That meant, the leaders said in their Copenhagen Accord, that the increase in global average temperature should be kept below two degrees Celsius from the pre-industrial era, the maximum increase tolerable without devastating climate change. In fact, some climate experts argue even this is too high.
For its part, as a first step, Canada pledged to bring its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions to a level 17 per cent below the level in 2005. But Canada is expected to fall far short of this target. And the partial progress we have achieved has been due in large part to provincial, rather than federal policies, notably Ontario’s decision to stop producing electricity from coal and to rely on renewables instead, as well as to slower economic growth following the global financial crisis in 2008.
Now comes a new and highly-disturbing report from the International Energy Agency warning that “the world is not on track to limit the long-term rise in the average global temperature to two degrees Celsius,” and that, based on the present course, the long-term average temperature increase is likely to be somewhere between 3.6 degrees Celsius and 5.3 degrees. Such an increase would bring highly disruptive change that would not only be hugely costly but deeply threatening to human society.
Scientific evidence shows that “our climate is already changing and that we should expect extreme weather events (such as storms, floods, and heat waves) to become more frequent and intense, as well as increasing global temperatures and rising sea levels,” the IEA warns.
Under current planning, the world is committed to achieving a new climate change regime by 2015, to be implemented starting in 2020, with the two degrees temperature constraint a key target. But if there is to be a realistic prospect of holding to that target, we cannot wait until 2020, the IEA warns. “Intensive action is required before 2020.” It proposes strong action on energy efficiency, halting the construction of least-efficient coal plants, minimizing methane emissions from oil and gas production, and reducing subsidies to fossil fuel consumption.
So the two-degree target “remains technically feasible, though extremely challenging, ” the IEA says. The problem is that what is technically feasible may not be politically feasible. Governments seem paralyzed when faced with the need to make important changes in their society, leaving difficult choices to their successors and hoping that the public will in the meantime focus on other issues.
While the Environment Canada website boasts that “the Government of Canada supports an aggressive approach to climate change that achieves real environmental and economic benefits for all Canadians,” in the reality the opposite is true. The Harper government is the oil industry government and its strategy for Canada is heavily tied to rapid production and export of oil sands oil. But the NDP and Liberals also lack credible climate change policies, since neither wants to effectively challenge the Harper strategy for rapid oil sands development.
Yet as the IEA warns, achieving the two-degree target “will require determined political commitment to fundamental change in our approach to producing and consuming energy.”
The focus of its latest report—Redrawing the Energy Climate Map—is on the urgent need for action before 2020.
But, it stresses, “after 2020, the energy transition must move from being incremental to transformational, i.e. an energy sector revolution is required, which will be attained only by very strong policy action. The pivotal challenge is to move the abatement of climate policy to the very core of economic systems, influencing in particular all investment decisions in energy, supply, demands and use.”
This is why the IEA, along with the International Monetary Fund, underlines that carbon pricing is essential. The most efficient and transparent system would be a carbon tax. The alternative, a cap-and-trade system, as the experience of the European Union shows, is much less effective in changing behaviour and is open to much rent-seeking by intermediaries. In Canada, only the Liberals have ever advocated a carbon tax, under Stéphane Dion, but since Dion the Liberal Party has worked overtime to erase Dion’s courageous move from its history. The Conservatives and NDP have both endorsed a cap-and-trade system, though the Conservatives now appear to be disowning that earlier endorsement.
The real challenge in the world today is not technology; it’s political vision and leadership on a far-reaching challenge that can only be addressed through fundamental change. Because political leadership, and courage, are in such short supply worldwide, the next generation will face a much worse future. It’s not just that we have to transform our energy systems, which account for 80 per cent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, if we are to avoid droughts, floods, heat waves, and rising sea levels along with shrinking water systems. We also have to do this in a world where population continues to grow and billions more people want something closer to the consumption levels found in rich-country lifestyles.
Yet, in Canada, we would sooner debate Senate expense account abuse than deal with climate change and the enormous challenges we face for the sake of the next generation.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: DAVID CRANE
No comments:
Post a Comment