Life on Earth has had its ups and downs. Over the past four billion years it has barely survived five mass extinction events, each most likely triggered by a collision with an asteroid or comet. Some 250 million years ago, nearly 90 per cent of all sea species and 70 per cent of all vertebrate land species suddenly became extinct. About 200 million years ago another collision wiped out roughly half of all species and ushered in the age of dinosaurs. Some 65 million years ago, an asteroid ended the Cretaceous period, wiped out the dinosaurs, giving rise to the age of mammals — including, eventually, humans.
For the past two hundred years we have been blindly building our own asteroid. It is called climate change. Since 1990, despite increasing knowledge of the consequences, we have been adding to its size at a frenzied pace. Launched at Earth, there is no chance it will miss us without equally frantic activity to avert it. If it hits with full force, the consequences for life on this planet are likely to be as profound as those following earlier collisions. To date, we have failed to grasp the risk posed by our own asteroid.
What Climate Science is Telling us Now
Scientists increasingly believe that global warming of 2oC above pre-industrial levels significantly increases the chance of ‘dangerous’ climate change, during which abrupt and dramatic shifts in climate may occur, with catastrophic social, ecological and economic consequences (Schnellnhuber et al. 2006). So what should we aim for — in terms of cutting emissions, and stabilising the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases?
Recent modelling exercises suggest that, with atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at 450 ppm CO2 equivalent (CO2-e), we will have between a 25 per cent chance and an 80 per cent chance of global average warming exceeding 2oC above pre-industrial levels (Figure 1). Here’s the first bit of bad news. We are roughly at that point now – at around 450 ppm CO2 equivalent.
Figure 1
We are adding, globally, around 2.5 ppm (CO2 -e) each year and, with industrialisation in China and India proceeding apace, the rate of accumulation has increased over the past decade. Now the second bit of bad news. Without substantial and rapid cuts to global emissions, we will not only ‘overshoot’ 450ppm CO2e but remain well above this level for a long time, given the time greenhouse gases remain in the air.
And here’s the third bit of bad news. The risks and levels of extinction increase as global greenhouse gas levels – and temperatures – rise. Rapid warming beyond 2oC is unacceptable for ecosystems and many species. The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report indicates that approximately 20 per cent to 30 per cent of land-based plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increasingly high risk of extinction by 2100 as global mean temperatures exceed a warming of 2oC to 3oC (Fischlin et al. 2007: 213), and up to 50 per cent of species (Stern 2006:57) once temperatures rise well beyond 3oC. Moreover, ecosystems and species appear at increased risk not only because of warming, but because of the increased range, frequency, intensity and duration of climatic extremes and extreme events (storms, fires, floods, etc).
However a globally averaged notion of ‘dangerous climate change’ has little meaning for those regions, ecosystems and species sensitive to even slight temperature increases – including low-lying coasts and islands, coral reefs, alpine systems, and the polar caps. Up to 80 per cent of biota in some regions face an increasingly high risk of extinction by 2100 as global mean temperatures exceed a warming of 2oC to 3oC (Fischlin et al. 2007: 213).
How does Australia fare? Preston and Jones (2006) provide a succinct summary of Australian studies which suggest that even 2oC is too high for certain Australian ecosystems and species (Table 1). Warming of 1-1.5oC will lead to significant losses of core habitat for endemic plant, reptile, bird and animal species (and likely extinctions) in Queensland’s Wet Tropics; frequent bleaching episodes on the Great Barrier Reef, and substantial losses and extinctions among its endemic coral and fish species; and a further loss of between 13 per cent and 27 per cent of flow in the Murray Darling even by 2030. The higher we go, the worse it gets.
Table 1: Projected impacts to Australian ecosystems
In addition, most climate studies only report on the relatively ‘immediate’ impacts of global warming – up to 2100. This diminishes consideration of the catastrophic medium to longer term impacts of even ‘modest’ global warming. Current atmospheric concentrations of GH gases may lead to the permanent loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic within five years – a loss that even three years ago (see, for instance, Steffen 2006: 23) was not expected to occur until the end of this century. However current levels also will cause the loss, over the next 200-1000 years, of much or all of Greenland’s ice cover, leading to increases in sea level of some 7 metres, consequent loss of highly valued cultural and natural coastal sites, and the displacement of hundreds of millions of people.
These changes will also greatly enhance the ice-albedo feedback effect and accelerate autonomous global warming. Hansen et al (2007) argue that global warming must be confined to 1oC to avert the permanent loss of the planet’s major ice sheets. In addition, Hansen et al (2008) argue that the doubling of pre-industrial atmospheric GHG concentrations (560ppm CO2), while leading to 3oC warming or more by 2100, will result in much higher stabilised global temperatures of around 6 oC once long-term feedbacks are taken into consideration.
In other words, the notion of ‘safe’ or ‘dangerous’ climate change really depends on where you are, who you are, what you are, and when you are live. If you are Tuvaluan, at 2oC your island will have been inundated and your links to country and culture irreversibly destroyed. By the time we hit 2oC, we will have lost most of the Great Barrier Reef and threatened a wide range of Australian species with extinction. If you run diving tours on the Great Barrier Reef, or farm in the Murray-Darling Basin, 2oC is not safe for your enterprise or lifestyle. ‘Dangerous’ climate change for Australia starts well before 2oC. This understanding must condition our thinking about global and local emissions targets that Australia champions, locally and in international negotiations.
Thinking about Targets
For the last decade and a half, Australian debate about climate change has been captured by a narrow discourse. It was framed in 1996 by John Howard as defining the ‘the national interest’. This discourse has reduced the key questions for consideration to: ‘How much will it cost?’ (defined in narrow economic terms and immediate changes to GDP) and ‘How will it affect us NOW?’ (defined in terms of present dollar impacts). The thought that has dominated the Australian climate debate – even since the Stern Report – has been: ‘What is the least we have to do to change our lifestyles and disrupt the economy in order to protect our existing individual or corporate interests?’
Yet the emissions targets we choose should depend on answering two different and prior questions. First, what will we accept as ‘safe’ for our planet, and our continent, and our immediate lives – what do we want to pass on to our children and future generations? And second, what are the likely risks and ecological and social consequences of adopting particular targets?
Having defined what we want, and with an understanding of the risks and consequences of different targets, we are then in a position to determine which target we will support. It is this understanding of desires, risks and consequences that is still lacking in the present debate.
We are yet to have public discussion about the purpose of targets, about what our collective goals should be – and what we are prepared to lose. If we decide that we want to avoid a high risk of species extinction, and the associated degradation or loss of economic and social systems, we will choose tough targets. In this sense, even severe emissions cuts can be ‘economically achievable’. While the immediate adjustments will be somewhere between hard to harsh, the longer term costs will be proportionately easier to bear. By contrast, trying for a ‘soft landing’ in the short term will certainly lead to a crash landing in the longer term, and permanent hardship for us, and most other surviving species. In Australia, the informed and accepting response to urban water regulations during the present (and continuing) water ‘crisis’ shows we are not so much unwilling to take tough self-limiting actions as ignorant of the consequences of government climate policy and our own inaction.
There is also a second line of argument we need to consider. The issue is NOT (simply) which targets we choose but the emissions reduction pathways or trajectories we adopt. As Stern recently noted, ‘it is the stock of atmospheric GHGs, measured in terms of atmospheric concentrations, that causes the rise in global temperatures and changes in climate’ (Stern 2008: 9; emphasis added). We should be as – indeed perhaps more – worried about the increase in the stocks of atmospheric greenhouse gases than targets per se, given their long and damaging life once released into the air. The deeper, earlier and faster the cuts in emissions, the less the damaging stock of excess greenhouse gases will linger over time.
Climate Risk, Politics and Policy
If I were to announce that I was prepared to burn my house down, with my partner and child and all our possessions inside, depending on the result of a toss of a coin – heads I light the match, tails I don’t – I would probably be regarded as a dangerous gambler and a certifiably insane pyromaniac. Yet, puzzlingly, this is practically the approach of most climate policy makers and negotiators to the risks of ‘dangerous’ climate change.
We eagerly insure our houses against a much slighter chance of theft or fire or accident. Planes and nuclear reactors are designed to a very high level of mechanical safety (around 1:100,000 years for the latter) because of concerns about the risk of catastrophic failure. Most industrialised countries – including Australia – fund substantial health and defence expenditure on the basis of deterrence and risk minimisation. Yet in the realm of climate change politicians and policy makers appear prepared to accept a much higher level of possibility of catastrophic failure.
The latest IPCC report estimates that emissions reduction of between -25 per cent and -40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 by developed nations (Table 2), and reductions of between -80 and -95 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050, will lead to stabilised atmospheric concentrations of around 450ppm CO2 -e and warming of 2.0-2.4oC. As noted earlier, this would still leave between a 25 per cent and an 80 per cent chance of exceeding 2oC.
Table 2: IPCC WG3 Rpt (2007) – Emissions allowances and concentration levels
The IPCC infers that to stay below global warming of 2oC requires developed countries to cut their emissions by more than 40 per cent by 2020. However, it is highly likely that the IPCC has underestimated the chance of tipping points emerging at lower than this temperature and has failed to consider long-term feedback effects that would take warming to higher levels. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) does not include modelled estimates of the impacts of recent gross increases in industrial emissions, or scientific publications from late 2006 onwards. Each of these factors makes the IPCC (4AR) targets conservative. Reductions of risk, and of warming outcomes, require tougher targets that those outlined by the IPCC.
We improve our chances of keeping global mean temperature below 2oC only by ensuring atmospheric GHG concentrations return rapidly to below 400 ppm CO2e (around or below 350ppm CO2). At 400 ppm CO2e, we have a 66 per cent and a 90 per cent chance of remaining below that 2oC global warming threshold (Meinshausen 2006b:3).
Labor’s Climate Policy and its Implications
During the last election, Labor campaigned hard on climate change and clearly differentiated itself from the Coalition in its willingness to rejoin the global community by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, and by articulating a long-term emissions reduction target for Australia. There is a public expectation that Labor will do all it can to solve the problem. The Rudd Government currently supports proposed emissions cuts by developed (Annex 1) countries of between -25 per cent and -40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, as agreed at in Bali last year. It has also enshrined in Labor policy an Australian national emissions reduction target of -60 per cent below 2000 levels by 2050. Labor has not yet adopted a short-term emissions target. This will be determined when caps are set for the national emissions trading scheme. There has been loose public discussion of an interim target of between 13-15 per cent by 2020 (Warren 2008).
Article 2 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) calls for
stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.
Given what long-term targets as weak as -60 per cent by 2050 would deliver if taken up by all Annex 1 (industrialised countries), it seems clear that Labor currently supports a domestic climate policy that leads, de facto, to the destruction or profound damage to many of our continent’s iconic ecosystems and species. This is in breach of Article 2 of the UNFCCC, and also of commitments under the World Heritage Convention, the Biodiversity Convention, the RAMSAR Convention, and a number of other more specific international treaties and associated domestic legislation requiring Australia to do all it can to protect listed sites (including the Great Barrier Reef, Shark Bay, Fraser Island, the wet tropics of Queensland, and Kakadu National Park) and listed endangered species.
Meanwhile, Article 3.1 of the Convention states that Parties ‘should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof’. In signing and ratifying the UNFCCC, developed countries like Australia also accept the need for an additional emissions reduction burden that reflects their disproportionate historical contribution to the global warming problem. This is reflected in the IPCC’s view that Annex 1 countries should aim to cut emissions by between -80 per cent and -95 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Equal per capita emission rights, distributed internationally using some version of a contract and converge scenario, offer the most equitable formula for the distribution of future emissions capacity. For Australia to accept an internationally equitable emissions quota using such a formula, Australia’s current per capita emissions of around 26 tonnes of CO2 will need to be reduced to a global average of approximately 1.5 tonnes per person (based on estimated global population of 9 billion by 2050). In other words, our reductions must be higher – between -90 per cent and -95 per cent below 1990 levels – for a globally equitable distribution of per capita emissions rights to occur. It seems clear, then, that Labor, with its -60 per cent by 2050 target, may also have breached Article 3.1 of the UNFCCC, by supporting inequitable global climate outcomes.
Deflecting that Rock
The emissions targets that Australia adopts nationally, and champions internationally, must reflect what we as Australians choose as the risk of unacceptable – or ‘dangerous’ – climate change. These targets should be, to recapture and recycle John Howard’s infamously misused term, what we regard as being ‘in the national [ecological] interest’. This is not the case at present for Australian climate policy, where chasms exist between what scientists are telling us about the chances of dangerous and abrupt climate change, what policy makers and politicians support as viable targets and outcomes, and what most people understand these targets will deliver. The public has not been given the chance to consider its options and to choose what it regards as a ‘safe’ level of climate risk. And so, in the meantime, we continue to build that asteroid.
Labor now has to choose between being a climate leader or a climate laggard. Leadership is the right stance if we believe in ‘first mover economic advantages’ and, critically, in minimising climate risk. Only international agreement among developed countries to ensure deep, rapid and early cuts to greenhouse emissions – beginning with a reduction of over -40 per cent by 2020, the national target Germany adopted last year – will begin to deflect our own asteroid. To help move negotiations to that point, Labor must first adopt such targets at home and then champion them overseas, for safety’s sake, if we are to deflect that rock hurtling towards us.
Peter Christoff teaches climate policy at the University of Melbourne and is Vice President of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
References
Fischlin, A. et al. (2007) ‘Ecosystems: their properties, goods and services’, in IPCC WG (Working Group) II (2007) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (Cambridge. Cambridge University Press).
Hansen, J. et a.l (2007) Atmos. Chem. Phys. Vol 7. 2287.
Hansen, J. et a.l (2008) ‘Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim?’, submitted to Science, April 2008 (http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126)
Meinshausen, M. (2006a) ‘What does a 20C target Mean for Greenhouse Gas Concentrations? A Brief Analysis Based on Multi-Gas Emission Pathways and several Climate Sensitivity Uncertainty Estimates’, in Schnellnhuber, J.S. et al (eds) Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (Cambridge. Cambridge University Press).
Meinshausen, M. (2006b) ‘< 20C Trajectories – a Brief Background Note’, Kyoto Plus Papers (Berlin, Boll Stiftung/Wuppertaler Institut/ WWF/ European Climate Forum).
Preston, B.L. and Jones, R.N. (2006) Climate Change Impacts on Australia and the Benefits of Early Action to Reduce Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions. A consultancy report for the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change February (CSIRO).
Schnellnhuber, J.S. et al (eds) Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (2006: Cambridge. Cambridge University Press).
Stern, N. (2006) The Economics of Climate Change (Cambridge. Cambridge University Press).
Stern, N. (2008) Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change (London: London School of Economics and Politics).
