Page 39 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2023

bne December 2023 COP28 I Special focus I 39
Daily surface air temperature (Northern Hemisphere) (Temp.°C) CFSV2 Avg 2m T Anomaly (°C) | CFSR 1979-2000 base
Source: ClimateReanalyzer.org, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine Source: ClimateReanalyzer.org
has outraged climate activists as oil deals are already being reported on the sidelines of the gathering.
This year has seen an unbroken streak of record breaking tempertures above the long term average. In the Northern Hemisphere the temperatures have been 1.8°C above the 1979-2000 average for 140 consecutive days, with no sign of letting up.
A recent study by Stanford using AI to model climate events found that the Earth is likely to cross critical climate thresholds even if emissions decline from here. The model found that the world will cross the 1.5C threashold within 10-15 years even if emissions start falling from here, and a 2C increase soon after that. Stanford professor Thomas Hansen said: “The magnitude of the currently observed warming is off the scale. Within a decade or so it will probably be 2 degrees.” Officially, the world is already 1.1C warmer on average than before industrialisation took off.
Most of the reports are predicting that a temperature rise of 2C is now more likely, and after the rapid acceleration of temperature rises this summer that lead to unprecedented flooding and hurricanes that talk is already giving way to talk of a 3C rise above the long- term pre-industrial average by 2050. At those levels the Amazon forest dies. The polar ice caps melt. Oceans rise by tens of meters. And large swaths of the planet become uninhabitable.
Emissions at record highs
All the reports also point to the ongoing use of fossil fuels are the main culprit. Instead of falling, apart from a noticeable drop during the pandemic lockdowns, emissions have soared to new all-time highs, according to the IMF.
When world leaders huddled in Paris to strike their climate deal in 2015, levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were near 402 parts per million – already enough to start causing problems. Today they’re approaching 420 parts per million, levels that scientists say the planet hasn’t seen since more than 4 million years ago, when seas were 25m higher.
Global greenhouse gas emissions
(million metric tons of CO2 equivalent)
"It appears the green recovery following COVID-19 that many had hoped for has largely failed to materialize. Instead, carbon emissions have continued soaring, and fossil fuels remain dominant, with annual coal consumption reaching a near all-time high of 161.5 exajoules in 2022," reports Oxford University.
Although the consumption of renewable energy (solar and wind) grew a robust 17% between 2021 and 2022,
it remains roughly 15 times lower than fossil fuel energy consumption.
"On the basis of year-to-date statistics for 2023, three important greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – are all at record levels,” Oxford University said in a recent paper.
Change in emissions by sector since 2019
(million metric tons of CO2 equivalent)
Source: IMF Climate Change Indicators Dashboard. Note: Emissions are seasonally adjusted. The right panel shows change in greenhouse emissions from Q1-2019 levels.
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