Rod Oram in Glasgow reports on a respected climate group's downbeat analysis of promised world action on climate change
The nations of the world have “a massive credibility, action and commitment gap as the world is heading to at least 2.4 ̊C of warming, if not more,” Climate Action Tracker, warned the UN’s COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow yesterday.
The sobering message ran counter to more optimistic assessments last week after a number of countries increased their emission reduction pledges. The best of those, from the International Energy Agency, said the sum total of commitments to date was consistent with a 1.8C rise. That gave hope COP26 might hit the crucial goal of 1.5C, a level at which the escalating climate crisis would be more manageable.
CAT’s latest analysis shows that total emissions, on current policies and pathways, will be almost twice as high in 2030 as they can be if the global economy has a plausible pathway to net zero and 1.5C by 2050. CAT is an influential, independent group of scientists and experts led by several non-profit organisations.
"The vast majority of 2030 actions and targets are inconsistent with net zero goals: there's a nearly one degree gap between government current policies and their net zero goals," said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, a CAT partner organisation.
A total of 140 governments have now announced mid-century net zero targets covering 90 percent of global emissions. But short term pledges and detailed policies are still hugely inadequate for the current crucial decade.
“It's all very well for leaders to claim they have a net zero target, but if they have no plans as to how to get there, and their 2030 targets are as low as so many of them are, then frankly, these net zero targets are just lip service to real climate action. Glasgow has a serious credibility gap.”
CAT’s report on New Zealand’s latest UN climate pledge, our Nationally Determined Contribution, is imminent.
CAT's projected warming from current policies around the world, which excludes proposed policies, points to an even higher warming trajectory of 2.7C, which suggests new policies have delivered only a 0.3C improvement over the past year.
But if countries had credible policies and fully delivered on them by 2050, then a temperature rise of only 1.8C was possible, it said.
Among its many recommendations to get to a 1.5C trajectory, CAT said coal must be out of the electricity sector by 2030 in OECD countries, and then globally by 2040, it argues, to move the world on to that path. Moreover, major coal countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam must avoid making a switch to gas power, and instead shift straight from coal to clean power sources, the report argues.
Last week, the Glasgow negotiations did produce the “Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement” which, if countries delivered on it, would be a step towards those goals. But a number of nations quickly expressed signers remorse.
Poland, for example, claimed it's not ready to phase out the fuel from its smoggy cities because it said it is a small economy (actually it's the 23rd largest out of 196). South Korea said it supports the pact in principle but not in reality. That leaves Vietnam and Indonesia as the true breakthrough signatories.
Clean technologies, particularly in heavily-emitting sectors such as steel and cement making was a big focus on Tuesday, which was Science and Innovation day at COP26.
Again, the promises flowed thick and fast. China, India, the UK, US and EU are among a cohort of 23 governments that announced plans to stimulate cleantech investment. The group included heavy emitters such as Australia and Saudi Arabia that are refusing to phase out fossil fuels.
Fast technology change drives big shifts in their economic viability and allocation of capital to them, as a newly released report on renewable electricity generation from Goldman Sachs shows.
The threshold of projected return that can financially justify a new oil project is now at 20 percent for long-cycle developments. But for renewables it has fallen to between 3 and 5 percent, according to Michele Della Vigna, one of its London-based analysts.
“That's an extraordinary divergence which is leading to an unprecedented shift in capital allocation,” he wrote. “This year will mark the first time in history that renewable power will be the largest area of energy investment.”
Gender was the other theme of the day at COP26 on Tuesday.
While the average delegation at COP1 in Berlin in 1995 was 88 percent male and 12 percent female, this shifted over time. The average for the past three COPs was 62 percent male and 38 percent female. However, COP26 has tilted the other way, with an average balance of 65 percent male to 35 per cent female.
But such data are misleading, says Nina Jeffs, a Kiwi delegate at the negotiations who is a Schwarzman Academy Fellow in the Environment and Society Programme at Chatham House, more formally known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, in London.
Official UN data from COP25 in Madrid showed the male/female split was 51 percent to 49 percent overall. But in the plenary sessions, men accounted for 60 per cent of the delegates and 74 percent of speaking time.
On Monday, I caught up with Nina and two of the other Kiwi delegates at COP26, Injy Johnstone and Ali Cole, in the Action Hub.
Nina’s focus here is climate policy that promotes gender equality. She holds a BA (in Human, Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and an MSc in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University, Beijing.
Injy’s COP26 focus is carbon markets and legal frameworks. She is a climate researcher with a wide range of experience at home and abroad, which reflects her Master’s in Environmental Law earned in the US on a Fulbright scholarship, and her current PhD studies in International Climate Change and Trade Law at Victoria University.
Ali’s focus here is indigenous rights. Ali is of south Taranaki iwi Ngāruahine and Ngāti Ruanui descent. She worked on war crime investigations overseas before returning to Aotearoa in 2018. She applies her legal skills to her hapū Ōkahu-Inuawai’s claims under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act and more broadly to Te Tiriti issues such as climate.
Here are brief excerpts from our conversations:
COP26’s theme on Wednesday is: Transport - Driving the global transition to zero emission transport.
And here’s another cartoon from the collection in the main concourse of the COP26 campus:
