Zero Headroom for New Coal, Oil, or Gas Resources

On April 4, 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the leading world body for the assessment of climate change—released a report called “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change”. The report provides an update on global progress regarding the reduction of greenhouse gases and other mitigation measures that are necessary to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change by limiting average global temperature increase to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius (as globally agreed in the Paris Agreement).

Let’s start with the good. The report finds that we already have the technology we need and the know-how to reduce emissions in line with globally-agreed goals: stop burning fossil fuels, deploy renewable energy resources, enhance energy efficiency, electrify heating and transportation, and save more forests. The price of renewable energy has dropped dramatically: between 2010 and 2019, solar and battery costs fell by 85 percent while wind costs fell by 55 percent. The reason for continued fossil fuel production, importantly, is not demand: “people demand services and not primary energy and physical resources per se” (emphasis added), which leads to the amazing conclusion that demand-side strategies could reduce 50 to 80 percent of emissions across all sectors. Some countries are on the right track: at least 18 nations have reduced their total emissions every year for more than a decade. Some of those are making annual emission reductions large enough that—if all other nations followed suit—would be enough to reach globally-agreed average temperature increase goals.

*Image reproduced from:* *https://www.wri.org/insights/ipcc-report-2022-mitigation-climate-change*

The not-so-good? The report finds that limiting global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius is very unlikely: after the highest global emissions in human history every year for the last ten years, global emissions would need to peak within the next three years (by 2025) and fall by 43 percent by 2030, which would be historically unprecedented. Even then, the IPCC says it is “almost inevitable” that the 1.5 degree warming threshold will be exceeded, at least temporarily. To have any chance of limiting average global temperature increase to 1.5 to 2 degrees, the report emphasizes the need to rapidly phase out fossil fuels: by 2050, coal use must decline by 95 percent, oil use by 60 percent, and gas use by 45 percent. That means some fossil fuel resources would be shut down prematurely—i.e., before the end of their intended lifespan—which also means there is zero headroom for new coal, oil, or gas resources. The conclusion that the only way to limit catastrophic climate change is to ensure that no new coal, oil or gas development takes place has also been reached by the International Energy Agency.

The report’s results are both sobering and uplifting: readily available, affordable technology across the economy can reduce emissions in line with what is needed to avoid catastrophic climate change, but we are headed in the wrong direction. Major political changes are necessary to right our course.

Bryndis Woods, PhD

Senior Researcher

This is a part of the AEC Blog series

Five of Nine Planetary Boundaries Have Now Been Crossed

This month, researchers from the Stockholm Environment Institute, University of Gothenburg, University of Reading, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, University of Toronto, Technical University of Denmark and ETH Zurich assessed the impact of synthetic chemicals such as plastics on the stability of the Earth’s physical, chemical, and biological systems for the first time.

The nine planetary boundaries—which include climate change (i.e. greenhouse gas emissions and associated warming), the ozone layer, land-system change like deforestation or desertification, biosphere integrity (i.e. biodiversity loss), and freshwater use—were first identified in 2009 by a team of 28 international researchers. These nine boundaries are representative of the Earth system conditions—including land, ocean, and atmospheric processes as well as naturally occurring cycles like the carbon cycle and their many interactions—that have remained relatively stable over the course of the Holocene era (i.e. the last 10,000 years or so). Crossing any these boundaries increases the risk of abrupt and/or irreversible environmental changes (often called “tipping points”) like the melting of ice sheets or coral reef die off. In 2009, the researchers determined that three of the nine boundaries had been crossed—climate change, biodiversity loss, and biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorous, which are more commonly occurring than they would be naturally, largely because of fertilizer application). In 2015, the research was updated showing that four of the nine boundaries had been crossed—with land-system change added to the list.

Now, in 2022, researchers were finally able to quantify the impact of synthetic chemicals like plastics on Earth’s systems (called the “novel entities” boundary) and determined that this boundary, too, has been exceeded—five of nine planetary boundaries have been crossed (and one—atmospheric aerosol loading—has yet to be quantified). The researchers determined that chemical production has increased by a factor of 50 since 1950, and is anticipated to triple between now and 2050. Plastic production increased by nearly 80 percent between 2000 and 2015 alone. This drastic uptick in synthetic chemicals entering the environment outpaces our ability to understand and predict their risks—only a “tiny fraction” of the approximately 350,000 synthetic chemicals created to date have been analyzed to determine their health and safety risks. However, we do know that the risks of many synthetic chemicals are long-lasting and include increasing pollution, harming biodiversity and altering biogeochemical cycles (the processes by which essential chemical elements—like carbon, nitrogen or oxygen—are circulated within and among ecosystems).

Amid mounting evidence of the global scale and severity of chemical pollution, there are growing calls for governmental action: In 2021, more than 1,800 scientists from across the globe signed an open letter asking for the creation of a science-policy panel—similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—to address chemical pollution. Negotiations around a global treaty to combat plastic pollution are set to launch next month at the U.N. Environment Assembly. (In November 2021, the U.S. indicated it would support such a treaty.) If these negotiations are as successful as those that established the Montreal Protocol for hydrofluorocarbons from aerosols and effectively saved the ozone layer—there is reason for hope.

Bryndis Woods
Senior Researcher

This is a part of the AEC Blog series

Youth Mental Health and Climate Change

This month, researchers from the University of Bath, University of Helsinki, The College of Wooster, New York University, the University of East Anglia, Stanford University and Oxford Health published the results of a survey of 10,000 young people (aged 16 to 25) across ten countries that asked about their thoughts and feelings regarding climate change and government responses.

They found that a large majority of youth respondents are worried about climate change (84 percent were at least “moderately” worried while 59 percent were “very” or “extremely” worried) and that over half of respondents said that they feel sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless and guilty.

About 40 percent of the young people surveyed indicated that they are hesitant to have children because of the climate crisis and over 45 percent said that their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily life.

Seventy-five percent agreed with the statement that the “future is frightening,” 56 percent believe humanity is doomed, and more than 50 percent agreed that they would have fewer opportunities than their parents did.

Sixty-four percent felt that governments are not doing enough to address the climate crisis or to protect them or future generations. A similar number said they felt betrayed by older generations and governments. Less than 40 percent of respondents across nine of the ten countries agreed that government “can be trusted”—with just 21 percent of American respondents agreeing with that statement. The study found significant, positive correlations between feelings of worry, anxiety, and distress and feelings of betrayal and negative feelings about governments responses to climate change.

In sum: Youth are worried and angry about the climate crisis, and they lay the blame squarely at the feet of governments that have failed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the study’s authors, Caroline Hickman from the University of Bath, said that the study “paints a horrific picture of widespread climate anxiety in our children and young people. It suggests for the first time that high levels of psychological distress in youth is linked to government inaction. Our children’s anxiety is a completely rational reaction given the inadequate responses to climate change they are seeing from governments.”

Feelings of worry, anxiety, and betrayal about climate change and the lack of government response to it threaten the mental health and wellbeing of an entire generation of young people who have contributed the least to the problem of global climate change but are all too aware that they will suffer its worst impacts.

Bryndis Woods Senior Researcher

This is a part of the AEC Blog series

Atmospheric Carbon Continues to Climb

Sixty-three years ago, scientists began measuring the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a weather station perched atop the approximately 13,700-foot Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii—daily measurements that have continued ever since. The Mauna Loa Observatory record of carbon dioxide measurements are called the “Keeling Curve” (see chart below), which is named after Charles David Keeling, the scientist who began tracking carbon dioxide levels at Mauna Loa in 1958. The Keeling Curve serves as a global benchmark for atmospheric carbon levels steady march upward.

The adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement, emission reduction pledges by governments and private companies, the COVID-19 pandemic: none of these recent impacts on global emissions is yet visible in the Keeling Curve, and emission reductions on this relatively small scale may not be enough to slow down rising atmosphere concentrations. Atmospheric carbon levels in 2021 are approaching 420 parts per million, the highest since measurements began more than 60 years ago. The last time concentrations were this high was between 4.1 and 4.5 million years ago, when sea level was about 78 feet higher than it is today and the average global temperature was about 7°Fahrenheit (F) warmer than pre-industrial temperatures (for reference, observed global warming to-date is about 1°Celsius (C) or 1.8° F above pre-industrial temperatures).

Despite decades of climate negotiations, despite climate commitments from the public and private sectors, despite an unprecedented global pandemic, despite the increased occurrence of, and increasingly extreme, weather events around the world (see image below from Verviers, Belgium after heavy rains and floods across western Europe in July 2021)—growth in atmospheric carbon concentrations has not slowed, stopped or reversed.

The scale of action needed is daunting: to limit global warming to no more than 1.5°C (the threshold required by the Paris Climate Agreement), global carbon emissions need to fall off a cliff (see chart below, reproduced from Carbon Brief).

As of 2019, global emissions would need to fall by about 15 percent per year through 2040 to reach the 1.5°C target. Every year that passes without a decline in global carbon emissions serves to increase the rate at which emissions must decline to have any hope of achieve the 1.5°C target. There is no time to waste—immediate drastic action must be taken to reduce global emissions. Fortunately, we already have many of the tools and technologies needed to do so, like renewable wind and solar.

Dr. Bryndis Woods Senior Researcher

This is a part of the AEC Blog series