THIS week, world leaders will go to the UN headquarters in New York to sign the climate change agreement they thrashed out in Paris at the end of last year. The ceremony is largely symbolic: the deal doesn’t formally come into effect until 2020. What happens in the meantime is crucial.
In December countries agreed to limit global warming to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures, the ceiling deemed necessary to avoid the most serious consequences of warming. Yet what countries have proposed to do as part of the Paris deal will at best limit warming to around 3 °C by 2100. If we are serious about limiting it to 2 °C and avoiding the far greater effects on weather extremes and sea level rise predicted to happen with that extra 1 °C, they need to do much more, and do it now.
The good news is that the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, China, looks like it has got the message. Thanks to China, global CO2 emissions have flatlined after years of rampant growth. So are we reaching a crucial turning point, or are delegates effectively signing up to an agreement that everyone knows is doomed to fail?
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On the surface, there are reasons to be optimistic. After a slight fall following the 2007 financial crisis, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry grew rapidly over the following decade, at a rate of around 2.4 per cent per year. But over the past two years emissions have stabilised despite continued economic growth.
In a study released just before the Paris meeting, scientists at the Global Carbon Project predicted a 0.6 per cent fall in emissions in 2015 based on preliminary data. Now the actual numbers are in, and they suggest that emissions in 2015 were flat rather than falling, Pep Canadell, director of the Global Carbon Project, told 91av. Still, no growth is much better than fast growth.
“To have a chance of limiting warming to 2 °C, global emissions need to peak by 2020. This is very unlikely“
Global emissions figures should be treated with caution, however, as they come with big uncertainties and some countries’ figures are unreliable – or non-existent.
What we can measure with certainty is the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Alarmingly, it increased by a record 3 parts per million (ppm) in 2015 and looks set to rise even more this year, with some readings at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa monitoring station .
This rise doesn’t necessarily mean the emissions figures are wrong. Even if emissions really have flatlined, this trend will be obscured by the noise in the system – the natural year-to-year variations in how much CO2 gets soaked up by the land and oceans. The record growth is partly due to the now fading El NiÑo, for instance, which boosts emissions by causing more fires, among other things.
Canadell estimates that global emissions would have to remain flat for a decade or so before the trend becomes apparent in terms of levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. This isn’t likely to happen any time soon as we haven’t yet reached peak global emissions.
True, China’s emissions – once growing at 8 per cent a year – have slowed to almost zero thanks to declines in manufacturing and efforts to reduce air pollution, says Glen Peters of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Norway. And with China shifting its economy from exports to services, few expect this rapid growth to return. But that doesn’t mean China’s emissions have peaked: its appetite for oil and gas is still growing. Despite that, its emissions may peak before 2030 – ahead of the schedule China put forward in Paris.
The bad news is that to have a good chance of limiting warming to 2 °C, global emissions need to peak earlier, by around 2020. With the emissions of countries like India and Russia still climbing sharply, that seems extremely unlikely.
And it’s not just about CO2. Levels of two other potent greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, are still rising fast. Farming is the main source of both: adding fertiliser makes soils emit nitrous oxide, and livestock belch out methane. In fact, farming emissions are nearly as large as fossil fuel emissions, Canadell says, if the warming potentials of methane and nitrous oxide emissions are added to that of CO2 emissions caused by the switch in land use from forest to agriculture.
Put another way, even if we stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, we would still have a big greenhouse gas problem. It’s a really tough nut to crack because we can’t stop growing food.
That makes it even more urgent to slash fossil fuel emissions as fast as we can. Just about everyone agrees on what is required to do it: . Getting countries to agree a common carbon price – and penalising those that don’t enforce it – is a much better approach than focusing on targets for limiting emissions.
What we need is leadership from a big player. Bernie Sanders has pledged to introduce a carbon tax if he wins this year’s US presidential election. That could be a game changer – but just like keeping to 2 °C of warming, that’s an almighty big if.
Deal or no deal
It’s set to be the largest one-day signing of any international agreement. Around 150 leaders are expected to sign the Paris climate change agreement on 22 April . Putting pen to paper is just the first step, though. Each signatory also has to formally approve, or ratify, the deal in their parliaments. Only Switzerland, Fiji, Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives have done this so far.
The deal comes into force only when 55 countries representing at least 55 per cent of greenhouse emissions have ratified it. Even when it does come into effect, it will remain essentially voluntary. The deal legally obliges countries to set their own targets for limiting emissions between 2020 and 2030, but not to meet them. It was structured this way to allow US president Barack Obama to ratify it using his presidential authority rather than requiring a vote of the Senate – unlike the 1997 Kyoto protocol, which was signed by Bill Clinton but never ratified by the US.
The Kyoto protocol didn’t come into effect until 2005, and the 2012 Doha amendment has yet to be ratified by enough countries (and may never be). Things look more hopeful for Paris: China and the US have indicated their desire to push things forward, perhaps enabling the deal to , three years earlier than envisaged in Paris.
Since Paris, three reasons to…
…be cheerful
COOL TO BE ELECTRIC
Hundreds of thousands of people signed up to within a week of its unveiling in March. If electric cars become more desirable than fossil-fuel guzzlers, they could transform the car industry.
COLD SHOULDER FOR COAL
China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam have plans to build nearly 2000 coal power plants between them – but a recent report concluded that . This week, China told 28 of its 31 mainland provinces .
RENEWABLES TAKE OFF
Investment in renewables rose to a record $289 billion in 2015, and more renewable energy capacity was added than conventional sources for the first time, according to a UN report.
…d貹
DARKENING CLOUDS
Every tonne of carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere may produce more warming than we thought. A study out earlier this month suggests clouds may not whiten as much as had been estimated as the world warms, meaning they will reflect less heat.
SHRINKING ANTARCTICA
Sea level rise over the next century may be double previous estimates. An improved computer model that includes processes such as the collapse of ice cliffs is projecting much faster ice loss in Antarctica than previously thought possible.
CHEAP OIL
Low oil prices may slow the transition to renewables, the International Monetary Fund warned this week. Lower oil prices have discouraged investment in hard-to-extract sources such as tar sands but will also make it harder for renewables to compete on price.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Signed, sealed… undeliverable?”
