Glasgow Climate Talks Offer Hope in the Face of Hell and High Water
You’re probably aware that during the first two weeks of November, nearly every country and tens of thousands of negociators met at the Glasgow climate talks to discuss how to limit global warming. This was the 26th annual meeting of the “Conference of Parties”, making it COP26. Back at COP20, in Paris, countries agreed that they would revise and strength their “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) to reducing carbon emissions every five years. So what was agreed at this latest meeting? There have been very differing accounts of the outcome of COP26, so perhaps you’ve wondered if COP26 was a success.
For myself, I am delightfully amazed with how far climate action has come. I can clearly remember telling my Dad that I was leaving astronomy to study climate change back in 1996. He was a highly educated physicist but thought it was the height of hubris to think that humans could have such an impact on global systems. He thought I was mad to abandon astrophysics for such a red herring. Conversations with him, and many others across the decades, often started with the question “Do you really think humanity is driving climate change?” Now, scientists are certain that humans have driven a rise of 1.1 degrees C since pre-industrial times. And the impact of that certainty has finally spread. The Glasgow talks make it clear that world leaders and industry are taking climate change seriously and are aiming to keep warming below 1.5 degrees C.
You may remember that at the Paris COP20, 193 parties (mostly countries) agreed to aim to keep global temperature rise well below 2.0 degrees C. At that time, many environmentalists and scientists were anxious and disappointed about the weakness of this goal but it was the strongest language which all parties could agree on. While not enough, the commitments at Paris were a welcome departure from the pre-Paris trajectory of then-current-practices heading us towards 4 degrees of warming. In the six years between the Paris and Glasgow talks, continued research showed that a global temperature rise above 1.5 degrees C would lead to global scale famines, droughts, flooding, massive migration, and food insecurity, not to mention the environmental damage that would arise and potential feed-backs releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. So entering the Glasgow talks, the consensus became aiming to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. This is a great lesson for all us trying to shift perceptions and goals. While one conversation may leave us feeling disappointed and frustrated, hopefully all parties go away and ponder the issues. Shifts in our, or other’s, perceptions are often so gradual we don’t even notice they are happening.
But lets get to the outcomes of the Glasgow talks. Prior to this meeting, NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) in mid-2020 had us headed to 2.9 degrees C. Remember that is 1.1 degrees below pre-Paris trajectories. Post COP-26, the increased national pledges mean we’re now committed to reducing emissions enough to keep warming to 2.4. All headed in the right direct, but not down to 1.5 degrees, yet. More worryingly, current policies - real national commitments rather than the NDC promises - have us headed to 2.8-2.9 degrees of warming. While not enough, COP-26 was not the end of the conversation and governments have agreed to speed up that conversation by making adjustments to NDCs annually, rather than every 5 years. More conversations. More pledges. For the first time, I feel that we will continue to move in the right direction. That international commitments are being made that are not about money. Hallelejuah.
There are other players involved in reducing emissions too: industry and individuals.A number of industries made commitments to reduce emissions at the Glasgow talks. Combined with the governmental commitments, if all these promises are kept we’re on track to keep warming below 2.2 degrees C. If industries in other countries joined these visionaries, we’d be aiming for about 1.9 degrees C. To ensure these promises are kept, citizens around the world need to continue to push for reduced carbon emissions. We need to do this in our political, our financial, our social, and our lifestyle choices.
In the political sphere, it is imperative that we vote for those who support action on climate change. But it is also important that we need to engage in and support the political process to make sure our representatives and decision makers know that we think reduced emissions are critical. Financially, we need to divest from high carbon industries and support greener ones, such as in our pension plans. And purchase wise, we can continue to choose electric vehicles, solar panels, high energy efficiency products, and local foods. In our socials spheres, we need to keep talking about climate change and environmental issues so all our acquaintances have the opportunity to understand why we are making these choices and we have the opportunity to understand why they may oppose them. And in making choices about lifestyle we influence politics, society, and industry.
And because households drive 80% of US emissions, it is really important that as individuals we do our bit to reduce our carbon contributions. The scientific consensus is that to avoid 1.5 degrees C of warming, we need to reduce our emissions by 45% by 2030 and to have zero net emissions by 2050. This means we need to reduce global emissions from the current rate of 33 billion tons of CO2e emitted every year to about 18 billion tons in 2030, and zero tons by 2050. (The little e after CO2 here refers to carbon dioxide equivalent so as to account for different warming potentials of different gases.)
Should every one of us should aim to reduce our emissions by 45% in the coming 9 years? Many people, yours truly included, believe if would fairer to allow each person the same emission rate. Divvying up the 18 billion tons of CO2e among the 7.9 billion humans on the planet, each of us needs to limit our emissions to 2.3 tons or less per year by 2030 to global warming below 1.5 degrees C. The average American emits about 20 tons of CO2e (the average Brit about 11 tons). Notably, if we multiply 20 tons of CO2 by the population of the US we get more than 6 billion tons of CO2e emitted per year by US households. That is 20% of global emissions today, even though we have less than 5% of the global population, and fully 1/3 of emissions allowable by 2030. How can we cut down our household emissions which dominate carbon emissions?
On average, running the physical house tops the list of home based emissions at 33%. Next largest is transport at 30%, services 19% and food 17%. There are several big ticket items within in each those categories. As for running the house, electricity, and heating and cooling, account for nearly 25% of our total household carbon emissions, or 5 tons of CO2e per person per year. We can easily switch to a green energy provider or buy renewable energy certificates. This alone saves about 2 tons of CO2e. But we can go a step further and install solar panels and/or decarbonize our heating and cooling with heat pumps or renewable electric heating thereby eliminating nearly all 5 tons associated with utility based emissions. Although low carbon heating systems and solar panels are expensive to install, they pay for themselves in less than a decade and there are government grants in both the US and UK to lower the cost. One might argue there is a greater moral obligation for the more wealthy to install these systems for an individual’s carbon footprints increases dramatically with income.
Transportation is the second largest household emission category. We can make an average reduction of a further 5 tons of CO2 by having an zero emissions car, though of course these would need to be powered by renewable energies. There are still issues with electric cars, like the mining and disposing of the battery parts, and with hydrogen cars, like sourcing fuel, so the ideal transportation solution is to dramatically reduce car journeys altogether - living, shopping, working, and holidaying locally. I have personal experience of a vast increase in quality of life when I was forced to be carless for several months. Having no option but to walk everywhere cured a decades old bad back problem. And of course airplane travel is a massive carbon source - a roundtrip from DC to London emits nearly 2 tons of CO2 per passenger. If COVID has taught us anything, it is that all those business trips are really, really, unnecessary. I urge you to push back on this one.
The next biggest category of household carbon emissions are services, making up 19% of household emissions. The largest subcategories here are health (1.4 tons), education (0.5 ton) and entertainment (0.6 ton). Taking care of ourselves by walking and biking, and eating non processed foods not only decreases our health carbon budgets, but also our transportation and food budgets.
Food accounts for the the last 17% of household emissions, or 3.3 tons. By reducing food waste we can eliminate 1 ton. By replacing beef and lamb with chicken we can reduce our emissions by an average of 0.6 tons and going fully vegetarian knocks off a further 0.6 tons.
Let’s review. The average American emits close to 20 tons of CO2e a year, but a fair share is only 2.3 tons. If our average Jo installed zero-emissions heating and cooling system (a savings of 3 tons), had green electricity (2 tons), drove no car or an electric one (5 tons), and cut out food waste (1 ton) , she would reduce her carbon emissions by over 11 tons. None of these would require lifestyle changes and they are all absolutely necessary to reach zero net emissions by 2050. It would make a huge difference if we all undertook one or more of these initiatives.
To get to a fair share today, Jo would need to cut her emissions by a further 6.7 tons. She could adapt her diet (3.3 tons), furnishings (0.7 tons), the structure of her home (0.5 tons), entertainment (0.6 tons), education (0.5 tons), healthcare (1.4 tons), and non-passenger car transportation (1.3 tons). In other words, buy less stuff - especially from far away. That’s starting to sound pretty onerous for our average Jo, and even difficult for the average eco-obsessed. Some people take the approach of increasing carbon absorption by the land to balance their emissions to net zero. Every acre of naturally regenerating land will suck up 3.5 - 7 tons a year. You can let your lawn go wild or financially support those working on regenerating ecosystems. But perhaps for most individuals, we are back where we started - needing government and industry to help close this gap. And reminding us that some of the most import environmental actions we can take are voting and being politically active. For as we’ve seen at the Glasgow talks, governments and industry are listening and acting. Here’s a few more exciting developments from Glasgow to leave you feeling hopeful.
140 countries have committed to halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030 including a 9 billion dollar commitment from the US. This is backed up by the commitment of 33 financial institutes (with almost 9 trillion dollars in assets) to phase out deforestation and biomass production for energy generation. Wow.
45 countries and 30 companies committed to transitioning away from unabated coal power generation for major economies by 2030, and globally by 2040.
India and the UK launched an effort to help countries tap into solar power.
The global Energy Alliance for People and Planet was launched by philanthropists to support access and transitions to clean energy.
Twelve countries (including the UK but not the US) agreed to try to double the efficiency of four key home appliances that use 40% of global electricity.
100 countries pledged to drop methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030.
31 countries and 6 major automobile makers committed to having 100% of new vehicle sales be zero emission passenger cars by 2035 in leading markets, and globally by 2040.
This is a dream list of fantastic accomplishments. The mood has shifted, perhaps more so at this moment than at any other. There is now a very viable chance that we will limit global warming. Humanity and all its warts may yet live into the next century.