AGL Energy's brown coal fired power station in Victoria is one of the nation's biggest emitters of carbon dioxide. Photo: Bloomberg
Global leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have called on countries and companies to put a price on carbon to speed up efforts to fight climate change.
In what has been described as an unprecedented alliance ahead of the Paris climate summit starting next month, the leaders said pricing emissions was needed to steer the global economy to a low-carbon future that would avoid dangerous levels of global warming.
"There has never been a global movement to put a price on carbon at this level and with this degree of unison," World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim said in a statement. "The science is clear, the economics compelling and we now see political leadership emerging to take green investment to scale at a speed commensurate with the climate challenge."
The Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, which includes the giant California Public Employees Retirement System, CalPERS, plans to step up efforts at the Paris summit to get more regions to start pricing carbon. Some 40 nations and 23 cities, states and regions have fixed or floating carbon prices, covering about 12 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the group said.
"The market needs a transparent and consistent price that discourages carbon emissions and stimulates low carbon investment opportunities," said Anne Stausboll, chief executive of CalPERS. The group manages some $US295 billion ($405 billion) in assets and said this month that it would consider divesting its holdings in thermal coal companies.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was previously a strong advocate of a carbon price but promised not to revisit the policy when he deposed Tony Abbott last month. The Abbott government scrapped the Gillard-Rudd carbon tax in July 2014, replacing it with a reverse auction fund aimed at rewarding efforts by polluters rather than charging them to cut back.
"We are achieving real and significant abatement at around 1 per cent of the cost of the carbon tax," a spokeswoman for Environment Minister Greg Hunt said. "What counts is the total amount of emissions reduced and we are playing our part in reducing global emissions without increasing electricity bills for Australian families.
"The World Bank has recently launched a $100 million reverse auction that largely replicates many features of the Emissions Reduction Fund."
The first auction of Australia's $2.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund contracted 47 million tonnes of carbon abatement at a cost of $14 a tonne, compared with the $24.15 a tonne carbon tax when that scheme was axed.
John Connor, chief executive of The Climate Institute, said the move by the World Bank, IMF and other leaders left no doubt that "pollution reduction through pricing mechanisms is a core climate policy tool and is one which Australia will need to return to".
"Some in government would have us believe the World Bank is adopting the taxpayer-funded Emissions Reduction Fund as an ideal model," Mr Connor said. "However, this move highlights the growing global engagement with carbon pricing that makes the polluter, not the taxpayer, the primary focus in modernising and decarbonising economies."
Germany's Dr Merkel said carbon pricing was important to drive investment into renewable energy and other "climate friendly technologies".
"We should advance our effort along this path further so that we can actually reach our goal of maintaining the two-degree upper limit," Dr Merkel said, referring to the temperature increase compared with pre-industrial times that is expected to lead to dangerous climate shifts.
Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader says humans cause global warming so must now take action to protect fragile environments including Himalayan glaciers
The Dalai Lama is urging the world’s nations to take strong action to limit global warming. Photograph: Ashwini Bhatia/AP
The Dalai Lama on Tuesday urged strong global action to limit global warming and to protect fragile environments, including the Himalayan glaciers and Tibetan plateau.
Calling climate change a “problem which human beings created,” the 80-year-old Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader said all of humanity was now responsible for taking action. But instead, he said, “we are relying on praying to God or to Buddha. Sometimes I feel this is very illogical.”
He issued his plea in a pre-taped video released as part of a campaign launched by the Tibetan government-in-exile in the north Indian hill town of Dharmsala, where the Dalai Lama has been based since fleeing a Chinese military crackdown in Tibet.
Watch the Dalai Lama’s video message on global warming and the Paris climate summit.
The government-in-exile said the campaign would continue through this year’s UN climate change talks, where nations hope to conclude a new treaty for limiting climate-warming gas emissions. The exiled government will also send its own delegate to the talks, which start 30 November in Paris, though it will not have a vote of its own.
“This is not a question of one nation or two nations. This is a question of humanity. Our world is our home,” the Dalai Lama said. “There’s no other planet where we may move or shift.”
Acknowledging his advanced years, the Dalai Lama appealed to younger generations to “take a more active role in protecting this planet, including the Tibetan plateau.”
Temperatures for Tibet’s high-altitude plateau — referred to as the Roof of the World — are rising about three times faster than the global average, and are 1.3C higher than they were 50 years ago. The Himalayas are also called the Third Pole, referring to the fact that they are covered in snow and ice and are particularly susceptible to climate change, like the North and South poles.
The government-in-exile also argued that Tibetans should be restored as the “true stewards” of the plateau, which has been under Chinese rule for decades and where Tibetans accuse Beijing of mining indiscriminately while forcing nomadic communities to move elsewhere.
“Tibetans must have a say on what happens on their land,” said the exiled government’s prime minister, Lobsang Sangay. “Tibetan nomads are the expert custodians of the alpine pastures, and their knowledge and experience must be recognized.”
China has long understood the plateau’s environmental importance and vulnerability, with some 40% of the world’s fresh water locked into the frozen Himalayan glaciers and feeding seven major rivers that run through China, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences studies environmental and climate change from its Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research in the region — a 2.5m sq km (966,000 sq m) area that includes the Tibetan Autonomous Region as well as most of China’s Qinghai province, parts of Sichuan and the southern Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang.
Up to 70% of the plateau is covered in permafrost, with large reserves of both carbon dioxide and methane trapped within the ice. Scientists say thawing could release long-stored emissions of both greenhouse gases. Methane can be 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping Earth’s heat.
Australia has the opportunity to become a renewable energy superpower – giving it a global economic advantage much greater than that ever gained from fossil fuels – a new report has suggested, but only if it seizes three key areas of opportunity, based heavily on innovation; and only if it acts quickly and doesn’t miss the wave.
The report, published on Monday by Beyond Zero Emissions, notes that Australia – despite having one of the best renewable energy resources in the world – is currently on the back foot in the global energy stakes.
Its “fossil fuel advantage” is fast disappearing , and it has an outdated and gold-plated electricity network that has acted as a ball and chain to progress. But it also suggests that Australia could turn this position around, by building an industry that supplies the renewable and energy efficiency market; by assisting the migration of energy intensive industries to renewables; and by harnessing the trade of renewable energy commodities.
The global shift to renewable energy – while largely a democratising force – will still bring advantages to some nations, the report says.
“The value associated with renewable energy is largely accounted for by the harvesting equipment, with very little ongoing costs and zero fuel costs. This is completely different to fossil energy where the majority of the value is in the ongoing consumption of fuel.
“As a result, the opportunity to capitalise on supplying renewable energy and efficiency equipment will be confined to the period of the transition; then it will recede.
“This opportunity will be based on innovation rather than natural resources. Considering that energy harvesting equipment is commonly available to all nations, advantages will accrue to nations or regions with higher quality renewable energy resources and a greater harvesting territory in relation to their domestic energy needs (Figure 6). “In essence, these nations will require less investment for equivalent energy output, lowering their energy costs. …the cost of power per unit of installed capacity can more than halve across the typical range of wind or solar conditions,” the report says. “This is the new energy advantage.”
According to the report, there are three main opportunities for “superpowers” in the transition to renewable energy.
“First, demand for renewable energy and efficiency equipment will surge during the transition and then recede.
“Second, after the transition, energy intensive industries will relocate in search of low-cost energy. Third, renewable energy commodities for export will be produced in countries with low-cost renewable energy.”
BZE says the sources of value in the energy system will change in the transition from fossil energy to renewable energy, developing in different phases (see figure 8 below). Having now reached the tipping point, the report notes that the majority of world energy investment over the next two decades is expected to flow to renewable energy and efficiency solutions – even under ‘business as usual’ conditions.
According to BZE, the global market for renewable energy and efficiency solutions is expected to grow from an estimated $US390 billion in 2013, to $US2.3 trillion by 2035 in order to limit global warming to 2°C.
In all, says the report, $US28 trillion is expected to be invested in renewable energy and efficiency throughout the period.
“The nature of renewable energy solutions is upfront equipment costs replacing the ongoing high fuel costs of fossil energy. This means that this opportunity will be at its strongest during the energy transition phase and recede into the renewable energy era.
As for energy intensive industries, the report says the economics of renewable energy will trigger a migration of this secor, in search of lower production costs for a competitive edge.
“Australia can attract these businesses with its abundant, low-cost energy as well as complementary industries established during the former glory years of energy intensive production in this country.”
Tradeable renewable energy commodities — such as biofuel, hydrogen or transmitted electricity — will be additional energy intensive industries of the renewable energy era, the report says.
And for Australia, “abundant, low-cost renewable energy, land availability, and proximity to the emerging Asian region,” make it a perfect fit.
“Managed well, the transition to renewable energy will restore and enhance former strengths, this time built on sustainable foundations,” the report says.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gestures as he speaks during a visit to Expo Milan in Milan, Italy, Oct. 17, 2015.
The stability of the world is directly linked to climate change and its impact on food security for billions of people, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.
In a speech to the Milan Expo, Kerry argued that unrest tied to climate change induced agricultural failure poses an international threat. The Milan Expo in Italy is focused on food security, and Kerry urged attendees to act quickly against climate change.
“Make no mistake: The implications here extend well beyond hunger,” Kerry said. “This isn't only about global food security, it's about global security period.”
Kerry said it was "not a coincidence that, immediately prior to the civil war in Syria, the country experienced the worst drought on record", sparking the migration of some 1.5 million people "that intensified the political unrest that was beginning to brew".
"I'm not suggesting the crisis in Syria was caused by climate change, obviously, it wasn't. It was caused by a brutal dictator who barrel bombed, starved, tortured, and gassed his own people. But the devastating drought clearly made a bad situation a whole lot worse," he said.
'Threat multiplier'
Kerry described climate change as "threat multiplier".
"Even if it doesn't ignite conflict, it has the ability to fan the flames and to make situations much more complicated for political leaders to deal with."
Kerry cited the mass migration to Europe as an example of a crisis provoked partly by climate change — which he warned will get significantly worse if large parts of the world become uninhabitable due to global warming.
FILE - Migrants walk along a street after they arrived by train in
Hegyeshalom, at the Austrian border, 169 km west of Budapest, Hungary,
Oct. 7, 2015.
Kerry urged world governments to act quickly against climate change because without such action, he said, "the horrific refugee situation we're facing today will pale in comparison to the mass migrations that intense droughts, sea-level rise and other impacts of climate change are likely to bring about.''
Upcoming UN conference
Kerry's call comes ahead of the U.N.'s conference in November aimed at securing a pact on greenhouse gases that would limit global warming to two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times.
The White House has made tackling climate change a priority, despite stern opposition from the Republican-controlled Congress.
The last big push for a world climate deal was in Copenhagen in 2009. It nearly ended in a fiasco after rich and poor countries bickered over how to share the burden of addressing the problem.
Kerry is in Italy on the first leg of a three-nation tour of Europe that will also take him to France and Spain.
If Vatnajökull were melting at the same speed as the Greenland ice
sheet, it would be gone in ten years – and global warming in the
Arctic region has reached incredible levels, says Tómas Jóhannesson,
glaciological research group leader at the Icelandic Met Office.
Global warming is a cause for concern for many. The European Union, for instance, has set a target to limit global warming to 2°C this century, as compared to pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures. According to Tómas Jóhannesson, glaciological research group leader at the Icelandic Met Office, many scientists believe this target is unrealistic. Since 1980, temperatures in the northern hemisphere have risen by just under 1°C – and by much more in the Arctic region. Temperatures in Svalbard, Norway, have risen by 3-4°C, in Greenland by over 2°C, and in Iceland by just over 1.5°C. "These unbelievable increases are major news, particularly in Svalbard and Greenland," says Jóhannesson.
Global warming quickest in Greenland
The quickest temperature rises have occurred in Greenland, Alaska, Northern Canada and Siberia. Significant warming did not begin in Greenland until the mid-1990s, i.e. temperatures have risen by over 2°C in just twenty years. "This is a much quicker rise than anybody expected, even in the Arctic region," explains Jóhannesson. "The explanation is probably that a localised, natural change – which was due on the back of low rises in temperature in previous years – coincided with general global warming. Most people expect that, before long, the pace of warming in this region will slow down and approach long-term averages. When the current period of natural warming ends – and nobody expects it to last forever – a period of slower warming will commence."
That said, Jóhannesson adds that temperatures in the Arctic region could rise at double the rate of the rest of the world over the next 100 years. "There is general agreement that this means a wildly different climate for the Arctic region – including Iceland – bringing completely different conditions for animal and plant life."
Several causes of global warming
Global temperatures have always fluctuated. For instance, temperatures in the Arctic region are thought to have been much higher 6-8,000 years ago. "There are several other examples of warm times," Jóhannesson points out. "Temperatures in Iceland – and in most of the Arctic region – back in 1930-40 were about as high as they are now. The difference is that climate warming is occurring for different reasons now than in the past, i.e. by human influence. By this I mean emissions of greenhouse gases – if nothing is done about this trend, the world will continue to heat up more quickly than ever before."
According to Jóhannesson, it is difficult to forecast global warming for the next century, as it is not yet clear what the international community will agree upon in their efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Some predictions assume similar or higher emission levels than now, others lower. Population growth is also a factor, and forecasts from the United Nations are used in this context. Jóhannesson indicates that temperatures in Iceland could rise by 2-3°C by the end of the century if little is done to control emissions, or by 1-2°C if radical action is taken. "These forecasts have not changed significantly in over twenty years," he says.
Glaciers are an accurate ‘thermometer’
Glaciers act as an accurate ‘thermometer’ and global warming obviously affects them. The years 2009-14 saw twice as much ice melt in Greenland as in 2003-09, and three times as much in Antarctica. "Around the year 2000, glacial input into the world’s oceans was highest from ‘small glaciers’, such as Iceland’s Vatnajökull and glaciers in Alaska, Patagonia and elsewhere," explains Jóhannesson. "Nowadays, the Greenland ice sheet pours more into the sea than all of these smaller glaciers put together. The small glaciers added 0.5-1 mm per year to the world’s seas, although there is a good deal of uncertainty about this figure. The Greenland ice sheet has now reached a figure of 1 mm per year, up from 0.5 mm per year just a few years ago."
According to Jóhannesson, scientists expect this trend to continue as long as the Arctic region continues to warm up.
He indicates that changes appear to be quickest where glaciers break off into the sea, as both sea temperature and pack ice in front of glacier ice tongues determine to a significant extent the rate of glacier melting. Reductions in pack ice also affect temperatures. Where before expanses of pack ice reflected sunlight away, open seas reflect less sunlight back into space and heat up.
Changes to run-off
What impact could this fast-melting ice have on Iceland? Jóhannesson’s first answer is glacial run-off. He also mentions possible changes in water course, e.g. water that previously flowed to a waterfall outside of the glacier could begin to flow elsewhere. Changes could also occur in courses of water on the outskirts of glaciers. The best example of this in Iceland is the Skeiðará river, which changed course in 2009 and merged with GÃgjukvÃsl river. Lakes could form with run-off in different places to where glacier rivers traditionally flow from.
Furthermore, increased glacial melting could bring changes to glacier-edge lagoons and, in turn, to glacier river floods. Some lagoons may stop flooding while new ones begin. Floods could also become weaker as their flow out into lagoons, meaning all sorts of changes to water flows. If lagoons form on the edges of glaciers, sediment will settle, altering the deposits and colour of rivers. Other factors, such as fish migrations, may also be affected.
On top of all this, land rises when glacial pressure decreases. This can alter the coastline and have an effect on sea erosion. Jóhannesson gives the example of the harbour in Höfn, South Iceland, which is quickly getting shallower as the Vatnajökull glacier recedes. Land is expected to rise by more than one metre this century, which will make entering the harbour considerably problematic. "This is a big issue for the community," warns Jóhannesson, adding that in most places in Iceland sea levels are actually rising, since world sea levels are rising and the land is not being altered by changes in glacial pressure. Sea is encroaching on land rather than the other way round.
Vatnajökull gone in ten years
On the subject of the Greenland ice sheet, Jóhannesson explains that the glacier is shrinking and is therefore exerting less of a gravitational pull on the sea towards Greenland than before. "It is reasonable to expect the sea to retreat to some extent from Greenland, meaning sea levels will in many places drop or at least not rise as much as they otherwise would," he says. "This is not, however, a particular problem since in Greenland the land descends steeply into the sea. These changes will therefore not cause problems for harbours. Sea-levels around Iceland will also rise less than the world average for the same reason."
Ice is melting in Greenland at thirty times the rate in Iceland, according to Jóhannesson. "The Greenland ice sheet is shrinking by 350 m2 per year – that is one-tenth of the size of Vatnajökull, he explains. "This means that if Vatnajökull were melting at the same speed as the Greenland ice sheet, it would be gone in ten years – a striking statistic."
According to Jóhannesson, extensive research has been carried out into the effect of climate change on glaciers in Iceland. One study predicts that Langjökull, Hofsjökull and the southern part of Vatnajökull will all have disappeared in 200 years’ time. "Both the former Icelandic Nautical Agency and the current Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration are already taking such factors into account when designing ports and infrastructure," he explains. "Similarly, the National Power Company of Iceland bases the design and management of its hydropower plants on considerations of changes in glacial run-off. For instance, in recent times it has been possible to generate more energy from the Kárahnjúkar Power Station than it was originally designed for, i.e. the new operational situation has increased hydropower revenue. Shrinking glaciers also have an effect on the appearance of the land, tourism, and many other factors. These changes will require a lot of planning."
In November, nearly 200 countries meet in Paris for UN talks to agree a new climate deal. Find out below how their pledges - known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs in UN jargon - compare in our in-depth analysis of 14 key countries and blocs
Without new action on carbon emissions, this happens
This is why Paris is necessary. Developing countries still have a lot of developing to do – and that means big increases in emissions that would lock in dangerous global warming. That’s why, unlike the only previous international climate protocol, Paris will apply to rich and poor countries.
The European Union’s promised emissions cut will almost certainly be the most far-reaching climate offer on the table in Paris.
If
it is fully achieved, with no loopholes or carbon accounting tricks,
the EU can say that it is walking a path that offers a greater than 50%
chance of limiting global warming to the “safe” threshold of 2C.
Despite being the host of the UN summit that led to the Kyoto
protocol on climate change in 1997, Japanese negotiators will arrive in
Paris in November with an underwhelming plan of action for greenhouse
gas reductions.
Just as US president, Barack Obama, issued a call to arms
to save the climate “while we still can,” Japan announced modest carbon
emission reductions that drew criticism from environment campaigners
and earned it Fossil of the Day award from the Climate Action Network.
In a country famed for icy temperatures, the concept of global
warming is often greeted with jovial chuckling. While many in the
Russian political elite understand the seriousness of the problem, the
current economic downturn, and conventional short-term economic
thinking, means the political will to prioritise reducing emissions is
absent.
Russia’s greenhouse gas emissions did not grow in 2014,
as the country entered economic downturn, due to western sanctions and
the falling price of oil. In recent years, greenhouse emissions have
risen, but at a much slower rate than economic growth, mainly because
the economy has been restructured from heavy industry and manufacturing
towards resource extraction and services, since president Vladimir Putin
came to power in 2000.
Barack Obama pledged the second half of his presidency to fighting
climate change – even in the face of strong opposition from industry and
a Republican-controlled Congress.
The target Obama set ahead of
the Paris climate talks of a 26-28% cut in carbon pollution by 2025 from
2005 levels is proof of that commitment, experts said.
Canada put forward one of the weakest climate targets of any major
industrialised economy, which experts said was a direct result of the
Stephen Harper government’s promotion of the highly polluting tar sands
industry.
The Canadian government proposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.
Australia’s emissions reduction target for 2030 is lower than some
comparable developed countries, but the greatest scrutiny now is whether
the new prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, can improve policies widely
regarded as inadequate to achieve it.
Before he was ousted in a leadership coup in September, the former prime minister Tony Abbott announced Australia would reduce emissions by between 26% and 28% of 2005 levels by 2030. Turnbull has since backed the pledge.
Abbott argued it put Australia “foursquare in the middle” of the pledges comparable economies will take to the United Nations meeting in Paris in December
and argued Australia’s higher population growth and the higher economic
costs of global climate action on coal exports should also be taken
into account.
“It’s better than Japan. It’s almost the same as
New Zealand. It’s a whisker below Canada. It’s a little below Europe.
It’s about the same as the United States. It’s vastly better than Korea.
Of course, it is unimaginably better than China,” Abbott said at the
time.
Pylons running from Liddell Power Station near Muswellbrook. Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters
Others
disagreed. Bernie Fraser, the chairman of an independent government
advisory body – the Climate Change Authority (CCA) – which the Abbott
government had unsuccessfully sought to abolish, said the target put Australia “at or near the bottom of the group of countries we generally compare ourselves with”. Fraser has since resigned.
The CCA had recommended much deeper cuts of between 45% to 63% on 2000 when taken from the 2005 base year. The Climate Institute thinktank said
the target was not scientifically credible, because it did not
represent Australia’s fair share of the global task to limit warming to
2C (a goal the Australian government accepts), describing it as
“pathetically inadequate”.
But the focus is now on whether Turnbull changes Australia’s climate policies, which business leaders and environment groups say have little chance of meeting the new target.
Climate policy is one of the most contentious issues in Australian
politics and Turnbull lost the Liberal leadership when the conservative
parties were in opposition in 2009 because of his insistence that they
back the then Labor government’s economy-wide emissions trading scheme.
Abbott,
who wrested the Liberal leadership from him and went on to win the 2013
federal election, said at that time he thought the “settled science of
climate change was absolute crap”. The first bill introduced by the
Abbott government after the election victory was to repeal the emissions
trading scheme, which had been eventually legislated by Labor with the
backing of the Greens party.
The Abbott government also
tried – unsuccessfully – to dramatically reduce Australia’s target for
the uptake of renewable energy and to abolish agencies aimed at
commercialising and providing finance for clean energy. Abbott and key ministers said they
found wind turbines “utterly offensive” and “ugly” and promised to
appoint a special commissioner to investigate complaints about health
impacts of windfarms.
Turnbull has been forced to promise the
conservative wing of his party that he will not revisit that argument
and will stick with the coalition’s so-called “Direct Action” climate
plan, which sets aside $2.5bn for a competitive grants process to pay
for greenhouse gas abatement.
But it is anticipated he will bring a far less hostile approach to action on global warming.
He
could change other aspects of the policy – including “baselines” for
the biggest industrial emitters, which are scheduled to be set at levels
which would allow many to increase their greenhouse pollution and without the aim of forcing any reductions.
Coal is stockpiled in preparation for loading onto ships for export at the Newcastle Coal Terminal in Newcastle. Photograph: Ian Waldie/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Abbott
once described buying international carbon permits as being like
sending “money … offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea
and Kazakhstan”, but when announcing the new target he did not rule out
allowing offshore permits after a review of Australia’s policy in
2017-18. Turnbull could bring forward their inclusion.
The Labor
opposition has not revealed what post-2020 emissions reduction target it
would favour, but environment spokesman Mark Butler has said the
government’s target is not high enough. Labor has promised to
reintroduce an emissions trading scheme if it wins the general election
in 2017.
The government modelled the economic cost of its 2030
target. It showed the 26% target would shave between 0.2% and 0.3% from
Australian GDP in 2030, but the same modelling found that – based on similar assumptions, a 35% target would cut only 0.3% to 0.5% and a 45% target would cut between 0.5% and 0.7%.
Brazil’s promise to reduce total emissions by 2025 is a bold
political move that should allow the country once again to play a
leading role in climate negotiations.
As the first major developing nation to pledge an absolute reductions target
(rather than relative to GDP), Brazil will be in a strong position to
bridge the gap between rich and poor nations at the Paris talks in
December.
China is the world’s largest carbon emitter due to its voracious
appetite for coal to fuel its massive economy. For this reason, much
attention is on China ahead of the UN climate change negotiations in
Paris and its post-2020 climate action commitment was eagerly awaited.
China has changed its approach to cutting carbon emissions since the disastrous Copenhagen negotiations in 2009 when it was blamed for blocking an agreement.
The government is now taking the need to cut emissions seriously and
this is reflected in its submission to the United Nations. As part of
its pledge to reduce carbon emissions beyond 2020, China has said it
will cut its CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65% from 2005 levels by
2030.
India was a day late in its submission of its climate change plan to the UN, and was the last of 140 countries to do so.
The
delay was partly deliberate. The government of Narendra Modi waited
until the anniversary of the birth of the Mahatma Gandhi , the revered
independence leader and campaigner for a low-tech local model of
economic development based on village communities, to give their
announcement added resonance.
Indonesia’s pledge to cuts its carbon emissions by 29% by 2030
compared to current projections has been criticised for failing to
adequately address large-scale forest and peatland loss, which account
for the majority of its emissions.
Campaigners said the final submission to the UN is full of “empty words” that are too “vague” on deforestation.
Ethiopia was until recently a byword for African famine, drought and
absolute poverty. But the climatically vulnerable country where 10
million people rely on food aid and which is responsible for just 0.3%
of global carbon emissions will go to the Paris climate talks as a
leader of other developing countries, planning to hold its emissions and
to double the size of its economy by 2030.
Officials in the
ministry of the environment in Addis Ababa say they have no option but
to act on climate change. “Ethiopia did not cause [it]. But we are
confronted by the threat that it poses. It has the potential to
destabilise us and other countries in the Horn of Africa, bring more
fierce competition for water and other resources,” says a government
spokesman.
Mexico received international praise for being the first major developing country to submit its pledge to the UN on curbing greenhouse gas emissions ahead of the Paris summit.
Mexico
promised to start reducing emissions from 2026, with an unconditional
pledge that by 2030 they would be 22% lower than business-as-usual
projections. With conditions, the government said the reductions could
be 40%.
Morocco will host next year’s UN climate summit and is becoming an
Arab leader at the Paris talks in December. Earlier this year the north
African country, which is 95% dependent on Middle East oil and gas for
its energy, committed to spending $10bn (£6.5bn) of its own money to
make a 13% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
But it also pledged to cut emissions a further 19% if $35bn of additional money can be generated from UN climate funds, the private sector and other countries.
A composite image of the Western hemisphere of the Earth. Credit: NASA
An international team of scientists have identified potential 'tipping points' where abrupt regional climate shifts could occur due to global warming,
In the new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the scientists analysed the climate model simulations on which the recent 5th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports are based.
They found evidence of 41 cases of regional abrupt changes in the ocean, sea ice, snow cover, permafrost and terrestrial biosphere. Many of these events occur for global warming levels of less than two degrees, a threshold sometimes presented as a safe limit. However, although most models predict one or more abrupt regional shifts, any specific occurrence typically appears in only a few models.
"This illustrates the high uncertainty in predicting tipping points," says lead author Professor Sybren Drijfhout from Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton. "More precisely, our results show that the different state-of-the-art models agree that abrupt changes are likely, but that predicting when and where they will occur remains very difficult. Also, our results show that no safe limit exists and that many abrupt shifts already occur for global warming levels much lower than two degrees," he adds.
Examples of detected climate tipping include abrupt shifts in sea ice and ocean circulation patterns, as well as abrupt shifts in vegetation and marine productivity. Sea ice abrupt changes were particularly common in the climate simulations. However, various models also predict abrupt changes in Earth system elements such as the Amazon forest, tundra permafrost and snow on the Tibetan plateau.
"Interestingly, abrupt events could come out as a cascade of different phenomena," adds Victor Brovkin, a co-author from Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M). "For example, a collapse of permafrost in Arctic is followed by a rapid increase in forest area there. This kind of domino effect should have implications not only for natural systems, but also for society."
"The majority of the detected abrupt shifts are distant from the major population centres of the planet, but their occurrence could have implications over large distances." says Martin Claussen, director of the MPI-M and one of the co-authors. "Our work is only a starting point. Now we need to look deeper into mechanisms of tipping points and design an approach to diagnose them during the next round of climate model simulations for IPCC."
But it also suggests that Australia could turn this position around, by building an industry that supplies the renewable and energy efficiency market; by assisting the migration of energy intensive industries to renewables; and by harnessing the trade of renewable energy commodities.
The global shift to renewable energy – while largely a democratising force – will still bring advantages to some nations, the report says.
Having now reached the tipping point, the report notes that the majority of world energy investment over the next two decades is expected to flow to renewable energy and efficiency solutions – even under ‘business as usual’ conditions.
