Don’t despair – climate change catastrophe can still be averted

This is the summer when, for many, climate change got real. The future looks fiery and dangerous. Hot on the heels of Trump, fake news and the parlous state of the Brexit negotiations, despair is in the air. Now a new scientific report makes the case that even fairly modest future carbon dioxide emissions could set off a cascade of catastrophe, with melting permafrost releasing methane to ratchet up global temperatures enough to drive much of the Amazon to die off, and so on in a chain reaction around the world that pushes Earth into a terrifying new hothouse state from which there is no return. Civilisation as we know it would surely not survive. How do we deal with such news?

 ‘A new scientific report says that even fairly modest
future carbon emissions could set off a cascade of
catastrophe.’  Wild fire in Athens, Greece.

As a research scientist in this field, I can give some nuance to the headlines. One common way of thinking about climate change is the lower the future carbon dioxide emissions, the less warming and the less havoc we will face as this century progresses. This is certainly true, but as the summer heatwave and the potential hothouse news remind us, the shifts in climate we will experience will not be smooth, gradual and linear changes. They may be fast, abrupt, and dangerous surprises may happen. However, an unstoppable globally enveloping cascade of catastrophe, while possible, is certainly not a probable outcome.

Read the opinion piece from The Guardian by Simon Lewis - “Don’t despair – climate change catastrophe can still be averted.”

It’s no surprise emissions keep going up. There's no price on carbon

Late last Friday, the government quietly released the latest data on greenhouse gas emissions and, as has been the case since the ending of the carbon price, they show emissions are increasing. But the figures also highlight that the government’s current plan to focus almost exclusively on electricity, through its national energy guarantee , means Australia will be unable to meet its commitment to reduce economy-wide emissions by 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.

 ‘Emissions from electricity have actually fallen but they haven’t fallen enough.’ 

The government is never all that excited about releasing the quarterly update on greenhouse gas emissions. In December it released them the week before Christmas, and this time it released it late Friday afternoon – the end of budget week.

The minster for environment and energy, Josh Frydenberg, didn’t bother to even put out a media release which, given the importance of the figures to his portfolio, would be like the treasurer not bothering to note the release of the quarterly GDP figures.

Read the story by Greg Jericho from The Guardian - “It’s no surprise emissions keep going up. There's no price on carbon.”