James Hansen says limit will be passed ‘for all practical purposes’ by May though other experts predict that will happen in 2030s
The internationally agreed threshold to prevent the Earth from spiraling into a new superheated era will be “passed for all practical purposes” during 2024, the man known as the godfather of climate science has warned.
James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist credited for alerting the world to the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, said that global heating caused by the burning of fossil fuels, amplified by the naturally reoccurring El Niño climatic event, will by May push temperatures to as much as 1.7C (3F) above the average experienced before industrialization.
This temperature high, measured over the 12-month period to May, will not by itself break the commitment made by the world’s governments to limit global heating to 1.5C (2.7F) above the time before the dominance of coal, oil and gas. Scientists say the 1.5C ceiling cannot be considered breached until a string of several years exceed this limit, with this moment considered most likely to happen at some point in the 2030s.
As the global stocktake has found, policies on cutting emissions remain a long way off what is needed to hold temperatures to well below 2°C – let alone 1.5°C. The recently published 2023 UN emissions gap report, which tracks our progress in limiting global warming, echoes the same concern. The report revealed that the world is on track for 2.9°C of global warming, and maybe considerably more, before the end of this century.
As the latest UN climate change summit (COP28) gets underway in Dubai, conversations around limiting global warming to 1.5°C will confront a harsh reality. Global temperatures have surged over the past year, with the monthly global average surpassing 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels during the summer. Some days in November have even breached 2°C of warming for the first time.
Since the Glasgow Climate Summit in 2021, the UN has been conducting a review of our progress towards limiting temperature rise in line with the Paris Agreement. This review, which is set to conclude in Dubai, aims to make countries ratchet up their emission reduction commitments.
The evidence from this two-year “stocktake” is now available, and it shows just how far off track we are. To restrict global warming to 1.5°C, countries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40% by 2030, yet emissions are currently on the rise.
Countries around the world have borne the human and economic toll. The United Arab Emirates itself is one of the latest countries to be hit by severe flooding, with parts of Dubai under water for the first time. This has led some, including the legendary climate scientist James Hansen, to speculate that climate scientists have underestimated the pace of change.
The evidence itself presents a more balanced view. Climate change has indeed accelerated, but this uptick in pace was entirely predicted by climate models and is expected due to greenhouse emissions being at an all-time high.
The potential for confusion as we approach 1.5°C of global warming makes it all the more crucial to track rising temperatures and climate change as they develop between the comprehensive Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments. The next assessment isn’t expected until around 2030.
A broken record
As the global stocktake has found, policies on cutting emissions remain a long way off what is needed to hold temperatures to well below 2°C – let alone 1.5°C. The recently published 2023 UN emissions gap report, which tracks our progress in limiting global warming, echoes the same concern. The report revealed that the world is on track for 2.9°C of global warming, and maybe considerably more, before the end of this century.
If this sounds like a broken record – as emphasised by the report’s cover art – it is. The message that we need urgent action and stronger emissions cuts to avoid the worst climate impacts is far from new, but still somehow needs to hit home.
The UN emissions gap report finds that 80% of climate change can be attributed to G20 countries, a group consisting of the world’s major economies. Within the bloc, western countries generally have ambitious emissions reduction targets, but are failing to deliver on them. By contrast, countries including China, India, Mexico and Indonesia are largely overachieving much weaker targets, but are failing on ambition.
This divide is evident in national submissions to the global stocktake process. Western countries are urging the rest of the world to increase ambition, while other nations are urging western governments to deliver on their finance and other commitments, especially in providing sufficient funding to help developing countries adapt to the harmful effects of climate change.
Inequalities in how emissions vary across a country’s population were highlighted in the UN Emissions Gap report and also in a dedicated report by Oxfam. The report revealed that the world’s wealthiest 1% account for 16% of global emissions. These wealthy people each emit more than 100 tonnes of CO₂ every year, 15 times the global average.
Inequality drives vulnerability. The same report showed that floods kill seven times as many people in countries with higher levels of inequality than they do in more equal ones.
A crucial period
The gloomy picture places a clear focus on the need for transformative progress at COP28 and beyond. In a report that was released ahead of COP, the International Energy Agency places the challenge firmly at the door of the oil and gas sector.
This report found that only 1% of clean energy investment comes from the industry, and that oil and gas use needs to decline by 75% or more to be compatible with net zero targets. The industry needs to undergo radical change.
If oil and gas firms urgently remove emissions from their operations, especially around methane leaks, and invest in trebling global renewable energy capacity by 2030 instead of extraction, they can be a force for change.
Discussions around the role of oil and gas will be a recurring theme both at COP28 and at future climate change summits. But concerted efforts to reduce methane emissions, build renewable energy infrastructure, roll out electric vehicles and halt deforestation globally could also see emissions fall significantly by 2030, consequently slowing down the rate of warming.
Investment in global renewable energy capacity needs to be trebled by 2030. SkyMediaPro/Shutterstock
Whether the discussions in Dubai lead to the transformative change we need remains to be seen. However, it is essential to continue offering independent, expert and respected advice to governments through organisations like the UK Climate Change Committee, which I currently chair, and the International Climate Councils Network. This effort is crucial in advocating for transformative change across all sectors and in providing consistent and ambitious national emission reduction policies that are based on evidence.
As we approach 1.5°C of global warming, we need to work even harder. To quote from a recent article in US magazine Scientific American: “Declarations that 1.5°C is dead make no sense. Global temperature limits don’t die if we surpass them. People do.”
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Eight years ago, the world agreed to an ambitious target in the Paris Agreement: hold warming to 1.5°C to limit further dangerous levels of climate change.
Since then, greenhouse gas emissions have kept increasing – and climate disasters have become front page news, from mega-bushfires to unprecedented floods.
In 2023, the world is at 1.2°C of warming over pre-industrial levels. Heatwaves of increasing intensity and duration are arriving around the world. We now have less than 10 years before we reach 1.5°C of warming.
This week, the COP28 climate talks will begin against a backdrop of evermore strident warnings from climate scientists and world leaders. United Nations chief António Guterres has warned climate action is “dwarfed by the scale of the challenge” and that we have “opened the gates of hell”. In his latest climate letter, Pope Francis quotes bishops from Africa who dub the climate crisis a “tragic and striking example of structural sin”.
Global monthly land and ocean anomalies from 1850, relative to the 1901-2000 average. NOAA, CC BY-SA
In the United Arab Emirates, the 198 nations in the UN’s climate framework will gather for COP28. Can we expect to see real progress – or half-measures?
Watch for these three key issues facing negotiators.
1. Taking stock of progress on climate action
This year, a critical issue will be the global stocktake, the key mechanism designed to ratchet up climate ambition under the 2015 Paris Agreement. This is the first time each nation’s emission cut targets and benefits from climate adaptation or economic diversification plans have been assessed.
The stocktake reveals what track we are on. Do the combined emission cut promises from all countries mean we can limit warming to 1.5°C? If not, what is the “emissions gap” – and how much more ambitious do nation’s emission reductions need to be?
There’s been progress, but not nearly enough. If all national emissions pledges became a reality, global warming would peak between 2.1-2.8°C.
That leaves an emissions gap of around 22.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over the period to 2030.
It is very good that the worst-case scenarios – unchecked warming and 4+ degrees of global heating by 2100 are now looking unlikely. But a 2°C world would bring unacceptable harm and irreversible damage.
We’ll need much more ambitious targets and support to cut global greenhouse gas emissions 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels if we are to reach net zero CO₂ emissions by 2050 globally. A major measure of COP28’s success will be whether the major emitting nations agree on more ambitious emission reduction actions.
2. Who pays for climate loss and damage?
For decades, nations have wrestled over the fraught question of who should pay for loss and damage resulting from climate change.
Now we’re close to finalising arrangements for the new Loss and Damage Fund. This will be the second major issue for negotiators at COP28.
So far, governments have drawn up a blueprint for the new fund. Expect to see debate over who will manage the fund – the World Bank? A UN agency? – and whether emerging economies such as China will provide funds. To date, there’s no target for how much money the fund will hold and disburse. The blueprint must be formally adopted at COP28 before it can begin operating.
Why a new fund? Other climate finance commitments are aimed at cutting emissions or helping societies adapt to climate impacts. This fund deals specifically with the loss and damage from the unavoidable impacts of climate change, like rising sea levels, prolonged heatwaves, desertification, the acidification of the sea, extreme weather and crop failures.
Think of the damage from the unprecedented floods in Pakistan or Libya, for instance.
Libya’s devastating floods in September killed thousands. Shutterstock
3. Where’s the climate finance?
A major issue in climate negotiations is how countries can transform their economies so they are “climate ready”, with lower emissions and boosted resilience. For developing countries, this requires massive levels of investment and new technologies to let them “leapfrog” fossil fuel dependency.
This is likely to be a critical sticking point. To date, climate finance has flowed too slowly. Under the Paris Agreement, rich countries promised to provide funds of A$150 billion a year every year. This has been slow in coming, though it is nudging closer, with $130 billion flowing in 2021.
Unless we see significant progress on climate finance – including making the Loss and Damage Fund a reality and meeting the existing commitments – we’re unlikely to see progress on other key issues such as ratcheting up emission cuts under the stocktake mechanism, phasing out fossil fuels and work on preserving biodiversity.
How do you build a 198-government consensus?
One reason climate negotiations advance slowly is the need for consensus.
All 198 governments must agree on each decision. This means any one nation or group of countries can block a proposal or force the wording to be changed in order for it to be approved.
The votes of less wealthy countries – including small island nations and least developed countries – therefore carry as much weight as the G20 nations, who account for about 85% of global GDP. This has in the past worked to increase the level of climate action, including the focus on 1.5°C as the global warming target.
The COP28 President is Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, who has attracted controversy due to the fact he heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Expect to see considerable debate over wording. Will governments agree to the “phasing down of fossil fuels” or just the “phasing down of unabated fossil fuels”?
It might sound like quibbling but it’s not – the second option, for instance, implies the heavy use of yet-to-be-proven carbon capture and storage technologies and offsets.
Sultan al-Jaber has, to his credit, promoted some progressive agenda items including a focus on the conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of nature to help achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Here, there are welcome commonalities with the major global biodiversity pact struck late last year, the Global Biodiversity Framework, aimed at stemming the extinction of species and degradation of ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems store carbon and help people adapt to the climate change already here.
As nations prepare for a fortnight of intense negotiation, the stakes are higher than they have ever been. Now the question is – can the world community seize the moment?
Wind turbines are shown in front of a coal-fired power plant operated by energy giant RWE near Niederaussem, Germany on October 5, 2022. (Photo: Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images)
The International Energy Agency warned that while renewable energy use is surging, fossil fuel production worldwide remains “far too high” to prevent catastrophic warming.
The International Energy Agency warned Tuesday that governments aren’t moving with nearly enough urgency to phase out fossil fuels, leaving the world on a perilous track toward 2.4°C of warming above preindustrial levels by the end of the century.
While the IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook (WEO) report celebrates “the phenomenal rise of clean energy technologies such as solar, wind, electric cars, and heat pumps,” it makes clear that the continued burning of oil, gas, and coal is undermining global renewable energy progress.
“As things stand, demand for fossil fuels is set to remain far too high to keep within reach the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5°C,” the IEA said. “The costs of inaction could be enormous: despite the impressive clean energy growth based on today’s policy settings, global emissions would remain high enough to push up global average temperatures by around 2.4°C this century, well above the key threshold set out in the Paris Agreement.”
The IEA released its annual report just over a month before the COP28 summit in the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s top oil producers.
Kelly Trout, research director at Oil Change International, said in a statement Tuesday that the IEA’s analysis provides a “roadmap for the upcoming United Nations Climate Change COP28 negotiations: limiting warming to 1.5°C requires a clear decision on a fast, fair, and fully funded end of fossil fuels as well as a rapid deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency, with wealthy countries in the lead and paying their fair share for a just energy transition.”
“We can’t solve the climate crisis by adding renewable energy on top of new fossil fuels—we need to rapidly replace and phase out all fossil fuels, including gas,” said Trout. “There is a massive and deadly gap between current policies, which still lead to higher oil and gas use in 2030 than today, and the rapid declines in fossil fuels required to stave off runaway climate disaster. Every investment in new oil and gas infrastructure is an investment in more methane leaks, more warming, and more of the extreme heat, floods, fires, and drought destroying communities and ecosystems.”
“We need a fast and fair plan to phase out polluting fossil fuels that are killing us.”
The energy agency said the rapid emergence and deployment of renewable energy—including wind and solar power and electric vehicles—are keeping alive hopes of preventing catastrophic warming.
“The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said Tuesday. “It’s not a question of ‘if,’ it’s just a matter of ‘how soon’—and the sooner the better for all of us.”
But the agency cautioned that even major increases in clean energy use won’t be enough to limit planetary warming if fossil fuel use doesn’t sharply decline. A recent NASA-led study found that keeping warming below 2°C by century’s end is “critical to limiting dangerous and cascading impacts” of climate change.
The IEA’s report notes that the world is currently set for “an unprecedented surge” in new liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, which are heavily polluting. The agency observed that “more than half of the new projects are in the United States and Qatar.”
Kaisa Kosonen, policy coordinator at Greenpeace International, said in response to the new report that “every new fossil fuel project is in stark violation of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming limit—leaders simply cannot claim to be in support of global action on climate change while supporting fossil fuel expansion.”
“We need a fast and fair plan to phase out polluting fossil fuels that are killing us,” said Kosonen. “Those who’ve polluted and profited the most must be made accountable and financially support the most vulnerable people, communities, and countries in their transition to clean, renewable energy.”
If all oil-producing nations followed the United Arab Emirates’ strategy, the world’s carbon budget for 1.5°C would be exceeded many times over.
COP28 host the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has plans in place to extract 38 billion barrels of oil and gas between now and 2085 – with significant further reserves that could also be extracted in that time.
If all oil producing nations followed such a strategy, the world’s carbon budget for 1.5°C would be exceeded many times over. As one of the wealthiest petrostates in the world – with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of $44,000 (Dh161,590) – the “common but differentiated responsibility” clause of the 2015 Paris Agreement could arguably mean that the UAE should end oil and gas production sooner than other, less wealthy nations – but as yet the UAE has no such plans.
According to exclusive data from Energy Monitor’s parent company, GlobalData, there are some 28.3 billion barrels of oil remaining in active fields in the UAE, with a further 1.5 billion barrels in fields that are currently planned.
Active fields in the UAE also have some 38.2 trillion cubic feet (trcf) of gas remaining, while planned fields contain 10.5trcf of gas. The combined volume of hydrocarbons in active and planned oil and gas fields in the UAE adds up to 38.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
The UAE is continuing to develop new oil and gas fields despite the International Energy Agency (IEA) repeatedly warning that for the world to meet its target of net zero by mid-century, oil and gas use must go into managed decline, with no new oil and gas fields approved for development beyond those already in existence.
The UAE’s oil plans are in the spotlight right now given the country’s high-profile role hosting the next annual UN climate conference, COP28, which is taking place in Dubai at the end of November.
Given that the burning of fossil fuels is by far the largest contributor to global warming, the UAE’s position as the world’s seventh-largest oil producer, and 14th-largest gas producer, is a major point of concern among climate experts.
