The COP-26 global climate summit has apparently abandoned the 1.5 Celsius warming goal needed to protect the most vulnerable people and places from destruction caused by climate change. COP-26’s most recent draft statement apparently reverted to the Paris agreement's 2.0 C target. Above 1.5 Celsius warming hard to predict processes such as permafrost melting and the destabilizing of glaciers in West Antarctica and Greenland will accelerate, perhaps crossing “tipping points”. The difference between the 1.5 C target and the 2.0 C Paris target that COP-26 is falling back to may be the exponential destabilization of west Antarctic glaciers and the shut down of bottom water formation around Antarctica according to studies done by Dr. James Hansen and others. This is not settled science, but above 1.5 Celsius we know uncertainty and risk rise rapidly. That is why the 1.5 Celsius target was set in the first place. COP-26 abandoned the 1.5 C target because there is no plausible way of meeting it based on what’s happening in the real world.
The Climate Action Tracker coalition, the world’s most respected climate change analytics organization, produced a report that blew the lid off of the big net zero lie that high emissions nations were using to greenwash their plans to pollute. www.theguardian.com/… Climate tracker analyzed the pledged emissions reductions for 2030, ignoring the confabulated 2050 emissions values which included negative numbers dependent on non existent technologies and wish case scenarios. climateactiontracker.org/… The resultant warming using 2030 pledges was a range of 1.9 Celsius to 3.0 Celsius warming for an average of 2.4 Celsius warming. That’s about 4 degrees F by the end of the century. Four degrees Fahrenheit warming is the global average which includes a large area of the eastern Pacific ocean which is cooled by the welling up of cold water masses that formed when the climate was much colder. The average temperature rise over the continents will therefore be higher than the average temperature rise over the oceans. That means that hot places where people live, such as Phoenix, Arizona can expect annual temperatures to be 5ºF or more higher by 2100. Water supplies, farming and the livability of vast areas of land will be severely impacted by this warming which will result if COP-26 pledges for 2030 are met. And because we are uncertain about climate tipping points, severe impacts could happen sooner than expected after the 1.5 Celsius warming level is crossed.
COP-26 is heading to failure and the big lie of "net zero" is to blame. We cannot accelerate emissions over the coming decade and cancel it out twenty years later. Even if negative emissions are possible climate tipping points will be crossed very quickly if we continue to increase our emissions. If we could by magic eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions today sea levels will still likely rise fifty to seventy feet — about 20 meters — based on levels they were the last time in the geologic record the atmosphere had today’s CO2 levels. Many impacts of climate change are not reversible. The negative emissions scenarios involved in the concept of net zero are a big lie. There is no reversing the impacts of emissions over the coming decade by actions decades later.
Out of all of this failure, however, there is hope. Let me tell you a story. I spent ten weeks this summer in Bakersfield, California, a conservative hold out and a city centered around big trucks, fast cars and SUVs. In Bakersfield you can legally drive 55mph down a number of city streets. Car culture reigned supreme as people gunned it to 60mph between stop lights, in the strange orange light and gloom from smoke covered skies. It was pretty depressing. Then Bob, a 75 year old Viet Nam vet showed up.
Bob’s old car was costing him a small fortune in repairs. He knocked on my door and asked to show me his new car. It was a VW. Remember the VW diesel pollution scandal? VW has abandoned auto diesel and made a strong commitment to EV’s. Bob, a 75 year old white guy, was leasing a beautiful brand new VW electric vehicle. He could afford it on his postal worker retirement budget and personal savings. Now, don’t get me wrong, consumption won’t save us. I know that. What I know is that technological revolutions happen quickly because of economic shifts. Bob’s personal decision based on affordability correlates directly with where investors are putting their money. There is real hope based on the improving economics of renewable power and electric vehicles that greenhouse gas emissions can be cut faster, cheaper and better than government forecasts show.
There is something we all can do to to improve the global climate forecasts. We can organize and work to end subsidies to fossil fuels. Government subsidies are encouraging fossil fuel consumption and the subsequent damage to civilization that follow. Government subsidies are slowing the transition to clean power and clean vehicles. Government subsidies are making us dependent on amoral multinational corporations while depriving communities and individuals from using the sun and the wind in their communities to empower themselves. We should never again fight a war for oil. That is the most obscene subsidy of all.
Once the costs of renewable energy systems go below the costs fossil fuel based systems and we are able to build renewable system fast enough to meet demand there will be a rapid transition to them based on economics. We need to work to make this happen sooner.
The details on yesterday’s meeting are covered here: www.dailykos.com/...