We are clearly now in the midst of a climate change crisis. Years of warnings have not been heeded and humanity has blundered on in its quest to trash our environment in the pursuit of profit and materialism.
And we are running out of time if we want to avoid the worst of what a changed environment could pose to humanity. The IPCC has delivered a very blunt warning that we are out of time. From Fiona Harvey at the Guardian:
Scientists have delivered a “final warning” on the climate crisis, as rising greenhouse gas emissions push the world to the brink of irrevocable damage that only swift and drastic action can avert.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, set out the final part of its mammoth sixth assessment report on Monday.
The comprehensive review of human knowledge of the climate crisis took hundreds of scientists eight years to compile and runs to thousands of pages, but boiled down to one message: act now, or it will be too late.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “This report is a clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe. Our world needs climate action on all fronts: everything, everywhere, all at once.”
In sober language, the IPCC set out the devastation that has already been inflicted on swathes of the world. Extreme weather caused by climate breakdown has led to increased deaths from intensifying heatwaves in all regions, millions of lives and homes destroyed in droughts and floods, millions of people facing hunger, and “increasingly irreversible losses” in vital ecosystems.
Monday’s final instalment, called the synthesis report, is almost certain to be the last such assessment while the world still has a chance of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold beyond which our damage to the climate will rapidly become irreversible.
The responses has been mixed. National chose to mark the release of the most terrifying IPCC report that I have ever seen by launching a tax cut calculator. And climate change continues to not appear in its list of priorities.
Groundswell continued to display its scientific ineptitude by suggesting that biogenic methane is different to other forms of methane. Clearly they think that we can continue to have meat rich diets and modern farming practices and cut emissions. Both need to change and fast.
Chris Hipkins continues to try and have a bob each way.
From One News:
Speaking on Breakfast, [Hipkins and Green Co leader James Shaw] emphasised that the current Government had done more for emissions reductions than any other in the past 30 years.
“That’s not to say there’s not a lot more work to be done,” Hipkins added. “don’t accept that we’re lagging behind. I accept that we’ve got a big challenge ahead.”
But the PM stressed he was running a “responsible government” and that there was a focus on the “most cost-effective way” to reduce emissions and fight climate change.
He said climate change was “one of the major areas of focus” for his government.
“I don’t accept that it’s an either-or. It is possible to reduce carbon emissions and still have cost-of-living front and centre of the government’s focus,” he said.
This is a difficult tight rope to manage. If being more aggressive on climate change makes a government unelectable then we have a problem. But Climate Tracker considers New Zealand’s response to be highly insufficient. It is no secret that progressive activists believe that more is required.
And the Greens have expressed concerns. Again from One News:
“You know, every relationship has its ups and downs. And obviously, in any governmental arrangement, you don’t agree on everything,” he said of his relationship with Labour.
Shaw said: “I’m very proud of the work that we have done over the course of the last five and a half years… Things are changing. They’re just not changing at the scale and the speed with which we need them to change.”
The Climate Change Minister pointed to the Government’s achievements on legislated emissions targets and the clean car discount as examples of success.
He said the new IPCC report was a warning for countries to “lift our game”.
“I think every country, including our own, does need to take it on board and to say that we need to lift our game,” he said. “Particularly to make sure that we’re actually delivering on the commitments that we’ve already made.”
The Greens have indicated a more aggressive stance taken in this election and have dubbed it the climate change election.