
A âwake up callâ, an âalarm bellâ, a âcode red for humanityâ, and âthe starkest warning yetââthese are among the most common terms used to describe the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changeâs (IPCC) latest major report. Since the reportâs release on 9 August thereâs been a steady stream of articles pointing out (once again) that we can no longer afford to ignore the scienceâif the world fails to rapidly reduce emissions, weâre headed for disaster.
The reportâthe product of the collaborative effort of 234 scientists from 66 countries who between them drew on 14,000 peer-reviewed studiesâcertainly makes for some bracing reading. No one, however, who has been paying attention to climate science in recent years will have found anything completely shocking and new. Whatâs most novel, perhaps, is the increased sense of certainty about what weâre seeing, and what we can expect to see in the coming years and decades.
One of the reportâs most headline-grabbing findings is that itâs now very likely impossible for us to limit warming to below the 1.5 degrees Celsius level that many scientists regard as âsafeâ. Even if global greenhouse gas emissions begin to fall steeply from today, we will still break through the 1.5 degree barrier sometime in the 2030s. If, as is almost certain, we fail to cut emissions as rapidly as projected in the most optimistic scenarios considered, then by the middle of the century the temperature rise will have pushed through 2 degrees and could end up as high as 5.7 degrees above the pre-industrial era average by 2100.
Even at 1 degree warmer, which is where we are today, we can already see the impact. In the past few months there have been a series of âonce in a thousand yearâ weather extremes. Large swathes of the northern hemisphereâfrom the northwest of North America, through southern Europe, and across into Siberiaâhave been ravaged by drought, record-smashing heat, and devastating fires. Meanwhile, other parts of the worldâsuch as Germany, China, India, and Japanâwere hit by extreme rainfall and flooding. In Turkey, flash flooding in the north killed at least 59 people less than a week after southern Turkey was dealing with devastating bushfires.
If thereâs one main take away from the report, itâs that no matter what happens from here, weâre going to see much more of this, and worse, for at least the next few decades. And very likely, given the failure so far to cut greenhouse gas emissions at all, never mind at the rate required to avoid warming over 2 degrees, the second half of the century will be worse again. Death and destruction on a vast scale are already locked in, and if we want to avoid a situation in which the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions, if not billions of people are threatened, we need to change course very soon.
Itâs true, then, that this new report is a âwake up callâ. But it would be fatal for the climate movement (and by extension, for humanity), to think this call is likely to be heeded. There have been many such calls, alarms, stark warnings, and âcode redsâ in the past few decades. And if despite all the reports, and despite the mounting scale of destruction weâre seeing around the world, our leaders still arenât awake, we might wonder whether yet another warning from scientists, however authoritative and however alarming it may be, will be enough to rouse them.
More likely theyâll do what they usually do: wait for the flurry of media to die-down, then press âsnoozeâ again and hope itâs a few more years at least until humanityâs next major climate âwake up callâ. This might seem like a very irrational way to behave. But when you look at things from the perspective of the global capitalist ruling class and the politicians who serve them, it makes sense. Their immense wealth and power was built off the fossil fuel hungry system as it exists today, and they doubtless feel (legitimately) that any radical change to the status quo will be counter to their interests.
At the same time, as weâve seen again and again when disasters have struck, the same wealth and power can be used by the ruling class to protect themselves from the worst impacts of climate change. Theyâre not the ones who are going to bear the brunt of the increased frequency and intensity of heatwaves, fires and floods. In a worst case scenario they will be able to retreat to well protected enclaves or bunkers in New Zealand and other remote and temperate parts of the world. Some of them are actively planning for this already.
Many have pointed out that the IPCC has given us some reason to be hopeful. If we can succeed in bringing emissions down by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and to zero by 2050 at latest, then we have a good chance of limiting warming to around 1.5 degrees. But if the long history of failure in this area tells us anything, itâs that we canât rely on our existing leaders to get us there.
Australiaâs coal fondling Prime Minister Scott Morrison has already made his stance clear. Not only did he fail to indicate any inclination at all to begin the process of dismantling Australiaâs âworld leadingâ fossil fuel economy, he acted as if the countryâs completely pathetic and token emissions reduction efforts to date were something worth celebrating. Meanwhile, he sought to deflect the blame for rising emissions onto others, saying âwe cannot ignore the fact that the developing world accounts for two-thirds of global emissionsâ, and offered up the prospect of future âtechnology breakthroughsâ as an alternative to making the kind of rapid emissions cuts the IPCC sees as necessary. We can, unfortunately, expect little better from the Labor Party.
Our one real hope remains to form a movement powerful enough either to force them to act or, if that fails, to sweep them aside and begin the task of repairing the damage and building a better world ourselves.
Source: Redflag.org.au