field data, and confirmed
with experts in mangrove ecosystems. Field data is crucial to understand the
life cycles of ecosystems worldwide and how forests are responding to changes
in the climate.
Wetlands, including mangroves, are some of our most precious
ecosystems.Shutterstock
Greta Thunberg turned 18 a few months ago but occasionally she forgets that.
“I actually can vote now,” she grins. But the words “we children” still
sometimes slip into her sentences, out of habit. She is sanguine about the
change, but it is a bigger shift than she lets on: that phrase has been a core
part of her message.
Thunberg became the world’s most celebrated climate activist on the back of this
idea: that children have to wake the world up to the reality of climate change.
She was just 15 when she started the “school strike for climate”, for which she
skipped classes and sat outside the Swedish parliament — at first alone and
later with dozens, then hundreds of others every Friday. As the movement grew,
aided by Thunberg’s speeches, millions of students joined in. She took a year
off school, led protests all over the world and has been nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize three times.
But today, the world is very different. When we speak in mid-March, most of
Europe is under some form of lockdown. Thunberg is at her family home in
Stockholm — her dad’s exercise bike and some houseplants form the backdrop of
our Zoom call. She’s also back at school, and isn’t cutting classes on Fridays
any more: protests during the pandemic have been mostly virtual.
Searching for an upside to the current situation, I ask whether she
sees any silver linings from the crisis, which caused global emissions to drop
by 6 per cent last year.
“The corona pandemic brought nothing
positive,” she says bluntly. “The emissions reductions we could see were
temporary and accidental . . . They didn’t occur due to us actually trying to
reduce emissions. So this has got nothing to do with climate action.” But the
pandemic does contain a lesson, she says: “It proves that the climate crisis has
never once been treated as a crisis. It just puts it in a different light.”
Thunberg became the face of the climate movement when it was
enjoying a great deal of success. In the past two years, dozens of countries
have announced targets of “net zero” emissions by 2050, which would mean
virtually stripping fossil fuels from their economies. China and the US, the
world’s two largest emitters, have both made climate change a diplomatic
priority. Many of the world’s dirtiest companies have pledged to cut emissions.
And images of thousands of children marching through streets in protests
inspired by Thunberg have galvanised a political focus on climate change that
would have been unimaginable a few years ago.
We need to stop focusing on dates and numbers and acknowledge that we
need to reduce our emissions right now
“The Greta Effect” has become a phenomenon with a life of its own. It has also
become the subject of study and debate, not all uncritical, by activists,
academics and executives. They are asking how much of Thunberg’s impact is
personal and how much is due to timing; where she goes next; and how
long-lasting, in slow-changing economies and industries, her impact will prove
to be. And these are questions that Thunberg is also asking herself.
Why
does she think she became famous? “I don’t know,” she says. “I guess it was just
the right thing at the right timing . . . People were ready for this kind of
thing, and then it just sort of [took] off. And one thing led to another and,
yeah, it just spiralled out of control . . . or at least, out of what was
reasonable.”
The last time we met was two years ago, when we had lunch together
in Stockholm. Although Thunberg is outwardly similar, over the course of our
conversation it becomes clear how much she has grown up. She is much more
confident and relaxed, and gives long and complicated answers when it comes to
her favourite topics, such as the pitfalls of net-zero targets.
She
still struggles a bit to make small talk, common among people who have Asperger
syndrome, a form of autism. What is it like being back at school? Very different
from before, she says. What does she think of the recent climate targets set by
major economies? “[My views are] completely irrelevant . . . We shouldn’t be
focusing on whether individuals think it is enough or whether I think it is
good.”
But after a slightly prickly start we settle in. Thunberg begins to work on some
embroidery as she talks — a piece she has designed for a friend who is a climate
activist in the Netherlands. “I can do these things during online classes,” she
explains, as a red thread slides across the video screen. “I concentrate better
when I do something at the same time.”
I ask how her message has
evolved in the past few years. Thunberg has long avoided detailed discussion of
what the solutions for climate change might be — she insists that is for other
people to figure out. But is it time to start thinking more about the solutions
now?
“If I would start talking about, like, taxes, or things like
that, since I have such a big reach, that would send a signal that the climate
crisis is an issue that can come down to party politics. And that really
minimises this crisis,” she says.
“We need to stop focusing on dates
and numbers and actually accept and acknowledge the fact that we need to reduce
our emissions right now. We can talk about 2030 or 2040 as much as we want. But
it is what we are doing now that really matters.”
The Paris agreement
of December 2015 prompted countries to gradually set more ambitious targets, and
the rise of social media meant that a new type of protest movement could spread
among a younger generation. But there was also something special about Thunberg
herself.
In one of her most famous moments on stage, she addressed
the UN Climate Action Summit in New York in September 2019. “How dare you?” she
asked the audience of assembled grandees, with what looked like tears of rage in
her eyes. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”
Thunberg’s speech went viral, dominating headlines about the summit.
Greta Thunberg: 'treat the climate crisis like a real crisis'
Did she really feel that angry or was she putting on a bit of a
show? “Well, I mean — both,” she says. “I knew that this was a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I better make the most out of it. So I
allowed myself to let the emotions take over.”
She seems bemused,
though, that the popular image of her as an angry teenager has persisted. “I
never get angry,” she says with a small chuckle. “If you ask anyone who is in my
close environment, they would probably laugh at that statement.”
Online,
Thunberg’s wry humour comes through in her tweets, and she has taken down her
critics, including former US president Donald Trump, who accused her of having
an “anger management problem” in 2019 and told her to go and see a film to
relax. After the US election she turned his own words against him: “Donald must
work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with
a friend! Chill Donald, chill!” Her sense of humour seems to be thriving under
lockdown.
Other young activists inspired by Thunberg say that her voice was
one they identified with. “What she did was just monumental, it really
kickstarted the youth movement,” says Dominique Palmer, a British student and
climate justice activist who joined the Fridays for Future demonstrations. “In
the speeches that she gives, she says everything very clear-cut and exactly like
it is. That was very refreshing for a lot of people.”
The effect that
Thunberg has on her audience is one of the things that is unique about her,
according to a study published this year in the Journal of Applied Social
Psychology. “There are a lot of people who think she has done nothing,” says
Anandita Sabherwal, lead author of the paper, “The Greta Thunberg Effect”, and a
doctoral student at the London School of Economics. “Our research shows that is
not true, that she has changed [people’s] mindset.”
Sabherwal’s paper found that people who had heard of Thunberg were likely to
feel a stronger sense of “collective efficacy”, the belief that they could make
a difference by acting together. The sample size was small — about 1,300 US
adults — but Sabherwal thinks the effect may be even more pronounced in young
people, who were not included in the survey.
The surge of youth
activism has already had some real-world impacts, including court cases over
climate change brought by children. A recent legal challenge in Australia seeks
to stop fossil-fuel extraction in the country on the grounds that the government
is violating its “duty of care” to protect young people from climate change. (A
similar case in the US was dismissed last year.)
In the corporate
world, too, Thunberg’s name has been ubiquitous. “A year ago, I could not have
gone into a boardroom without someone referring to her, to Greta specifically,
or to the movement,” says Peter Bakker, president of the World Business Council
for Sustainable Development. “Greta and her movement have played an incredibly
important role in raising awareness.”
A search through transcripts of
corporate presentations shows that Thunberg’s name pops up in unlikely places.
The chief executive of Deutsche Börse, the German stock exchange group, cited
her when introducing its work on sustainable finance. The head of a large
uranium mining company pointed to Thunberg when giving his prognosis for the
future of the nuclear industry. A tractor manufacturer referred to her as it
outlined its plans for low-emissions farm vehicles. The list goes on.
“She
is a presence — sometimes explicit, always implicit — in the debates that are
taking place, about the societal concern over climate change and the need for
companies to be seen as good actors,” says Mark Lewis, chief sustainability
strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management.
Some think Thunberg gets
a bit too much credit. Mike Hulme, a professor of human geography at Cambridge
university, likens Thunberg to the polar bear as the latest climate icon.
“Fifteen years ago, wherever you looked, the polar bear popped up . . . And for
a period, wherever you looked, Greta Thunberg seemed to be on stage.”
But
Kingsmill Bond, energy strategist at Carbon Tracker, a climate change
think-tank, says: “The big thing that is different now to any other time in the
last 50 years, in attempts to take climate more seriously, is that the economics
now work. And that is the big shift that has happened. So instead of pushing
water uphill, we are now pushing water downhill.”
In many parts of
the world, renewable energy is now cheaper than its fossil fuel equivalent. The
cost of solar panels has fallen more than 80 per cent over the past decade,
while the cost of batteries is one-seventh of what it was 10 years ago. The
affordability of renewable energy has in turn prompted many governments to
promise to cut their emissions; by one count, around two-thirds of the global
economy is covered by some form of zero emissions pledge.
“She seized
the moment,” Bond says. “It could have taken a very long time. You could say the
same about any leader — that change would have happened regardless — but you do
actually need people to do it.”
Thunberg doesn’t expect her fame to last. “I’m surprised that it
has stayed so long,” she says. “I’ve not really still grasped it, in a
way . . . You have to keep yourself distant from these kinds of things, you
can’t let this occupy your personal life. Because when all this focus [on me]
disappears, which it will very soon . . . then that could be a hard thing to
handle.”
One thing she is grateful for is that she can still go
about her daily life in Stockholm undisturbed. “I’m very lucky in Sweden, we
have this thing called Jantelagen . . . no one comes up to you,” she says. “If I
go to another country, even if it’s just Denmark or Norway . . . then I can’t
walk down the street without people stopping me. But here in Sweden no one even
looks at me. I can see in their eyes that they know it’s me, and that they
recognise me, but they don’t stop me. Which is quite nice, actually.”
She is unsure what the next steps will be for the climate youth movement. “We
have learnt during this last year that nothing can be taken for granted, that we
can’t plan things in advance.”
Even though she is not a child any
longer, she says her primary tool has not changed — using the moral high ground
to ask the adults to do the right thing. “People say that we shouldn’t be using
morals, or like, shaming people, or using guilt or whatever. But since we don’t
have any globally binding agreements, that’s all we have . . . It’s the only
resource we have available at hand.”
In many ways Thunberg’s platform
shows the great power that protest can have — but also its limitations. Making
demands can go a long way. But the child activists will grow up. And the next
steps in the climate movement are likely to fall to scientists, policymakers or
engineers.
With the UN climate summit, COP26, coming up later this
year in Glasgow, I ask if she thinks it can make a difference. Thunberg has
attended several recent climate summits, first as a little-known activist in
Katowice, Poland, in 2018, and the following year as a celebrity in Madrid and
New York. She says she will probably go to Glasgow, “if it doesn’t get cancelled
again, and if I get invited”.
But she thinks the previous summits
all failed — and Glasgow won’t be any different. “We can hold these conferences
and meetings for eternity, over and over again, as many as we want. That still
won’t lead to any change. Unless we . . . actually start acknowledging this
crisis and admit that we have failed thus far.”
Her dogs, Roxy and
Moses, are barking at the door, and her embroidery has paused. I ask if she
knows what is next and whether she thinks she’ll keep working in the field of
climate change.
“Unfortunately, yes,” she tells me. “The wish would
be that everything would just be all right. And that there wouldn’t be a need
for climate activists. But to be realistic, that’s probably not going to be the
case . . . One thing is for sure, we are still going to do everything we can,
based on the circumstances. And continue to communicate the science, and to be a
pain in the ass for people in power,” she says with a little laugh.
