Fear or hope at COP27?

Ask two climate experts at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) to describe how they feel about the future, and their answers are likely to be radically different. “We are witnessing progress beyond expectation,” one will say, while the other will lament that we are heading headlong and in a row over the cliff. Could they both be right?

In fact, both have ample evidence for their assertions, and only by balancing the two perspectives will we be able to strike the sense of urgency that the climate crisis demands.

To inspire hope, the first expert might point out that the cost of solar power has dropped by 99% since President Jimmy Carter put panels on the White House roof in 1979, and that 2022 already looks to be a peak year for renewables. Electric car sales are growing so fast that the internal combustion engine is already in permanent decline. In Indonesia, the rate of forest loss has fallen for five years in a row, thanks to innovative partnerships between government, business, civil society and technology experts.

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Moreover, nearly 100 countries – representing more than 75% of global emissions – have committed to achieving net zero emissions by mid-century. And the United States has just made a huge bet on its green future with the Inflation Reduction Act, which could mobilize nearly $800 billion or more in climate-related investments.

Lest we think we’ve solved the issue, however, our gloomy expert might point out that with just 1.1 Celsius of warming, climate change is already generating unprecedented costs. Disastrous floods in Pakistan this summer left a third of the country under water, while southeastern North America is suffering its worst drought in 1,200 years. In China, droughts have affected hydropower production and forced the closure of factories. The Great Barrier Reef has suffered six mass bleaching events since 1998, and in East Antarctica, where temperatures were a staggering 38.5º above normal, a massive ice shelf collapsed, the first such event in at least half a century.

To make matters worse, Russia’s war in Ukraine has spawned a race for fossil fuels, and corporations, banks and governments are having more difficulty than expected in keeping their climate promises. We are on track for temperature increases well above the 2°C threshold set in the Paris climate agreement. It would be hard to recognize a planet this hot today.

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A major recent study by the Systems Change Lab – an initiative organized by the World Resources Institute, the Bezos Earth Fund and its collaborators – sheds light on both realities and points to a new way of understanding change. On the pessimistic side, none of the 40 sectoral transformations needed to respond to the climate crisis in this decade are on track yet.

For example, the coal phase-out needs to be accelerated by six, the equivalent of retiring 925 average-sized coal plants per year. Similarly, annual deforestation rates should fall 2.5 times faster, and the recent increase in crop yields needs to be accelerated by about seven times to feed a growing population without encroaching on forested areas. All of these transformations depend on global climate finance, which would have to increase eightfold from current levels.

But the report also explains that change is rarely linear and that exponential progress – a sudden “hockey-stick” acceleration – is possible when there is strong leadership and the right supportive policies. Over the course of just two years, from 2019 to 2021, solar power generation increased by 47% globally, and wind power grew 31%, significantly outpacing analysts’ predictions. And between 2013 and 2021, the global share of carbon-free bus sales grew from 2% to 44%, a 20-fold increase in less than a decade.

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Moreover, we know that some systems can be pushed toward positive tipping points – such as price parity between current fossil fuel sources and renewables – after which change can no longer be halted. We must do our utmost to reach these tipping points as soon as possible. If you think about how little is left of humanity’s carbon budget, we can no longer afford to push only the lowest-cost options. We need systemic change in all areas of human activity, from how we grow our food and power our homes to how we build our cities and transport our goods and ourselves.

Accelerating the transition to a net-zero emissions economy will require incentives, new regulations and laws, behavioral changes, innovation and strong leadership. We are about to enter the fourth year of the decisive decade to avoid catastrophic climate change. We must move mountains, whatever the cost.

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World leaders meeting at COP27 this month should not wring their hands in despair or blithely declare that victory is just around the corner. Instead, they should ponder carefully what needs to be transformed and what needs to be done to cross essential tipping points. This is the time when we must create the conditions for more positive change to become irresistible and irrepressible. That would make all those carbon-emitting flights worthwhile.

Source: https://www.elnacional.com/opinion/temor-o-esperanza-en-la-cop27