Pre COP26 - where were we, on Combatting Climate Change?
When it comes to combatting climate change, there are signs for hope. But, nationally and globally, we were not where we needed to be going into COP26.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the first report in its Sixth Assessment cycle addressing the “Physical Science Basis” in August 2021. Dubbed a “code red for humanity” by the United Nations Secretary-General, the IPCC report documents in far greater detail and with higher certainty than previous assessments, just how climate change and extreme events can be attributed to the build-up of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere.
There is, a fifty-fifty chance that global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the next two decades, and unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in GHG emissions, limiting warming to 1.5°C, or even 2°C by the end of the century, will be beyond reach.
Where We Are Today Against Set Targets
Nationally Determined Contributions – or NDCs form the basis for countries to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement. They contain information on targets, and policies and measures for reducing national emissions, and, on adapting to climate change impacts.
UN Climate Change published a full version of the NDC Synthesis report on September 17, 2021, which was updated on October 25th. The full report synthesizes information from the latest NDCs of all 191 Parties to the Paris Agreement, including new or updated NDCs, as submitted and recorded in the interim NDC registry up to 30 July 2021.
With less than a week to go before COP26 (at time of writing), the updated synthesis report of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) shows that were these plans fully carried out, there would still be a rise of about 16 per cent in global GHG emissions in 2030 compared to 2010. Such an increase, unless changed promptly, may lead to a temperature rise of about 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
For the group of 143 parties that submitted new or updated NDCs, total GHG emissions are estimated to be about 9 per cent below the 2010 level by 2030. Further, within that group, some 71 parties communicated a carbon neutrality goal around the mid-century. The report finds that these parties' total GHG emission level could be 83-88 per cent lower in 2050 than in 2019.
However, “This updated report unfortunately confirms the trend already indicated in the full Synthesis Report, which is that we are nowhere near where science says we should be," said Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, Patricia Espinosa.
COP26 President-designate Alok Sharma said: "If countries deliver on their 2030 NDCs and net zero commitments, which have been announced by mid-October, we will be heading towards average global temperature rises of just above 2 degrees Celsius. Analysis suggests the commitments made in Paris would have capped the rise in temperature to below 4 degrees Celsius. So there has been progress, but not enough."
The UNEP's Emissions Gap Report 2021 has synthesized the findings about the shortcomings of the NDCs submitted and provided an outline of where we are today, and how much further we still have to go.
Countries Not Playing Their Part
The largest reductions come from the United States of America, the EU27, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Canada (submitted) and China and Japan (announced). Two G20 members (Australia and Indonesia) have submitted NDC targets, which are assessed not to lead to additional reduction relative to the previous NDCs. One G20 member (the Russian Federation) has submitted an NDC that improves upon its previous NDC, but still does not go beyond its current policies and another three G20 members (India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) have not yet submitted a new or updated NDC.
However, we cannot only look at what politicians are saying they will do when determining which countries are playing their part and which are not.
A recent expose of leaked documents revealed that Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Japan, Saudi Arabia and OPEC have pressed to water down a key UN scientific report. Fossil fuel and meet producing countries seem more concerned with their economies than combatting the climate crisis.
As Prime Minister Boris Johnson gears up to host COP26, he will be keen to paint the UK as a leader on climate change. If one listened only to the rhetoric, it would be easy to see the UK's Westminster Government as a relatively progressive voice on climate change. It has committed itself to a 68% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2030. But the Conservative government is failing to meet all targets, and some argue that it has no real intention of doing so. There are also large question marks over failure to include the 46% of UK emissions which come from products made overseas to satisfy demand in the UK.
Another thing to consider is that is analysing whether countries are doing enough, an historical perspective can help us see that developed nations, with more historical responsibility, should arguably bare a lot more of the burden when it comes to putting things right.
In a recent analysis, Carbon Brief looked at historical responsibility for climate change, asking the question, "Which countries are historically responsible for climate change?" It looked at CO2 emissions from 1850 to 2021, updating a previous analysis published in 2019, including for the first time emissions from land use and forestry, which significantly altered the top ten.
The analysis put the U.S. in the top ranking, responsible for some 20% of the global total of emissions since 1850. China came in at a relatively distant second with 11%, followed by Russia (7%), Brazil (5%), and Indonesia (4%).
It found that large post-colonial European nations Germany and the United Kingdom accounted for 4% and 3% of the total, respectively. Crucially, however, these figures do not include overseas emissions under colonial rule and only include internal emissions.
Historical realities also cast a different light on responsibility. As this article ably elucidates, Britain developed the coal-powered capitalism that kickstarted the crisis, and, through its Empire, exported this around the world. Empire was responsible for destruction of relatively sustainable civilizations, for driving deforestation and ecosystem degradation, and for establishing the unequal societal structures that persist to this day. The Carbon Brief analysis failed to account for the fact that much of the deforestation in Canada, Australia, and elsewhere happened while they were British colonies. This is certainly food for thought as we think about who is and isn't playing their part.
Industries Biggest Polluters and Environmental Offenders
Identifying national contributions to climate change can only ever give us an incomplete picture, and to tackle our climate crisis, it is not just politicians but also big business and industry that will need to step up.
As the Guardian revealed in 2019, just 20 firms are behind a third of all carbon emissions. The analysis, by Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute in the US, the world’s leading authority on big oil’s role in the escalating climate emergency, evaluated what the global corporations have extracted from the ground, and the subsequent emissions these fossil fuels are responsible for since 1965.
Chevron topped the list of the eight investor-owned corporations, followed closely by Exxon, BP and Shell. Together these four global businesses are behind more than 10% of the world’s carbon emissions since 1965.
A study also found that the largest five stock-market-listed oil and gas companies spend nearly $200m each year lobbying to delay, control or block policies to tackle climate change.
Energy consumption is by far the biggest source of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for a whopping 76% (37.2 GtCO2e) worldwide. The energy sector includes transportation, electricity and heat, buildings, manufacturing and construction, fugitive emissions and other fuel combustion.
The other top sectors that produce emissions are agriculture, such as livestock and crop cultivation (5.8 GtCO2e, or 12%); industrial processes of chemicals, cement and more (2.9 GtCO2e, or 5.9%); waste, including landfills and waste water (1.6 GtCO2e, or 3.3%); and land use, land-use change and forestry, such as deforestation (1.4 GtCO2e, or 2.8%).
Further breakdown of emissions data by sector can be found here.
Industry and individual businesses can reduce emissions significantly as part of ESG strategies. But industry operating on global scales is complex, and to really progress to towards climate goals we need to think holistically. Decarbonizing supply chains is the next level of corporate action.
Eight supply chains account for more than 50% of global emissions. Food, construction, fashion, fast-moving consumer goods, electronics, automotive, professional services and freight account for more than half of all global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2021 report from the WEF.
They said that net-zero supply chains would hardly increase end-consumer costs. Around 40% of all emissions in these supply chains could be abated with readily available and affordable levers (<€10 [$12] per tonne of CO2 equivalent), such as circularity, efficiency and renewable power – with only marginal impact on product costs. Even with zero supply- chain emissions, end-consumer costs would go up by 1–4% at the most in the medium term.
As well as an urgent need for acknowledgement of culpability, and a drive to address these issues through divestment and sustainable business initiatives, it is also vital for us to bridge to infrastructure and investment gaps and ensure that funds are in place for industry to transition to a greener future and meet net zero goals.
The Role of Government and Regulators in Setting Policy
International climate change mitigation and adaptation must be underpinned by robust domestic policy by government and regulators. Governments and International Authorities and Regulators are not only responsible for tackling climate chance within their own jurisdictions. They also play a crucial role, through incentive and regulation, in driving on business and the private sector in general in the right direction. This is one reason why COP26 and its aftermath are so crucial. These talks will help develop the framework for political decision-making over the next decade and help galvanise political will.
Of course, national governments are embedded in market economies that constrain what they can do, and the social realm is often limited by economistic frames and discourse. However, markets are not necessarily just a source of constraint. Markets are made up of producers and consumers who might themselves change their behaviours in ways that reduce emissions. This is why it is so important that the public and private sectors, communities and individuals come together and work separately and together to drive forward the change we so urgently require.
Key Global Decisions Made Through Political Dialogue
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part one) global warming is occurring and (part two) that human-made CO2 emissions are driving it. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There were 192 parties to the Protocol in 2020. Even though the 36 developed countries reduced their emissions, the global emissions increased by 32% from 1990 to 2010.
Negotiations of the yearly UNFCCC Climate Change Conferences on measures to be taken after the second commitment period of this agreement ended in 2020 resulted in the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015. As of October 2021, 192 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement, which has the long term temperature goal of keeping the rise in mean global temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, and preferably limiting the increase to 1.5 °C.
Global discussion stemming from the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Climate Agreement has led to the current picture of the NDCs declared ahead of the COP26 summit, where further crucial consensus must be reached. As mentioned above, the global commitments thus far confirmed through political dialogue are not enough to limit global warming to the agreed amount.
What Consumers Can Do
- Change things at home – looking at energy, water, food, waste, transport, etc. Making sustainable choices in all areas of their daily lives.
- Reach out and engage with others co-operatively to make their communities more resilient in the face of a changing climate, and more in harmony with the natural world.
- Vote for those who take the climate crisis seriously, and galvanise political will for real and lasting change, through activism and involvement in democratic process.
- Put their money where there morals are, making eco-friendly, informed and sustainable choices about what they buy, and to whom they entrust their money. Divesting from harmful systems, and investing in a better future.