CLIMATE CHANGE

Intro: Our environment is incontestably heating up and that it is now beyond reasonable doubt that human activities are the cause

The fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is being delivered in stages. The first of those instalments was delivered last autumn, and stated that our environment is incontestably heating up and that it is now beyond reasonable doubt that human activities are the cause. The second tranche was delivered last week, which concluded that global warming is already taking worldwide effect and is threatening everything from crop yields to social cohesion. The third and final part of the IPCC’s report, which is due for publication later this month, seems likely to focus on the stark vision and scale of the challenge ahead.

If global warming is to remain below the 2C threshold – above which changes becomes catastrophic – the wealthy nations of the world, including the sceptical US, will need to halve their carbon emissions by 2030. Indicative, too, will be fast-growing economies, including India and China, making significant reductions to their carbon emission footprints. In the context of the global picture, cuts in emissions will need to go far beyond any existing targets. This is hampered when we consider that many of the commitments already placed on many countries around the world are far from being met and guaranteed.

All of this only adds to concern at the slow progress that has been made so far. In the UK, anxieties over energy security and economic sustainability continue to put pressure on green and renewable goals; indeed, the fourth-phase of the so-called ‘carbon budget’, which is due to run from 2023-2027, is under review by the Treasury. Its aim is to slow the pace of change. It must be stressed that even if the UK were to meet all of its self-imposed obligations, the net-effect in global terms would have little impact beyond the setting of a fine example.

A comprehensive global agreement is urgently needed, and one that includes a resolution of the difficult question of how to share and mitigate the high costs of climate-change between developed countries. In the past, the richest nations polluted heavily: a moral obligation exists, making it incumbent in helping developing nations to invest in new renewable technologies. This is needed if they are to ever have any chance of meeting their renewable obligation targets. The prospects of meaningful advances, though, are slim when we consider that it is now developing countries which are more polluting. Sharing the associated costs of climate change and how it should be done is a politically vexed question.

The last of the serial UN Conventions on Climate Change, in Warsaw at the end of 2013, made no material progress. The crucial meeting, however, at which any new treaty on global warming would need to be signed, is not until the UN reconvenes in Paris in 2015. We can only hope, then, that the IPCC’s blunt appraisal will focus and concentrate minds in how best a more comprehensive agreement can be delivered.