Hyderabad: Are all these global summits related to climate change proving to be a fiasco with commitments being confined to rhetoric and platitudes? Except for bits and pieces implementation of the action plans to restrict climate change, genuine endeavors to achieve the target of restricting climate change to 1.5 degrees is yet to materialize.
The meetings of the global fora have been reduced to monotonous and perfunctory routine with the participating leaders feigning concern about global warming and waxing eloquent on commitments to curb Greenhouse Gas emissions. This does not mean that changes can be made to happen overnight or a within a short period of time. The question is: whether any concrete and effective initiatives are in place to achieve the targeted climate objectives.
Going by the shoddy and rather lackadaisical approach to implementation of the temperature control strategies, it is evident that governments do not consider climate change as a priority a serious issue to deserve a focused approach. Current economic and energy trends suggest that emissions will be at least as high in 2019 as in 2018.
Global GDP is expected to grow at 3.2% in 2019, and if the global economy decarbonized at the same rate as in the last 10 years, that would still lead to an increase in global emissions.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap assessment of “where we are likely to be and where we need to be” elucidates the current and estimated future greenhouse gas emissions based on latest scientific data. According to the UNEP the emissions gap in 2030 between emission levels under full implementation of conditional Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and levels consistent with least-cost pathways to the 2°C target is 13 GtCO2e.
If just the unconditional NDCs are implemented, the gap increases to 15 GtCO2e. The gap in the case of the 1.5°C target is 29 GtCO2e and 32 GtCO2e respectively. Current NDCs are estimated to lower global emissions in 2030 by up to 6 GtCO2e compared to a continuation of current policies.
This level of ambition needs to be roughly tripled to align with the 2°C limit and must be increased around fivefold to align with the 1.5°C limit. Implementing unconditional NDCs, and assuming that climate action continues consistently throughout the twenty-first century, would lead to a global mean temperature rise between 2.9°C and 3.4°C by 2100 relative to pre-industrial levels. If NDC ambitions are not increased immediately and backed up by action, exceeding the 1.5°C goal can no longer be avoided.
If the emissions gap is not closed by 2030, it is very plausible that the goal of a well-below 2°C temperature increase is also out of reach.
According to a report by a consortium of climate science organisations, there is a glaring – and growing – gap between agreed targets to tackle global warming and the actual reality. The report prepared for the United Nations Climate Action Summit highlights the urgency of fundamental socio-economic transformation in key sectors such as land use and energy in order to avert dangerous global temperature increase with potentially irreversible impacts. "There is urgent need for the development of concrete actions that halt global warming and the worst effects of climate change.”
The Report provides a unified assessment of the state of our Earth system under the increasing influence of anthropogenic climate change, of humanity’s response thus far and of the far-reaching changes that science projects for our global climate in the future. The scientific data and findings presented in the report represent the very latest authoritative information on these topics,” said the Science Advisory Group to the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit.
According to World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the average global temperature for 2015–2019 is on track to be the warmest of any equivalent period on record. It is currently estimated to be 1.1°Celsius (± 0.1°C) above pre-industrial (1850–1900) times. Widespread and long-lasting heat waves, record-breaking fires and other devastating events such as tropical cyclones, floods and drought have had major impacts on socio-economic development and the environment.
Arctic summer sea-ice extent has declined at a rate of approximately 12% per decade during 1979-2018. The four lowest values for winter sea-ice extent occurred between 2015 and 2019. Overall, the amount of ice lost annually from the Antarctic ice sheet increased at least six-fold between 1979 and 2017. Glacier mass loss for 2015- 2019 is the highest for any five-year period on record.
The WMO pointed out that due to increased rate of ocean warming and melting of the Greenland and west Antarctica ice sheets, the rate of rate of global mean sea-level rise accelerated from 3.04 millimeters per year (mm/yr) during the period 1997–2006 to approximately 4mm/yr during the period 2007–2016. There has also been an overall increase of 26% in ocean acidity since the beginning of the industrial era.
Levels of the main long-lived greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4)) and nitrous oxide (N2O) have reached new highs, according to the report. The last time Earth’s atmosphere contained 400 parts per million CO2 was about 3-5 million years ago, when global mean surface temperatures were 2-3°C warmer than today, ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica melted, parts of East Antarctica ice had retreated, all causing global see level rise of 10-20m compared with today.
In 2018, global CO2 concentration was 407.8 parts per million (ppm), 2.2 ppm higher than 2017. Preliminary data from a subset of greenhouse gas monitoring sites for 2019 indicate that CO2 concentrations are on track to reach or even exceed 410 parts per million (ppm) by the end of 2019. In 2017, globally averaged atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were 405.6 ±0.1 ppm, CH4) at 1859 ±2 parts per billion (ppb) and N2O at 329.9 ±0.1 ppb. These values constitute, respectively, 146%, 257% and 122% of pre-industrial levels (pre-1750). The growth rate of CO2 averaged over three consecutive decades (1985–1995, 1995–2005 and 2005–2015) increased from 1.42 ppm/yr to 1.86 ppm/yr and to
2.06 ppm/yr.
A major impediment to achievement of climate change objective is the lack of stringent legislation or laws to ensure compliance by the industries to install machinery or have systems in place to prevent GHG emissions.
A study 3,000 publicly listed companies across the global economy by investment data provider Arabesque S-Ray revealed that just 18% have disclosed plans that are aligned with goals to limit rising temperatures to 1.5C of pre-industrialised levels by the middle of the century. The analysts found more than a third of the world’s top 200 companies still do not disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, despite rising concern that urgent action is needed to avert dangerous levels of global heating.
Many are choosing to keep the full scale of their emissions under wraps to avoid losing investment. India's total GHG emissions in 2014 were 3,202 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), totaling 6.55% of global GHG emissions. India emitted 2,299 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2018, up by 4.8% rise from last year. From India’s point of view, it seems that the people of this country has to live with the pollution caused GHG emissions.
The implications are conspicuous by the government clearly implying that it has no alternative to coal-fired power generation.
Read: World may witness millions of premature deaths by 2050: UN report
