Country accused of tacitly supporting oil allies’ rejection of the latest science
Greenpeace activists project words “No hope without climate action” on
the roof of the venue of the COP24 conference in Katowice, Poland.
Australia stood on the sidelines of a heated debate.
Photograph: Janis Laizans/Reuters
As four of the world’s largest oil and gas producers blocked UN
climate talks from “welcoming” a key scientific report on global
warming, Australia’s silence during a key debate is being viewed as
tacit support for the four oil allies: the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait.
The end of the first week of the UN climate talks – known as COP24 – in Katowice, Poland,
has been mired by protracted debate over whether the conference should
“welcome” or “note” a key report from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
The IPCC’s 1.5 degrees report, released in October, warned the world
would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 45% by 2030 to limit
global warming to 1.5C and potentially avoid some of the worst effects
of climate change, including a dramatically increased risk of drought,
flood, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.
The UN climate conference commissioned the IPCC report, but when that
body went to “welcome” the report’s findings and commit to continuing
its work, four nations – the US, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia,
all major oil and gas producers – refused to accept the wording,
insisting instead that the convention simply “note” the findings.
Negotiators spent two and a half hours trying to hammer out a compromise without success.
The apparently minor semantic debate has significant consequences,
and the deadlock ensures the debate will spill into the second critical
week of negotiations, with key government ministers set to arrive in
Katowice.
Most of the world’s countries spoke out in fierce opposition to the oil allies’ position.
The push to adopt the wording “welcome” was led by the Maldives,
leader of the alliance of small island states, of which Australia’s
Pacific island neighbours are members.
They were backed by a broad swathe of support, including from the EU,
the bloc of 47 least developed countries, the Independent Association
of Latin America and the Caribbean, African, American and European
nations, and Pacific countries such as the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu.
Australia did not speak during the at-times heated debate, a silence
noted by many countries on the floor of the conference, Dr Bill Hare,
the managing director of Climate Analytics and a lead author on previous
IPCC reports, told Guardian Australia.
“Australia’s silence in the face of this attack yesterday
shocked many countries and is widely seen as de facto support for the
US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait’s refusal to welcome the IPCC
report,” Hare said.
Richie Merzian, climate and energy program director at the Australia
Institute, said widespread goodwill across the Katowice talks was being
undermined by “a handful of countries” trying to disconnect the science
and urgency from the implementation of the Paris agreement.
“It is disappointing but not surprising that Australia kept its head
down during the debate … by remaining silent and not putting a position
forward, Australia has tacitly supported the US, Russia and Saudi
Arabia’s rejection of the latest science on climate change.”
Merzian said Australia’s regional neighbours, including New Zealand
and Pacific islands, had voiced strong support for the IPCC’s report,
which was a key outcome of the Paris agreement.
“A number of delegates privately shared their frustration that
countries like Australia stood on the sidelines while Trump’s, Putin’s
and King Salman’s representatives laid waste to the fundamental climate
science.”
Hare said the interests of the fossil fuel industry were seeking to thwart the conference’s drive towards larger emissions cuts.
“The fossil fuel interest – coal, oil and gas – campaign against the
IPCC 1.5 report and science continues to play out in the climate talks,
but even those countries [opposing welcoming the report] are being hit
by the impacts of only one degree of warming.
“The big challenge now is for the Polish presidency to set aside its
obsession with coal, get out of the way and allow full acknowledgement
of the IPCC 1.5C report, and its implications for increasing the
ambition of all countries, in the conclusion of COP24 later this week.”
Australia’s environment minister, Melissa Price, arrived in Katowice on Sunday, with negotiations set to resume Monday morning.
“The
government is committed to the Paris agreement and our emissions
reduction targets,” she said before leaving Australia. “Australia’s
participation in the Paris agreement and in COP24 is in our national
interest, in the interests of the Indo-Pacific region, and the
international community as a whole.”
Price said a priority for Australia at COP24 was to ensure a robust
framework of rules to govern the reporting of Paris agreement targets.
“Australia’s emissions reporting is of an exceptionally high standard
and we are advocating for rules that bring other countries up to the
standard to which we adhere.”
The latest Australian government figures, released last month, show the country’s carbon emissions continue to rise, at a rate significantly higher than recent years.
Australia’s emissions, seasonally adjusted, increased 1.3% over the
past quarter. Excluding emissions from land use, land use change and
forestry (for which the calculations are controversial), they are at a
record high.
In the third part of The Future Fix, we examine the "far away" threat of
climate change. The science is unequivocal. So why are our politicians
so resistant to taking real action? And what about us?
Matthew Absalom-Wong
Even veteran scientists hardened by decades of climate scepticism
could hardly believe their ears. Environment Minister Melissa Price,
responding to a bombshell report that distilled 6000 scientific papers,
said the experts had it wrong.
Phasing out coal within three
decades to avert calamitous global warming? That was “drawing a long
bow”, Price said of the recommendation by the United Nations'
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Sure,
the experts predict food shortages, lost livelihoods and stunted
economies. Cyclones and droughts will hit with frightening regularity.
Bleaching will annihilate the Great Barrier Reef.
But Price made
“no apology” for her government’s decision to dump efforts to cut
pollution from electricity generation. Lower power bills were more
important. And after all, she said, Australia is just a tiny contributor
to global emissions.
Around the country, scientists wrung their
hands in despair. World-renowned reef biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg was,
to put it mildly, “disappointed”.
“The numbers don’t lie. It’s very clear we have to phase out fossil fuels by mid-century,” he said.
“We need a leadership that embraces the future and sets us on a new course.
The naturalist Sir David Attenborough reinforced the message this
week when he told the UN climate summit in Poland that “if we don’t take
action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of
the natural world is on the horizon”.
For at least two decades,
scientific evidence on climate change has been unequivocal. By burning
fossil fuels on a massive scale, humans have changed the climate system.
And after years of torpor, we have left ourselves only a short window
of time to avoid damage on a cataclysmic scale.
Australia,
already the world’s driest inhabited continent, is uniquely vulnerable.
And yet real action here, as in much of the world, is elusive.
In
fact, on current trajectories Australia, and the world, is heading in
the wrong direction. The International Energy Agency says last year’s
emissions from energy alone – coal, gas, oil, renewables and nuclear –
rose 1.4 per cent to a historic high of 32.5 gigatonnes. This is the
equivalent of adding 170 million cars to the road. The agency expects
that emissions in 2018 will be higher still. Official data shows that
Australia’s annual carbon emissions climbed for the fourth year running
in the year to June 2017 – up by 0.7 per cent to 550 million tonnes.
The
recent release of Labor’s climate change action policy for electricity,
and the looming federal election, have thrust the issue to the
political forefront once more.
So where does Australia sit on
climate action? Where are we winning, what is holding us back, and what
can we all do to help get truly serious about cutting our greenhouse gas
emissions?
Saskia Cook-Knowles of Port Kembla High School was one of thousands of students demanding action on climate change in November. Credit: AP
Opinion polls show most Australians
accept that climate change is happening, that humans have caused it and
that they want action. It certainly emerged as a hotly contested issue
in the Wentworth by-election in October, with winning candidate Kerryn
Phelps advocating stronger action. But that doesn’t mean everyone is
frantically cutting their carbon footprint and lobbying leaders for
policy change. People do not always respond to existential threats in
rational ways.
The Australian Psychological Society’s Susie Burke
says humans tend to distance themselves from daunting problems, and see
climate change as something happening to someone else, in a faraway
place.
“Many
people ... might not be feeling the impact here and now. We tend to
discount problems we think are far away in time or place, we are more
likely to respond to threats that are close to us,” Dr Burke said.
“Our
brain is relatively unchanged from a time when survival was based on
[attending to] an imminent threat. It’s not a particularly well-suited
mechanism for huge threats like climate change.”
The residents of
the world’s lowest-lying nations, such as Kiribati, may be less
sanguine. So too are many younger Australians, who will be more exposed
to the consequences – thousands of them went on strike from school in
November to protest at government inaction.
Other people may just
feel guilty about contributing to the problem, or for failing to act.
They may distract themselves, or concentrate on other demands for their
energy – family, health, money, job security and “what we are going to
eat for dinner”, she says.
Only a tiny proportion of people truly deny the scientific reality of climate change. But this vocal and sometimes rich and powerful group – including corporations with fossil-fuel interests – can muddy the public debate with misinformation.
“Whenever people perceive there might be some uncertainty about something, it tends to have a slowing effect on people’s preparedness to do something urgent,” Dr Burke says.
Psychologists say a lack of knowledge, social pressure to consume, financial constraints and a resistance to changing our world view can also play a role in preventing climate action.
Some citizens may mistrust scientists or politicians. And in other cases, people might make a relatively minor effort to help the environment, such as recycling, and decide they are off the hook for more dramatic changes in their lifestyle.
Then-treasurer Scott Morrison brought coal to Parliament in 2017 to show Coalition support for mining the fossil fuel. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Market forces and technology
are already pushing Australia’s electricity mix from coal to
renewables, which made up about 17 per cent of the electricity mix last
year and which are growing exponentially. Individuals and communities
are working at the grassroots to cut emissions. But for Australia, and
the world, to make the drastic transition outlined by the IPCC,
governments must be willing to pull policy levers.
Unfortunately
for Australia, more than a decade of so-called “climate wars” has left a
policy paralysis. Driven by short-term interests, power struggles,
politicking and blind ideology, the nation’s leaders have fought over
and dumped a raft of promising emissions-curbing measures.
The
Coalition’s National Energy Guarantee aimed to reduce emissions while
providing a reliable mix of renewables, coal and gas. While heavily
criticised for its lack of emissions ambition, it offered a solid policy
framework upon which more progressive future governments could build.
"The real political obstacle is 'culture war stuff’."
The
plan was consigned to landfill in August after climate-sceptic MPs on
the government’s backbench rallied against it, saying it would harm the
economy, kill the coal industry and fail to rein in prices.
The
MPs apparently overlooked the colossal costs of not acting on climate
change and the benefits to be gained by decarbonising the economy.
Academic
and former Climate Change Authority board member John Quiggin says the
falling cost of renewables also renders the Coalition’s economic-harm
argument irrelevant.
The real political obstacle, Quiggin says, is “culture war stuff”.
“It’s
become part of people’s political identity ... So in that context there
is very little point in presenting [denialists] with charts and graphs
and scientific reports,” he says.
“[They]
don’t want to do anything, they don’t like environmentalists and are
therefore choosing to either deny the climate science or put forward
some other spurious reason for doing nothing.”
The powerful
influence of fossil fuel companies has also been blamed for climate
inaction in politics. The industry makes generous donations to political
parties, and a revolving door between major political parties and coal
and gas companies – Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s chief of staff John
Kunkel is a former Minerals Council of Australia executive – means coal
lobbyists know how the system works and have the ear of many a
politician.
The Greens say political parties are too reliant on fossil fuel
money, and the donations must be banned if Australia is to shift to a
clean economy. At the very least, the Greens argue, donations should be
made public before elections, not afterwards.
Quiggin says
Australia’s best hope for climate progress is a Labor government elected
for at least two terms, giving it a chance to implement its policy of a
45 per cent emissions cut across the economy. (Labor, which is
currently leading in the polls, said in November that it would seek to
revive the National Energy Guarantee but with a much higher emissions
reduction goal of 45 per cent by 2030, based on 2005 levels.)
In the meantime, the Coalition might realise that climate inaction is “a losing issue” with voters, Quiggin says.
Australians will choose how to tackle climate change targets at the next
federal election, but are our politicians going far enough to reach
net-zero carbon emissions by 2050?
If politics is holding back real progress on climate
change, then the media must take some responsibility. In Australia,
it’s the political debate around climate policy that tends to dominate
mainstream news coverage, notes the University of Sydney’s Benedetta
Brevini. She says that compared with Europe, some Australian news
outlets also give far more oxygen to the climate-sceptic agenda.
Mainstream
coverage of climate change is also usually episodic and event-driven,
focusing on natural disasters or the release of major climate reports
rather than delivering “a long-term discussion [in which] you can keep
informing the public slowly but constantly”.
“That is not great
for explaining to the public what [climate change] actually means, the
impact on the environment and giving voice to scientists,” she says.
She thinks the media should tell positive stories of people, communities and governments making a difference.
“The
idea is to give people hope that [the problem] can be controlled ...
that there is still room for adaptation and mitigation.”
A car-charging station at Tesla's wind and solar battery plant outside of Jamestown, South Australia. Credit: AAP
As the transition from coal and gas to renewable
energy gathers pace, storing electricity and connecting it to the grid
so it can be delivered on demand is the next challenge.
Australia is on the cusp of an energy storage boom,
says the Climate Council, as states invest in grid-scale battery
storage, including Tesla’s huge lithium-ion battery in South Australia.
The federal government’s Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro expansion – effectively,
a giant battery – also promises to firm up the intermittent power
generated by wind and solar.
Other
technologies show promise but need work. The Australian Renewable
Energy Agency is exploring tidal energy. The national science agency
CSIRO says wave (as in, ocean) energy could contribute up to 11 per cent
of Australia’s energy – enough to power Melbourne. Geoscience Australia
says geothermal energy, leveraging the heat that occurs naturally in
the Earth, has “significant potential”.
The federal government’s
top scientist, Alan Finkel, says Australia could slash global carbon
emissions and create a multibillion-dollar export industry by developing
hydrogen to replace fossil fuels.
The transition has its
challenges. Nuclear power, for example, has struggled to win over the
community on environmental and ethical grounds. And even when
clean-energy technology works, producing it at scale is not always
economical.
The number of
electric cars on Australian roads has increased by 160 per cent in the
past five years, but that is well behind much of the developed world.
Australia’s
reliance on road transport is another big issue: it’s one of the
reasons our per capita emissions are higher than those of most other
countries. Road, rail and domestic aviation and shipping are our
second-largest sources of greenhouse gas pollution after electricity
production, says the Climate Council. It is also the fastest-growing
source of emissions, climbing 62.9 per cent since 1990.
The number
of electric cars on Australian roads has increased by 160 per cent in
the past five years, but that is well behind much of the developed
world.
France and Britain will end the sale of new diesel and
petrol cars by 2040, and Norway and the Netherlands aim to do so by
2025. Policies such as these obviously fast-track the electric vehicle
revolution but the government has shown no signs of replicating them.
The first LNG cargo leaving Chevron's Gorgon project in WA. Credit: Bloomberg
There’s a twist too: the IPCC says that, to meet the
1.5-degree warming limit, nations not only have to slash emissions but
actively remove greenhouse pollution from the air using so-called
negative emissions technologies. For now, these methods are mostly
unproven at scale.
Carbon capture and storage involves trapping
greenhouse gases at the point of emission, such as at a coal plant, then
storing it, often underground in geological formations. Globally, fewer
than 20 large-scale projects use it.
The most advanced domestic
venture is at Chevron's Gorgon natural gas project in Western Australia –
a huge carbon polluter – which aims to capture carbon dioxide from a
gas field and inject it into undersea storage. But the injection has
been delayed due to technical issues for almost two years.
Sundrop tomato farm in Port Augusta uses solar power and desalinated water.
Meanwhile, on a patch of dry red earth at Port
Augusta, a revolution is quietly growing. From the South Australian
desert sprout juicy red tomatoes, watered and nurtured by the power of
the sun.
There is no fresh water here and the heat can be
merciless. But Sundrop Farms has shown that, with the right technology
and a dose of belief, humans can find ways to live and eat without
hurting the planet.
“What we are doing is really innovative not
only in Australian terms but international terms,” says chief executive
Steve Marafiote.
You can use solar or other solutions that can help reduce your operating expenses … but also deliver an environmental impact.
Conceived
a decade ago, the hydroponic operation runs mostly on solar thermal
power. A field of 24,000 mirrors beam energy to a 127-metre-high tower.
The resulting energy heats a huge reservoir of water that warms and
cools vast greenhouses. The energy also turns seawater pumped from the
nearby Spencer Gulf into freshwater via an onsite desalination plant.
Sundrop Farms delivers up to 17,000 tonnes of truss tomatoes each year to supermarkets – about 15 per cent of Australian supply.
Marafiote says the project, which has a tiny carbon footprint, proves the benefits of “thinking about things differently”.
“You
can use solar or other solutions that can help reduce your operating
expenses … but also deliver an environmental impact,” he says.
The
Sundrop tomato farm is just one example of enterprising people
successfully tackling climate change in Australia – and without a major
disruption to our way of life. “It resonates incredibly well with
consumers,” says Marafiote. “They are eating produce at its best.”
The 20-hectare Sundrop farm uses solar power and desalinated water from the Spencer Gulf.
Efforts to find compromise language failed and the text was dropped. IISD/ENB - Kiara Worth
Attempts to incorporate a key scientific study into global climate talks in Poland have failed.
The IPCC report on the impacts of a temperature rise of 1.5C, had a significant impact when it was launched last October.
Scientists
and many delegates in Poland were shocked as the US, Saudi Arabia,
Russia and Kuwait objected to this meeting "welcoming" the report.
It was the 2015 climate conference that had commissioned the landmark study.
The report said that the world is now completely off track, heading more towards 3C this century rather than 1.5C.
Keeping
to the preferred target would need "rapid, far-reaching and
unprecedented changes in all aspects of society". If warming was to be
kept to 1.5C this century, then emissions of carbon dioxide would have
to be reduced by 45% by 2030.
The report, launched in Incheon in South Korea, had an immediate impact winning praise from politicians all over the world.
Climate protestors marching in Katowice outside COP24. Getty Images
But negotiators here ran into serious trouble when Saudi
Arabia, the US, Russia and Kuwait objected to the conference "welcoming"
the document.
Instead they wanted to support a much more lukewarm phrase, that the conference would "take note" of the report.
Saudi
Arabia had fought until the last minute in Korea to limit the
conclusions of the document. Eventually they gave in. But it now seems
that they have brought their objections to Poland.
The dispute
dragged on as huddles of negotiators met in corners of the plenary
session here, trying to agree a compromise wording.
None was forthcoming.
With no consensus, under UN rules the passage of text had to be dropped.
Many countries expressed frustration and disappointment at the outcome.
"It's
not about one word or another, it is us being in a position to welcome a
report we commissioned in the first place," said Ruenna Haynes from St
Kitts and Nevis.
"If there is anything ludicrous about the discussion it's that we can't welcome the report," she said to spontaneous applause.
Scientists and campaigners were also extremely disappointed by the outcome.
"We
are really angry and find it atrocious that some countries dismiss the
messages and the consequences that we are facing, by not accepting what
is unequivocal and not acting upon it," said Yamide Dagnet from the
World Resources Institute, and a former climate negotiator for the UK.
Others
noted that Saudi Arabia and the US had supported the report when it was
launched in October. It appears that the Saudis and the US baulked at
the political implications of the UN body putting the IPCC report at its
heart.
"Climate science is not a political football," said Camilla Born, from climate think tank E3G.
"All
the worlds governments - Saudi included - agreed the 1.5C report and we
deserve the truth. Saudi can't argue with physics, the climate will
keep on changing."
Many delegates are now hoping that ministers,
who arrive on Monday, will try and revive efforts to put this key report
at the heart of the conference.
"We hope that the rest of the world will rally and we get a decisive response to the report," said Yamide Dagnet.
"I sincerely hope that all countries will fight that we don't leave COP24 having missed a moment of history."
The US and Russia have thrown climate talks into disarray by allying with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to water down approval of a landmark report on the need to keep global warming below 1.5C.
After a heated two-and-a-half-hour debate on Saturday night, the
backwards step by the four major oil producers shocked delegates at the
UN climate conference in Katowice as ministers flew in for the final
week of high-level discussions.
It has also raised fears among scientists that the US president, Donald Trump, is going from passively withdrawing from climate talks to actively undermining them alongside a coalition of climate deniers.
Two months ago, representatives from the world’s governments hugged
after agreeing on the 1.5C report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), commissioned to spell out the dire consequences
should that level of warming be exceeded and how it can be avoided.
Reaching a global consensus was a painstaking process involving
thousands of scientists sifting through years of research and diplomats
working through the night to ensure the wording was acceptable to all
nations.
But when it was submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on Saturday, the four oil allies
– with Saudi Arabia as the most obdurate – rejected a motion to
“welcome” the study. Instead, they said it should merely be “noted”,
which would make it much easier for governments to ignore. The motion
has not yet been able to pass as a result of the lack of consensus.
It
opened up a rift at the talks that will be hard to close in the coming
five days. During the plenary, the EU, a bloc of the 47 least developed
countries, as well as African and Latin and South American nations, all
spoke in favour of the report. Several denounced the four countries
trying to dilute its importance.
Rueanna Haynes, a delegate for St Kitts and Nevis, told the plenary
it was “ludicrous” not to welcome a report that UN member nations had
commissioned two years earlier and to hold up crucial talks over two
words.
“It’s very frustrating that we are not able to take into account the
report’s findings: we are talking about the future of the world – it
sounds like hyperbole when I say it, but that’s how serious it is,” she
told the Guardian. “I would say that this issue has to be resolved. This
is going to drag out and the success of the COP is going to hang on
this as well as other issues.”
Scientists were also outraged. “It is troubling. Saudi Arabia
has always had bad behaviour in climate talks, but it could be
overruled when it was alone or just with Kuwait. That it has now been
joined by the US and Russia is much more dangerous,” said Alden Meyer,
the director of strategy and policy in the Union of Concerned
Scientists.
He said the shift in the US position would be embarrassing for the country if it persisted. “Donald Trump is the denier-in-chief. He takes a personal interest in dissing scientists,” said Meyer. “But the science won’t go away. The law of thermodynamics can’t be ignored.”
Climate campaigners said the four blocking governments had been
overrun by fossil-fuel interests and were trying to sideline the study.
May Boeve, the executive director of the activist group 350.org,
said: “Deliberately ignoring the IPCC report would be wholly
irresponsible and 350.org stands with the rest of world in condemning
these climate deniers … and the vested fossil fuel interests behind
them.”
Ministers have only five days to establish a rulebook for the Paris agreement.
A wild card is the role of the host nation, Poland – the most
coal-dependant nation in Europe – which will chair the final week of the
meeting.
“The big challenge now is for the Polish presidency to set aside its
obsession with coal, get out of the way and allow full acknowledgement
of the IPCC 1.5C report, and its implications for increasing the
ambition of all countries, in the conclusion of COP24 later this week,”
said Bill Hare, the managing director of Climate Analytics.
As well as acceptance of the report, there are several other potential
fights brewing regarding transparency rules for reporting emissions and
proposals for wealthy high emitters to provide financial support to
poorer nations struggling to adapt.
Scientists who recently completed the first-ever expedition to drill
the world’s highest glacier have bad news ahead of the UN climate change
Conference of Parties meeting in Poland. Glaciers on the
Himalayas, the main source of rivers that sustain billions of people in
Asia, may be more sensitve to tempereture rise than expected.
Though a lot of studies have been carried out on the surface of the
Khumbu, whose ice is sourced in the Western Cwm of Mount Everest, and
other glaciers in the region, nothing was known about what was going on
inside ‘the highest glacier in the world’, said Katie Miles, the lead
author of a recent paper that described the work carried out by members of the EverDrill Project between 2017 and 2018.
The group spent two seasons (six to eight weeks each) drilling 27
boreholes using a jet of hot, pressurised water to cut into the ice–the
longest hole was 192m deep. Photo: Katie Miles
The group spent two seasons (six to eight weeks each) drilling 27
boreholes using a jet of hot, pressurised water to cut into the ice–the
longest hole was 192m deep.
“These boreholes are the deepest, and most spatially extensive
achieved to date in the Himalaya using hot-water drilling,” says Miles.
Its internal structure was then documented using a 360-degree camera.
The Khumbu Glacier (Wikicommons)
Once the boreholes were drilled, the team measured ice temperatures
by installing strings of pre-built thermistor sensors linked to
data-loggers located at the surface.
The set of equipment was left onsite for six months and collected in November 2017.
Warm ice raises concern
Illustrative long profile of Khumbu Glacier showing the ice temperature
values recorded by each thermistor within the three boreholes. From: Nature
The researchers found that the ice inside the Khumbu glacier recorded
a minimum temperature of only −3.3 °C, with even the coldest ice being a
full 2 °C warmer than the mean annual air temperature. The temperature
recorded suggests that ice inside the glacier may be ‘warm.’
According to Miles, ‘cold’ ice, found in the poles, records
below-the-melting-point temperature (around -15 15°C), and it does not
melt when the temperature increases slightly–they just become less cold
(say around –14°C). But in the case of ‘warm ice'(say around -3°C) found
inside the Khumbu glacier, when the temperature increases by 1°C, the
ice reaches a temperature of -2°C–perilously close to its melting point.
“It has been shown that air temperature increases are amplified at
high elevations, and this study also suggests the same,” says Miles. She
says that there is evidence that a global temperature rise of 1.5°C has
been predicted to result in a 2.1°C warming across High Mountain Asia.
“In the context of the study, such a rise would mean a significant loss
of ice mass across the region,” she says.
Miles suggests that if other glaciers in the Himalayas are also
experiencing a similar phenomenon, they could be losing mass at a rapid
rate. Photo: Katie Miles
Miles suggests that if other glaciers in the Himalayas are also
experiencing a similar phenomenon, they could be losing mass at a rapid
rate. “If that is happening, then the volume of meltwater will increase
until the glaciers lose its mass,” she says. This might result in
an increased flow of water downstream. But later on, it may dry up once
the ‘peak water’ mark is reached. This will have huge effects on Nepal, a
country that is so relient on hydropower.
Miles, however, cautions that the what is happening in Khumbu may not
be representative of all glaciers in the Himalayas. Khumbu and many
other Himalayan glaciers are covered with debris, which act as a blanket
over the glacier. This debris insulates the glacier from warmer air
temperatures, reducing melt rates. But the debris gets thinner on
glaciers located on higher altitudes.
“These ice temperatures will now be fed into an ice flow model to
better predict how the Khumbu glacier will respond to projected climate
warming in the future,” she says.
Meanwhile, the Nepali delegation heading to Poland says it will raise
the issue of melting glaciers with utmost priority at COP 24. National
Climate Change focal person and Joint Secretary Maheshwor Dhakal says,
“Melting glaciers will have devastating effects on people living
downstream. We will raise the issue with utmost priority at COP.”
This story is part of Onlinekhabar’s coverage on climate change
under the 2018 Climate Change Media Partnership, a collaboration between
Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Foundation.
Often when the topic of glaciers and climate change is discussed,
focus shifts to those in Greenland and Antarctica. But there are
glaciers elsewhere too, such as in the Himalayas, which play a vital
part in supplying water to people who live downstream. Now, our research has found
that these glaciers may react more sensitively to predicted future
climate change than previously thought, which could lead to them melting
at a faster rate.
In 2017 and 2018, our EverDrill research team travelled to Nepal, to measure ice temperatures (using a converted pressure washer)
on the Khumbu Glacier. Khumbu, whose ice is sourced in the Western Cwm
of Mount Everest, flows down the flanks of the mountain from around
7,000 to 4,900 metres above sea level. Along with many other glaciers in
the Everest region and across High Mountain Asia, the meltwater from
Khumbu contributes to the water resources of huge populations in the
mountain foothills.
We spent two field seasons (six to eight weeks each) drilling boreholes
using a jet of hot, pressurised water to incise into the ice. In total
we drilled 27 boreholes, ranging between 1-192m deep, across five sites.
These boreholes are the first, deepest, and most spatially extensive achieved to date in the Himalaya using hot-water drilling.
Once the boreholes were drilled, we measured ice temperatures by
installing strings of pre-built thermistor sensors linked to
data-loggers located at the surface. We left them for six months and
collected the data on a return trip in November 2017.
Katie Miles starts to drill a borehole into Khumbu Glacier in May 2018.Katie Miles, Author provided
The main finding from this research
was that the ice was warmer than we expected, with the coldest ice
measuring –3.3°C. As the ice is formed on the flanks of Mount Everest,
where the mean annual air temperature is –13°C at 7,000 metres
elevation, we might have expected the ice to be at this temperature. Our
borehole data reveal that this was not the case. Not only was the ice
not this cold in our boreholes, but ice temperatures also increased
towards the glacier terminus.
Cold and warm ice
Why does it matter that we found warmer ice temperatures than we
expected? Glaciologists acknowledge two thermal types of ice: “Cold” ice
and “warm” ice. Cold ice is below the melting-point temperature, so
when additional heat is applied (from the sun or warmer air
temperatures), the ice simply becomes less cold (going from –15°C to
–14°C, for example). Warm ice, alternatively, is at the melting-point
temperature, so any heat input melts the ice to become water.
In short, this means that Khumbu will respond more sensitively to any
future additional heat inputs, such as warming air temperatures. It has
been shown that air temperature increases are amplified at high elevations. For example, a global temperature rise of +1.5°C has been predicted to result in a +2.1°C warming
across High Mountain Asia and a significant loss of ice mass across the
region. As these glaciers melt and recede, their contribution to water
resources will initially increase. However, as the volume of ice mass
remaining decreases, this contribution will steadily decline.
While the timescale over which this might occur is unknown, predictions
suggest that “peak water” may be reached as soon as the middle of this century. Our finding of warm ice within Khumbu supports the predicted sensitivity of such glaciers to warming air temperatures.
The Everdrill research team.Katie Miles, Author provided
But it’s not all bad news for the region’s glaciers. First, we don’t
know if the temperatures we measured on Khumbu are representative of all
glaciers in the area. More measurements are needed on other glaciers to
determine this. Second, Khumbu and many other Himalayan glaciers are debris-covered glaciers,
which contain a surface layer of rocks and boulders that typically
increases in thickness towards the terminus, up to several metres depth.
This debris layer complicates the amount of ice surface melt that is
produced: where the layer is thick, it acts like a blanket and insulates
the glacier from warmer air temperatures, reducing melt rates.
However, this insulation of the lower glacier also results in the
location of maximum melt shifting further up the glacier, to where the
debris cover is thinner. In this area, the glacier melts by surface lowering,
which in an extreme future scenario could lead to the detachment of the
lower glacier, forming a new terminus at this higher elevation. While
the lower, detached ice would become stagnant, it would still be
protected from instant melting by its debris blanket. The new terminus
above this would not, and melt rates could increase. Yet, our deepest
borehole in this area of surface lowering was 192 metres, and did not
reach the bed so the ice thicknesses remains unknown – but it could be
that there is plenty of ice left in Khumbu to stop this happening.
These ice temperatures will now be fed into an ice flow model to
better predict how the Khumbu Glacier will respond to climate warming
and contribute to river discharges in the future. Meanwhile, we are
still collecting temperature data to analyse and better understand how
the highest glaciers in the world will be affected by climate change.
In this photo essay, the editor of the Nepali Times describes the dramatic changes underway in the ice and snow of the Himalayan Mountains.
For many tourists trekking to Mount Everest Base
Camp, the trip is an adventure of a lifetime. The thin clear air, stark
landscape and ice-tipped peaks pierce the inky sky providing Instagram
backdrops.
However, what is stunning scenery to tourists is for climate
scientists an apocalyptic sight. They see dramatic evidence all around
of a rapidly warming atmosphere.
Visitors returning to the Everest region after many years will notice
changes in the landscape: large lakes where there were none; glacial
ice replaced by ponds, boulders and sand; the snowline moving up the
mountains; and glaciers that have receded and shrunk.
All these features are visible from ground level right from the start
of the trek in Lukla. The banks of the Bhote Kosi, part of the river
system that drains the slopes of the Himalayas in Nepal and Tibet, still
bear the scars of a deadly flash flood in 1985 that washed off a long
section of the Everest Trail and the hydropower plant in the village of Thame. The flood was caused by an avalanche into the Dig Tso, a glacial lake.
Further up, near the village of Tengboche, the Imja Khola bears signs of another huge glacial lake outburst flood that thundered down the western flank of Ama Dablam in
1977. And below the formidable south face of Lhotse is Imja Tso, a lake
2 kilometers long that has formed and grown in the last 30 years. It
does not exist on trekking maps from the 1980s. All these lakes were
formed and enlarged as a result of global warming melting the ice.
Imja Tso, a glacial lake, did not exist on trekking maps 30 years ago.
Today it is 2 kilometers long and 1 kilometer wide. Credit: Kunda
Dixit/Nepali Times
"When I look at the Nepal Himalaya, we can see this is global climate
change impact on fast-forward," said Dipak Gyawali of the Nepali Water
Conservation Foundation and the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology
Green and blue meltpools on the North Ama Dablam Glacier, where the
vanishing icefall has exposed the eroded bedrock below. Credit: Kunda
Dixit/Nepali Times
The Lobuje Icefall is now a hanging glacier, having retreated above the cliff. Credit: Kunda Dixit/Nepali Times
The terminal moraine of the Khumbu Glacier
looms 400 meters above Dughla, a rest stop for climbers. This is the
debris bulldozed down from Mount Everest and surrounding peaks over
millions of years and represents the extent of the glacier's advance in
the last Ice Age. Today, the surface ice on the world's highest glacier
is all but gone due to natural and anthropogenic warming.
Khumbu Glacier, the world's highest glacier, has retreated as the planet
has warmed. Its lower portion is largely covered by debris. Credit:
NASA Landsat 8 image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon
For a dramatic glimpse of how global warming is changing the Himalayan
landscape, there is nothing like the aerial perspective. The barren
beauty foretells of a time when this terrain will be stripped of much of
what remains of its ice cover.
The Khumbu Icefall carries debris and ice from the Western Cwm to the
Khumbu Glacier, 1,000 meters below. Credit: Kunda Dixit/Nepali Times
The Khumbu Icefall funnels ice from the Western Cwm below Everest,
Lhotse and Nuptse to the glacier below. The ice here has receded at an
average of 30 meters per year in the past 20 years, but it has also
shrunk vertically, losing up to 50 meters in thickness. Everest Base
Camp was at 5,330 meters when Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed Mount Everest in 1953; today it is at 5,270 meters.
A map shows base camp and how a key climbing route up Mount Everest
changed after a deadly avalanche in 2014. Credit: Gregory Leonard, with
data by Digital Globe and Mark Fahey/USGS, via NASA
The glacier is also getting flatter: the darker debris makes the ice
beneath melt faster near Base Camp, but the thicker layers of boulders
and sand further down insulate the ice. Glaciologists say this flatter
profile means the ice moves slower, leading to more ponding and more
rapid melting of the ice underneath.
The velocity of the glacier is about 70 meters per year at Base Camp,
and it slows to about 10 meters per year further below. It's zero at
the terminus at 4,900 meters. This means the ice is decelerating as it
is squeezed, and the pressure is being released by the melting of the
ice mass.
Khumbu Glacier is receding at about 30 meters per year and shrinking:
Base Camp is now 50 meters lower than when Sir Edmund Hillary and
Tenzing Norgay climbed Mount Everest in 1953. Credit: Kunda Dixit/Nepali
Times
Researchers monitoring the supraglacial ponds say their area has
grown by 70 percent in the past 10 years alone. The ponds are fringed by
ice cliffs and caves that accelerate the melting. The melted ice has
carved an outflow channel through the left lateral moraine, so there is
no large glacial lake on the Khumbu like elsewhere in Nepal.
Scientists conclude that the Khumbu Glacier is not about to vanish,
and the Icefall is not going to turn into a waterfall any time soon.
However, the permanent ice catchment of the glacier above 6,000 meters
could start to deplete under a worst-case scenario of 5 degrees Celsius
warming.
*This photo essay was shot and written by Kunda Dixit, editor and publisher of the Nepali Times, and first appeared in that publication. Links
