Response: What is being done?
Video 1: UN Development Programme: to play with sound, scroll to the bottom of this page
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What is being done?
Summary
We’re heading for a climate disaster, and yet every year, governments spend hundreds of billions of public funds on fossil fuel subsidies. Imagine if we had spent hundreds of billions per year subsidising giant meteors? That’s what you’re doing right now. – Video 1 (above) Velociraptor (on behalf of the the United Nations).
The time is now, Ināia tonu nei, to lead the change we want to see and to remain steadfast to the values that underpin our nationhood—values like whanaungatanga, kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga. – Climate Change Commission 2021
- November 2024: The latest COP, where countries get together and decide what to do about climate change, was an abysmal failure. It prompted a joint statement from climate scientists across the globe:
…it is today well established that 1.5°C is a limit. Go beyond it and five large tipping point systems are likely to be crossed… In addition, 1.5°C will with zero uncertainty, imply life-threatening extreme events affecting millions of people due to severely amplified droughts, floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, and fires.
The remaining global carbon budget to have a 50% chance of holding the 1.5°C limit is down to 200 billion tons of CO2. This means the budget is consumed by 2029 at current rate of emissions (approximately 40 billion tons/yr). The world has so far failed to bend the global curve of emissions, which not only means we are running out of carbon budget, we are very likely unable to hold 1.5°C without overshoot. The best IPCC scenarios (C2) that can still hold 1.5°C limit by 2100, breaches 1.5°C in 2030-2035 (i.e., in only 5-10 years time) with 30-40 years of overshoot, up to some 1.7-1.8 °C. This overshoot scenario is the best science can offer today, i.e., it requires (1) staying within the remaining carbon budget, which in turn means (2) cutting global emissions by 40-50% by 2030, to (3) reach zero by 2050.
In addition, we need to secure the carbon sinks in the ocean and in nature on land, and cross our fingers that no tipping points are crossed during overshoot (as this will likely amplify the rate of warming and create even more extreme climate impacts affecting people across the world). – Joint Statement on the New Common Quantified Goal (NCQG) of Climate Finance and Its Delivery on the 1.5°C Paris Agreement Goal
- July 2024: We are no longer on track for net zero under the National-led coalition Government’s new climate ‘plan’.
- Late 2023: International Energy Agency: increasing global population and consumption is increasing fossil fuel emissions, outpacing the growth of renewable energy.
- The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report is the best “road map” for how to most effectively reduce emissions. It is a complicated read, so we recommend Carbon Brief’s (free to access) Q&A explainer.
- In July 2023 global average temperatures passed 1.5°C; Climate Analytics is working out how much we can overshoot this and what it will cost to bring it back under this critical temperature.
- Per head of population, Aotearoa is the worst country on Earth in cumulative emitted since 1850 (Fig. 1). We rank 44 out of 45 of the world’s Industrialised countries (Fig. 2). We’re using more than six times our fair share of the carbon emissions budget that would keep global temperature increases below 1.5°C.
- Our agricultural sector produces 50% of our emissions (Fig. 4) but, propped up by taxpayer dollars are exempt from the Emissions Trading Scheme.
- The Emissions Trading Scheme makes it more financially lucrative to plant radiata pine, than restoring native forests (Fig. 5). This ignores the carbon stored in native forest soils vastly exceeds carbon in the soils of monoculture pine forests. And biodiverse native forest store just as much if not more carbon above the ground, while also providing life-supporting ecosystem services.
- We have run out of time to avoid some of the worsening climate impacts over the coming decades but we can avoid catastrophic impacts if ecosystems are restored and the New Zealand Government stops subsidising fossil fuels.
- See NIWA’s climate projections for Aotearoa New Zealand
Other sections
Home > Climate wiki >
Video: UNDP: to play sound, scroll to page bottom
Summary
We’re heading for a climate disaster, and yet every year, governments spend hundreds of billions of public funds on fossil fuel subsidies. Imagine if we had spent hundreds of billions per year subsidising giant meteors? That’s what you’re doing right now. – Video 1 (above) Velociraptor (on behalf of the the United Nations).
The time is now, Ināia tonu nei, to lead the change we want to see and to remain steadfast to the values that underpin our nationhood—values like whanaungatanga, kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga. – Climate Change Commission 2021
- November 2024: The latest COP, where countries get together and decide what to do about climate change, was an abysmal failure, prompting a joint statement from climate scientists across the globe:
…it is today well established that 1.5°C is a limit. Go beyond it and five large tipping point systems are likely to be crossed… In addition, 1.5°C will with zero uncertainty, imply life-threatening extreme events affecting millions of people due to severely amplified droughts, floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, and fires.
The remaining global carbon budget to have a 50% chance of holding the 1.5°C limit is down to 200 billion tons of CO2. This means the budget is consumed by 2029 at current rate of emissions (approximately 40 billion tons/yr). The world has so far failed to bend the global curve of emissions, which not only means we are running out of carbon budget, we are very likely unable to hold 1.5°C without overshoot. The best IPCC scenarios (C2) that can still hold 1.5°C limit by 2100, breaches 1.5°C in 2030-2035 (i.e., in only 5-10 years time) with 30-40 years of overshoot, up to some 1.7-1.8 °C. This overshoot scenario is the best science can offer today, i.e., it requires (1) staying within the remaining carbon budget, which in turn means (2) cutting global emissions by 40-50% by 2030, to (3) reach zero by 2050.
In addition, we need to secure the carbon sinks in the ocean and in nature on land, and cross our fingers that no tipping points are crossed during overshoot (as this will likely amplify the rate of warming and create even more extreme climate impacts affecting people across the world). – Joint Statement on the New Common Quantified Goal (NCQG) of Climate Finance and Its Delivery on the 1.5°C Paris Agreement Goal
- July 2024: We are no longer on track for net zero under the National-led coalition Government’s new climate ‘plan’.
- Late 2023: International Energy Agency: increasing global population and consumption is increasing fossil fuel emissions, outpacing the growth of renewable energy.
- The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report is the best “road map” for how to most effectively reduce emissions. It is a complicated read, so we recommend Carbon Brief’s (free to access) Q&A explainer.
- In July 2023 global average temperatures passed 1.5°C; Climate Analytics is working out how much we can overshoot this and what it will cost to bring it back under this critical temperature.
- Per head of population, Aotearoa is the worst country on Earth in cumulative emitted since 1850 (Fig. 1). We rank 44 out of 45 of the world’s Industrialised countries (Fig. 2). We’re using more than six times our fair share of the carbon emissions budget that would keep global temperature increases below 1.5°C.
- Our agricultural sector produces 50% of our emissions (Fig. 4) but, propped up by taxpayer dollars are exempt from the Emissions Trading Scheme.
- The Emissions Trading Scheme makes it more financially lucrative to plant radiata pine, than restoring native forests (Fig. 5). This ignores the carbon stored in native forest soils vastly exceeds carbon in the soils of monoculture pine forests. And biodiverse native forest store just as much if not more carbon above the ground, while also providing life-supporting ecosystem services.
- We have run out of time to avoid some of the worsening climate impacts over the coming decades but we can avoid catastrophic impacts if ecosystems are restored and the New Zealand Government stops subsidising fossil fuels.
- See NIWA’s climate projections for Aotearoa New Zealand
What can be done?
“The idea of planting trees in vast areas to remove carbon dioxide from the air and reduce the impact of climate change, for example, has attracted a lot of attention, with some claiming it’s the best “low-hanging fruit” approach to pursue, McElwee said. But large-scale tree planting could conflict directly with food security because both compete for available land. It could also diminish biodiversity, if fast-growing exotic trees replace native habitat.” – Rutgers University, 2020
