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The Climate Column: 1.5 degrees— can Joe save the day?
v: The Climate Column
1.5 degrees- can Joe save the day?
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Patrick Dunne
On April 22nd, 2021, we saw President Biden host a Global Climate Summit, complete with some good-looking promises, impressive-sounding targets, and 40 world leaders making the right noises about climate change. But what do the targets mean? How do they stack up against what we actually need to happen to keep global average heating below 1.5 degrees?
This target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius was set at the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Paris 2015 (COP15) and agreed to by almost every country. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees, known as SR1.5. I know a bit about this the SR1.5 as, along with my partner and more than 100 artists, activists and members of the public, I took part in a mass reading (1) of the report at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which lasted for 50 hours. Staged readings also look place in London and at the Scottish Parliament, and the project has subsequently been taken up by local activists in Christchurch, New Zealand, and in Perth and Adelaide in Australia.
SR1.5 is an extraordinary document, at once the most interesting, impenetrable and important thing I have ever read. It arrived during the activism explosion of late 2018, when Extinction Rebellion protests appeared on bridges in London, and a Swedish teenager sat on her own outside the parliament building in Stockholm. That same teenager (Greta Thunberg, of course) later submitted SR1.5 as evidence when she spoke to Congress in Washington, DC. The document is stunning in its depth and scope. To show people how much research went into it at our Fringe event, we printed the entire bibliography onto a banner; even using an 8pt font size, the banner was large enough to cover the whole side of a shipping container. What did SR1.5 warn us about? What did it tell us we needed to do, and by when?
The document detailed the projected— but meticulously researched —impact of global warming at 1.5 degrees higher than preindustrial levels on human and ecological systems. It then compared this to the impact of global warming of 2 degrees, a difference measured in metres of sea level rise, and in hundreds of millions of deaths and many more displacements. The document talks of ocean acidification, species loss, resource wars, droughts and other crises too numerous to list. We are beginning to see these effects already: the SR1.5 tells us that 'temperature rise to date has already resulted in profound alterations to human and natural systems'. The world is currently warming by an average increase of 1 degree— but we are hurtling towards 3-4 degrees:
This is well within the lifetimes of children born in wealthy countries today; by this point, life as we know it will be threatened across huge swathes of the globe, with no one left unaffected.
The ecological and humanitarian crises and increases in temperature and sea level caused by existing emissions are already locked in, perhaps for centuries; these effects are irreversible. But the SR1.5 report details some ways in which the worst outcomes arising from a further half degree of heating may be avoided— perhaps. As critics have pointed out, many of the mitigation and adaptation strategies discussed in the IPCC reports depend on Carbon Capture and Storage technologies that are currently unproven at the required scale, or that don't exist at all. The SR1.5 report was signed off by all member states, but the language and guidance contained within it was subject to veto by the oil-rich nations of the Middle East and the largest current and historic emitters, namely the USA and the UK (and, yes, China— although per capita and historically the first two are more to blame than anyone else). In order to get approved, the language of the SR1.5 had to be sufficiently open and even (dare I say it) vague to please— or at least, not to offend too much —these countries and their interests.
Despite this, the message of the SR1.5 is remarkably radical.
Despite what might appear in government or oil company press releases, the report is clear that 'rapid and deep deviations from current emission pathways are necessary'. Furthermore, 'all pathways [to emissions levels that will keep us below 1.5 degrees] begin now and involve rapid and unprecedented societal transformation'. Of course, a 1.5 degree increase is still a disaster for many people and ecosystems across the world (2), and we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. The report tells us that:
But the report also tells us that the work required to limit heating to under 1.5 degrees will have universal benefits:
It promises us that ‘embedded in the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is the opportunity for intentional societal transformation'— and this gives me hope. Ignore those that warn that our quality of life will be destroyed or that we will be returned to some form of Neolithic wasteland. Instead, ask yourself what sort of society you want to live in, and what sort of world you want to build and grow?
So what is the current plan? Does the Johnson government, the Biden administration, or Xi, Putin or Morrison have a plan that offers us 'intentional societal transformation'? Indeed, are they the people you would like to intentionally transform society?
When the report was released, much was made of the ‘twelve years to save the world’ narrative. This caused alarm but lacked nuance. The report did give us some stark images and graphs showing precipitous drop-offs in emissions, and the transformations of energy, transport and food systems required for a liveable future for all. Are you seeing evidence of transformations that prioritise equity and poverty eradication in your community or your country? In Scotland, we are seeing an increase in electric cars, but not really any moves to radically move us away from private car ownership. We are seeing oil companies spend more than 90% of their advertising budgets on ads about their commitment to Net Zero, while still spending more than 90% of their actual budgets on oil and gas exploration and extraction (3).
The Guardian reported that, at the latest summit held to mark America's return to the Paris Agreement, the US committed to halving emissions this decade. (4) This is a huge boost to morale after the horrors of the Trump administration’s climate policies. Biden was able to gather leaders from 40 other countries to make (mostly) impressive statements about the revised goals— although Brazil's Bolsanaro kept his pledge for a mere 24 hours before reversing a policy on deforestation. (5) Still missing from the table is China. Will Biden be able to hold firm to his commitment while also holding onto his fragile domestic support? And will he be able to inspire and cajole enough leaders to make enough changes to make enough momentum to reduce emissions sufficiently that global warming will be limited, while also avoiding creating further poverty, conflicts and devastation for vulnerable communities around the world? And does anyone really believe that such damage will be limited to 'vulnerable' communities? (Even if this were to be an acceptable trade-off for protecting our lifestyles and wealth— which it isn’t.)
The G7 will meet in Cornwall in June, and the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) takes place in Glasgow in November. Not long now. Not long to intentionally transform the world.
There is no more time, and nothing else will do.
Explore the IPCC’s SR1.5 Report in full at www.ipcc.ch/sr15
(1) 1point5degreeslive.org/
(2) catalyst.cm/storiesnew/2020/11/4/activists-from-themarshall-islands-fight-to-save-theirhome
(3) clientearth.org/the-greenwashingfiles/shell
(4) theguardian.com/usnews/2021/apr/22/us-emissionsclimate-crisis-2030-biden
(5) theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/ 24/bolsonaro-slashes-brazilsenvironment-budget-day-afterclimate-talks-pledge
Image: 1.5 Degrees Live! Protest at Westminster, London, 2019. Photograph by Jaye Renold, reproduced with permission.
