24/10/2021

(The Conversation) Glasgow Showdown: Pacific Islands Demand Global Leaders Bring Action, Not Excuses, To UN Summit

The Conversation - 

Mick Tsikas/AAP

Author
 is Researcher, Climate Council, and Research Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University     
The Pacific Islands are at the frontline of climate change. But as rising seas threaten their very existence, these tiny nation states will not be submerged without a fight.

For decades this group has been the world’s moral conscience on climate change. Pacific leaders are not afraid to call out the climate policy failures of far bigger nations, including regional neighbour Australia. And they have a strong history of punching above their weight at United Nations climate talks – including at Paris, where they were credited with helping secure the first truly global climate agreement.

The momentum is with Pacific island countries at next month’s summit in Glasgow, and they have powerful friends. The United Kingdom, European Union and United States all want to see warming limited to 1.5℃.

This powerful alliance will turn the screws on countries dragging down the global effort to avert catastrophic climate change. And if history is a guide, the Pacific won’t let the actions of laggard nations go unnoticed.

Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Fiji prime minister Frank Bainimarama, has said Pacific island countries ‘refuse to be the canary in the world’s coal mine.’ Richard Drew/AAP

A long fight for survival

 Pacific leaders’ agitation for climate action dates back to the late 1980s, when scientific consensus on the problem emerged. The leaders quickly realised the serious implications global warming and sea-level rise posed for island countries.

Some Pacific nations – such as Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu – are predominantly low-lying atolls, rising just metres above the waves. In 1991, Pacific leaders declared “the cultural, economic and physical survival of Pacific nations is at great risk”.

Successive scientific assessments clarified the devastating threat climate change posed for Pacific nations: more intense cyclones, changing rainfall patterns, coral bleaching, ocean acidification, coastal inundation and sea-level rise.

Pacific states developed collective strategies to press the international community to take action. At past UN climate talks, they formed a diplomatic alliance with island nations in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, which swelled to more than 40 countries.

The first draft of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – which required wealthy nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – was put forward by Nauru on behalf of this Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

Climate change is a threat to the survival of Pacific Islanders. Mick Tsikas/AAP

Securing a global agreement in Paris

Pacific states were also crucial in negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in Paris in 2015. By this time, UN climate talks were stalled by arguments between wealthy nations and developing countries about who was responsible for addressing climate change, and how much support should be provided to help poorer nations to deal with its impacts.

In the months before the Paris climate summit, then-Marshall Islands Foreign Minister, the late Tony De Brum, quietly coordinated a coalition of countries from across traditional negotiating divides at the UN.

This was genius strategy. During talks in Paris, membership of this “High Ambition Coalition” swelled to more than 100 countries, including the European Union and the United States, which proved vital for securing the first truly global climate agreement.

When then-US President Barack Obama met with island leaders in 2016, he noted “we could not have gotten a Paris Agreement without the incredible efforts and hard work of island nations”.

The High Ambition Coalition secured a shared temperature goal in the Paris Agreement, for countries to limit global warming to 1.5℃ above the long-term average. This was no arbitrary figure.

Scientific assessments have clarified 1.5℃ warming is a key threshold for the survival of vulnerable Pacific Island states and the ecosystems they depend on, such as coral reefs.

Warming above 1.5℃ threatens Pacific Island states and their coral reefs. Shutterstock

De Brum took a powerful slogan to Paris: “1.5 to stay alive”.

The Glasgow summit is the last chance to keep 1.5℃ of warming within reach. But Australia – almost alone among advanced economies – is taking to Glasgow the same 2030 target it took to Paris six years ago. This is despite the Paris Agreement requirement that nations ratchet up their emissions-reduction ambition every five years.

Australia is the largest member of the Pacific Islands Forum (an intergovernmental group that aims to promote the interests of countries and territories in the Pacific). But it’s also a major fossil fuel producer, putting it at odds with other Pacific countries on climate.

When Australia announced its 2030 target, De Brum said if the rest of the world followed suit:
the Great Barrier Reef would disappear […] so would the Marshall Islands and other vulnerable nations.
In the months before Paris, the late Tony De Brum – then Marshall Islands foreign minister – quietly coordinated a genius strategy. Mick Tsikas/AAP
 Influence at Glasgow

So what can we expect from Pacific leaders at the Glasgow summit? The signs so far suggest they will demand COP26 deliver an outcome to once and for all limit global warming to 1.5℃.

At pre-COP discussions in Milan earlier this month, vulnerable nations proposed countries be required to set new 2030 targets each year until 2025 – a move intended to bring global ambition into alignment with a 1.5℃ pathway.

COP26 president Alok Sharma says he wants the decision text from the summit to include a new agreement to keep 1.5℃ within reach.

This sets the stage for a showdown. Major powers like the US and the EU are set to work with large negotiating blocs, like the High Ambition Coalition, to heap pressure on major emitters that have yet to commit to serious 2030 ambition – including China, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Australia.

The chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, has warned Pacific island countries “refuse to be the canary in the world’s coal mine.”

According to Bainimarama:
by the time leaders come to Glasgow, it has to be with immediate and transformative action […] come with commitments for serious cuts in emissions by 2030 – 50% or more. Come with commitments to become net-zero before 2050. Do not come with excuses. That time is past.
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(AU BBC) Climate Change: Why Australia Refuses To Give Up Coal

BBC - Frances Mao
Scott Morrison famously praised coal's value to Australia in a parliamentary debate on renewable energy in 2017.  ABC NEWS
 In a world racing to reduce pollution, Australia is a stark outlier.

It is one of the dirtiest countries per head of population and a massive global supplier of fossil fuels. Unusually for a rich nation, it also still burns coal for most of its electricity.

Australia's 2030 emissions target - a 26% cut on 2005 levels - is half the US and UK benchmarks.

Canberra has also resisted joining the two-thirds of countries who have pledged net zero emissions by 2050.

And instead of phasing out coal - the worst fossil fuel - it's committed to digging for more.

So it's no surprise that Australia is being viewed as a "bad guy" going into the COP26 global climate talks in Glasgow, analysts say.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government is under huge pressure to do more.

Loyalty to the industry

 Mining has helped drive Australia's economy for decades, and coal remains the country's second-biggest export.

Only Indonesia sells more coal than Australia globally.

The government often credits coal for much of the country's wealth, but many analysts argue this is overblown.

Coal exports totalled A$55bn (£29bn; $40bn) last year, but most of this wealth was kept by mining companies. Less than a tenth went to Australia directly - that's about 1% of national revenue.

The coal workforce of 40,000 is about half the size of McDonald's in Australia. But coal jobs do sustain some rural communities.

Australia has 99 operating coal mines, and ambitions to build more The mining sector has always wielded influence in Canberra. Getty Images
 
Though most voters want tougher climate action, some coal towns lie in swing constituencies that are key to winning elections.

The mining lobby has "distorted" much policy over the years, says Prof Samantha Hepburn, a climate law expert at Deakin University.

The current government dismantled Australia's emissions trading scheme in 2014, shortly after winning power in a campaign heavily backed by mining interests.

It's never again tried to put a price on carbon, or to restrict emissions from fossil fuel producers.

Instead it's provided extra support to coal. This includes:
  • Approving new mines and extensions: There are over 80 proposed projects including plant upgrades
  • Tax subsidies: About A$10bn went to fossil fuel companies last year alone
  • 'Clean coal' investments: Schemes such as carbon capture and storage, often criticised as ineffective

Chasing a shrinking market

 Australia argues coal will continue to generate national wealth for decades to come.

It talks up demand in Asia, particularly from industrialising economies.

China and India alone account for 64% of global coal consumption. Demand in Indonesia and Vietnam has also surged.

But analysts say there's no long-term market as countries race to meet emissions goals.

 
Australia's biggest coal buyers - Japan, South Korea and China - have all pledged net zero targets by mid-century.

Coal use has already plunged in North America and Europe. The G7 rich nations and China, as well as many banks, have committed to stop financing overseas coal projects.

"Australia knows the party is over. But the police haven't been called yet. So they'll continue to party on until they're stopped," says Richie Merzian, a climate expert at the Australia Institute.

Missing the green opportunity?

Australia could end its literally toxic relationship with coal fairly quickly, experts say.

Its economy is stable and well-diversified to absorb the loss of coal exports.

But Australia controversially sees liquified natural gas - another dirty fuel - as its next big domestic energy source.

The government has already pledged half a billion dollars to new gas basins and plants, defying global calls for an end to new fossil fuel projects.

This has frustrated those who say Australia should be investing to become a renewables superpower.

As one of the sunniest and windiest continents on Earth, Australia is "uniquely placed to benefit economically" from its abundant natural resources, says the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organisation.

Its industries are also well positioned to pivot to new export markets like green steel and aluminium.

Australia's lack of climate action is harming its own people, activists argue

Advocates say coal workers could instead mine for the rare minerals needed for batteries and magnets that will power renewable energy grids.

Canberra has put some money into renewables, but the majority has come from state governments and businesses.

Its allegiance to fossil fuels has scuppered progress, critics say.

The government has cut its renewables spending in recent years, and there is no current national clean energy target.

It has also withdrawn from the UN's Green Climate Fund, and tried to change one local fund's mandate so taxpayer money could go to coal projects instead.

"The rest of the world is accelerating past coal," says the Climate Council, a group of scientists.

"Australia can either choose to reap the opportunities of this transition, or be left poorer and less secure."

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23/10/2021

(BBC) COP26: Document Leak Reveals Nations Lobbying To Change Key Climate Report

 BBC - Justin Rowlatt | Tom Gerken

Getty Images

A huge leak of documents seen by BBC News shows how countries are trying to change a crucial scientific report on how to tackle climate change.

The leak reveals Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia are among countries asking the UN to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels.

It also shows some wealthy nations are questioning paying more to poorer states to move to greener technologies.

This "lobbying" raises questions for the COP26 climate summit in November.

The leak reveals countries pushing back on UN recommendations for action and comes just days before they will be asked at the summit to make significant commitments to slow down climate change and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees.

The leaked documents consist of more than 32,000 submissions made by governments, companies and other interested parties to the team of scientists compiling a UN report designed to bring together the best scientific evidence on how to tackle climate change.

These "assessment reports" are produced every six to seven years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body tasked with evaluating the science of climate change.

These reports are used by governments to decide what action is needed to tackle climate change, and the latest will be a crucial input to negotiations at the Glasgow conference.

The authority of these reports derives in part from the fact that virtually all the governments of the world participate in the process to reach consensus.

The comments from governments the BBC has read are overwhelmingly designed to be constructive and to improve the quality of the final report.

The cache of comments and the latest draft of the report were released to Greenpeace UK's team of investigative journalists, Unearthed, which passed it on to BBC News.

Fossil fuels

The leak shows a number of countries and organisations arguing that the world does not need to reduce the use of fossil fuels as quickly as the current draft of the report recommends.

An adviser to the Saudi oil ministry demands "phrases like 'the need for urgent and accelerated mitigation actions at all scales…' should be eliminated from the report".


One senior Australian government official rejects the conclusion that closing coal-fired power plants is necessary, even though ending the use of coal is one of the stated objectives the COP26 conference.

Saudi Arabia is the one of the largest oil producers in the world and Australia is a major coal exporter.

A senior scientist from India's Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research, which has strong links to the Indian government, warns coal is likely to remain the mainstay of energy production for decades because of what they describe as the "tremendous challenges" of providing affordable electricity. India is already the world's second biggest consumer of coal.


A number of countries argue in favour of emerging and currently expensive technologies designed to capture and permanently store carbon dioxide underground.

Saudi Arabia, China, Australia and Japan - all big producers or users of fossil fuels - as well as the organisation of oil producing nations, Opec, all support carbon capture and storage (CCS).

It is claimed these CCS technologies could dramatically cut fossil fuel emissions from power plants and some industrial sectors.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, requests the UN scientists delete their conclusion that "the focus of decarbonisation efforts in the energy systems sector needs to be on rapidly shifting to zero-carbon sources and actively phasing out fossil fuels".

Argentina, Norway and Opec also take issue with the statement. Norway argues the UN scientists should allow the possibility of CCS as a potential tool for reducing emissions from fossil fuels.

The draft report accepts CCS could play a role in the future but says there are uncertainties about its feasibility. It says "there is large ambiguity in the extent to which fossil fuels with CCS would be compatible with the 2C and 1.5C targets" as set out by the Paris Agreement.

The offshore Sleipner gas field in Norway has been using CCS since 1996. Getty Images

Australia asks IPCC scientists to delete a reference to analysis of the role played by fossil fuel lobbyists in watering down action on climate in Australia and the US.

Opec also asks the IPCC to "delete 'lobby activism, protecting rent extracting business models, prevent political action'."

When approached about its comments to the draft report, Opec told the BBC: "The challenge of tackling emissions has many paths, as evidenced by the IPCC report, and we need to explore them all. We need to utilise all available energies, as well as clean and more efficient technological solutions to help reduce emissions, ensuring no one is left behind."

Tony Blair on climate change: "Even though the challenge is immense, there really isn't an alternative to dealing with it"

The IPCC says comments from governments are central to its scientific review process and that its authors have no obligation to incorporate them into the reports.

"Our processes are designed to guard against lobbying - from all quarters", the IPCC told the BBC. "The review process is (and always has been) absolutely fundamental to the IPCC's work and is a major source of the strength and credibility of our reports.

Professor Corinne le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, a leading climate scientist who has helped compile three major reports for the IPCC, has no doubts about the impartiality of the IPCC's reports.

She says all comments are judged solely on scientific evidence regardless of where they come from.

"There is absolutely no pressure on scientists to accept the comments," she told the BBC. "If the comments are lobbying, if they're not justified by the science, they will not be integrated in the IPCC reports."

She says it is important that experts of all kinds - including governments - have a chance to review the science.

"The more the reports are scrutinised", says Professor le Quéré, "the more solid the evidence is going to be in the end, because the more the arguments are brought and articulated forward in a way that is leaning on the best available science".

Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who oversaw the landmark UN climate conference in Paris in 2015, agrees it is crucial that governments are part of the IPCC process.

"Everybody's voice has to be there. That's the whole purpose. This is not a single thread. This is a tapestry woven by many, many threads."

The United Nations was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2007 for the IPCC's work on climate science and the crucial role it has played in the effort to tackle climate change.

Eating less meat

Brazil and Argentina, two of the biggest producers of beef products and animal feed crops in the world, argue strongly against evidence in the draft report that reducing meat consumption is necessary to cut greenhouse gas emissions.


The draft report states "plant-based diets can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50% compared to the average emission intensive Western diet". Brazil says this is incorrect.

Both countries call on the authors to delete or change some passages in the text referring to "plant-based diets" playing a role in tackling climate change, or which describe beef as a "high carbon" food. Argentina also asked that references to taxes on red meat and to the international "Meatless Monday" campaign, which urges people to forgo meat for a day, be removed from the report.

The South American nation recommends "avoiding generalisation on the impacts of meat-based diets on low-carbon options", arguing there is evidence that meat-based diets can also reduce carbon emissions.

On the same theme, Brazil says "plant-based diets do not for themselves guarantee the reduction or control of related emissions" and maintains the focus of debate should be on the levels of emissions from different production systems, rather than types of food.

Brazil, which has seen significant increases in the rate of deforestation in the Amazon and some other forest areas, also disputes a reference to this being a result of changes in government regulations, claiming this is incorrect.

Money for poorer countries

A significant number of Switzerland's comments are directed at amending parts of the report that argue developing countries will need support, particularly financial support, from rich countries in order to meet emission reduction targets.

It was agreed at the climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009 that developed nations would provide $100bn a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020, a target that has yet to be met.


Australia makes a similar case to Switzerland. It says developing countries' climate pledges do not all depend on receiving outside financial support. It also describes a mention in the draft report of the lack of credible public commitments on finance as "subjective commentary".

The Swiss Federal Office for the Environment told the BBC: "While climate finance is a critical tool to increase climate ambition, it is not the only relevant tool.

"Switzerland takes the view that all Parties to the Paris Agreement with the capacity to do so should provide support to those who need such support."

Going nuclear

A number of mostly eastern European countries argue the draft report should be more positive about the role nuclear power can play in meeting the UN's climate targets.

India goes even further, arguing "almost all the chapters contain a bias against nuclear energy". It argues it is an "established technology" with "good political backing except in a few countries".

The Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia criticise a table in the report which finds nuclear power only has a positive role in delivering one of 17 UN Sustainable Development goals. They argue it can play a positive role in delivering most of the UN's development agenda. 

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(AU ABC) Leaked Documents Show Australia Lobbied To Change Key IPCC Climate Change Report, Greenpeace Says

ABC News - Nick Dole

Greenpeace says Australian lobbied to change IPCC climate change report

Key Points
  • The leaked documents show Australia sought to change a draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
  • Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Japan and Argentina were also reported to have attempted to water down language in the report
  • The federal government says the leaked portions "mischaracterised" Australia's position and the process itself
Australia sought to change a major international report on climate change to promote a future for coal-fired power and downplay the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists, the environmental group Greenpeace says.

Documents leaked to Greenpeace's Unearthed investigations project, and seen by the ABC, detail Australia's comments and criticisms of a draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is yet to be published.

While government feedback is a normal part of the IPCC process, Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said the leak provided an insight into the "secret world of what governments really think about the climate emergency".

In one instance, an Australian government official objected to a paragraph calling for a halt to the construction of new coal-fired power stations and the retirement of existing coal plants.

According to the documents, the official from the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources said coal-fired power still had a future thanks to carbon capture and storage.

"These remarks confuse the objective (eliminating emissions) with the means 'retiring existing coal-fired power'," the official wrote.

They added that carbon capture and storage "remains relevant to zero emissions".

Australia also objected to a paragraph claiming that campaigns by fossil fuel industries had slowed progress on climate action.
"Campaigns by oil and coal companies against climate action in the US and Australia are perhaps the most well-known," the draft report stated.
But the Australian official called for the deletion of the paragraph, calling it a "political viewpoint made to seem factual".

The Minerals Council of Australia has long promoted the role of coal in providing cheap energy and jobs and it has run national advertising campaigns about the virtues of the "little black rock".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who once brandished a lump of coal in parliament, has previously hired senior Minerals Council executives as his trusted advisors.

Scott Morrison used a lump of coal to make a point during Question Time in 2017. (ABC News: Nick Haggarty)
Mr Sauven said Australia's objection was "laughable".
"[It] is so well-documented in terms of what the fossil fuel industry around the world has been doing over many decades," he said.
Australia denies 'meddling'

The ABC has only seen three comments attributed to Australian officials. A spokesperson for Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said the leaked portions mischaracterised Australia’s position and the process itself.

"All governments are invited to comment on draft IPCC reports as a matter of process," the spokesperson said.
The theatre of net zero discussions

"All comments received by the IPCC are published with their reports as they are finalised.

"This ensures complete transparency.
"The assertion that commenting on a draft is somehow 'interference' is categorically false."
The Australian government's feedback was published as part of a much wider leak of 32,000 responses from governments and other interested parties, which was shared with the BBC

Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Japan and Argentina were among the other countries attempting to water down the language, the BBC reported.

Joeri Rogelj, an IPCC author and director of research at the Grantham Institute, told the BBC the content of the leak was not surprising.

"The review process and receiving of comments by governments, industry groups, other scientists or sometimes even science-deniers is a core part of the review process of how these reports are being written," Dr Rogelj said.

He said the suggested changes are not adopted if they are not backed by science.

"If we have comments that challenge us and that asks us to remove something, that only motivates us to take a closer look at the evidence and make sure that what we write is fully correct and fully supported," he said.

Documents suggest Australia also asked to be removed from a list of big coal-consuming countries.

The draft report said "major coal-consuming countries are still far from phasing out coal".
"China, the US, Australia and South Africa continue to extract and use substantial amounts of coal," it said.
The official in Canberra noted Australia's consumption was "an order of magnitude lower" than the other countries listed.

Analysis from analytics firm Ember ranks Australia as the world's 10th biggest coal-fired power generator.

Australia remains one of the world's biggest coal producers and exporters.

Australia's attitude 'tragic', Greenpeace says

It is not the first time Australian officials have sought to influence language on climate change commitments.

Earlier this month, a leaked email suggested the British government dropped a reference to Paris Agreement temperature goals in order to get a free trade deal with Australia over the line.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison later defended Australia's position.

"It wasn't a climate agreement, it was a trade agreement," he told reporters.

"In trade agreements I deal with trade issues.

"In climate agreements I deal with climate issues."

Greenpeace said the Australian government lacked ambition ahead of the COP26 climate summit, which was "tragic" considering the impact of recent natural disasters.

John Sauven is an executive director at Greenpeace. (ABC News: Andrew Greaves)
"We need to really act now if we're going to prevent catastrophic damage happening in the near and mid-term," Mr Sauven told the ABC.

"And I think that's what we would expect a country like Australia to do.

"It's very rich in renewable resources, it's a wealthy country – it could really be a key part of the solution.”

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22/10/2021

(Washington Post) Inaction On Climate Change Imperils Millions Of Lives, Doctors Say

Washington Post - Sarah Kaplan

Top medical journal warns that rising temperatures will worsen heat and respiratory illness and spread infectious disease

An oil refinery in southwest Detroit, where asthma rates and other respiratory issues are common. (Nick Hagen for The Washington Post)

Climate change is set to become the “defining narrative of human health,” a top medical journal warned Wednesday — triggering food shortages, deadly disasters and disease outbreaks that would dwarf the toll of the coronavirus. But aggressive efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions from human activities could avert millions of unnecessary deaths, according to the analysis from more than 100 doctors and health experts.

In its annual “Countdown on health and climate change,” the Lancet provides a sobering assessment of the dangers posed by a warming planet. More than a dozen measures of humanity’s exposure to health-threatening weather extremes have climbed since last year’s report.

“Humanity faces a crucial turning point,” the doctors say, with nations poised to spend trillions of dollars on economic recovery from the pandemic and world leaders set to meet in Glasgow for a major U.N. climate conference in less than two weeks.

The United States is working to assemble a set of climate policies to help coax bigger commitments from other top emitters at that conference, even as the Biden administration is scaling back its climate legislation, given opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who represents a coal-producing state.

Rising temperatures have led to higher rates of heat illness, causing farmworkers to collapse in fields and elderly people to die in their apartments. Insects carrying tropical diseases have multiplied and spread toward the poles. The amount of plant pollen in the air is increasing, worsening asthma and other respiratory conditions.

Extreme floods and catastrophic storms have boosted the risk of cholera and other waterborne diseases. Smoke from fires in California infiltrates the lungs and then the bloodstreams of people as far away as Texas, Ohio and New York. Droughts intensify, crops fail, hunger stalks millions of the world’s most vulnerable people.

“If nothing else will drive the message home about the present threat that climate change poses to our global society, this should,” said Lachlan McIver, a Doctors Without Borders physician who was not involved in writing the Lancet report. “Your health, my health, the health of our parents and our children are at stake.”

Psychological research shows that climate change can alter an individual's mental health both directly and indirectly, impacting how we respond to this crisis. (John Farrell/The Washington Post)

The Lancet study is just the latest salvo from health professionals demanding a swift end to burning fossil fuels and other planet-warming activities. In a special report released last week, the World Health Organization called climate change “the single biggest health threat facing humanity,” warning that its effects could be more catastrophic and enduring than the coronavirus pandemic.

Dozens of public health experts are headed to the U.N. climate summit starting at the end of the month, aiming to convince world leaders that they must take bolder action to curb their nations’ carbon output.

Yet just half of countries surveyed said they have a national climate and health strategy in place, the Lancet study said. Trends in renewable energy generation and adaptation initiatives have improved only slightly. And most of the world’s biggest emitters, including the United States, continue to subsidize fossil fuels at rates of tens of billions of dollars per year — rivaling the amounts they spend on public health.

The outcomes of national spending debates and international climate negotiations will either “lock humanity into an increasingly extreme and unpredictable environment,” the report says, or “deliver a future of improved health, reduced inequity, and economic and environmental sustainability.”

“Lowering greenhouse gas emissions is a prescription,” said Renee Salas, an emergency medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital who helped write the “Countdown” and an accompanying policy brief aimed at U.S. lawmakers. “The oath I took as a doctor is to protect the health of my patients. Demanding action on climate change is how I can do that.”

The world has not committed yet to cutting emissions enough to avert the worst effects of warming. Based on countries’ current pledges under the Paris climate accord, average temperatures are on track to increase by a catastrophic 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. The planet has already warmed about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the preindustrial era.

And a U.N. report released Wednesday found that governments are still planning to boost fossil fuel use on a scale far beyond even those insufficient targets. G-20 countries have directed more new funding to fossil fuels than clean energy since the start of the pandemic, the report says.

The United States is one of the worst offenders, slated to increase oil and gas production by a combined nine exajoules by 2030 — the equivalent of about 215 million tons of oil — despite President Biden’s pledge to more than halve emissions by the end of the decade.

“A carbon-intensive COVID-19 recovery would irreversibly prevent the world from meeting climate commitments,” the Lancet report warns.

The report draws repeated parallels between the coronavirus pandemic and the health crisis posed by climate change. Both have exposed and exacerbated inequality, and highlight the folly of prioritizing short-term economic interests over long-term consequences.

Yet the death toll from climate change will outstrip that of the coronavirus, the scientists warned — unless drastic action is taken to avert further warming and adapt to changes underway.

Already, climate change routinely threatens to overwhelm health systems’ capacity to respond. When record-high temperatures scorched the Pacific Northwest this summer, the rate of emergency room admissions spiked to 69 times higher than the same period in 2019.

Sherita White waits for public transit in Portland, Ore., on June 30 after leaving the Oregon Convention Center cooling center with her children during a record-breaking heat wave in the Pacific Northwest. (Alisha Jucevic for The Washington Post)

David Markel, an emergency physician at Swedish Medical Center’s Cherry Hill campus in Seattle, said at the time that the surge of patients rivaled the worst days of the pandemic. He and his colleagues were treating patients in hallways, stuffing ice packs into people’s armpits to bring their temperatures down. “This is going to impact us all,” Markel said. “The more crises like this we face, the more clear it is.”

Just 0.3 percent of global climate change adaptation funding has been directed at health systems, the Lancet report says, despite an explosion of evidence for the health consequences of unchecked emissions. In the past month, studies in academic journals have reported the following:

El Niño weather patterns — which are projected to intensify as the planet warms — cause about 6 million children to go hungry.

Air pollution causes tens of thousands of early deaths among Americans each year, even at low levels deemed safe by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The warming of the Amazon, combined with deforestation, will expose roughly 11 million people to potentially lethal heat by the end of the century.

This drumbeat of new studies has been accentuated by a crescendo of recent climate-linked disasters: Drought in Madagascar has pushed more than 1 million people to the brink of starvation. Flash floods in Niger worsened the West African nation’s cholera epidemic.

According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, at least 538 Americans have died in major climate disasters this year. That doesn’t account for the less-direct deaths: people who get sick from mold that forms after their home is deluged during a hurricane and patients whose chronic conditions are exacerbated by extreme temperatures.

Studies suggest that smoke from wildfires led to thousands more coronavirus cases out West, and in one county was linked to 41 percent of deaths.

Recent disasters “are grim warnings that for every day that we delay our response to climate change, the situation gets more critical,” said Marina Romanello, research director and lead author for the “Countdown.”

Yet climate change’s greatest dangers are not always associated with the most obvious weather extremes. Other threats will emerge from relatively slow, subtle transformations of the Earth and air.

By far the deadliest hazard comes from the act of burning fossil fuels, which generates tiny, lung-irritating particles known as PM2.5. One estimate published this February put the toll of this pollution at more than 10 million excess deaths each year. The Lancet study is more conservative, putting the figure closer to 1 million.

When it comes to the consequences of warming, heat is the world’s worst killer. Elderly people and infants younger than 1 — the groups most vulnerable to heat — are exposed to roughly four more extremely hot days per year now than a generation ago, the Lancet report found. Almost 350,000 people died of heat-related illness in 2019.

Steadily rising temperatures, combined with habitat disruption and globalization, have also given infectious diseases a chance to evolve and expand.

Fungal illnesses, which can’t be treated with vaccines or antibiotics, may be on the rise. Historically, there haven’t been many fungi capable of infecting humans, because the microbes don’t thrive at typical body temperatures. But as global warming increases the average temperatures in the environments where fungi live, it may be pressuring these species to adapt. This in turn could make them better suited for invading human guts or respiratory tracts, scientists suggest.

An April study in the journal PLOS Pathogens noted that Candida auris, a treatment-resistant infection that was first identified only 12 years ago, may have evolved this way. Same goes for a new kind of Cryptococcus gattii, a lung-infecting fungi typically found in the tropics, that recently emerged in the Pacific Northwest.

In the Southwest United States, scientists have documented a rise in Valley Fever cases, which are caused by a fungus whose spores are spread on dusty, windy days that are now common because of climate-induced drought.

“They are kind of lurking in the soil and lurking in the environment,” said Anita Sil, a microbial geneticist at the University of California at San Francisco who studies disease-causing fungi. “They’re in the air we breathe.”

Mosquito Squad workers make a house call in Glendale, Calif., in September. (Mark Abramson for the Washington Post)

Meanwhile, disease-carrying mosquitoes are moving to more temperate areas and higher elevations, their life cycles accelerated and their biting behaviors intensified. Shifting environmental factors have raised the basic reproductive rates of illnesses like Zika and chikungunya, enhancing their potential to explode into epidemics.

A study published by the Lancet Planetary Health this July found that unabated carbon emissions would put almost 90 percent of the world’s population at risk of malaria and dengue by the end of the century.

In the past decade, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified at least 128 cases in which people contracted dengue within the mainland United States. One case emerged as far north as New York.

But the diseases will continue to hit hardest in the low-lying, tropical nations where they are already endemic. In sub-Saharan Africa, McIver said, the toll could amount to as many as 50 additional deaths per day, most of them in children under 5.

Other studies suggest that the rate of diarrheal diseases in children will increase as much as 5 percent for every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of temperature rise.

The particular danger to young children underscores what McIver calls the “cruel irony” of climate-related health threats: “Those who are being the most affected by the problem are those contributing least to the phenomenon of climate change,” he said. “That’s the thing we should all be staying awake at night thinking about.”

On Capitol Hill and in international negotiations, the high price tag of addressing these impacts and moving the world away from fossil fuels has been an obstacle to climate legislation.

The Lancet “Countdown” argues that inaction will be even more expensive.

Last year, the direct costs of climate disasters totaled more than $178 billion, the report says. Drought affected 19 percent of the world’s total land surface area, damaging yields of crucial crops such as wheat, corn and soy. Extreme heat harmed workers and shut down operations at farms and factories, depriving the world of 295 billion potential work hours.

But curbing emissions, investing in clean energy and funding adaptation efforts could save money as well as lives, the report says. The reduced air pollution that would result from eliminating fossil fuels alone could deliver global health benefits in the trillions of dollars.

 A 2019 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that deaths from fine-particle pollution cost the United States more than $800 billion per year; more than half of those costs were attributable to pollution from the energy and transportation sectors.

“We have an enormous opportunity to get to the root cause of health harms from the burning of fossil fuels,” Salas said. “To me there is no greater treatment that will have the widest health benefits for my patients than reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

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