Have we already abandoned our attempts to prevent dangerous climate change?
by George Monbiot
Published in the Guardian (May 01 2007)
The rich nations seeking to cut climate change have this in common: they
lie.
You won't find this statement in the draft of the new report by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was leaked to the Guardian
last
week. But as soon as you understand the numbers, the words form before your
eyes.
The governments making genuine efforts to tackle global warming are using
figures they know to be false.
The British government, the European Union and the United Nations all claim
to
be trying to prevent "dangerous" climate change. Any level of climate change
is
dangerous for someone, but there is a broad consensus about what this word
means: two degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels. It is dangerous
because of its direct impacts on people and places (it could, for example,
trigger the irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet {1} and the
collapse
of the Amazon rainforest {2}) and because it is likely to stimulate further
warming, as it encourages the world's natural systems to start releasing
greenhouse gases.
The aim of preventing more than two degrees Celsius of warming has been
adopted
overtly by the United Nations {3} and the European Union {4} and implicitly
by
the British, German and Swedish governments. All of them say they are hoping
to
confine the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a level
which would prevent two degrees Celsius from being reached. And all of them
know
that they have set the wrong targets, based on outdated science. Fearful of
the
political implications, they have failed to adjust to the levels the new
research demands.
This isn't easy to follow, but please bear with me, as you cannot understand
the
world's most important issue without grappling with some numbers. The
average
global temperature is affected by the concentration of greenhouse gases in
the
atmosphere. This concentration is usually expressed as "carbon dioxide
equivalent". It is not an exact science - you cannot say that a certain
concentration of gases will lead to a precise increase in temperature - but
scientists discuss the relationship in terms of probability. A paper
published
last year by the climatologist Malte Meinshausen suggests that if greenhouse
gases reach a concentration of 550 parts per million, carbon dioxide
equivalent,
there is a 63 to 99% chance (with an average value of 82%) that global
warming
will exceed two degrees {5}. At 475 parts the average likelihood is 64%.
Only if
concentrations are stabilised at 400 parts or below is there a low chance
(an
average of 28%) that temperatures will rise by over two degrees.
The IPCC's draft report contains similar figures. A concentration of 510
parts
per million (ppm) gives us a 33% chance of preventing more than two degrees
of
warming {6}. A concentration of 590 ppm gives us a 10% chance {7}. You begin
to
understand the scale of the challenge when you discover that the current
level
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (using the IPCC's formula) is 459 ppm
{8}.
We have already exceeded the safe level. To give ourselves a high chance of
preventing dangerous climate change, we will need a programme so drastic
that
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere end up below the current concentrations.
The
sooner this happens, the greater the chance of preventing two degrees of
warming.
But no government has set itself this task. The European Union and the
Swedish
government have established the world's most stringent target. It is 550
ppm,
which gives us a near certainty of an extra two degrees Celsius. The British
government makes use of a clever conjuring trick. Its target is also "550
parts
per million", but 550 parts of carbon dioxide alone. When you include the
other
greenhouse gases, this translates into 666 ppm carbon dioxide equivalent (a
fitting figure) {9}. According to the Stern Report, at 650 ppm there is a 60
to
95% chance of three degrees Celsius of warming {10}. The government's
target, in
other words, commits us to a very dangerous level of climate change.
The British government has been aware that it has set the wrong target for
at
least four years. In 2003 the environment department found that "with an
atmospheric carbon dioxide stabilisation concentration of 550 ppm,
temperatures
are expected to rise by between two degrees Celsius and five degrees
Celsius"
{11}. In March last year it admitted that "a limit closer to 450 ppm or even
lower, might be more appropriate to meet a two degrees Celsius stabilisation
limit" {12}. Yet the target has not changed. Last October I challenged the
environment secretary, David Miliband, over this issue on Channel 4 News. He
responded as if he had never come across it before.
The European Union is also aware that it is using the wrong figures. In 2005
it
found that "to have a reasonable chance to limit global warming to no more
than
two degrees Celsius, stabilisation of concentrations well below 550 ppm
carbon
dioxide equivalent may be needed". {13} But its target hasn't changed
either.
Embarrassingly for the government and for left-wingers like me, the only
large
political entity which seems able to confront this is the British
Conservative
Party. In a paper published a fortnight ago, it called for an atmospheric
stabilisation target of 400 to 450 ppm carbon dioxide equivalent {14}. Will
this
become policy? Does Cameron have the guts to do what his advisers say he
should?
In my book Heat I estimate that to avoid two degrees of warming we require a
global emissions cut of sixty per cent per capita between now and 2030 {15}.
This translates into an 87% cut in the United Kingdom. This is a much
stiffer
target than the British government's - which requires a sixty per cent cut
in
the UK's emissions by 2050. But my figure now appears to have been an
underestimate. A recent paper in the journal Climatic Change emphasises that
the
sensitivity of global temperatures to greenhouse gas concentrations remains
uncertain. But if we use the average figure, to obtain a fifty per cent
chance
of preventing more than two degrees Celsius of warming requires a global cut
of
eighty per cent by 2050 {16}.
This is a cut in total emissions, not in emissions per head. If the
population
were to rise from six to nine billion between now and then, we would need an
87%
cut in global emissions per person. If carbon emissions are to be
distributed
equally, the greater cut must be made by the biggest polluters: rich nations
like us. The UK's emissions per capita would need to fall by 91%.
But our governments appear quietly to have abandoned their aim of preventing
dangerous climate change. If so, they condemn millions to death. What the
IPCC
report shows is that we have to stop treating climate change as an urgent
issue.
We have to start treating it as an international emergency.
We must open immediate negotiations with China, which threatens to become
the
world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases by November this year {17},
partly
because it manufactures many of the products we use. We must work out how
much
it would cost to decarbonise its growing economy, and help to pay. We need a
major diplomatic offensive - far more pressing than it has been so far - to
persuade the United States to do what it did in 1941, and turn the economy
around on a dime. But above all we need to show that we remain serious about
fighting climate change, by setting the targets the science demands.
www.monbiot.com
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