As we analyze the results from COP26, which ended yesterday in Glasgow, it is useful to recall what the Sixth Assessment Report from Working Group 1 of the International Panel on Climate Change -–the U.N.’s climate tracking team--said the world MUST do by 2030 in order to “Keep 1.5 alive!” From my August 12, 2021 post (emphasis mine):
For example, the report finds that to get on track for the emission cuts required by 2030, the world needs to:
· Accelerate the increased share of renewables in electricity generation five times faster;
· Phase out coal in electricity generation five times faster;
· Reduce the carbon intensity of electricity generation three times faster;
· Accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles 22 times faster than the significant rates of adoption in recent years;
· Accelerate the increase in the share of low-carbon fuels eight times faster; and
· Accelerate the increase in annual tree cover gain five times faster.
The rapid transformation needed to halve emissions by 2030 will require significant financial investments, technology transfer and capacity-building for developing countries. While climate finance has increased significantly in recent years across the public, private and philanthropic sectors, it is still not at the scale needed to revolutionize our energy and transportation systems, accelerate energy efficiency and protect forests. Estimates indicate that between $1.6 and $3.8 trillion per year will be needed through 2050 to transform the energy system alone.
So, did COP26’s grand finale agreement put the world on a path to achieve these benchmarks and limit global warming to 1.5°C.? In a word: No.
From Washington Post-Glasgow:
As negotiations stretched on, the U.N. Environment Program reported that COP26 would likely end with Earth on track to warm 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) — though other analyses suggested the number could drop if countries take swift action to fulfill long-term pledges. Despite a wave of vows to zero out emissions by the middle of the century, the U.N. analysis found, countries’ plans between now and the end of the decade would give humanity less than a 20 percent chance of keeping warming to 1.5 Celsius.
Add to this grim projection the Washington Post-Greenhouse Gas Pledges investigation, which found that carbon emissions data reported to the U.N. is wildly inaccurate, extremely underreported, and unreliable, which means CO2 reduction targets are severely compromised. From the investigation:
Across the world, many countries under report their greenhouse gas emissions in their reports to the United Nations, a Washington Post investigation has found. An examination of 196 country reports reveals a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be vs. the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere. The gap ranges from at least 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year of under reported emissions — big enough to move the needle on how much the Earth will warm.
The plan to save the world from the worst of climate change is built on data. But the data the world is relying on is inaccurate.
“If we don’t know the state of emissions today, we don’t know whether we’re cutting emissions meaningfully and substantially,” said Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project, a collaboration of hundreds of researchers. “The atmosphere ultimately is the truth. The atmosphere is what we care about. The concentration of methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is what’s affecting climate.”
Or put another way, garbage in; garbage out.
As
for the elephant in the room—coal, and whether it will be left in the ground anytime
soon-- China and India, two huge economies powered by coal, insisted that the final
agreement revise language that would have required countries to “phase out”
coal to a much weaker pledge only to “phase down unabated coal.” Whatever unabated coal means….We do however know what "phase down" means--too little, too late.
Washington Post-Glasgow describes the agreement’s handling of coal subsidies, financial reparations to countries which didn’t contribute to global warming but will suffer the worst effects of it, as well as financial support to developing nations struggling to grow their economies in a world challenged by the climate emergency:
Language calling for countries to end coal burning and fossil fuel subsidies — the first such references in years of U.N. climate talks — was diluted [see the language change required by China and India above]. A proposed fund to pay for irreversible “loss and damage” wrought by climate change in vulnerable countries was left out of the final text [the U.S. was among the opponents of this idea, arguing that it was an open-ended commitment], angering delegates who say such reparations are long overdue. Instead, nations agreed to start a “dialogue” about the idea.
Or to put it another way, blah, blah, blah.
But perhaps one of the biggest devils in the details at COP26, and in the global climate emergency response in general, is the U.S. governmental piece and how climate funds are actually authorized in the U.S. As everyone at COP26 knows, it is not an earnest special climate envoy John Kerry or a climate-conscious President Joe Biden who holds America’s purse strings. It is Congress, and these days that means 50 Republican Senators plus Joe Manchin (D-WV), whose 290,510 voters from 2018 expect him to “Keep coal alive!”
All in all, in my humble opinion, I would say that COP26 ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. And that the Climate Clock has therefore ticked closer to Midnight.
Keep it real! And keep wearing your damn mask!
Marilyn
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