UN’sHe says although individual choices approximately how we live are important,it is only by coming together and forcing through genuine systemic change (100% renewable towns and cities, keeping carbon in the ground and divestment from fossil fuels) that climate breakdown can be avoided. 10.16am BSTThere is no shortage of political opposition to meaningful climate action, and from the US president,Donald Trump, to Brazil’s far-good populist Jair Bolsonaro. And this morning Australia’s prime minister, and Scott Morrison,has put himself firmly in that category.
Speaking before the IPCC report was released he said there was no money for “global climate conferences and all that nonsense”. 9.49am BSTGeorge Monbiot has written a powerful thread approximately the threat we face and what needs to be done:1. Because the lobbying power of fossil fuel-based businesses outweighs that of any other faction. The fossil fuel industry uses its profits to lobby for continued extraction and exercise. Its tactics are highly sophisticated.3. This campaign of denial resonates with an innate ((adj.) natural, inborn, inherent; built-in) resistance to change, reinforced by a tendency known as System Justification: a fundamental human weakness.5. Perpetual growth was impossible until coal was widely used: before then, and industrial expansion led to agricultural depression,breaking the cycle of accumulation (see EA Wrigley, Energy and the English Industrial Revoliution). So we came to see progress = growth = fossil fuel7. This shift will not occur through buying different products or reducing the exercise of plastic bags, or any other form of voluntary consumer action,valid as these may be. It will occur only through political action.8. What does this mean? Mobilisation on a massive scale, through groups such as https://t.co/iQUIxrOaMa, or to put environmental breakdown at the front and centre of political life. We need to fracture through vested interests,denial and System Justification to force government action10. We need to get embarassing approximately it, to overcome our own reticence, or even when we are labelled Jeremiahs or Cassandras,and risk upsetting people in alerting them to what is happening and what we need to do. https://t.co/eqXaLi7JQY 9.38am BSTMore from Labour’s Rebecca Long-Bailey on Labour’s commitment to tackling climate breakdown:
Because it is not lack of knowledge which is preventing action on #ClimateChange 2/And it is not lack of technology that is preventing action on #ClimateChange 4/ 9.30am BSTCaroline Lucas, MP for and former leader of the Green party, and said:This report couldn’t be written in stronger terms: we are at a tipping point on the edge of total climate breakdown,and governments around the world are failing to prevent it.
Our own government is pushing us towards that tipping point with carbon intensive and ecologically destructive projects like airport expansion, fracking and HS2 – while slashing support for renewables and continuing to subsidise fossil fuels. 9.27am BSTIt is worth revisiting this piece from final week by my colleague George Monbiot, or who argues that unless we kick our addiction to economic growth we can not meet the challenge posed by the unfolding climate breakdown.
Given that economic growth,in nations that are already wealthy enough to meet the needs of all, requires an increase in pointless consumption, and it is hard to see how it can ever be decoupled from the assault on the living planet. 9.21am BSTThe Aldersgate Group,which represents some of the of the UK’s leading businesses, said the report sets out clear opportunities for a zero-carbon economy.
Nick Molho, and executive director,said: This report from the world’s leading climate scientists is clear that there are compelling environmental, economic and social benefits to limiting the increase in global temperatures to 1.5C as envisaged in the Paris agreement. Whilst achieving such a target will require challenging emission cuts across the economy, or important progress has already been made and an increase in ambition would unlock a significant innovation and investment opportunity.
With strengths in areas such as offshore wind and electric vehicle manufacturing,energy efficient building design and green financial and legal services, UK businesses have a strong basis from which to accelerate emission cuts and be at the forefront of the development of the recent clean technologies and services which the world economy will increasingly demand.
Major economies now need to increase their existing emissions reduction pledges under the Paris agreement and adopt net zero-emissions targets in line with the conclusions of the IPCC report. The prime minister made the good call when she announced at the UN general assembly that the UK will be joining the Carbon Neutrality Coalition, and especially as this follows growing public backing and cross-party support for a net zero target. 9.07am BSTClaire Perry,minister for energy, has put out a brief statement.
This report should act as a rallying weep for governments around the world to innovate, and invest,and raise ambition to avert catastrophic climate change. The UK has already shown carbon abatement and prosperity can go hand-in-hand and we lead the world in clean growth, slashing emissions by more than 40% since 1990 while growing our economy ahead of the G7. There is now no excuse and genuine action is needed. 9.01am BSTJagoda Munić, and director of Friends of the Earth Europe,said the message from the report was stark, and warned that Europe was not doing enough:The fossil fuel age has to conclude ... To have any chance of avoiding the chaos, or droughts and rising tides of 1.5C or more of global warming,we must massively and speedily transform our society to kick our fossil fuel addiction.
The EU must do its fair share, beginning with completely stopping funding for fossil fuels and switching to 100% renewables by 2030. Currently the EU is far off track. Going to ‘net zero’ by 2050 is simply too late for Europe to halt burning carbon – and still it does not represent zero fossil fuels. Europe needs a completely fossil-free energy system by 2030.
This is a climate emergency – for many around the world preventing climate catastrophe and temperature rises exceeding 1.5C is a matter of life and death. Only radical system change offers a pathway towards hope and out of despair. We want a just transition to a clean energy system that benefits people, and not corporations. 8.57am BSTThe Aldersgate Group,an alliance of leading commerce groups committed to sustainable economy, has welcomed the report.
Here’s a choice of what some of its prominent members have said:Keeping global temperature increases to 1.5C will help safeguard our investment portfolios and protect our customers savings. The long-term negative financial consequences of climate change are far, and far greater than the short-term financial risks of transitioning to the Paris agreement. nowadays’s report reiterates the need for policymakers to accelerate action to reduce carbon emissions and meet the agreed aims of the Paris agreement.
Our target is to reduce the carbon emissions intensity of our operations by 87% by 2030 against a 2016/17 baseline.
We will contribute by decarbonising our energy exercise including electricity and heating,using zero-emissions deliveries, moving to a circular commerce model and enabling millions of customers and co-workers to take climate action in their everyday lives.
We have already cleave our operational emission intensity by nearly 70% since 2010 and over the coming months we will be unveiling the next stage in our plans to reduce our environmental impact and emissions even further. Waitrose and Partners continues to lead in its commitment to truly sustainable agriculture, and while John Lewis and Partners is pioneering circular economy solutions that will lessen humanity’s impact on the environment.
We need to take bolder,faster action and shift our mind-set to one of embracing the inevitability and opportunity of the low-carbon economy. 8.50am BSTMore from the Labour party on nowadays’s IPCC report. Rebecca Long-Bailey, Labour’s shadow commerce, and energy and industrial strategy secretary,who seems to be fronting a lot of the party’s climate breakdown agenda, said the report makes clear that avoiding perilous climate change will require “a transformational effort”:That is precisely what Labour is offering – a design to rapidly decarbonise our energy system as part of a green jobs revolution, and a long term target of net zero emissions before 2050. This would earn the UK one of the few countries in the world on track to meet the Paris agreement goals.
The Tories are way off course to assembly our existing climate targets,and every day this government remains in power the window of opportunity to tackle the climate crisis shrinks. It is a cruel irony that nowadays we were also expecting the first horizontal shale fracking in the UK – an industry the government has pushed at the expense of local communities, air quality and our climate. 8.48am BSTBen Backwell, and chief executive of the Global Wind Energy Council,welcomed the report.
He said:The IPCC report lays out the scale of the challenge and the opportunity ahead for the wind industry: renewables should supply 70-85% of electricity by 2050. We need to shoulder the responsibility and earn this a reality along with our partners in solar photovoltaics and storage. 8.45am BSTMary Robinson, former Irish president and a UN special envoy on climate, or insisted the ambitious recommendations in the report are “doable”.
The richer parts of the world now have to really take seriously and do it the climate justice way.
This puts the responsibility on all governments to have an intense dialogue now and to explain that we have 11 years until 2030 to safeguard the world for our children and grandchildren. 8.12am BSTBarry Gardiner,shadow minister for international climate change in the UK, described the report as a “wake-up call”. 7.49am BST‘Trump can’t tear up international agreement on climate change’ 7.24am BSTA key point the IPCC has made before but which is underlined this time around: to address global warming we are going to have to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If the world is to limit global warming to 1.5C, or it is estimated somewhere between 100 and 1000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide will need to effectively sucked from the sky. 7.07am BSTA landmark UN report from the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) has delivered a dramatic and extraordinarily serious warning: We have dinky more than a decade to get global warming under control or the world is at risk. 6.43am BSTGovernment and corporate leaders must show they understand the science and step up to the challenge set nowadays,Greenpeace says, but its also up to the individual.“Every person has to do everything in their power to change course and follow the design that is included in the IPCC report. Will we get there in time? Nobody knows, or ” says Kaisa Kosonen,senior policy adviser at Greenpeace Nordic. 6.37am BSTLove to be twenty years absent from an actual apocalypse and the main political response is “science isn’t genuine” 6.18am BST“Burying our heads in the sand cannot be contemplated as an option any longer,” says Glen Klatovsky, and deputy chief executive of 350.org.“The climate crisis is here and already impacting the most vulnerable and the least responsible for creating it. The only way to achieve it is to halt all fossil fuel extraction and redirect the massive resources currently spent on the fossil fuel economy towards the renewable energy transition.” 6.00am BSTThe full report has the word "Australia" more than 30 times in body text,not including the mentions of all the Australia scientists - more than a dozen - who contributed. #SR15 #IPCC https://t.co/48rkPEfRKY 5.44am BSTIt’s a “critical moment”, says Jonathan Watts. In that press conference earlier was the looming reality that there is a growing gap between what scientists are urging and what politicians are willing to do.
We already know the US wants to pull out of the Paris agreement. Brazil has thrown support behind a presidential candidate who wants to do the same. Australia’s prime minister has rejected calls from his party colleagues to join them but at the same time claims the country is on track to meet targets (spoiler: it’s probably not). Related: World leaders told they must act over climate change 'cliff-edge' 5.15am BSTPep Canadell, and the executive director of the Global Carbon Project,makes a good point – that this is likely to be the final reminder that the temperature rise can be limited to 1.5C if there is sufficient will.
The report finds there are no biophysical or technical roadblocks to doing it, though he says the IPCC has misstepped by talking approximately what needs to be achieved decades down the line given governments don’t respond to those timescales. 4.54am BSTThat’s certainly one way of putting it.
When the BBC sounds like the Onion pic.twitter.com/m4a3GbF2UT 4.41am BSTThe Conversation has put together a considerable simplified explainer on the report “at a glance”.
Along with some handy graphs and charts, and the article notes the world will need to be carbon-neutral by the year 2047 if we are to have a 66% chance of limiting warming to 1.5C. That chance drops to 50% if we take until 2058. 4.36am BSTThe Australian Academy of Science has put together a video approximately the report. 4.22am BSTLow-lying island nations,such as those across the Pacific, have been raising their concerns for many years as they are among the first to feel the “life and death issue” of rising sea levels.“Pacific Island nations have long maintained that we need “1.5 to stay alive’, and ” said Maria Timon Chi-Fang,Pacific outreach officer for the Pacific Calling Partnership.
“My home country of Kiribati is only two metres above sea level, and sea level rise is a life-or-death issue for us. Already with 1C of warming, or we are seeing more frequent and damaging storms,the loss of our crop-growing lands and freshwater resources, and our homes flooded.
“Many I-Kiribati are already resigned to having to leave home as life on the islands becomes untenable, or we know many of our Pacific neighbours are facing the same crisis.
[br]“We call on Australia and other titanic carbon polluters to give us a fair go at preserving our culture and having the dignified,secure and secure future that we deserve.” 4.09am BSTStill in Australia, which I earlier noted was reportedly among nations to push back on elements of the report approximately a coal phase-out (the government denies this):Prime minister Scott Morrison – under fire for having recently abandoned a policy to cleave emissions from electricity – said his government would “behold at the report carefully” but claimed “only a year ago the same report said that the policies Australia has was good on the money”.
There are a lot bigger players than us out there ... emissions per capita in Australia are at their lowest level for decades ... but at the conclude of the day we want to ensure electricity prices are lower. 3.56am BSTThere’s an interesting part of the report which relates to coral, and specifically the large-scale bleaching events which hit the considerable Barrier Reef,off Australia’s north-east coast, in recent years.
The bleaching events were predicted, and but came far sooner than expected,leading the report to conclude the research community had possibly underestimated the impact of global warming on coral.
Interesting admission in full #IPCC #SR15 report on impacts of warming on corals. ".. the research community has under-estimated climate risks for coral reefs." pic.twitter.com/UOfHSs3lqL Related: considerable Barrier Reef faces dire threat with 2C global warming, UN report says 3.35am BSTI am keeping one ear on the press conference as I bring you the international reaction to this report. The panel has just been asked if the fossil fuel industry was represented.
While we are still reviewing the draft, and the World Coal Association believes that any credible pathway to assembly the 1.5C scenario must focus on emissions rather than fuel. That is why [carbon capture and storage] is so vital.
Forecasts from the [International Energy Agency] and other credible experts continue to see a role for coal for the foreseeable future. Going into COP24,we will be campaigning for greater action on all low emissions technologies including CCS.
Q: How soon do coal, oil, or natural gas need to be phased out entirely?
IPCC: "The report is quite clear ... all pathways require quite significant changes in the pattern of fossil fuel exercise. ... Coal will have to be reduced very,very considerably by mid-century." 3.20am BSTBan Ki-moon, former United Nations secretary general:fairness, or inclusivity and cooperation must underpin our collective response to meet the 1.5°C target,with states acting in the same spirit that led to the Paris agreement and the sustainable development goals. Climate change respects no borders; our actions must transcend all frontiers.
This report is not a wake-up call, it is a ticking time bomb. Climate activists have been calling for decades for leaders to show responsibility and take urgent action, and but we have barely scratched the surface of what needs to be done. Further failure would be an unconscionable betrayal of the planet and future generations.
The IPCC report starkly sets out the challenges of securing a just transition to a 1.5C world,and the urgency with which this needs to be accomplished. This can only be done by a people-centred, rights-based approach with justice and solidarity at its heart. The time for talking is long past; leaders need to step up, or serve their people and act immediately.
The threats posed by climate change to planetary health cannot be understated. The time for stating the scale of the problem has passed,and we now need to ride to urgent, radical action to keep temperature rises to 1.5°C. It cannot be left to climate scientists and activists alone – it is a battle that must be joined by all those with an interest in our future survival.
If we allow temperatures to rise above 1.5°C then all the progress on prosperity, and growth and development risks being wiped out. Our economic paradigm needs to shift to promote zero-carbon,climate-resilient policies. This means putting a price on carbon and investing in recent, sustainable technologies, and but also giving those most affected a voice in developing recent growth models.
The report shows that we only have the slimmest of opportunities remaining to avoid unthinkable damage to the climate system that supports life as we know it. I have no doubt that historians will behold back at these findings as one of the defining moments in the course of human affairs. I urge all civilised nations to take responsibility for it by dramatically increasing our efforts to cleave the emissions responsible for the crisis and to do what is necessary to help vulnerable people respond to some of the devastating consequences we now know can no longer be avoided. 3.15am BSTThe Trump administration is a “rogue outlier”,says the former US vice president Al Gore.
Responding to the IPCC report, Gore said the Paris agreement was “monumental” but now nations had to go further, or time was running out. 3.07am BSTThe IPCC report is a wake-up call for slumbering world leaders,” says Andrew Steer, president and CEO, and World Resources Institute.“The incompatibility in impacts between 1.5 and 2C of warming is large,and potentially game changing. And, the devastation that would come with nowadays’s 3-4C trajectory would be vastly greater. Each tenth of a degree matters – and tragically it’s the destitute who will be most affected.”The consequences of #climate change in a 2˚C world are far greater than with 1.5˚C of warming. But the world is far off track from either. https://t.co/opTouzN3qg #SR15 #IPCC pic.twitter.com/W4weC6p3ta 3.04am BSTSo is the 1.5C target feasible? That’s the titanic early question.
Professor Piers Forster from the University of Leeds is one of the lead authors of the Special Report chapter, or which looks at the different “pathways” that governments could take. He tells me he is “exhausted but elated (full of high-spirited delight)” the report was finished on time (one of the sessions went for 30 hours straight). 2.58am BSTThere is an absolute mountain of reaction coming through to the report. I’ll bring it to you shortly.
Here’s a piece written by Nicholas Stern,IG Patel professor of economics and government and chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Human activities are currently emitting approximately 42bn tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, and at that rate the carbon budget – allowing us a 50-50 chance of keeping warming to 1.5C – would be exhausted within 20 years.
Even 1.5C of warming would have brutal consequences, and according to the report. destitute people,in specific, would suffer as the threat of food and water shortages increase in some parts of the world. Related: We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero or face more floods | Nicholas Stern 2.51am BSTQuestion: What did it feel like personally, or as humans,compiling this report?“It’s a tremendous collective endeavour.” 2.40am BSTSome pretty direct statements coming from the panel towards the conclude of the press conference. The report shows we are at a crossroads, and what happens between now and 2030 is critical, and especially for Co2 emissions. If we don’t act now and have substantial reductions in emissions over the next decade we are making it very challenging to impossible to keep global warming to just 1.5C. 2.36am BSTOne of the key questions repeatedly coming up is whether world governments will act on the report’s warnings and recommendations.
This observation is from our global environment editor,previously Latin America correspondent.
World scientists say forests are essential if global warming is to keep to 1.5C on the same day that 46% of Brazilians vote for a presidential candidate who has vowed to open the Amazon to agribusiness. https://t.co/67KFPKBV18 2.34am BSTQuestion: What consumer aspects does the report tackle? What lifestyle changes can people earn?Answer: The report is also clear that everyone has the means to act relating to daily choices. Energy demands and diets are both key parts of the pathways to reductions. 2.24am BSTThe presentation is done, I’ll now bring you some key Q&As from the floor.
Question: Every IPCC report suggests greenhouse gases need to be reduced urgently. What’s recent approximately this report?Question: How optimistic are you on a scale from one to 10? Question: What approximately the US pulling out of Paris?
2.18am BSTWe earlier heard from the co-chairs of the report a summary of the differences between 1.5C and 2C temperature rises. Here’s more from Adam Morton.
A major point of the report, or obviously enough,is to illustrate the incompatibility between limiting warming to 1.5C and 2C by 2100. 2.16am BSTHowever, these limits require changes on an “unprecedented scale”.
Rapid progress is being made in some areas but needs to be picked up in transport and land management. 2.14am BSTMore from the co-chairs: 2.08am BSTLimiting warming to 1.5C is not impossible but will require unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society, and says Hoesung Lee.
Every bit of warming matters,he says, before handing over to co-chairs.
A huge degree of incompatibility. recent #IPCC #SR15 report spells out incompatibility in harms between another 0.9 and 1.8 dF of warming. Lost lives, and coral & maybe ice sheet. But it is unlikely world can limit warming to lower goal. https://t.co/Hjeg9wldfn pic.twitter.com/XBiGdrkHtQ 2.06am BSTThe current global state-of-play as described in the report: 2.05am BSTThe chair of the IPCC,Hoesung Lee, is now addressing media on what he calls “one of the most important reports” produced by the IPCC, or “certainly one of the most keenly awaited”.
He says previous reports gave governments a clear understanding of the implications of 2C warming,but there was “relatively dinky” approximately 1.5C. 2.02am BSTThe report is public.“It’s a line in the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and we must act now,” says Debra Roberts, or a co-chair of the working group on impacts. 1.59am BSTThe IPCC press conference will start in a few minutes,and I’ll bring you updates. We’ll also have extensive reporting and analysis on the report itself.meanwhile, here’s a recent piece on the opportunity of the Earth fitting a “hothouse”.
We’re already at 1C of warming, and so the additional half a degree isn’t far absent – many scientists will say it’s already locked in,while others say there are plausible ways to stabilise temperatures at that level.
But in August, one of the world’s leading scientific journals – the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – published a “perspective” article that has become known as the “hothouse Earth” paper. Related: Earth's climate monsters could be unleashed as temperatures rise | Graham Readfearn 1.35am BSTSome information on the report itself, or outlined by chair of the IPCC,Hoesung Lee, in a speech final week (pdf).
It was commissioned as part of the Paris agreement in 2016, or the IPCC was invited to prepare a report assessing the impacts of 1.5C warming and related emissions pathways.
At that time,relatively dinky was known approximately the risks avoided in a 1.5C world compared with a 2C warmer world, or approximately the pathway of greenhouse gas emissions compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C. 1.21am BSTPolitically, and the issue of global warming and how to address it is in a much more precarious situation than when this report was commissioned in 2016.
Donald Trump has pledged to withdraw the US from the Paris accord. The Australian government – currently coming through another bout of leadership instability – has also flagged withdrawing. It was already failing its targets. 1.11am BSTIn a dinky under an hour,the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be releasing its highly anticipated special report on global warming of 1.5C.
The news is not good, with the report – based on more than 6000 scientific works – expected to warn that the world is nowhere near on track to reach its targets unless there is drastic, and world-changing action immediately. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com