I have posted this article because it is another sign things are changing and quickly. The only game in town for quick transition to less CO2 is nuclear power and that needs to happen asap in Australia and World or we are all screwed IMHO

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‘Tipping point’ approaches for climate and economyAlan KohlerFollow @AlanKohler

The IMF says the transformation of the energy system to minimise carbon emissions will be challenging and costly. Picture: AP

• An hour ago December 2, 2019
• 59 Comments

We are approaching the point where believing scientists on climate change is a much bigger deal than it was before, and bigger than investors and businesses are prepared for.

The current business and political orthodoxy, including the Coalition government and the Business Council of Australia, is that the science is correct and humans have caused dangerous global warming, and that we should meet our Paris commitments in order to prevent disaster, which we are doing.

Except that the scientific consensus is shifting towards requiring much more than Paris. In fact it looks like the scientists have been wrong, way too complacent and as a result, the emissions reductions to which everybody has signed up now look inadequate.

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It means that a difficult choice may soon have to be made: continue to say you believe the science, which will require a very expensive and very disruptive transformation of the economy, or start saying you reject the scientists, that you’re only prepared to accept what they were saying before, not what they’re saying now.

Gap report

Last week the UN Environment Programme published its latest “Gap Report”, written and overseen by dozens of climate scientists, which concluded that “if all current unconditional commitments under the Paris Agreement are implemented, temperatures are expected to rise by 3.2°C, bringing even wider-ranging and more destructive climate impacts.”

To meet the 1.5° goal, the level of ambition in the Paris commitments would have to increase five-fold according to the UNEP. In addition, “developed countries will have to reduce their emissions quicker than developing countries, for reasons of fairness and equity”.

Also last week, a group of seven scientists published an article in Nature magazine which summarised the latest evidence on “tipping points”, which were first discussed 20 years ago.

At the time, it was believed these “large scale discontinuities” would only happen if warming exceeded 5°. But now, according to the Nature article, tipping points could be exceeded even with between 1° and 2° of warming – that is, the current Paris target, that isn’t going to be met anyway.

These seven also wrote that if current national pledges to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions are implemented — “and that’s a big ‘if’” — they are likely to result in at least 3°C of global warming.

The tipping points

The tipping points they are referring to included the collapse of ice sheets in the West Antarctic and Greenland, which would eventually lead to 10 metres of sea level rise.

They also predict the loss of 99 per cent of tropical corals, including the Great Barrier Reef, if global average temperatures rise above 2°. Other tipping points involve triggering “abrupt carbon release back into the atmosphere”.

“The world’s remaining emissions budget for a 50:50 chance of staying within 1.5 °C of warming is only about 500 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2. Permafrost emissions could take an estimated 20 per cent (100 Gt CO2) off this budget, and that’s without including methane from deep permafrost or undersea hydrates. If forests are close to tipping points, Amazon dieback could release another 90 Gt CO2 and boreal forests a further 110 Gt CO2. With global total CO2 emissions still at more than 40 Gt per year, the remaining budget could be all but erased already.”

They conclude: “If damaging tipping cascades can occur and a global tipping point cannot be ruled out, then this is an existential threat to civilisation. No amount of economic cost–benefit analysis is going to help us. We need to change our approach to the climate problem.”

‘Costly and challenging’

Also last week, the IMF published a paper to address the question of whether the global economy could decarbonise deeply enough to come “within striking distance of net zero emissions by 2050”, which is where the scientific consensus now thinks we need to get to.

Yes, says the IMF, but “such a vast transformation of the energy system will be costly and challenging”.

This column is not about whether the scientists are right or wrong (although my inclination on the whole is to believe experts on subjects I know nothing about) or whether the Australian Government is meeting its Paris commitments, but to point out that we seem to be approaching a tipping point for the government and for business and investors as well.

We are probably already there. Believing the science on global warming, which is the current consensus of the political and business classes, and doing something effective about that belief, clearly involves a far deeper and more expensive transformation of the economy than anyone is contemplating, especially Australia.

Alternatively, of course, we could just leave it to everyone else to fix, and move to higher ground.

Alan Kohler is Editor in Chief of InvestSMART.com.au

Alan Kohler

Editor-at-large, The Australian Business Review

Alan Kohler is one of Australia’s most experienced commentators and journalists. Alan is the founder of Eureka Report, Australia’s most successful investment newsletter, and Business Spectator, a 24-hour free b... Read more