1.5C still possible says IEA - on which planet?

Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, says that 1.5C is still possible. 

Really?

To support this the IEA says that investment in clean energy is increasing fast, driven by Russian aggression against Ukraine. That's doubtless true but largely beside the point. To keep within 1.5C we don't need more clean energy - we need less dirty energy. Because its dirty energy that drives climate change. The current position is that both are growing in order to meet increasing total demand.

To reduce dirty energy we need to turn off all fossil fuel-burning electricity generators, starting with coal. We need to decarbonise transport and industry. You know the rest I'm sure. 

The IEA says that fossil fuel use might peak this decade. The latest IPCC report says that emissions have to reduce 45% by the end of the decade. That sounds very different from 'peaking' to me.

And the UN agrees. It forecasts a 2.6C increase if countries meet their pledges - itself wildly unlikely. I'm sure Fatih Birol lives on a nice planet. I wish it were mine.

Social justice and the climate crisis

Some climate activists and Green politicians say that there is no conflict, even alignment, between climate change mitigation and social justice.

That sounds good. And if they mean that we Greens should advocate policies that promote social justice and climate change mitigation then I agree. We should. 

But some make the stronger claim that social justice and climate change mitigation cannot be different. That, unhappily, is wrong.  

Because they are standing at the wrong end of the telescope. They are looking at policies we may have for the UK. That's a legitimate focus. Much of my own policy work has that focus. But that's not how we'll fix the global heating and the biodiversity crises because, well, they are global.

An effective solution to a global problem is necessarily a global one. In practice it has to be a long-term, think at least 20 year, programme. And it will cost tens of trillions of dollars.  

And it will need global governance. What form will this take?

How about a multinational, consensus-seeking process? Sounds good. Sounds realistic. But that's what we have and it's failed. And the very factors that have created this failure – short-termism, economic fetishism, nationalism, billionaire power – make effective reform impossible.

How about 'muscular leadership' by a single nation? The only nation with the clout and which might develop the insight is the US. (Please don't laugh.) Plainly the US is not ready to play this role. It may never be ready and by the time it becomes ready it will no longer have the clout.

What's left? Only, I suggest, joint leadership by the US and China. And by leadership I mean a mixture of sticks and carrots with the willingness to impose solutions when persuasion fails.

Neither country is currently ready to play this role and, in my judgement, neither will be ready for five, maybe ten, years. By which time we will stand on the edge of a climate precipice from which only the most vigorous action can save us. That action may have to include domestic food and energy rationing and solar radiation management.

That might be enough to save us from global catastrophe. And it might not.

But what is clear to me is that there will be no spare time, money or attention to achieve other goals. Goals such as social justice, respect for human rights and the maintenance of democracy. Much of that will have to take second place and the best we can hope for is that this neglect or even backtracking is purely temporary. 

I do not recommend this. I do not like this. It runs counter to my values in almost every way.

But I do not see an alternative that is at once effective and credible.

I wish I did.

Cassandra returns

For the last 4 years I've been heavily involved with developing the Green Party's policy on the Climate Emergency. I will have more to say about that in the future but this blog is my personal views. So here's the first.

1.5 is not alive. It's dead. Even the most optimistic IPCC '1.5 compliant' scenarios go above 1.5 within 50 years though get below it by 2100 - by assuming lots of negative emissions. And those scenarios are purely theoretical. They don't even get lip service from the big emitters.

The probable result of every nation meeting its NDC commitments would be much worse, more like 3 degrees than 1.5. And how likely is it that every nation will meet its NDC commitments ? 

Very unlikely. Emissions  have risen almost every year for half a century. They are not reducing and there is little sense in forecasting peak emissions until we see some, even very slight, reductions. To put it another way, the UNFCCC process, the COPs, has failed.

So are we on track for 3 degrees? 

I don't think so. it's likely that we will exceed 2 degrees this century and that this will create massive positive feedback effects, such as the release of vast amounts of methane from under the arctic tundra. The results of that will be an increase of more, perhaps much more, than 3 degrees. 

This isn't quite inevitable. There are still ways back. But they get harder, technically and politically, with each passing month.