2.5C and our choices: the bad news and the good news

Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, May 9th, 2024 - 10 comments
Categories: climate change - Tags:

The Guardian published a major report yesterday on what top climate scientists are saying about the climate crisis. These are all IPCC scientists.

World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target

We asked 380 top climate scientists what they felt about the future… they are terrified but determined to keep fighting.

There’s a lot of important insight in there, including this critical timeframe (my emphasis),

Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.

Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating above preindustrial levels,, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit will be met.

Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.

That’s depressing af, but here’s the thing: they’re talking about the track we are on currently, not the one we could be on if we changed.

For the people still thinking that climate collapse is a maybe in later centuries, what is being said here is that if we don’t change what we are doing, then human societies will fail within the lifetime of people who are alive now.

There’s a big focus in the report on how devastating it is to the scientists that society hasn’t heeded the warnings, and how difficult this is to deal with emotionally. This what many people experience now, but obviously not enough of us. Maybe if we were all taking it personally we would change. So while there is a risk that people will find the report overwhelming and turn away, it does seem like some people still need to be presented with the cold hard facts.

However, the cold hard facts alone is not enough. In my opinion the crucial piece of communication in the report is the following quotes, because without a pathway through to something better, people will just turn away. I suspect a major part of the current backlash around perceived catastrophising is because people simply can’t cope with the reality. Hence the need for this (again, my emphasis),

“The good news is the worst-case scenario is avoidable,” said Michael Meredith, at the British Antarctic Survey. “We still have it in our hands to build a future that is much more benign climatically than the one we are currently on track for.”

…

“I believe in social tipping points,” where small changes in society trigger large-scale climate action, said Elena López-Gunn, at the research company Icatalist in Spain. “Unfortunately, I also believe in physical climate tipping points.”

That’s the crux of it. We are on a knife edge to see whether the social tipping points will outpace the climate tipping points. The thing about social tipping points is that we have choices about which way things tip. This is where our greatest hope lies, but it requires us to be prepared so that when the tipping point arrives, we have the conditions already to tip into the good pathway not the disastrous one.

The bad news is that by the time the physical climate tipping points happen, it’s too late. We can’t say we were not warned.

The climate crisis is the most important thing there is now. Everything we do matters. Both in dropping GHGs fast (avoiding the climate tipping points), but also the million things that turn us in the right direction for the sociopolitical tipping points.

Political activism matters (as does voting), because we really want a Labour/Green/Te Pati Māori government, not a National/NZ First/ACT one, when a tipping point arrives in New Zealand. That might be a big earthquake, a series of extreme weather events, another pandemic, or shocks from a global financial crisis (that btw is why it’s called a polycrisis, all those things sit within the climate crisis and will be affected by it and in turn affect our responses to the climate crisis). Imagine those scenarios under the current government vs a centre left one.

The really good news is that we’ve never had more opportunity to act than we do now. All over the planet, there are a myriad of projects to support or get involved with. In every community in New Zealand, there are initiatives that turn us in the right direction.

At a larger scale, there is really good work being done around alternative systems that enable us to drop GHGs fast and transition to better lifes eg doughnut economics, or degrowth. The trick is being ready to jump and fast. A tipping point will come when it’s possible to change fast, we need to be prepared.

10 comments on “2.5C and our choices: the bad news and the good news ”

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  1. Tony Veitch 1
    9 May 2024 at 7:43 am

    Two right wing choices:

    1. We could gut NIWA so we can pretend we don’t know, and what we don’t know can’t possibly hurt us, can it?

    https://twitter.com/NatlClownshow/status/1788141310211432799

    2. Or we could be like NZs richest man: remain oblivious to all the carnage happening all around!

  2. Ad 2
    9 May 2024 at 9:33 am

    Social and then political license for shifting CO2 production evaporates faster than the steam from your morning shower when we are in the first week of May and already getting power supply constraint notices from Transpower to the generators.

    https://static.transpower.co.nz/public/interfaces/can/CAN%20Low%20Residual%20Situation%205373464415.pdf?VersionId=Z_nNmIoOxvd9sSb2U1rcBoJM2UpGknc.

    Our generation system is creaking, and there's real doubt we have prepared.

    Just a reminder that about 34,350 homes, mostly in the central North Island, had their electricity cut off without warning on August 9, 2021, when a cold snap coincided with an unplanned outage of Genesis' Tokaanu hydro power station on the Tongariro River.

    This is not an excuse for bad climate behaviour, but a simple warning that our lines and generation distribution system that would enable greater change just isn't ready. We would do well to track Transpower's warning systems.

  3. Adrian Thornton 3
    9 May 2024 at 4:50 pm

    The good 'ol Guardian…one the few remaining supposed pillars of 'Left' liberal leaning news…one that has maintained it's now (rightly) declining reputation over the past decade by publishing great pieces like the one referenced by Weka here…but alas, when an actual political figure or movement emerges, that offers a real life chance to tackle the enormous problems created by our hegemonic Western system of unfettered free market liberalism…the Guardian immediately reveals it actual purpose…that of vicious Guard Dog and Gate Keeper of that very system….just saying.

    • tc 3.1
      9 May 2024 at 6:08 pm

      It is part of the mainstream media. Does a job, plays its part as they all do.

  4. adam 4
    9 May 2024 at 9:11 pm

    Carving out an existence on Antarctica.

    With a blow out 3

    bugger me.

    Pathway.

    Stop please.

  5. SPC 5
    10 May 2024 at 10:45 am

    If only someone placed a carbon tariff on tradable goods – and ensured an incentive to lower carbon use in production.