This year felt like a big year for climate change discourse and awareness. Not only was it the hottest year on record, the devastation and challenges of an erratic and extreme climate felt more tangible than ever to almost everyone. September was the hottest recorded month ever and this was certainly felt in the UK.
COP28, which recently wrapped up in the United Arab Emirates, was also a notable one. But before getting onto that, I want to take a step back and revisit the recent UNEP’s [United Nations Environment Programme] Emissions Gap Report published at the end of the November.
There’s been no progress on reducing global warming
The Emissions Gap Report tell us how much progress is being made to meet the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5 degrees (above pre-industrial levels).
It does not make for comforting reading. The upshot is that countries’ current mitigation pledges (targets for renewables and other measures to reduce greenhouse gas inputs into the atmosphere) and the speed at which they are being implemented means we are on course to limit global warming to 3°C above pre-industrial levels this century. Three degrees – double the target.
What does this mean? Well, put simply, more erratic weather, more extreme heat, more wildfires, more flooding, etc, more people displaced due to inhabitable lands, unimaginable high costs to adapt to all this. And in the UK, more rain.
Countries are making ‘dangerously slow progress on emissions reduction.’ These findings are no surprise at all, the report wasn’t called ‘Broken Record’ for nothing.
A Statement from UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen at the launch of the report highlighted something interesting. He noted that the coal, oil and gas extracted over the lifetime of producing and planned mines and fields would wipe out almost the whole remaining carbon budget for 2°C – and obliterate the 1.5°C budget many times over. So according to Andersen some of those mines and oil fields must not materialise and their fossil fuels must not be burned or we won’t reach our target. They must be replaced by something else, or demand must be reduced.
He added: “Governments can’t keep pledging to cut emissions under the Paris Agreement and then greenlighting huge fossil fuels projects; this is throwing the global energy transition, and humanity’s future, into question.”
COP28: fossil fuels take centre stage
Shift to COP28, which took place in United Arab Emirates, among the world’s ten largest oil producers. This annual convening of leaders was considered historic because it is the first one to address the role of fossil fuels in the process of slowing climate change, with the final agreement text, which is signed by 200 countries, calling for a “transition away” from fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal).
It seems bleedin’ obvious, I know, and quite shocking this has never been a main topic of discussion at the last previous 27 COPs, but such is diplomacy and dealing with vested interests.
But now it’s in the text – not as explicitly as many wanted – and signed off, what impact will it actually have? As with all things climate change related, there’s no simple answer.
You wouldn’t be criticised for thinking: what is the point of the COP process if we’re still not slowing global warming and carbon emissions in the atmosphere are still going up? Some notable people ask this and are critical of it all – Greta Thunberg describes it as “blah, blah, blah”. Dieter Helm, a Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, says the leaders at COP “do not actually mean it: they will the ends, but not the means.”
Yet, others are much more optimistic. [You will find that within the climate mitigation arena, against perception, perhaps, there are lots of optimists. I’m not sure why this is, other than if you weren’t a glass-half-full type of person it would be a pretty depressing field to work in, but also as so little has been achieved in the preceding 30 years, perhaps the intense focus on the climate now is itself a genuine reason for optimism.]
But why be positive? Well, as Akshat Rathi explains in his Bloomberg Zero podcast, which is worth a listen, COPs do tend to set a direction and an intention that can impact where investors put their dollars. After the COP28 agreement on fossil fuels it’s more likely that investors will consider putting money into fossil fuels, such as a new oil field, a much riskier endeavour. And these days businesses and investors are often driving the transition away from fossil just as much, if not sometimes more, than governments.
However, only in hindsight will we know whether this ‘historic’ COP had the desired effect. And, actually, as I write this, I am reminded of something I read a few weeks ago about the major oil company Chevron signing its biggest fossil fuel deal in its history (for $53bn). The company’s CEO said of the International Energy Agency’s prediction that fossil fuel demand will peak before the end of the decade: “You can build scenarios, but we live in the real world, and need to allocate capital to meet real world demand.” In other words, the demand for fossil fuels is as strong as ever, which is why I think energy efficiency and saving and consumerism needs to be a much bigger topic, but that’s for another day.
Money talks
And that’s the snag, the reality is shifting away from fossil fuel use is really hard and expensive, not least because it requires a change in technology, but also mindsets that take a long time to embed – much longer than election cycles.
As Rathi writes in his new book, Climate Capitalism, which I’m currently reading, in the mid 18th century when there was no sewer system in London, and people just chucked their bodily waste into the street or the Thames, it took a dry summer and an unbearable and unrelenting stench for parliament, the Queen, and indeed the people, to decide that enough was enough. Legislation was passed to build a sewer – costing 2% of GDP at the time – and no one questioned whether it was worth it or not. Everyone implicitly agreed it was.
‘Until people have the idea that [throwing Co2 in the air] is like throwing poop in the street, we’re not going to spend what it costs,” Peter Kelemen professor or earth sciences at Columbia University says.
Indeed. But of course, combating climate change is way more complex – and globally interdependent – than building a sewer system (although it was a completely new thing at the time) but I still don’t think we have reached the point where we are all in agreement it is worth our money – and the our money bit particularly – there’s too many competing problems, and that’s a huge barrier. One of many.
But actually, it’s always important to remember – and I always say this to climate sceptics and fatalists – that doing what’s needed (lowering our emissions, not using fossil fuels) is not as complex or expensive – and deathly/ existential – as having to adapt to a world with a destabilised climate. This we should always keep front and centre in our mind.
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