Each week, we read in this section, the ramblings of our local climate inaction, skeptic, denialist, delaying, whinging conspiracy theorists, quoting insignificant detail from obscure sources. Let us consider where things are actually at right now, December 2011, leading up to international climate negotiations in Durban over the next two weeks.
Planet Earth, third rock from the sun, our home, has a major problem. We all know that. Too much greenhouse causing gases emitted into the atmosphere resulting in a warming planet. We have, since the industrial revolution, taken massive amounts of carbon in the form of coal and oil, from where it was naturally stored from another geological era and put it into the atmosphere in the current era.
Scientists can predict, quite accurately, how varying levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will impact on future warming and it is on this basis that these judgments are made. Economists can predict, quite accurately, at what cost we can achieve emission reductions. The naysayers will argue these points in painful irrational detail, however, the big players of international government and industry are way ahead of these trivialities and are acting as we need them to.
Global agreement is already in place to retain warming to a maximum two degrees C, this century. Ahead of Durban, UNEP has released an update of their Emissions Gap Report. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is the voice for the environment in the UN system. Cutting emissions by 2020 to a level that could keep a global, 21st century, temperature rise under two degrees Celsius is technologically and economically feasible, says the comprehensive new study.
The annual UNEP Gap Report is a vital contribution to the global effort to address dangerous climate change. It shows that we have much to do, both in terms of ambition and policy, but it also shows that the gap can still be closed if we act now. This is a message of hope and an important call to action. The study, titled Bridging the Emissions Gap, brought together to examine the newest scientific research on the gap between the pledges that countries have made to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and what will be needed if we are to be on track to reach the two degree target by 2020.
This report puts into the hands of governments and policymakers vital information about their options if the world is to meet the climate change challenge. This year, countries will be able to begin their deliberations in Durban, South Africa, with all the key technological and economic scenarios at their fingertips that outline the gap between current ambition and scientific reality, alongside the urgent bridges that can be built to span this emissions’ divide.
Bridging the Emissions Gap is the second in UNEP’s series of reports on the topic. The first – the Emissions Gap Report – became a clear benchmark at last year’s international climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. This study, again, reminds us that efforts to address climate change are currently still insufficient. But it also shows that it is possible for governments to bridge the gap between what they have promised and what needs to be done to stay below a two-degrees Celsius average global temperature rise.
Time is short, so we need to optimise the tools at hand. In Durban, governments need to resolve the immediate future of the Kyoto Protocol, define the longer path towards a global, binding climate agreement, launch the agreed institutional network to support developing countries in their response to the climate challenge, and set out a path to deliver the long-term funding that will pay for that.
Bridging the Emissions Gap highlights the need for realistic changes in the energy system, by improving energy efficiency and by accelerating the introduction of renewable energies. Specifically, the study reviewed 13 scenarios from nine different scientific groups. The scenarios were all able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet the two-degree target by 2020 by using a combination of the following:
The report’s authors note that all the scenarios examined had different mixes of these options, indicating that there are many different pathways to bridging the gap.
Importantly for policymakers, the report also looks at what these options would cost. Globally, the average marginal costs range from $US25-$US54 per tonne of equivalent carbon dioxide removed, with a median value of $US34 per tonne.
This emissions reduction potential is larger than the estimated emissions gap of 12 GtCO2e under business-as-usual conditions, and as such, provides policymakers with clear insights into promising options for the way forward to stay below the two-degree C target.
This report confirms that Australia’s recent clean energy legislation is considered to be in line with global climate action policy, albeit inconvenient for many to admit.
Stephen Lockhart,
The Climate Reality Project
