Accelerated Climate Change and/or Accelerated Decarbonization?

Final day of negotiations at COP28 in Dubai. Photo credit: UNFCCC

The fact that global temperature records were obliterated in 2023 really worries me.

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2023 was the world’s warmest year on record and the European Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that temperatures last year were close to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. You will recall that crossing this 1.5°C threshold has the potential to significantly increase the risks for natural and human systems.

Meanwhile carbon emissions from fossil fuels reached a record high, up 1.1% compared to 2022 and the 28th meeting of the Conference to the Parties to the Climate Change Convention (hosted by the United Arab Emirates) came and went without a global agreement to rapidly phase out fossil fuels..

Instead, we are going to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner.

Perhaps, if we are lucky, this marks the “beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era.” However, if luck is not on our side then Cop28 could come to represent the beginning of the end of multilateral efforts to address climate change. It is difficult, in this context, to find hope about the future of our planet.

So what to expect in 2024?

There is a danger that climate change is accelerating. This has been argued recently by James Hansen, who suggests that evidence of this acceleration is already apparent. He predicts that we can expect record monthly temperatures to continue into mid-2024. This is due to a “large planetary energy imbalance” with the global average temperature reaching potentially as high as +1.6-1.7°C.

This is a very scary prospect and while some of his scientific peers may disagree, we only need to wait six months to see whether or not the prediction is correct.

Perhaps the only way to respond is to somehow accelerate decarbonization. By implication the Paris Agreement goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 no longer makes sense and even the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has called upon advanced economies to bring forward their net-zero timelines to 2040.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated that global emissions must peak before 2025 in order to keep the +1.5°C limit within reach. According to Climate Analytics, there is a 70% chance that emissions could start falling in 2024. That would be fantastic, but deep emissions cuts are required thereafter, and we need to see accelerated decarbonization across the board.

This is something, I explored with colleagues when examining climate mitigation in front-runner cities. While many have very ambitious net-zero targets (for instance, Copenhagen is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2025), attainment of these goals is immensely challenging.

Both at the same time?

So we may face a situation where we are forced to accelerate decarbonization at a time when climate change is also accelerating. The end result could be extremely disruptive.

I addressed this topic recently for students taking my course on Climate Change in Asia Pacific. The video of that talk is shared below.

In the talk, I introduce various pessimistic and optimistic interpretations of climate change scenarios. I would position myself very close to the realistic perspective shared by Simon Sharpe who argues that we need to move five times faster in our response to the climate emergency.

Please take time to watch the video below. In class, we asked the students to discuss whether or not they could envisage a feasible pathway to bring about the necessary transformation and if so what might be stopping us from following this pathway? What do you think?

Talk delivered as part of the course on Climate Change in Asia Pacific: Science and Solutions