The Guardian reached out to “every contactable lead author or review editor” of reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2018. Of 843 contacted, 380 replied:
Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating above preindustrial levels, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met.
Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck. [...]
The experts were clear on why the world is failing to tackle the climate crisis. A lack of political will was cited by almost three-quarters of the respondents, while 60% also blamed vested corporate interests, such as the fossil fuel industry.
Many also mentioned inequality and a failure of the rich world to help the poor, who suffer most from climate impacts. “I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
Damian Carrington, who wrote the Guardian story, noted that while a quarter of those who replied said it’s still possible to hold the average global temperature to a rise of 1.5°C, even most of them are gloomy about enough action being taken to achieve that goal. Said Henry Neufeldt, at the U.N.’s Copenhagen Climate Center: “I am convinced that we have all the solutions needed for a 1.5°C path and that we will implement them in the coming 20 years. But I fear that our actions might come too late and we cross one or several tipping points.”
The survey found that 52% of respondents under 50 expect a temperature rise of at least 3°C. That compares with 38% of those over 50. Women scientists were more pessimistic than male counterparts, with 49% thinking global temperature would rise at least 3°C, compared with 38% of men.
Some additional remarks by the surveyed scientists can be found here:
Lisa Schipper, at the University of Bonn, anticipates a 3°C rise: “It looks really bleak, but I think it’s realistic. It’s just the fact that we’re not taking the action that we need to.”
Camille Parmesan, at the CNRS ecology centre in France, just about gave up 15 years ago. “I had devoted my research life to [climate science] and it had not made a damn bit of difference I started feeling [like], well, I love singing, maybe I’ll become a nightclub singer.” But she said she was inspired by what she saw from young people at the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009. “The big difference [with the most recent IPCC report] was that all of the scientists I worked with were incredibly frustrated. Everyone was at the end of their rope, asking: what the fuck do we have to do to get through to people how bad this really is? Scientists are human: we are also people living on this Earth, who are also experiencing the impacts of climate change, who also have children, and who also have worries about the future. We did our science, we put this really good report together and—wow—it really didn’t make a difference on the policy. It’s very difficult to see that, every time.”
Stephen Humphreys at the London School of Economics said: “The tacit calculus of decision-makers, particularly in the Anglosphere—US, Canada, UK, Australia— but also Russia and the major fossil fuel producers in the Middle East, is driving us into a world in which the vulnerable will suffer, while the well-heeled will hope to stay safe above the waterline.” Asked what individual action would be effective to spur action, he said: “Civil disobedience.”
Maisa Rojas, an IPCC scientist who is Chile’s environment minister, said: “We need to communicate that acting on climate change can be a benefit, with proper support from the state, instead of a personal burden.” She is one of the less than 25% of scientists who think the temperature rise will be held to 2°C or less. Why this optimism when so many others are feeling hopeless or close to it? A big reason is how the transition to green technologies is unfolding. “It is getting cheaper and cheaper to save the climate,” said Lars Nilsson, at Lund University in Sweden.
Indeed, The Guardian published a story on Tuesday—Renewable energy passes 30% of world’s electricity supply—that gives some credence to that optimism. That 30% compares with 19% in 2000. However, under an agreement signed at COP28 in Dubai, the goal is for 60% of global electricity being provided by renewables by 2030. Deeply ambitious.
This shift should in theory greatly bring down carbon emissions. But one factor could upend that scenario. After decades of no growth, there’s been a surge in electricity demand. This is, ironically, in part because of the move to “electrify everything” that is essential to the green transition. Renewables are meant to replace fossil fuel power plants. In the United States and elsewhere, however, meeting that new demand has meant not just adding renewables but also new fossil fuel plants, especially natural gas.
As Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich wrote in March:
Some utilities say they need additional fossil fuel capacity because cleaner alternatives like wind or solar power aren’t growing fast enough and can be bogged down by delayed permits and snarled supply chains. While a data center can be built in just one year, it can take five years or longer to connect renewable energy projects to the grid and a decade to build some of the long-distance power lines they require. Utilities also note that data centers and factories need power 24 hours a day, something wind and solar can’t do alone.
Yet many regulated utilities also have financial incentives to build new gas plants, since they can recover their costs to build plants, wires and other equipment from ratepayers and pocket an additional percentage as profit. As a result, critics say, utilities often overlook, or even block, ways to make existing power systems more efficient or to integrate more renewable energy into the grid.
And, as we know all too well, the profit-gorged oil and gas giants aren’t exactly cooperating. In March, Amand Chu at the Financial Times reported:
At least 20 new oil and gasfields worldwide received permission to be greenlit last year, totalling 8bn barrels of oil equivalent in reserves, according to a tracker released today by the Global Energy Monitor, an environmental research group. GEM expects this figure to grow nearly fourfold by the end of the decade, with another 31bn boe across 64 new fields permitted by 2030.
The new oil and gasfields come despite warnings from the IEA that there was no room for new projects with long timelines for development in the path to net zero. The energy watchdog also expects demand for fossil fuels will peak by the end of the decade.
“There’s overwhelming scientific consensus that new oil and gasfields are incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. But even with that, there’s still new discoveries and sanctioning taking place,” said Scott Zimmerman, the tracker’s project manager.
Is it any wonder climatologists are increasingly terrified?
Tick, Tick, Tick.
RELATED: Saying goodbye to 1.5°C
