The Climate and Ecological Emergency

What is the Climate Emergency?

Our planet is heating. Each of the last three decades has been hotter than the one before. This has dire consequences for humanity and all life on earth. Despite doubt thrown on the issue by climate change deniers there is scientific consensus that the heating of our planet is caused by human activity.

Over the past 12, 000 years the Earth’s climate has been very stable, this period is known as the Holocene. This created the conditions within which agriculture and human civilisation flourished, eventually leading to the Industrial Revolution. Many of us have greatly benefitted from this, but the burning of fossil fuels, large scale deforestation and intensive farming practices this has involved are destabilising our climate in dangerous and unpredictable ways.

The world has currently warmed by a global average of just over 1°C and we are already experiencing greater extremes in weather.

The Paris Climate Agreement

In an attempt to limit the dangers of climate change, in 2015 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change drew up the Paris Agreement. 189 countries and the European Union have so far signed this agreement in which they commit to ‘holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrialized levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change’. This agreement was a great step forward.

The 2018 1.5°C Special Report

In 2018 a special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change) laid out the human costs of failing to limit heating to above 1.5° and showed that even though 1.5°C of heating is not without risk, the impacts of 2°C or more are much worse. In order to have even a 50:50 chance of remaining below 1.5°C heating, the report stated that global carbon dioxide emissions must now ‘decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050’. This means by 2050 any further carbon emissions must be offset with carbon removal (using technologies that have not yet been developed, or that are only in the initial stages of development).

We should be aiming for as low as possible as every fraction of a degree comes with increased risk but at our current rate of warming, the IPCC warns that even with the current agreements and targets in place and reached, we will pass 1.5° of heating some time between 2030 and 2052 and will be sailing past 2°C by around 2060. In the worst-case scenario, if emissions keep increasing, we could be heading for over 2°C even sooner, perhaps even as early as 2035 . With current policies and targets in place we are likely to be heading for an average global heating of 3°C by the end of the century, with a significant chance that we could go over 4°C. This would be catastrophic resulting in extreme heat, rising seas, flooding and mass displacement, wildlife loss and reductions in food production.

Climate Equity

We have been discussing how fast global emissions need to get to zero, however, the wealthiest 10% of the world’s population are responsible for over 50% of the current emissions, and the world’s poorest 50% only responsible for 10% of emissions. Therefore, it falls on us and the other developed nations to make most of the cuts. Wealthy countries have the biggest historic responsibility as carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere. The UK ranks fifth highest globally in terms of its historical emissions. It is important to remember that many of the countries that have done the least to cause climate change will face the worst impacts.

Recent research by Professor Kevin Anderson has shown that if we properly take equity into account and do not rely on negative emissions technologies, the absolute minimum that richer countries such as the UK need to be doing to meet the Paris Agreement is to get to zero emissions by 2035-2040.

How is the UK really doing?

Despite some recent reductions in UK emissions (30% over 11 years, almost entirely due to the transition from coal fired power stations to gas and renewable energy), the UK is still not doing enough. Apart from the power sector, land transport emissions have stayed the same for the past 10 years and building emissions have only fallen by a tiny amount, just 14% over 12 years.

UK figures do not include carbon emissions due to shipping or aviation (which are on course to reach dangerous levels).

In addition, the UK’s official carbon accounting figures don’t take into account emissions contained within the goods we import (approximately one third of China’s emissions are due to the manufacture of goods for Europe).

Overall our territorial emissions have fallen at around 3% per year over the past 11 years. If we include imported emissions this falls to around 2% per year. However, if we want to get to global net zero by 2050 (which only gives us a 50:50 chance of staying below 1.5°C increase), we now need to see an 8% reduction in global emissions per year (this figure still relies on future technologies for negative emissions that are not yet available). As previously discussed, in the UK and other wealthy nations we need to be reducing emissions even faster. As you can see we are no where near on target.

The UK Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is an independent statutory body established to advise the government on climate change and to report to Parliament on progress made in reducing emissions and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change. The latest report in July 2020 revealed that the government failed to listen to its own advisors and meet its own targets.

What is the ecological emergency?

Habitat destruction, climate change, overconsumption and pollution are having huge impacts on animals, plants and other species. In 2019, the IPBES Global Assessment used information the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had gathered on the proportions of known species found to be at risk to estimate that one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction due to human activity. Globally species are going extinct at rates 100-1,000 times faster than the ‘background rates’ typical of Earth’s past. Several studies have suggested that we are now entering the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event. Mass extinctions are defined as times when the Earth loses more than three quarters of its species in a geologically short time, as has previously happened only five times in the past 540 million years.

What can we do?

Every percentage of carbon emissions matters. Everything we do to reduce our own emissions will make a difference, particularly when joining with others. Every bit of plastic we don’t buy and tree we plant will make a difference.

Things are very serious and the media and our leaders have not been communicating this well. The good news is that it is still possible for us to turn things around, avert the worst impacts of the climate emergency and rise to what is the great challenge of our time, for the benefit of our children and future generations. The other very good news is that we have all the technology we need to make this transition. All that has been missing has been awareness and the political will. Many of the changes we need to make, like changing our transport to low emissions (avoiding flying and high emissions vehicles in particular), cycling and walking more, growing more local food, protecting and enhancing biodiversity, making our homes more efficient and consuming less will give us multiple benefits: cleaner air, cleaner seas, less rubbish, better physical and mental health, comfier, healthier homes that are cheaper to run and stronger communities.

As a group, Sustainable Sherston want to focus on positive solutions and increasing awareness to help our community transition to a sustainable future.