Rather than pat itself on the back over such strides as have been made to this point in the race to significantly reduce carbon emissions, the international community needs to do still more if it is to arrive at a point where the worst consequences of climate change can be staved off, a recently released report from the Australia-based Global Carbon Project (GCP) says.
GCP is a research partner of the World Climate Research Programme set up to partner with the international science community to establish a common and mutually agreed knowledge base to support policy debate and action designed to arrest the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The thrust of the GCP report, while pointing to an overall slowing down in the growth of global carbon emissions, contends that its persistent rise, points to the fact that governments are still not doing enough to stave off the now widely predicted apocalyptic consequences of climate change.
While, according to Global Climate Report, the likely 0.6% increase in carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels was down from 2.1% last year, this was still by no means reassuring when set against desired global carbon emission goals.
The conclusion reached in the report would appear to be underpinned by the argument that such declines as were realised in the United States and Europe were offset by the increases being realised in the economies of China and India which are currently on a significant upward growth trajectory.
Contending that “Current climate and energy policies are not enough to reverse the trends in global emissions,” the report’s authors assert in a media release that “continued support for low-carbon technologies need to be combined with policies directed at phasing out the use of fossil fuels.” Though, in the immediate term, advocacy backing reduced fossil fuel use is almost certain to encounter pushback from those developing countries that are pinning their development hopes on maximising the returns from their oil and gas resources.
Accidentally or otherwise, the release of the Global Carbon Project Report coincides with a gathering in Madrid, Spain, of experts and diplomats from nearly 200 countries at a United Nations-organised climate change forum aimed at moving the international community closer to the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit fossil fuel pollution.
In Spain last week and against the now familiar backdrop of thousands of climate change supporters, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres asserted that global efforts to stop climate change have been “utterly inadequate” so far and that there is a danger that global warming could pass the “point of no return,” an assertion which the Global Climate Report appears to support. Guterres’ assertion that the world has the scientific knowledge and the technical means to limit global warming, but that “what is lacking is political will” appears to support the view that developed countries that remain heavily dependent on oil and gas to fuel their economic engines continue to demonstrate an indifference to climate change warnings. “The point of no return is no longer over the horizon. It is in sight and hurtling toward us,” Guterres told the Madrid forum, reportedly citing scientific evidence of the impact of already existing man-made emissions of greenhouse gases on the planet, including record temperatures and melting polar ice.
Increased natural gas use was the most-important driver of emissions growth in 2019, the report says, an assertion that raises questions over the industry’s claim that natural gas as a fuel, serves as a bridge between coal and other supposedly cleaner renewables.
Coal apart, international climate change adherents also appear to have set their sights on natural gas, asserting that the infrastructure associated with its being made available for us is prone to leaks, and “needs to be phased out not long after it displaces coal use.”
China and India, widely regarded among climate change adherents as representing a major pushback against global efforts to reduce carbon emission, both continue to record worrying levels of emission growth. The report indicates that China’s emissions growth is projected at 2.6% this year, similar to the pace in 2017 and 2018 and that the Chinese are catching up with European emissions “on an individual basis at about 6.7 tons per person per year.” India’s increase is expected to ease to around 1.8% from 8% last year, due, the report says, primarily to an economic slowdown and the displacement of coal-fired generation with “strong hydropower generation.”
“The failure to mitigate global emissions, despite positive progress on so many aspects of climate policy, suggests that the full bag of policy options is not being effectively deployed,” the report added.
