Inflection Point: The Crucial Decade for Climate Action begins
Here’s what we need to do now.
As you read this in the first week of 2021, we are exactly halfway between the opportunity we squandered and the future we can have. It’s been 30 years since the first global climate meeting in 1990 and it is 30 years from the target we have set for ourselves to have a habitable planet. Since convening for the first time in 1990 (when warming was estimated to be 0.5°C) to do something about global warming, the world has warmed by an additional 0.7°C and emissions increased by over 60% by 2020. By the year 2050, we want to reduce net emissions all the way down to zero and hopefully be well on our way to limiting warming to only 0.3°C more, i.e 1,5°C overall.
As you read this, 2020 has just been declared as the hottest year on record in the last 800,000 years, tying with 2016 that was the previous record holder. An important detail here is that 2016 was so warm thanks to the heating influence of an El Nino event while 2020 was so warm despite the cooling influence of a La Nina event.
(Congratulations to us for witnessing terrible history being made, I guess?)
This decade is everything.
This decade is the crucial transitional decade to set the course for the next 30 years and beyond, to come up with intention and follow it up with solutions to transform the way we live, use and coexist with the natural world.
This decade is the best chance we have, according to scientists, to achieve Paris Agreement goals of limiting warming to either 1.5°C or well below 2°C to stave off the worst of climate impacts.
But why exactly is decade important? Because the science says so!
(if you already know why this decade is crucial, skip to the next section that discusses what we need to do in this decade)
Because we are fast burning through our planet’s limited carbon budget (i.e. the amount of extra carbon dioxide the atmosphere can take without causing catastrophic runaway warming) and we have less than 10 years or 8% of emissions left. Once we cross this threshold, whichever is breached first, we lose our best shot to limit warming to below 1.5°C. All is not lost by then, but our best shot is surely lost. We’ll then have to settle for well below 2°C or just 2°C warming after. However, seeing how terribly 2020 fared at mere 1.2°C warming, I’m sure we can all agree limiting warming to 1.5°C is in our absolute best interest.
In 2018, when IPCC released their special report on Global Warming of 1.5°C known as SR15, to have the best chance at limiting warming to 1.5°C, scientists arrived at this mitigation pathway with three steps.
Global emissions need to start falling at a rate of 7% per year till 2030 so that our current global emissions are halved by the end of this decade.
Following that momentum, we will need to get to net zero (i.e. human produced carbon dioxide emissions will be down to zero and will not add to the atmospheric composition anymore) by 2050.
After that, we will also deploy some magical negative emissions technology to reverse some amount of warming that is inevitable even after getting to net zero by 2050. This non-existent solution will be deployed between 2050 and 2100.
The most important thing to remember is that all three steps are crucial if we are to limit warming to 1.5°C in the next 80 years, by 2100 that is.
So, as you can see, we are in the first year of the crucial first step of decarbonizing our economy to halve our emissions by 2030. Despite the world having no concrete plans to reduce emissions by 7,6% as calculated, Coronavirus arrived on swift wings and forced our hand to unwillingly achieve the first and unprecedented level of emission reduction in 2020. Broken and beaten by the pandemic, first year of 7% reduction was achieved. Now we need to reduce 7.6% emissions year after year till 2030, hopefully without the help of a global pandemic and widespread suffering.
But how do we achieve this? In a world that is so closely linked to fossil fuel powered development, a world where so many more people need energy access to develop, how exactly are we going to achieve sustained emission reduction? It is nice to say we need climate action now, but what does this entail exactly?
Here’s a quick overview of seven areas we should focus on for emission cuts:
1. Energy Transition to Renewables
Fossil fuel created this problem and goes without saying that fossil fuel powered energy generation needs to go away. Good news is that renewable energy is getting more and more efficient, cheap and accessible, much faster than what energy experts predicted few years ago. Governments, corporates and individuals can all transition to green energy easily today if there is enough will. And since energy use constitutes over 70% of our overall emissions, it is a no brainer that the said energy production needs to move away from fossil fuel burning to renewables.
2. Biodiversity Protection and Ecosystem Restoration
The earth has a natural carbon cycle, of which forests, oceans, grasslands, wetlands etc all are part of. And nature is one of our biggest allies in responding to climate change, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation. That is, nature can help sequester a lot of the extra carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere. And nature can also act as a buffer that protects us from the impending extreme weather events and impacts. So it would be monumentally stupid and incredibly shortsighted to destroy nature in the name of development or economy. We do not want these vital carbon sinks to turn into carbon sources, but unfortunately that’s already happening in a lot of critical ecosystems ranging from rainforests to grasslands. Protection of existing natural resources and restoring degraded ecosystems is critical if we are to evade dangerous levels of warming. According to a latest study, a planetary ‘safety net’ could halt wildlife loss and slow climate breakdown if half the earth’s landmass is protected. Let’s! Because that would mean no more pandemics & climate crisis.
Global strategies to halt the dual crises of biodiversity loss and climate change are often formulated separately, even though they are interdependent and risk failure if pursued in isolation. The Global Safety Net maps how expanded nature conservation addresses both overarching threats. We identify 50% of the terrestrial realm that, if conserved, would reverse further biodiversity loss, prevent CO2 emissions from land conversion, and enhance natural carbon removal, according to the new study.
3. Decarbonizing transport
For most of us normal people who don’t even go around flying in private jets and energy guzzling SUVs, transportation is probably still the biggest of our direct and indirect carbon footprint. Transport sector is the fastest growing source of global emissions and decarbonizing it is imperative because these emissions account for over 20% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Nearly half of it comes from passenger vehicles and another quarter comes from freight transport by road. This means road transport, personal and commercial, together accounts for over 75% of transport sector emissions. This means elimination of this significant chunk of road transport emissions is already possible with a mix of electrification, increased public transportation and better cities that don’t need vehicles to move around. (Now that Elon Musk has become the richest man in the world, thanks to soaring Tesla stocks despite the pandemic, hopefully it signals quick electrification of personal and public transportation fleet is on the cards globally.)
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4. Green architecture and cooling solutions
As the world warms, and weather becomes more erratic, our reliance on cooling solutions will increase manifold. In 2019, when adding emissions from the building construction industry on top of operational emissions, the building sector accounted for 38% of total global energy-related CO2 emissions as per the latest UN Report. That’s more than all of transport emissions!
While several billions of people are living in harsh conditions where heat waves are already getting more frequent and severe, growing urban heat islands pose a serious new threat. For that, we need cooling solutions that don’t once again heat up the planet. And just in case I need to clarify, no we cannot air condition our way out of this nightmare. Retrofitting old architecture built for cold weather, improving energy efficiency of cooling solutions such as air conditioning/refrigeration and using natural and/or sustainable solutions to cool energy-guzzling, heat-trapping buildings and cities must be top priority in the coming years.
5. Food and Agricultural sector overhaul
There is no meeting Paris goals without re-hauling and changing our relationship with how we produce and consume food. As of now, there are ridiculous amount of inefficiencies in the food production, which accounts for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and takes up half of the planet’s habitable surface as reported by this detailed Carbon Brief interactive. However, unlike energy or transport sector that has viable low carbon solutions/alternatives, food sector is a bit of an impossible mess at the moment. And this will need to be solved in the coming decade where world hunger still needs to be solved while ensuring equitable distribution of food is achieved, without destroying the planet, livelihoods and ecosystem in the process.
6. Circular Economy instead of Endless Waste
Our current economy includes a ridiculous amount of wastage and needless resource exploitation. GDP based endless growth scenarios are no longer realistic seeing we’ve hit the planetary limits of capitalism within half a century of globalization and unchecked growth. In a circular economy, waste is minimized because products, raw materials and resources don’t lose value the minute trends change or a need is met. Repair and reuse is the main feature of circular economy where not only waste is reduced drastically, the environment will be all the better for it because we simply won’t need so many resources and won’t be polluting endlessly to create more stuff. Read more about this idea that will quite possibly gain much traction in the coming decade here -
Is a world without trash possible? The vision of a “circular economy”—where we use resources sparingly and recycle endlessly—is inspiring businesses and environmentalists alike — on National Geographic
7. Smashing inequality and overconsumption
When we talk about climate action, it is most surprising that the fundamental reason for this mess is seldom talked about. Emission reductions and sustainable solutions are all fine but unless we tackle 1) the overwhelming inequality between countries, communities and individuals, 2) income, resource and opportunity disparities and 3) overconsumption, nothing will fundamentally change in our society and our messed up relationship with the natural world. In order to have a better world, all kinds of justice will have to be achieved – climate justice, social justice, environmental justice, racial justice, gender justice etc etc.
Also, here’s a Six Sector Solution to Climate Change as recommended by United Nations in their latest report.
By 2030, global emissions have to be reduced by around 30 Gigatons of carbon dioxide. As the report rightly identifies, actions are required at every level: government, private sector and the public. You can access the full interactive report here.
So, now you know what needs to be done within the next decade! Get cracking then?
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