On 1 April 2021, Australia’s Emissions Reduction Minister said at the International Energy Agency’s ‘COP26 Net-Zero Summit’ that “removing the price difference between current technologies and low or zero carbon solutions is the key to widespread global adoption” of low emissions technology – and that Australia was focusing on reducing the cost of ‘clean’ hydrogen.
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The latest UN reports again show clearly that the world is not on track to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Avoiding warming beyond 1.5°C may now be well beyond reach. Will there be social and political ramifications of the failure of political leadership in democratic states?
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Professor Simon Lewis draws attention to the need to make carbon accounting trustworthy, and eliminate ‘carbon deceptions’ from approaches to emissions reductions.
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The United States officially rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement on 19 February 2021. The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, issued a Statement in which he called the rejoining “momentous”, but noted that “what we do in the coming weeks, months, and years is even more important”. You have seen and will continue to see us weaving climate change into our most important bilateral and multilateral conversations at all levels. In these conversations, we’re asking
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The urgent need to reduce carbon emissions can be usefully compared to filling a bathtub without a drain. Until the emissions tap is turned off completely, the bath keeps filling. And even when the tap is turned off, the bath is still filled to an undesirably high level. If the tap is never turned off, or turned off too late, in time the bath overflows disastrously. The Australian government’s extraordinary new fossil-fuel centred energy plan ensures the emissions tap will continue to flow.
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Governments around the world are planning to produce about 50% more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement pathways. What can be done?
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The Paris climate agreement seeks to limit global warming to 1.5℃ this century, a target likely to be exceeded by 2024. This first overshoot would be temporary – but it casts new doubt on whether Earth’s climate can be permanently stabilised at 1.5℃ warming. Modelling shows that if emission reductions are large and sustained, the Paris goals can still be met, and the most severe damage to the natural world, economy and people may be avoided. But worryingly, we also have time to make it far worse.
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Is Australian Prime Minister Morrison’s call for a Royal Commission on matters related to the recent bushfires just a smokescreen, an excuse for avoiding real action, or is it a genuine attempt to get a body of evidence and a report on which the government could build a holistic strategy for addressing global warming, which should be applauded?
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