Sea level rise estimates too low

SUBHEAD: New report suggests sea level rise likely worse than previously thought, especially in Hawaii. 

By Teresa Dawson on 13 March 2017 in Civil Beat -
(http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/03/report-suggests-sea-level-rise-may-be-worse-than-previously-thought/)


Image above: High surf erodes the highway’s edge on the North Shore of Oahu. Photo by Teresa Dawson. From original article.

A new technical report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests that climate change-induced sea level rise over the course of this century, especially in Hawaii, may be far worse than predicted in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenario that has been serving as a guide for a number of local efforts to address climate change impacts.

As a result, the state’s Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Report, due to the Legislature by year’s end, may be more useful as a guide for shorter-range planning for non-critical structures that can be moved or replaced relatively easily.

The local scientists and planners developing the SLR report, required by Act 83 of the 2014 Legislature, have based their inundation scenarios for coastal areas throughout the state on the IPCC’s “worst of the worst-case scenarios,” according to Dr. Chip Fletcher, University of Hawaii associate dean for the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology.

In that scenario, sea level rises about half a foot by 2030, a foot by 2050, 2 feet by 2075, and 3.2 feet (or roughly 1 meter) by 2100.

The NOAA report, however, suggests that the current melting rate of alpine glaciers and glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as the rate of thermal ocean expansion, may cause sea levels globally to rise an average of 0.3 m (about a foot) in the low-consequence/high-probability scenario but up to an average of 2.5 meters (about 9 feet) in its extreme-consequence/low-probability scenario by 2100.

Static-equilibrium effects will cause some regions around the globe to experience even higher sea levels, the report states, and the tropics is one of them.

“Hawaii is sitting in the worst region of all,” Fletcher said.

He and others working on the state’s SLR report had believed when they started that a 1-meter rise in sea level was an extreme scenario, which he said is appropriate for long-range planning of long-lived, expensive, critical structures or infrastructure such as a nuclear power plant or a hospital in the coastal zone.

But under NOAA’s new projections, Hawaii is expected to see a 1.3-meter rise in sea level by 2100 under its intermediate case, he said. Under its most extreme, but least probable case, the state would see a 3.3-meter (nearly 11-foot) rise.

In light of NOAA’s new scenarios, Tetra Tech’s draft predictions for the SLR report are now far less speculative and much more reliable than they were before. Under a 3.2-foot rise in sea level, Tetra Tech as of press time had estimated that inundation impacts on Oahu alone could cost $11.8 billion, impact 9,400 acres and 3,800 structures, and displace 13,300 residents.

The firm’s planner Kitty Courtney stressed at an SLR workshop that the economic impact reflects the potential cost if nothing is done to mitigate impacts.

‘Planning Envelope’

The NOAA report, titled “Global and Regional SLR Scenarios for the United States,” is the result of work begun in August 2015 for the Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flood Hazard Scenarios and Tools Task Force, a joint task force of the National Ocean Council and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Using the best available science, the task force is charged with developing future relative sea levels, associated coastal flood hazard scenarios, and tools to “serve as a starting point for on-the-ground coastal preparedness planning and risk management processes, including compliance with the new Federal Flood Risk Management Standard,” the report states.

The report describes six global mean sea level (GMSL) rise scenarios: Low, Intermediate-Low, Intermediate, Intermediate-High, High and Extreme, ranging from most likely to least likely to occur.
In setting the upper bounds of its SLR projections for 2100, the scientists who produced the report assessed the latest literature on “scientifically supported upper-end GMSL projections, including recent observational and modeling literature related to the potential for rapid ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica.”

“The projections and results presented in several peer-reviewed publications provide evidence to support a physically plausible GMSL rise in the range of 2.0 meters to 2.7 (meters), and recent results regarding Antarctic ice-sheet instability indicate that such outcomes may be more likely than previously thought,” the report states.

Despite the low probability that sea levels will actually rise to 2.7 meters by the end of the century, the report’s authors warn against planners discounting this.

“For decisions involving long planning horizons and with a limited adaptive management capacity, the high degree of uncertainty in late-21st century GMSL rise looms large. Failure to adequately account for low-probability, high-consequence outcomes significantly increases future risks and exposure,” the report states. “For many decisions, it is essential to assess worst-case scenarios, not only those assessed as the scientifically ‘likely’ to happen.”

The report recommends that to assess a system’s overall risk and determine long-term adaptation strategies, planners should define a “scientifically plausible upper-bound (which might be thought of as a worst-case or extreme scenario) as the amount of sea level rise that, while low probability, cannot be ruled out over the time horizon being considered.”

For shorter-term planning, such as for adaptation strategies within the next 20 years, the report suggests that planners define a “central estimate or mid-range scenario (given assumptions about greenhouse gas emissions and other major drivers).”

“This scenario and the upper-bound scenario can together be thought of as providing a general planning envelope,” the report states.

Local Impacts

Although NOAA’s intermediate SLR scenario clearly anticipates a rise of more than 1 meter, the state’s report isn’t likely to include a robust analysis of a rise higher than that.

Fletcher, however, made it clear that NOAA’s higher-consequence scenarios would devastate certain coastal areas of the state. Under NOAA’s high scenario, he said, inundation would rise to the point where it would permanently drown Ewa Beach on Oahu’s south shore, which is home to tens of thousands of residents.

Tetra Tech’s Courtney, who also spoke at the workshop, presented several preliminary maps and charts indicating that even an increase in sea level of 1 to 3 feet could cause significant and widespread damage, especially when combined with increased erosion, annual high wave flooding, and a 1 percent annual chance of a coastal flood (also known as a 100-year flood).

A couple of the maps she displayed showed the numerous spots along Oahu’s coastal highway, including areas on the windward side and along Honolulu’s impending rail transit alignment, that would be vulnerable to inundation due to sea level rise. Another map highlighted the more than two dozen schools, hospitals and clinics, police and fire stations, and wastewater treatment plants within the Honolulu area that would be flooded by a 100-year flood under a 3.2-foot rise in sea level. And yet another showed that that flood area would extend a mile or more inland from the current FEMA VE zone boundary, where landowners are required to have flood insurance.

With regard to the potential impacts on the Honolulu rail transit system, Courtney noted, “Transit-oriented development is probably what we do really need to do … but on the other hand, we gotta make sure we’re taking into consideration some of these long-term impacts of sea level rise.”

Referring to some of her maps showing projected inundation on Oahu’s west and north shores, Courtney said that beaches are going to be lost and many of them are state parks or recreation areas. She also noted that increased erosion will also likely unearth or damage historic cultural sites, such as those at Kawela Bay.

“What do we need to do to protect a beach? … How do we continue to have beaches in the state?” she asked.

So far, no inundation charts for any of the outer islands have been presented. When the report is complete, Courtney indicated that the most thorough inundation and economic impact assessments in the report will be for the islands of Kauai, Maui and Oahu, for which there is a rich amount of historical data. “For Molokai and Lanai, we have some limitations in historical records for coastal erosion and annual high wave flooding,” she said.

An assessment for the Big Island will also be included.

Note:
Reprinted by Civil Beat with permission from the current issue of Environment Hawaii, a non-profit news publication founded in 1990. All issues published in the last five years are available free to Environment Hawaii subscribers at www.environment-hawaii.org. Non-subscribers must pay $10 for a two-day pass. All issues older than that are free to the public.


• Teresa Dawson is a staff writer for Environment Hawaii and has freelanced for Environmental Health News and the Honolulu Weekly. She was born and raised in Hawaii.

.

Brace for Impact

SUBHEAD: It is time to focus on building a movement for adaptation to climate change.

By Daniel M. Voskoboynik on 22 February 2017 for New Internationalist -
(https://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2017/02/22/brace-for-impact-time-to-build-fight-for-climate-adaptation/)


Image above: Turkana women carry canisters to get water from a borehole near Baragoy, Kenya. Photo by Goran Tomasevic. From original article.

Responding to climate change is not just about curbing emissions, but also adapting to what has already changed.

The fight to tackle climate change has two core branches: mitigation (curbing excessive greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation (addressing the effects of climate change that are already unfolding). But although both areas are needed, the public tends to focus on the former in discussions on climate change.

The pressing priority is always to pull down emissions. Climate change is portrayed a future threat and our responsibility to act is framed in reference to our children and grandchildren. If environmental ruin is already here, it is deemed marginal compared to the tempests amassing on the horizon.

But this uneven focus on the future understates the gravity of present impacts. Today, climate change accounts for 87 per cent of disasters worldwide. Some of the worst droughts in decades are continuing to unravel across southeastern Africa and Latin America. Cyclonic storms, floods, wildfires, and landslides are bearing on the world’s most vulnerable populations.

The sudden violence of disasters is paralleled by the brutality of gradual change. Coastlines are being shaved and eroded by rising tides. The encroachment of sea water is increasing the salinity of littoral lands, leaving them withered and infertile. Rain patterns are shifting, shattering the millions who rely on the sky for sustenance. Every second, one person is forced to flee their home due to extreme climactic conditions.

This context of daily displacement and desolation means that the fight to tackle climate change today is fundamentally a fight to determine the fatality of the future. Yet adaptation, the crucial tool in that fight, has been side-lined and neglected.

So what is adaptation?

Adaptation means preparing our society for the climatic threats it faces and will face, insofar as we can.

It means weaving safety nets for the world’s most vulnerable populations.

It means bolstering river embankments, introducing measures to prevent diseases, building water-resistant infrastructure, expanding storm sewers and water storage, extending insurance, implementing disaster early-warning systems, and introducing a range of measures to palliate damage.

Some adaptation initiatives are already underway. From the Cook Islands to Morocco, farmers are adjusting practices and diversifying crops, to create a more climate-resilient agriculture. Current agricultural models, where monocultures breed vulnerability, are being transformed into biodiverse agrosystems.

In flood-prone areas, like Delaware, urban planners and citizens are re-engineering and re-designing neighborhoods to reduce the risk of inundation and future sea level rise.

In urban areas prone to intense heat, like the Indian city of Ahmedabad (which lost 1,300 citizens to a 2010 extreme heat wave), municipal officials are implementing heat action plans which train health workers, distribute cooling supplies, open public areas for shade, and raise public awareness.

In some areas, the only plausible form of adaptation is abandonment. In Fiji, villages such as Vunidogola are already being relocated after Cyclone Winston and other disasters devastated a number of settlements – while rising sea levels provide an additional layer of risk. The Fijian state has listed relocation as a top priority for the government.

A decade ago, the Maldivian government also organized a ‘staged retreat’, concentrating populations away from secluded islands threatened by rising sea levels.

In Alaska, the citizens of Newtok have applied for federal disaster relief to finance their own relocation, as thawing permafrost erodes the land under their feet, pulling the village towards the Ninglick River.

In China, the government has relocated over a million people away from areas governed by environmental hazards.

But adaptation is not just a technical exercise; it is also a struggle to shape what kind of world will greet the intensifying weather patterns of tomorrow. Whose lives will matter when the storms arrive?

Will the seawalls we build to hold back the swelling tides be accompanied by walls to hold out those fleeing?

The challenge of adaptation directly exposes the climate crisis as a crisis of social justice. All disasters break open the wounds of unequal societies. Storms do not discriminate, but they do make landfall on landscapes riven by disparities of wealth, power and safety.

The labels of ‘natural disaster’ and ‘extreme weather’ can mislead us into thinking that the principal dangers we face stem from the atmosphere’s furies.

But as geographer Jesse Ribot writes, ‘vulnerability does not fall from the sky.’ The wreckage of climate change is the product of collision: between environmental conditions and human realities.

This collision explains why women are far more likely than men to die in natural disasters and endure the slow violence of environmental degradation. It lies at the root of why ethnic minorities, the disabled, the silenced, and the neglected, are all disproportionately susceptible to the rigours of a changing climate.

Deep adaptation means challenging these inequities, reclaiming rights and cementing the best possible conditions for survival.

In Nairobi’s informal settlements, such as Mukuru, increasingly torrential rain spells misery for inhabitants. To build their community’s resilience, local activists are working to obtain land tenure that would enable them to defend their rights to water, health and sanitation.

What such initiatives illustrate is the agency we do have. While climate change will cause irreparable ‘loss and damage’ (impacts that just cannot be eased or adapted to), our human societies are usually the juries of fate, deciding whether cyclones will meet buttressed foundations or breaking beams.

We are still drastically unprepared across the board; the deadly European heatwaves of 2003 and 2010 revealed the stark inability even of the wealthiest economies of the world to adequately handle climatic shocks.

Finding the funding

But all transformations in politics come with costs and obstacles. The cost of adapting to climate change in ‘developing’ countries could reach $300 billion a year by 2030 and $500 billion by 2050. Funding is in short supply, with the richest states committing only meager contributions.

Rudimentary justice holds that those most responsible for a vulnerability bear the greater responsibility for redressing it, but climate change’s chief culprits remain reluctant to pay their fair share of adaptation finance to the world’s most vulnerable countries.

Neither will private finance emerge as a magical solution to the tasks of adaptation. Markets tend to follow active demand: needs backed by money. But what money can you make from displaced farmers or dispossessed communities?

As the impacts of climate change bite and politicians feel the heat of public discontent, governments are paying more lip service to ideals such as climate resilience.

But with environmental movements mostly focused on taming the drivers of climate change, this agenda of adaptation is largely being shaped by states and multilateral institutions, in ways which lay the burden of bearing at the feet of those most vulnerable.

Environmental scientist Stan Cox and anthropologist Paul Cox explain in How the World Breaks, that these models of adaptation envision a ‘resilience [which] is catastrophic by design, morally unhinged, because it counts on the vulnerable to absorb what the market sheds so that the market’s irreparable fragility can be conserved.

The vulnerable and the marginalized must have power, but not just the power to adapt; they must recapture the terms of adaptation.’

It is up to us to recapture those terms and ignite a discussion on transformative adaptation, where efforts to adjust to climate change can also serve as opportunities to decarbonize the economy, confront poverty, erode gender inequity, deliver racial justice and remediation to victims of environmental violence, suture community rifts, improve public health, and cement local resilience.

The future is here

The future is arriving sooner than expected.

Too often, our responses out of touch with the scale of the challenges they seek to address. In 2003, philosopher Seyla Benhabib wrote about grappling with new patterns of migration and globalization;

‘We are like travellers navigating an unknown terrain with the help of old maps, drawn at a different time and in response to different needs.’

It’s time to think big and retrace our maps along the lines of the new magnitude. Every gradient of warming we fail to slow needs to be compensated by an equal reduction in deprivation.

The task may seem daunting. With so many challenges facing our world, where do our limited energies go? How do you fight fires and prevent them at the same time?

There are few easy consolations, but one is clear: the solutions to our multiple problems can and should be found in the same places.

The struggle for climate adaptation is precisely the struggle for migrant rights, for decent work, for better infrastructure, for democracy, against gender violence. It is merely the struggle for a safer world, hastened by the alarms of shattering temperature records.

But by explicitly referencing adaptation, we can help humanize the realities of climate change, clarify our alternatives, and help ensure we can meet the incoming watershed with buffers of hope.

.

Climate Emergency Truths

SUBHEAD: Editorial on necessity of communal solutions to intractable problem of Global Warming.

By Staff on 7 December 2016 for Share the World's Resources -
(http://www.sharing.org/information-centre/articles/stwr-editorial-home-truths-about-climate-emergency)


Image above: Climate activists hold sign reading "1.5 to Stay Alive" referring to rise in centigrade temperature rise that insures life remains on Earth. From original article.

COP22 again highlighted the mismatch between illusive policy making and the stark reality of global warming. As always, it was left to civil society groups to uphold a vision of global cooperation and economic sharing as the only path towards a sustainable future.

As 2016 draws to a close, we appear to be living in a world that is increasingly defined by its illusions, where the truth is a matter of subjective interpretation or argumentative debate.

Indeed, following the United States election and Brexit referendum there is much talk of a new era of post-truth politics, in which appeals to emotion count more than verifiable facts.

But there are some facts that cannot be ignored for much longer, however hard we may try. And the greatest of all these facts is the escalating climate emergency that neither mainstream politicians, nor the public at large, are anywhere near to confronting on the urgent scale needed.

This was brought home once again at the latest Conference of the Parties held in Morocco last month, following the so-called ‘historic’ Paris Agreement of November 2015.

Dubbed the ‘implementation’ or ‘action COP’, the main purpose of the summit was to agree the rules for implementing the new agreement, as few countries have set out concrete plans for how they will achieve future emissions reductions post-2020.

 Far from justifying its nickname, however, the almost 200 nations participating in COP22 decided that the overarching goals and framework for international climate action will not be completed until 2018, with a mere review of progress in 2017.

Before the talks even commenced, the latest ‘emissions gap’ report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) highlighted the continued divergence between political and environmental/scientific reality.

According to UNEP’s analysis, the non-binding pledges made by governments in Paris could see temperatures rise by 3.4°C above pre-industrial levels this century, far beyond the 2°C considered a minimally safe upper limit.

To hit the more realistic 1.5°C target—which in itself will only mitigate, rather than eliminate severe climate impacts—the world must dramatically step up its ambition within the next few years before we use up the remaining carbon budget.

Yet this reality was not even a key focus of the COP22 discussions, where most delegates from developed countries spoke mainly of their post-2020 commitments, as if the deadline for an emergency mobilisation of effort can be postponed by another few years.

Ironically, several developed countries have not even ratified the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which comprises the pre-2020 period.

So after 24 years of negotiations, we are still heading towards a future that is “incompatible with an organised global community”, with no sign that the mismatch between rhetoric and action is near to closing.

As always, it was left to civil society groups to uphold the real hope and vision for how nations can begin traversing a path towards 1.5°C.

In an updated report for COP22, a coalition of campaigning organisations outlined the last chance we have of halting our race to environmental disaster, which will require massive emissions reductions before 2020 and major shifts in the real economy.

All of these transformations are technically viable and economically practicable, despite their apparent political infeasibility—such as a fossil energy investment and development moratorium; a necessary shift to agro-ecological farming practices; and a planned global transition to 100% renewable energy.

What remains central to achieving an effective programme of action, however, is a degree of international cooperation and economic sharing that is unprecedented in human history.

Such is the implicit message of both the 2016 and 2015 civil society equity reviews, which give a compelling justification for integrating the principle of ‘fair shares’ into a global effort-sharing framework.

Using an equity modelling approach based on domestic mitigation pledges and indicators for capacity and historical responsibility, the reports show how developed countries are offering a share of effort that is markedly less ambitious than developing countries.

Moreover, both reports demonstrate how developed countries have fair share obligations that are too large to be fulfilled solely within their own borders, even with extremely ambitious domestic actions.

So there is a moral, political and economic case for the wealthiest nations to vastly scale up their help to poorer countries in terms of international finance, technology sharing, and capacity-building support.

Put simply, campaigning organisations have used the most up-to-date scientific data to back up the argument that there cannot be hope for limiting global warming unless the principles of sharing, justice and equity are operationalised in a multilateral climate regime.

But it is also an argument based on common sense and fundamental notions of fairness, given the urgency of drastically cutting global emissions within the context of interdependent nations at starkly disparate levels of economic and material development.

As the civil society review for COP22 concludes, reiterating a basic truth of the climate justice movement: “Many of the changes needed to address the climate crisis are also needed to create a fairer world and better lives for us all. …Climate change affirms the urgency and necessity to shift to an equitable and just pathway of development.”

Of course, there is no sign that those countries with a higher capacity to act than others are facing up to their obligations to redistribute massive technological and financial resources to developing countries, thus enabling them to leapfrog onto rapid, low-carbon development paths.

Activists at COP22 used the slogan “WTF?” to ask “Where’s The Finance?”, as only between $18 billion and $34 billion has been granted of the $100 billion per year that developed countries committed to find by 2020.

A supposed “$100 Billion Roadmap” from the OECD was roundly debunked by both developing countries and civil society for using misleading numbers and various accounting tricks.

 All the while, new analysis shows that the true needs of the world’s poorest countries is in the realm of trillions of dollars, if they are to plausibly meet their Paris pledges by 2030 and help avoid catastrophic warming. But no increases in public financial contributions were forthcoming in Morocco, pushing any substantive decisions on the issue back for another two years.

So once again, we are left to wonder at the mismatch between illusive policymaking and the stark reality of global warming. 2016 broke all previous records for being the hottest year, while military leaders warned that climate change is already the greatest security threat of the 21st century, potentially leading to refugee problems on an unimaginable scale.

Yet developed countries continue to evade and postpone their responsibilities for mobilising an appropriate response, while often making decisions on national infrastructure and energy that directly contradict their putative climate change commitments.

Whether or not the United States withdraws from the Paris accords or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) altogether, the prospect of global carbon emissions beginning to decline before 2020 currently remains dim, to say the least.

Still none of this changes the core reality, which has remained the same ever since the UNFCCC negotiations began in the early 1990s. For there can be no hope of real and meaningful progress on tackling climate change, without a major commitment to North-South cooperation based upon a fairer sharing of global resources.

The simple truth is unavoidable, but time is running out before the world finally embraces its momentous implications.

COP22 again highlighted the mismatch between illusive policymaking and the stark reality of global warming. As always, it was left to civil society groups to uphold a vision of global cooperation and economic sharing as the only path towards a sustainable future. 

---

As 2016 draws to a close, we appear to be living in a world that is increasingly defined by its illusions, where the truth is a matter of subjective interpretation or argumentative debate. Indeed, following the United States election and Brexit referendum there is much talk of a new era of post-truth politics, in which appeals to emotion count more than verifiable facts. But there are some facts that cannot be ignored for much longer, however hard we may try. And the greatest of all these facts is the escalating climate emergency that neither mainstream politicians, nor the public at large, are anywhere near to confronting on the urgent scale needed.
This was brought home once again at the latest Conference of the Parties held in Morocco last month, following the so-called ‘historic’ Paris Agreement of November 2015. Dubbed the ‘implementation’ or ‘action COP’, the main purpose of the summit was to agree the rules for implementing the new agreement, as few countries have set out concrete plans for how they will achieve future emissions reductions post-2020. Far from justifying its nickname, however, the almost 200 nations participating in COP22 decided that the overarching goals and framework for international climate action will not be completed until 2018, with a mere review of progress in 2017.
Before the talks even commenced, the latest ‘emissions gap’ report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) highlighted the continued divergence between political and environmental/scientific reality. According to UNEP’s analysis, the non-binding pledges made by governments in Paris could see temperatures rise by 3.4°C above pre-industrial levels this century, far beyond the 2°C considered a minimally safe upper limit. To hit the more realistic 1.5°C target—which in itself will only mitigate, rather than eliminate severe climate impacts—the world must dramatically step up its ambition within the next few years before we use up the remaining carbon budget.
Yet this reality was not even a key focus of the COP22 discussions, where most delegates from developed countries spoke mainly of their post-2020 commitments, as if the deadline for an emergency mobilisation of effort can be postponed by another few years. Ironically, several developed countries have not even ratified the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which comprises the pre-2020 period. So after 24 years of negotiations, we are still heading towards a future that is “incompatible with an organised global community”, with no sign that the mismatch between rhetoric and action is near to closing.
As always, it was left to civil society groups to uphold the real hope and vision for how nations can begin traversing a path towards 1.5°C. In an updated report for COP22, a coalition of campaigning organisations outlined the last chance we have of halting our race to environmental disaster, which will require massive emissions reductions before 2020 and major shifts in the real economy. All of these transformations are technically viable and economically practicable, despite their apparent political infeasibility—such as a fossil energy investment and development moratorium; a necessary shift to agro-ecological farming practices; and a planned global transition to 100% renewable energy.
What remains central to achieving an effective programme of action, however, is a degree of international cooperation and economic sharing that is unprecedented in human history. Such is the implicit message of both the 2016 and 2015 civil society equity reviews, which give a compelling justification for integrating the principle of ‘fair shares’ into a global effort-sharing framework. Using an equity modelling approach based on domestic mitigation pledges and indicators for capacity and historical responsibility, the reports show how developed countries are offering a share of effort that is markedly less ambitious than developing countries.
Moreover, both reports demonstrate how developed countries have fair share obligations that are too large to be fulfilled solely within their own borders, even with extremely ambitious domestic actions. So there is a moral, political and economic case for the wealthiest nations to vastly scale up their help to poorer countries in terms of international finance, technology sharing, and capacity-building support.
Put simply, campaigning organisations have used the most up-to-date scientific data to back up the argument that there cannot be hope for limiting global warming unless the principles of sharing, justice and equity are operationalised in a multilateral climate regime. But it is also an argument based on common sense and fundamental notions of fairness, given the urgency of drastically cutting global emissions within the context of interdependent nations at starkly disparate levels of economic and material development. As the civil society review for COP22 concludes, reiterating a basic truth of the climate justice movement: “Many of the changes needed to address the climate crisis are also needed to create a fairer world and better lives for us all. …Climate change affirms the urgency and necessity to shift to an equitable and just pathway of development.”
Of course, there is no sign that those countries with a higher capacity to act than others are facing up to their obligations to redistribute massive technological and financial resources to developing countries, thus enabling them to leapfrog onto rapid, low-carbon development paths. Activists at COP22 used the slogan “WTF?” to ask “Where’s The Finance?”, as only between $18 billion and $34 billion has been granted of the $100 billion per year that developed countries committed to find by 2020. A supposed “$100 Billion Roadmap” from the OECD was roundly debunked by both developing countries and civil society for using misleading numbers and various accounting tricks. All the while, new analysis shows that the true needs of the world’s poorest countries is in the realm of trillions of dollars, if they are to plausibly meet their Paris pledges by 2030 and help avoid catastrophic warming. But no increases in public financial contributions were forthcoming in Morocco, pushing any substantive decisions on the issue back for another two years.
So once again, we are left to wonder at the mismatch between illusive policymaking and the stark reality of global warming. 2016 broke all previous records for being the hottest year, while military leaders warned that climate change is already the greatest security threat of the 21st century, potentially leading to refugee problems on an unimaginable scale. Yet developed countries continue to evade and postpone their responsibilities for mobilising an appropriate response, while often making decisions on national infrastructure and energy that directly contradict their putative climate change commitments. Whether or not the United States withdraws from the Paris accords or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) altogether, the prospect of global carbon emissions beginning to decline before 2020 currently remains dim, to say the least.
Still none of this changes the core reality, which has remained the same ever since the UNFCCC negotiations began in the early 1990s. For there can be no hope of real and meaningful progress on tackling climate change, without a major commitment to North-South cooperation based upon a fairer sharing of global resources. The simple truth is unavoidable, but time is running out before the world finally embraces its momentous implications.
- See more at: http://www.sharing.org/information-centre/articles/stwr-editorial-home-truths-about-climate-emergency#sthash.LWjJYgGD.dpuf

COP22 again highlighted the mismatch between illusive policymaking and the stark reality of global warming. As always, it was left to civil society groups to uphold a vision of global cooperation and economic sharing as the only path towards a sustainable future. 

---

As 2016 draws to a close, we appear to be living in a world that is increasingly defined by its illusions, where the truth is a matter of subjective interpretation or argumentative debate. Indeed, following the United States election and Brexit referendum there is much talk of a new era of post-truth politics, in which appeals to emotion count more than verifiable facts. But there are some facts that cannot be ignored for much longer, however hard we may try. And the greatest of all these facts is the escalating climate emergency that neither mainstream politicians, nor the public at large, are anywhere near to confronting on the urgent scale needed.
This was brought home once again at the latest Conference of the Parties held in Morocco last month, following the so-called ‘historic’ Paris Agreement of November 2015. Dubbed the ‘implementation’ or ‘action COP’, the main purpose of the summit was to agree the rules for implementing the new agreement, as few countries have set out concrete plans for how they will achieve future emissions reductions post-2020. Far from justifying its nickname, however, the almost 200 nations participating in COP22 decided that the overarching goals and framework for international climate action will not be completed until 2018, with a mere review of progress in 2017.
Before the talks even commenced, the latest ‘emissions gap’ report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) highlighted the continued divergence between political and environmental/scientific reality. According to UNEP’s analysis, the non-binding pledges made by governments in Paris could see temperatures rise by 3.4°C above pre-industrial levels this century, far beyond the 2°C considered a minimally safe upper limit. To hit the more realistic 1.5°C target—which in itself will only mitigate, rather than eliminate severe climate impacts—the world must dramatically step up its ambition within the next few years before we use up the remaining carbon budget.
Yet this reality was not even a key focus of the COP22 discussions, where most delegates from developed countries spoke mainly of their post-2020 commitments, as if the deadline for an emergency mobilisation of effort can be postponed by another few years. Ironically, several developed countries have not even ratified the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which comprises the pre-2020 period. So after 24 years of negotiations, we are still heading towards a future that is “incompatible with an organised global community”, with no sign that the mismatch between rhetoric and action is near to closing.
As always, it was left to civil society groups to uphold the real hope and vision for how nations can begin traversing a path towards 1.5°C. In an updated report for COP22, a coalition of campaigning organisations outlined the last chance we have of halting our race to environmental disaster, which will require massive emissions reductions before 2020 and major shifts in the real economy. All of these transformations are technically viable and economically practicable, despite their apparent political infeasibility—such as a fossil energy investment and development moratorium; a necessary shift to agro-ecological farming practices; and a planned global transition to 100% renewable energy.
What remains central to achieving an effective programme of action, however, is a degree of international cooperation and economic sharing that is unprecedented in human history. Such is the implicit message of both the 2016 and 2015 civil society equity reviews, which give a compelling justification for integrating the principle of ‘fair shares’ into a global effort-sharing framework. Using an equity modelling approach based on domestic mitigation pledges and indicators for capacity and historical responsibility, the reports show how developed countries are offering a share of effort that is markedly less ambitious than developing countries.
Moreover, both reports demonstrate how developed countries have fair share obligations that are too large to be fulfilled solely within their own borders, even with extremely ambitious domestic actions. So there is a moral, political and economic case for the wealthiest nations to vastly scale up their help to poorer countries in terms of international finance, technology sharing, and capacity-building support.
Put simply, campaigning organisations have used the most up-to-date scientific data to back up the argument that there cannot be hope for limiting global warming unless the principles of sharing, justice and equity are operationalised in a multilateral climate regime. But it is also an argument based on common sense and fundamental notions of fairness, given the urgency of drastically cutting global emissions within the context of interdependent nations at starkly disparate levels of economic and material development. As the civil society review for COP22 concludes, reiterating a basic truth of the climate justice movement: “Many of the changes needed to address the climate crisis are also needed to create a fairer world and better lives for us all. …Climate change affirms the urgency and necessity to shift to an equitable and just pathway of development.”
Of course, there is no sign that those countries with a higher capacity to act than others are facing up to their obligations to redistribute massive technological and financial resources to developing countries, thus enabling them to leapfrog onto rapid, low-carbon development paths. Activists at COP22 used the slogan “WTF?” to ask “Where’s The Finance?”, as only between $18 billion and $34 billion has been granted of the $100 billion per year that developed countries committed to find by 2020. A supposed “$100 Billion Roadmap” from the OECD was roundly debunked by both developing countries and civil society for using misleading numbers and various accounting tricks. All the while, new analysis shows that the true needs of the world’s poorest countries is in the realm of trillions of dollars, if they are to plausibly meet their Paris pledges by 2030 and help avoid catastrophic warming. But no increases in public financial contributions were forthcoming in Morocco, pushing any substantive decisions on the issue back for another two years.
So once again, we are left to wonder at the mismatch between illusive policymaking and the stark reality of global warming. 2016 broke all previous records for being the hottest year, while military leaders warned that climate change is already the greatest security threat of the 21st century, potentially leading to refugee problems on an unimaginable scale. Yet developed countries continue to evade and postpone their responsibilities for mobilising an appropriate response, while often making decisions on national infrastructure and energy that directly contradict their putative climate change commitments. Whether or not the United States withdraws from the Paris accords or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) altogether, the prospect of global carbon emissions beginning to decline before 2020 currently remains dim, to say the least.
Still none of this changes the core reality, which has remained the same ever since the UNFCCC negotiations began in the early 1990s. For there can be no hope of real and meaningful progress on tackling climate change, without a major commitment to North-South cooperation based upon a fairer sharing of global resources. The simple truth is unavoidable, but time is running out before the world finally embraces its momentous implications.
- See more at: http://www.sharing.org/information-centre/articles/stwr-editorial-home-truths-about-climate-emergency#sthash.LWjJYgGD.dpuf
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