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The risk of catastrophic sea-level rise

What’s Another Way to Say ‘We’re F-cked’?  https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/climate-change-sea-level-rise-737012/  One of the leading climate scientists of our time is warning of the horrifying possibility of 15-to-20 feet of sea-level rise, By JEFF GOODELL,13 Oct 18

October 13, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Climate change threat is worse than UN report states: risk of runaway warming

Climate report understates threat https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/climate-report-understates-threat/?utm_source=Bulletin%20Newsletter&utm_medium=iContact%20email&utm_campaign=October12

October 13, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Are there any real solutions to escalated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere?

Do We Really Have the Time and the Tools to Fix Climate Change?  BY Rachel Smolker, Truthout, October 11, 2018 

As part of the Paris agreement, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was asked “to provide a special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 [degrees Celsius] above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways.” That report was released on October 8.

The report’s “Headline Statements” are divided into four main sections: 1.) “Understanding Global Warming of 1.5 [Degrees Celsius]”; 2.) “Projected Climate Change, Potential Impacts and Associated Risks”; 3.) “Emission Pathways and System Transitions Consistent with 1.5 [Degrees Celsius] Global Warming”; and 4.) “Strengthening the Global Response in the Context of Sustainable Development and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty.”

What the Report Says and Does Not Say

In the first chapter, the IPCC points out that human activities have already caused about 1 degree Celsius (1°C) of warming, and that we will reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 at the current pace. They state that what has already been emitted into the atmosphere will result in ongoing warming, sea-level rise and other effects for “centuries to millennia” (even in the absence of ongoing and future emissions), but that the emissions to date on their own will not raise temperatures to 1.5°C. So, the good news then is that reaching and sustaining net zero emissions, even at this late stage in the game, would “halt warming on a multi-decadal time scale.” The IPCC also concludes that impacts generally would be less at a 1.5°C stabilization than a 2°C stabilization.

These numbers are convenient for discussion, but realistically, the atmosphere is not like the thermostat in our living room, where we can simply dial and set in order to heat the house to some desired level. We are not in control for the most part. It is also worth keeping in mind that the IPCC has consistently underestimated the pace and magnitude of global warming. It is probably safe to say that this is still the case. Feedbacks and “tipping points” are not some distant thing to avoid, they are already happening, and their trajectory is impossible to predict. They include things like soil respiration, melting permafrost, warming and acidification of the oceans and loss of ice. The IPCC has shifted its assessments of the warming potential of methane to consistently use the 20-year timeframe comparison with CO2 [carbon dioxide], and revised upward the quantity of methane released by livestock, just as one example. There are most likely some major sources of emissions we are not even aware of. Further, there are some major sources of emissions we are aware of, but have been granted exclusion from consideration, such as the vast quantity of emissions from military activities. ……….

Can We Overshoot the Target and Clean Excess Carbon Out of the Atmosphere?  The IPCC uses “integrated assessment models” for their analyses. Those models plug in a suite of assumptions about changes in energy production and use, land use change and other factors, and then use those to provide trajectories (pathways) to a goal — in this report, either 1.5°C or 2°C of warming. Those trajectories are not always straight lines from here to there. Many — in fact, most of them — involve exceeding thresholds for greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere in the near term, with the intention of somehow later removing the excess. This is called “overshoot.” It is an extremely risky proposition. Earlier drafts of the report did not even evaluate models that did not include overshoot to some degree. Fortunately, the final draft does evaluate pathways without or with limited overshoot.

Enabling overshoot is especially problematic because there is currently no technology available for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere…………

Ultimately, it is increasingly clear that the real solutions to climate change are not global-scale techno-fixes, but rather the locally adapted and locally controlled solutions that people have been pushing for decades, including preventing buildout of fossil fuel infrastructure, protection of lands, respect for rights of humans and nature. The ruthless pursuit of corporate wealth and power and economic growth at all costs stifles those local, grassroots solutions from reaching fruition. ……….https://truthout.org/articles/do-we-really-have-the-time-and-the-tools-to-fix-climate-change/

October 13, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Rising sea levels will mean flooding of vulnerable cities- e.g: London, Jakarta, Shanghai and Houston

Edie 5th Oct 2018, London, Jakarta, Shanghai and Houston and other global cities that are
already sinking will become increasingly vulnerable to storms and flooding
as a result of global warming, campaigners have warned ahead of a landmark
new report on climate science.

The threat to cities from sea level rises is increasing because city planners are failing to prepare, the charity
Christian Aid said in the report. Some big cities are already subsiding –
the ground beneath Shanghai, for instance, is being pressed down by the
sheer weight of the buildings above – and rising sea levels resulting
from global warming will make the effects worse.
https://www.edie.net/news/9/From-London-to-Shanghai–world-s-sinking-cities-face-devastating-floods/

October 9, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

IPCC Climate Report: world has 10 years to ward off global warming disaster

The report was signed off on by the IPCC delegates on Saturday afternoon in the South Korean city of Incheon after a marathon six days of talks – including an overnighter to end the event.

One delegate who asked not to be identified said the process looked to be “doomed” after delegates from Saudi Arabia objected to the draft report and began “bashing the desk”.

For the first time in a IPCC report, the authors included social and economic impacts. That marked “the end of magical thinking” that sustainable development goals and poverty reduction could be divorced from climate action

‘Next decade critical’: Perils mount at 1.5 degrees of warming, says IPCC , Sydney Morning Herald,  By Peter Hannam & Nicole Hasham 8 October 2018 —The amount of coal and other fossil fuels the world can burn without unleashing dangerous climate change that will undermine the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people and all but wipe out the Great Barrier Reef is “very small”, according to a major climate report.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on a 1.5-degree hotter planet, released on Monday, said limiting warming to that amount remains possible, but only with “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”……..

October 8, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Climate change. It’s a critical time for the future of the planet

Why the next three months are crucial for the future of the planet

Two forthcoming major climate talks offer governments an opportunity to respond to this year’s extreme weather with decisive action  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/05/why-the-next-four-months-are-crucial-for-future-of-planet-climate-change   Fiona Harvey  Environment correspondent  5 Oct 2018 This week, scientists are gathering in South Korea to draw together the last five years of advances in climate science to answer key questions for policymakers. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) celebrates its 30th birthday this year with what is likely to be a landmark report to be released on Monday 8 October. What is expected to emerge will be the strongest warning yet that these unusual occurrences will add up to a pattern that can only be overcome with drastic action.

Thousands of the world’s leading climate experts collaborate on the periodic reports, released roughly every half-decade. They have grown clearer over the years in the certainty of their evidence that climate change is occurring as a result of human actions, and firmer in their warnings of the disruptive consequences.

This time, the scientists will attempt to answer whether and how the world can meet the “aspiration” set in the Paris agreement of 2015 to hold warming to no more than 1.5C, beyond which many low-lying states and islands are likely to face dangerous sea level rises.

When the scientists deliver their verdict, the onus will pass to politicians to translate their advice into concrete action. Already in recent weeks, global initiatives have begun aimed at doing so: the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last month spurred protests, and dozens of local governments and multinational companies to make pledges; the second One Planet Summit saw advances in climate finance; while at the UN General Assembly, secretary general António Guterres urged world leaders to step up, calling climate change “the defining issue of our time”.

The warning signals of climate change that have hit people around the world in the last few months must be heeded by national governments at key meetings later this year, political leaders and policy experts are urging, as the disruption from record-breaking weather continues in many regions.

Extreme weather events have struck around the world – from the drought and record temperatures in northern Europe, to forest fires in the US, to heatwaves and drought in China, to an unusually strong monsoon that has devastated large areas of southern India.

As the northern hemisphere summer closes, polar observations have just established that the Arctic sea ice narrowly missed a record low this year. The sea ice extent was tied for the sixth lowest on record with 2008 and 2010. Sea currents and wind conditions can have large effects on sea ice extent from year to year, but the trend is starkly evident.

“Put simply, in the last 10 years the Arctic is melting faster than it ever has previously since records began,” said Julienne Stroeve, professor at University College London. “We have lost over half of the summer sea ice coverage since the late 1970’s and it is realistic to expect an ice-free Arctic sea in summer in the next few decades.”

Of particular concern is the decline in thick ice which forms over several years. “The older ice has been replaced by more and more first-year ice, which is easier to melt out each summer,” she explained.

Not all of the effects of this year’s extraordinary weather, which has also seen the UK’s joint hottest summer on record, can be traced directly to climate change. However, scientists are clear that the background of a warming planet has made extremes of temperature, and accompanying droughts and floods, more likely.

This week, scientists are gathering in South Korea to draw together the last five years of advances in climate science to answer key questions for policymakers. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) celebrates its 30th birthday this year with what is likely to be a landmark report to be released on Monday 8 October. What is expected to emerge will be the strongest warning yet that these unusual occurrences will add up to a pattern that can only be overcome with drastic action.

Thousands of the world’s leading climate experts collaborate on the periodic reports, released roughly every half-decade. They have grown clearer over the years in the certainty of their evidence that climate change is occurring as a result of human actions, and firmer in their warnings of the disruptive consequences.

This time, the scientists will attempt to answer whether and how the world can meet the “aspiration” set in the Paris agreement of 2015 to hold warming to no more than 1.5C, beyond which many low-lying states and islands are likely to face dangerous sea level rises.

When the scientists deliver their verdict, the onus will pass to politicians to translate their advice into concrete action. Already in recent weeks, global initiatives have begun aimed at doing so: the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco last month spurred protests, and dozens of local governments and multinational companies to make pledges; the second One Planet Summit saw advances in climate finance; while at the UN General Assembly, secretary general António Guterres urged world leaders to step up, calling climate change “the defining issue of our time”.

Nicholas Stern, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which produced the study, said: “Current economic models fail to capture both the powerful dynamics and very attractive qualities of new technologies and structures [that reduce carbon]. Thus we know that we are grossly underestimating the benefits of this new growth story. Further, it becomes ever clearer that the risks of the damage from climate change are immense, and tipping points and irreversibilities getting ever closer.”

The existence of tipping points – thresholds of temperature beyond which certain natural processes become irreversible, such as the melting of permafrost, which may release the greenhouse gas methane and create runaway warming effects – is a key concern of many climate scientists. The faster emissions rise, the sooner we may unwittingly pass some of these key points.

For all these reasons, the IPCC’s special report comes at a crucial point. Scientists and economists have warned that if the world cannot shift course within the next few years, the consequences will be dire, as new infrastructure built now – in energy generation, transport and the built environment – will be made either to low-emissions standards or in the high-emissions habits of the past. As the IPCC’s next comprehensive assessment of climate science will not be available until 2021, this year’s report will be vital in shaping policy.

Ted Chaiban, director of programmes at Unicef, urged governments to seize the opportunities for action offered by this year’s series of political meetings offers for action. “Over the past few months, we have seen a stark vision of the world we are creating for future generations,” he said. “As more extreme weather events increase the number of emergencies and humanitarian crises, it is children who will pay the highest price,” he said.

“It is vital that governments and the international community take concrete steps. The worst impacts of climate change are not inevitable, but the time for action is now.”

After the IPCC publication, the world will face a key test of faith in the 2015 Paris agreement, the only global pact stipulating action on temperature rises. This December in Poland, the UN’s climate change arm will hold a two-week meeting aimed at turning the political resolve reached in Paris three years ago into a set of rules for countries to follow on reducing emissions.

The political situation is more fraught than it was in the runup to Paris. The US is pulling out of the landmark climate agreement and is likely to play little part in the talks. Australia’s government is also in turmoil over climate actions. Now the challenger for Brazil’s presidency, Jair Bolsonaro, is threatening to withdraw its participation – a potential blow to the Paris consensus, as Brazil was a linchpin among rapidly developing nations.

All eyes will be on China, which has shown remarkable progress on renewable energy and emissions reduction, and India, where climate champions have found common cause with opponents of increasingly damaging air pollution. Patricia Espinsoa, the UN’s top climate official, warned that only “uneven progress” had been made so far on the 300-page rulebook for implementing the Paris targets, leaving the rest of the work for December.

While the dangerous weather of the first half of 2018 has raised concerns worldwide that we are seeing climate change in action, many leading experts told the Guardian they were optimistic that political and business leaders this year would help set the world on a different course to avoid the worse predictions of untrammelled warming.

Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme, said the past few years had seen “extraordinary progress” in areas such as renewable energy and the take-up of low-carbon technology: “This is real, not in the future but happening now. We are showing that we can do this, we can bring down emissions, it doesn’t need to be a disaster.”

Adopting low-carbon aims now would set developing countries on a course to a brighter future, added Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former economic minister of Nigeria and a member of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. “Now is the time to do this, before we lock in high-carbon infrastructure,” she said. “Now is the opportunity for real sustainable growth.”

Political leaders will find that global investors back them up in opting for low-carbon policies, predicted Frank Rijsberman of the Global Green Growth Institute. “I see this from investors, from businesses,” he said. “They are ready, and they see low-carbon as the future.”

Felipe Calderón, former president of Mexico, called on political leaders to take note: “We can turn better [economic] growth and a better climate into reality. It is time we decisively legislate, innovate, govern and invest our way to a fairer, safer, more sustainable world.”

Evidence showing that tackling climate change can be an economic boost rather than a brake has been growing. The recently published New Climate Economy report says more than 65m new low-carbon jobs could be created in just over a decade, and that 700,000 premature deaths from air pollution could be avoided every year by government action on climate change. A further $2.8tn could be added to government revenues by 2030 by reforming perverse incentives to burn fossil fuels.

Nicholas Stern, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which produced the study, said: “Current economic models fail to capture both the powerful dynamics and very attractive qualities of new technologies and structures [that reduce carbon]. Thus we know that we are grossly underestimating the benefits of this new growth story. Further, it becomes ever clearer that the risks of the damage from climate change are immense, and tipping points and irreversibilities getting ever closer.”

The existence of tipping points – thresholds of temperature beyond which certain natural processes become irreversible, such as the melting of permafrost, which may release the greenhouse gas methane and create runaway warming effects – is a key concern of many climate scientists. The faster emissions rise, the sooner we may unwittingly pass some of these key points.

For all these reasons, the IPCC’s special report comes at a crucial point.

October 5, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

The new U.N. climate report will contain very bad news

Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/03/climate-scientists-are-struggling-find-right-words-very-bad-news/?utm_term=.1540529e507a A much-awaited report from the U.N.’s top climate science panel will show an enormous gap between where we are and where we need to be to prevent dangerous levels of warming. By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis October 3  2018 In Incheon, South Korea, this week, representatives of over 130 countries and about 50 scientists have packed into a large conference center going over every line of an all-important report: What chance does the planet have of keeping climate change to a moderate, controllable level? When they can’t agree, they form “contact groups” outside the hall, trying to strike an agreement and move the process along. They are trying to reach consensus on what it would mean — and what it would take — to limit the warming of the planet to just 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, when 1 degree Celsius has already occurred and greenhouse gas emissions remain at record highs. “It’s the biggest peer-review exercise there is,” said Jonathan Lynn, head of communications for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It involves hundreds or even thousands of people looking at it.” The IPCC, the world’s definitive scientific body when it comes to climate change, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a decade ago and has been given what may rank as its hardest task yet. It must not only tell governments what we know about climate change — but how close they have brought us to the edge. And by implication, how much those governments are failing to live up to their goals for the planet, set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. 1.5 degrees is the most stringent and ambitious goal in that agreement, originally put there at the behest of small island nations and other highly vulnerable countries. But it is increasingly being regarded by all as a key guardrail, as severe climate change effects have been felt in just the past five years — raising concerns about what a little bit more warming would bring. “Half a degree doesn’t sound like much til you put it in the right context,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “It’s 50 percent more than we have now.” The idea of letting warming approach 2 degrees Celsius increasingly seems disastrous in this context. Parts of the planet, like the Arctic, have already warmed beyond 1.5 degrees and are seeing alarming changes. Antarctica and Greenland, containing many feet of sea-level rise, are wobbling. Major die-offs have hit coral reefs around the globe, suggesting an irreplaceable planetary feature could soon be lost. It is universally recognized that the pledges made in Paris would lead to a warming far beyond 1.5 degrees — more like 2.5 or 3 degrees Celsius, or even more. And that was before the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter, decided to try to back out. “The pledges countries made during the Paris climate accord don’t get us anywhere close to what we have to do,” said Drew Shindell, a climate expert at Duke University and one of the authors of the IPCC report. “They haven’t really followed through with actions to reduce their emissions in any way commensurate with what they profess to be aiming for.” The new 1.5 C report will feed into a process called the “Talanoa Dialogue,” in which parties to the Paris agreement begin to consider the large gap between what they say they want to achieve and what they are actually doing. The dialogue will unfold in December at an annual United Nations climate meeting in Katowice, Poland. But it is unclear what concrete commitments may result. At issue is what scientists call the ‘carbon budget’: Because carbon dioxide lives in the atmosphere for so long, there’s only a limited amount that can be emitted before it becomes impossible to avoid a given temperature, like 1.5 degrees Celsius. And since the world emits about 41 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, if the remaining budget is 410 billion tons (for example), then scientists can say we have 10 years until the budget is gone and 1.5 C is locked in. Unless emissions start to decline — which gives more time. This is why scenarios for holding warming to 1.5 degrees C require rapid and deep changes to how we get energy. The window may now be as narrow as around 15 years of current emissions, but since we don’t know for sure, according to the researchers, that really depends on how much of a margin of error we’re willing to give ourselves. And if we can’t cut other gases — such as methane — or if the Arctic permafrost starts emitting large volumes of additional gases, then the budget gets even narrower. “It would be an enormous challenge to keep warming below a threshold” of 1.5 degrees Celsius, said Shindell, bluntly. “This would be a really enormous lift.” So enormous, he said, that it would require a monumental shift toward decarbonization. By 2030 — barely a decade away — the world’s emissions would need to drop by about 40 percent. By the middle of the century, societies would need to have zero net emissions.  What might that look like? In part, it would include things such as no more gas-powered vehicles, a phaseout of coal-fired power plants and airplanes running on biofuels, he said. “It’s a drastic change,” he said. “These are huge, huge shifts … This would really be an unprecedented rate and magnitude of change.” And that’s just the point — 1.5 degrees is still possible, but only if the world goes through a staggering transformation. An early draft (leaked and published by the website Climate Home News) suggests that future scenarios of a 1.5 C warming limit would require the massive deployment of technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the air and bury it below the ground. Such technologies do not exist at anything close to the scale that would be required. “There are now very small number of pathways [to 1.5C] that don’t involve carbon removal,” said Jim Skea, chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III and a professor at Imperial College London. It’s not clear how scientists can best give the world’s governments this message — or to what extent governments are up for hearing it. An early leaked draft of the report said there was a “very high risk” that the world would warm more than 1.5 degrees. But a later draft, also leaked to Climate Home News, appeared to back off, instead saying that “there is no simple answer to the question of whether it is feasible to limit warming to 1.5 C . . . feasibility has multiple dimensions that need to be considered simultaneously and systematically.” None of this language is final. That’s what this week in Incheon — intended to get the report ready for an official release on Monday — is all about. “I think many people would be happy if we were further along than we are,” the IPCC’s Lynn said Wednesday morning in Incheon. “But in all the approval sessions that I’ve seen, I’ve seen five of them now, that has always been the case. It sort of gets there in the end.”

October 5, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment