On April 4th, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released another report predicting impending doom.
In the scenarios we assessed, limiting warming to around 1.5°C (2.7°F) requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43% by 2030; at the same time, methane would also need to be reduced by about a third. Even if we do this, it is almost inevitable that we will temporarily exceed this temperature threshold but could return to below it by the end of the century.
“It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F),” said Skea. “Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.
Mitigation in industry can reduce environmental impacts and increase employment and business opportunities. Electrification with renewables and shifts in public transport can enhance health, employment, and equity.
“Climate change is the result of more than a century of unsustainable energy and land use, lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production,” said Skea. “This report shows how taking action now can move us towards a fairer, more sustainable world.”
I’m sorry, but what?!? Fairer and more sustainable? More employment and equity? While buzz words are fun and some may fall for it, I think it’s important to address a couple of the elephants in the room. Shall we?
According to a report by IRENA (International Renewable Energy Alliance) investments in the energy transition will have to be $131 trillion. Minimum. Before inflation. Bjorn Lomborg, the author of ‘False Alarm’ frequently cites a study in nature magazine that says to get to net zero by 2050, each and every American will need to pay $11,300 per year for the next 29 years. That’s north of $1.2 mm for the average family of four, above taxes, the cost of living and before inflation.
Today, 110 million people on the planet earth ALREADY live below sea level. Sea level is rising an estimated 3 mm a year. The useful life of a building is 40 years, at least from a tax perspective. If you are worried about a sea level rise…. move. Funny, the houses on the ocean are the most expensive in the neighborhood, not the least.
Last year, China and Russia didn’t attend COP26 in Glasgow. India released a statement that indicated it will get to net zero by 2070 (not 2050) and requires that the developed world invest $1 trillion in climate finance. I would like $1 trillion, too, for the record.
Here’s a statistic. 45% of the world’s emissions are produced by the owners of the top 10% of wealth. That’s why Leo DiCaprio was the oil and gas customer of the month in February and why Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, bought a $500 mm yacht and Amazon Prime delivers 365 days a year right to your door!
It turns out those 45% don’t really want to change their lifestyle. Fear not! The IPCC recognizes this and has a solution.
“Individual behavioral change is insufficient” to alter the world’s warming trajectory, the report says, unless laws, institutions and cultural norms also shift. The report recommends passing “policy packages” aimed at wide swaths of the economy that can be more effective, enhancing cooperation between countries to help spread new technologies and protecting the most vulnerable people and places on the planet.
So should you worry?
In 1972, Maurice Strong, the first UN Environmental Programme director warned that the world “had ten years to stop the catastrophe.”
In 1982, Tolba, the new head of the UN Environmental Programme, said that by the year 2000, the world would face “an environmental catastrophe as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust.”
In 1989, a senior UN official warned the Associated Press that “Global disaster, nations wiped off the face of the earth, crop failures” would occur by 1999 if we don’t fix climate change.
In January of 2006, Al Gore predicted by 2016 we would reach “the point of no return.”
And, in February of 2022, John Kerry said of the war in Ukraine:
"But it could have a profound negative impact on the climate obviously. You have a war and obviously you’re going to have massive emissions consequences to the war. But equally importantly, you're going to lose people's focus, you're going to lose certainly big country attention because they will be diverted and I think it could have a damaging impact. So, you know, I think hopefully President Putin would realize that in the northern part of his country, they used to live on 66% of the nation that was over frozen land."
So forgive me if I file the new IPCC report right beside the report that said “Build Back Better” wouldn’t cost a penny and would reduce inflation.