A Nasa satellite image from February shows the Conger ice shelf and associated fast ice pre-collapse. Scientists are concerned because an ice shelf the size of New York City collapsed in east Antarctica, an area that had long been thought to be stable. It was the first time scientists have seen an ice shelf collapse in this cold area of Antarctica. Photo: AP
Opinion
Inside Out
by David Dodwell
Inside Out
by David Dodwell
Climate change action can’t wait for Ukraine war and pandemic to pass
The latest IPCC report on the increasing severity of climate change appears to have come and gone with barely any mention
While the war in Ukraine, the pandemic and local politics might hold our attention, the need for meaningful action on climate change grows greater
On March 15, the 1,200 sq km Conger ice shelf in Antarctica collapsed. Three days later, the Concordia research station in Antarctica recorded a temperature of minus 12 degrees Celsius, a stunning 40 degrees above seasonal norm. Out of sight and out of mind, global warming continues apace whether we care to notice or not.
Meanwhile, London-based writer James Bridle is trying to get us to focus on “the present average velocity of climate change” – the pace at which plants and animals are migrating in response to changing weather. In the United States, “the conifers are mostly heading north, while broad-leafed and flowering trees, such as oaks and birches, move west”. White spruce moving northwards do as at a pace of more than 100km each decade.
While humans bluster and procrastinate, our trees, plants, birds, butterflies and mosquitos are getting on with the painful but essential process of adjustment.
Like me, Bridle must be pained to see the latest 3,000-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) go virtually unnoticed last week, despite its warnings about the imminent and dire consequences of global warming. It seems our natural world is taking more notice than we are, even without the benefit of armies of climate scientists and huge IPCC reports.
It is not just the dull prose of the report’s authors that is to blame. Neither can our political leaders and our media be wholly blamed for being more concerned by the issues of the day – whether that means the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, the emergence of John Lee Ka-chiu as Hong Kong’s likely next chief executive or the “tax management” antics of Akshata Murthy, millionaire wife of British finance minister Rishi Sunak.
But the scary reality is that we continue to turn a blind eye. In the frenzy of climate debate focused on the UN climate summit in Glasgow last November, the world was awash with pious promises and unanchored commitments to “net zero”. This latest report is similarly full of scientific counsel on how to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
02:07
New UN report on climate change shows a ‘litany of broken promises’, says UN chief Guterres
New UN report on climate change shows a ‘litany of broken promises’, says UN chief Guterres
As IPCC chair Hoesung Lee said when releasing the report: “Human-induced climate change is widespread and intensifying. It is a threat to our well-being and all other species. Any further delay in concerted global climate action will miss a rapidly closing window.”
While noting some commendable achievements – solar power and lithium battery costs fell 85 per cent between 2010 and 2019, for example – Lee warned that emissions have to peak by 2025 “at the latest”, and must be reduced by 43 per cent by 2030. These are objectives that need “immediate and deep reductions”. He said the financing needed to achieve this was three to six times lower than necessary.
Nowhere is the slippage between rhetoric and action on climate change more visible than the principal “deliverable” from the Glasgow summit – the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (Gfanz). This brought together 450 global financial institutions with combined resources of US$130 trillion to work together to reach “net zero”. Visit Gfanz’s website today and you will find silence. Its last press release was November 3 last year, when Gfanz launched.
In his Volcker lecture at the US National Association for Business Economics in Washington on March 22, Mark Carney was emphatic on the urgency of the climate challenge but silent on Gfanz. He said extreme weather events have tripled since 1980, resulting in an eight-fold rise in insured property destruction.
Kazy Zanapizo works on her land in the village of Ambory, in the Androy region of Madagascar, on February 16. Madagascar has always known extreme weather events, but scientists say these will likely increase as human-induced climate change pushes temperatures higher. Four years of drought have transformed the area into a dust bowl. Photo: Reuters
As insurance premiums rise in connection with climate change, he warned of a US$104 billion protection gap as more people are uninsured, with the livelihoods and lives of more than a billion people directly threatened by lethal climate conditions. “We are dithering towards climate disaster,” he said, and lurching towards a “climate Minsky moment” that will require “wrenching economic adjustments, strand trillions of dollars of assets and impair financial, price and potentially geopolitical stability”.
Two radical but important initiatives discussed in Glasgow and aimed at reducing emissions – carbon trading and a global carbon fund – have seen negligible progress. There is also little progress on carbon capture, even though there is formal recognition that such mitigation measures are needed to meet climate targets.
Our political leaders will undoubtedly counter that the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have forced them to put the climate crisis on the back burner. Some might even argue these crises will help reach “net zero” in the long run, curbing globalisation and reducing air travel via the pandemic’s supply chain and public health security challenges. Sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas could encourage development of renewable energy and accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuels.
We now have to wait for the next UN climate summit, which takes place in Egypt’s Sharm-el-Sheikh in November. We will by then have the benefit of another gigantic tome from the IPCC. But with or without the help of this report, we will need our business and political leaders to provide tangible, practical action plans to put flesh on the statements of broad intent that washed through Glasgow last year.
However dramatic and painful the other crises pressing in on us are, the time has passed for the climate crisis to be pushed out of sight and out of mind like the Conger ice shelf. Despite the fraught state of international relationships, there is an urgent need for statesmanship that can forge cooperation on this most existential of challenges. As Greta Thunberg said in Glasgow, we no longer have time for “blah, blah, blah”.
David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view
