Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has said that the much-vaunted Climate Change Committee has “systematically undermined the 2008 Climate Change Act – an Act that, in my view, was far ahead of its time.”
“It is not an independent committee. It was set up by government to give advice to government, and it is paid by government. Nothing in that implies independence. Through private discussion with a very senior CCC member, I was left in no doubt that the CCC chooses to push government as hard as they think government is prepared to be pushed – and that any harder, and their advice will be ignored and the Committee sidelined.”
The interview covered a range of topics, and is being released in installments. Part one, on the physical impacts we can expect is here. Part two, on “Team Mann vs Team Hansen” and the speed of recent warming is here. Part three on Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ support for a third runway at Heathrow, aviation in general and the quality of advice being offered is here. The interview was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson, and the URL of this page
I think it’s a very alternate universe when you get the gig [as Ed Miliband’s SPAD] over Chris Stark. So what will Chris Stark say, or has he said, and he should be saying what you’ve just said. So, what’s going on there? How come the politicians are not even getting the sort of scientific advice that they should? And this leads into your and my concern about the cognitive, intellectual corruption of academia, which, with a few honorable exceptions, has “not covered itself in glory.” To throw in as many cliches as I could.
Kevin Anderson 20:15
Well, obviously, Chris Stark was previously the CEO of the Government’s Climate Change, Committee. But he’s now gone on to become Ed Miliband’s advisor on climate change issues, particularly on decarbonising power.
My problem with the Climate Change Committee is that it has systematically undermined the 2008 Climate Change Act – an Act that, in my view, was far ahead of its time. This would have been much less an issue if the academic and expert community had not run scared of countering the CCC’s preference for what they deemed to be politically acceptable rather than what is scientifically necessary to deliver on our climate commitments.
The CCC is not an independent committee. It was set up by government to give advice to government, and it is paid by government. Nothing in that implies independence. Through private discussion with a very senior CCC member, I was left in no doubt that the CCC chooses to push government as hard as they think government is prepared to be pushed – and that any harder, and their advice will be ignored and the Committee sidelined.
I see that as a perfectly reasonable position to take if you then don’t claim to be an independent committee. But it also then requires the academic community to hold the CCC to account – based on the science, our analysis and the climate commitments our governments repeatedly sign up to. But that hasn’t happened – quite the opposite.
Set against a weak academia and a similarly weak funding agency, the UKRI – or as it was called previously the research councils, – the CCC have effectively dictated the research agenda. When the CCC has said jump we’ve asked how high – rather than why!.
First our research had to fit with a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050, then it was 80% by 2050, then carbon budgets were introduced, but quickly shifted to a Net Zero 2050 framework. In effect, the boundaries of analysis have been dictated by the CCC, as if the committee is some form of Oracle. This was bad enough. But with Chris Stark becoming the CEO, he was such a highly effective leader of a government committee, a real smooth operator, that a weak academia was left even more in thrall of the CCC. So, whilst we might endeavour to do objective research on cutting emissions, it is inevitably set within the CCC’s deeply political boundary – one that is far removed anything aligned with our Paris temperature and equity commitments
I realise very few if any academics will agree with me here, at least in public, though it’s a different story in private, but I see the CCC as having fundamentally misinformed and let down, not just the UK policy makers and the public, but of course, the people who already are and will be impacted by climate change. But this failure has been actively facilitated by the supine academic community that has not stood up for academic integrity, simply bending to will of the CCC; just look at the ubiquitous ‘net zero 2050’ framing of our research, language and publications; barely a whimper of dissent. It’s the old cliché, bad things happen whilst good people stay quiet. Sadly, and very specifically on mitigation (so not on climate science), I see cowardice rather than academic integrity as the collective hallmark of our contribution thus far.
Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has said Chancellor Rachel Reeves support fora third runway at Heathrow airport is based on “the usual techno babble. You know, ‘sustainable aviation fuel and electric planes.’ These cannot deliver on scale and in timeline for the current aviation, let alone the growth in aviation.”
In an interview conducted before making a presentation at a January 30th public meeting in Glossop, England, Anderson went on to condemn the advice being given to Reeves, and her stance on climate change.
Either she was sufficiently ignorant to not be aware of this, and given she’s had lots of guidance and expertise and all the research expertise that she needs to lay her hands on to understand it, that is concerning. Or she’s been dishonest, but under both those, I think she’s not fit for office, if that’s what she thinks is appropriate. So either she can’t understand the issues well, I’m sorry, you need to get a handle on issues, or you’re not being honest with the population, and I think as an electorate, we should have, we expect should expect – this may be naive – I expect honesty and integrity. I don’t have to agree with them – to expect honesty, integrity of our elected officials. She seems, at the moment, I can see no other way but to say she’s failed on one of those which means she is not fit for purpose.
The interview covered a range of topics, and isl being released in installments. Part one, on the physical impacts we can expect is here. Part two, on “Team Mann vs Team Hansen” and the speed of recent warming is here. . It was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson), and the URL of this page.
Stay tuned for Monday’s blog post – is Kevin on the Climate Change Committee and its influence on government and academia.
Which brings us to yesterday, the Labour Chancellor, who, two years ago, said that she was going to be the first green – small g green – Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, came out and said that she favored Heathrow airport expansion, and the BBC coverage was helpfully saying things like, “Can sustainable aviation fuel and electric planes make Heathrow’s third runway green?” And my simple response was, “FFS, no.” But we come to you, Kevin for more than “FFS, no.”
So, can sustainable, aviation fuels and electric planes make Heathrow’s third runway green?
Kevin Anderson 14:15
Well, on the question “Can the third runway be made green through technology”. – here I go back to both Mann and Hansen, and their respective timelines to deliver on Paris. And the answer is a categorical no.
But the answer is a categorical no for the existing aviation demand as well.
So it’s not just about any new aviation promoted and facilitated by the third runway. If you focus on the UK, aviation is quickly returning to about 10% of our national emissions. And as we try to cut the emissions from other sectors, then this proportion is only set to increase. The Government’s own Climate Change Committee envisages almost no change in aviation emissions out to 2050, and possibly beyond. Such an industry, at existing levels of emissions, is completely incompatible with our Paris commitments. The third runway is just a reinforcing nail in the Parisian coffin.
My concern with what Rachel Reeves, our Chancellor, has said, is that she’s simply parroting the techno babble that dominates so much of the climate debate. You know, “sustainable aviation fuel – SAF – and electric planes” These cannot deliver on scale and in a 1.5-2°C timeline for current aviation levels, let alone any growth in the sector. They are simply used as a ruse to allow business as usual to continue. Perhaps she was so ignorant of the technology limits and timeline constraints, that she was easily taken in by the techno-nonsense promoted by the industry and its paid-up shills – though if that was the case, it is concerning, as she has access to a wealth of expertise to truly understand the issues. Or, alternatively, she was simply been dishonest and deliberately misleading in claiming aviation growth can be aligned with our climate commitments. Either way, I’m left questioning whether she is fit for office; too unthinking to understand the issues or being dishonest with the public. It may be naive – but I expect honesty and intelligence from our elected officials – and on Heathrow and aviation our Chancellor failed on at least one of these.
But of course, she is being supported by Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, and other short-term and sycophantic MPs who claim to have discovered new information that allows them to reconcile growth in a hugely high carbon sector with our climate commitments. Flying pigs perhaps … but not ‘sustainable aviation’ aligned with Paris!
Playing into their unscrupulous hands is the ruse of “net zero 2050”. This dodgy framing allows almost anything to be tolerated – as it simply hands the burden across the generations to our children. They, and their children are assumed to find ways to remove our carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in years and decades from now – so we can carry on with our lies and delusion. It is this scam that is locked into the Government’s Climate Change Committee’s UK ‘net zero 2050’ model, and indeed, many of the big international models about how fast we need to eliminate emissions. They have chosen to bequeath our children a legacy of deliberate failure, expecting future generations to deploy a planetary-scale carbon sucking machines, and all to keep today’s policies politically acceptable.
marc hudson 17:30
So does the net in net zero imply Negative Emissions Technology? See what I did there? Yeah,
Kevin Anderson 17:35
Yeah the net in net zero does imply that.
Unfortunately we use the ‘net’ term in two ways. In net zero, the net really refers to ensuring that at some point in the future whatever we are still emitting will be compensated be sucking an equivalent quantity of emissions out of the atmosphere. For example the Government’s Climate Change Committee (the CCC) assumes the UK will still emit around 30 million tonnes of fossil-fuel based CO2 in 2050 – mostly from aviation; – that’s more emissions per UK person in 2050 than the typical Kenyan emits today. To make this nonsense stack up, the CCC rely on the deployment of so-called negative emission technologies. Today this term (often shortened to NETs … hence the confusion with Net zero) just trips off our tongue as if these technologies were tried and tested at scale .
But as of today, they remain at such a small level that relative to our Paris commitments they’re little more than a unicorn story. Ok, a few very small and pilot schemes are operating, most as part of bioethanol production, but they are still capturing and storing less than one million tonnes of carbon dioxide each years, at the same time as we’re emitting around 38 billion tonnes of fossil fuel CO2, and another 3 or so billion from deforestation, agriculture, etc. Yet many ‘experts’, journalists and even some policymakers talk about NETs as if they are working at scale and are an unavoidable and major part of the future. However, in numerical reality today, they remain nothing more than a deliberate distraction from the urgent need to cut emissions now, and are certainly not a meaningful technology. Perhaps this will change … but almost two decades of enthusiastic inclusion of ‘negative emission technologies’ in models needs to be contrasted with how today NETs capture around 0.002% of all our carbon dioxide emissions – in other words, almost nothing. Set that against the four years of current global emissions before we blow through the carbon budget for 50:50 chance of not exceeding 1.5°C – if we haven’t already.
It is this untested and highly speculative future tech, at scale, that our Chancellor and a gaggle of sycophantic ministers and MPs are betting the house on – and all because of their dogmatic obsession with a failing growth growth growth model. The physics will continue, regardless of any political machinations. The climate impacts are already being felt across poorer low-emitting and climate vulnerable communities, mostly a long way from here and typically comprising people of colour. The Chancellor and others would prefer to sacrifice them, seeing their livelihoods and even their lives ripped apart, rather than make challenging decisions back in the UK – colonialism is alive and thriving in the UK parliament, and particularly on the Government’s front bench.
But let’s be clear, not only is the Government treating such communities as an annoying fly to be swatted, but they are showing similar levels of disdain for the wellbeing of our own UK children
Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has said that the impacts of climate change that scientists had previously thought would only happen at higher global temperatures in fact “look set to be significantly worse at lower temperatures than previously thought.”
“some of the others such as the risk of rapid dieback in the Amazon, or indeed in the Congo, where we have very little detailed information. If some of the tipping point issues play out in the way that some analysis suggests they could significantly accelerate the rate of the impacts that we anticipate from the standard headline framing of the IPCC.
“Another major tipping point issue relates to the ongoing weakening and even potential collapse of AMOC – which in the UK some may think of as the “Gulf Stream”, but that’s just one small part of it. AMOC is a much more global driver of weather and indeed climate. It’s a thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards…. and if climate change continues unchecked there is a very real risk that AMOC will be significantly weakened if not collapse. Much of the world, would in various serious ways be impacted, from changes in Monsoon rainfall, and hence food production, through to dire weather implications for much of Europe.
The interview covered a range of topics, and will be released . It was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson, and the URL of this post.
Tomorrow’s interview excerpt – is Kevin on “Team Mann” or “Team Hansen”?
TRANSCRIPT
Let’s start with developments since last we interviewed, which I think is quite a long time ago. We had the Paris Agreement, and everyone held hands and said, “We’re aiming for two degrees”. And then they were forced to say, “well, 1.5” because otherwise the poor nations weren’t going to stay on board. You, at the time, said that this was a farce, as did James Hansen, whom I trust, and we’ll talk about later. As did I, you know? So the three titans of climate climate commentary said this.
[Laughter]
Then, you know, the pandemic happened. So the COP got canceled for the first time, and then they all met in Glasgow and cried in order to “”keep 1.5 alive.” Now that was four years ago. There about and here we are with the US saying it’s going to pull out of the Paris Agreement again, with a 3.6 PPM increase in concentrations last year, which is a new record. I think so. It might be that the sinks are failing as much as
the El Nino,as well
yep. So where are we going to be gazing into your crystal ball – not with the politics, because no one can tell what the politics are going to be – where do you think we will be first with atmospheric concentrations? Do you see three PPM as kind of what we should expect as a ‘new normal’, and where will we perhaps be with impacts five years from now? The conch is being handed over.
Kevin Anderson 3:07
In terms of ppmv. What I’ve read on various scientific forums since the report came out from Richard Betts and colleagues at the UK’s Met Office just a couple of weeks ago, [BBC, Guardian] is that the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide build up in the atmosphere will likely not remain at 3ppmv per year, but will likely fall again to more typical annual levels of increase. That said, the total concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue its relentless rise until we stop emitting.
So whilst the annual rise will likely not be as high next year, or the year after that, there is a concern that as we continue to increase the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and therefore the temperature keeps rising, that some of the natural buffering will begin to be lost. Thus far, roughly half of all carbon emissions we put into the atmosphere every year are taken up by a mixture of the oceans and by the land, that is the buffering – its huge service that’s been provided by nature, but as the temperature continues to rise so that buffering may be weakened. If that happens, then more of the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere each year will remain there and we will start to see a higher annual rise in ppmv each year – that is more rapidly rising concentrations of carbon dioxide
But at the moment, the expectation is that last year was a little bit of an anomaly because of El Nino. But I wouldn’t be too hopeful that we won’t be back up to those sorts of levels within some reasonably short period of time.
4 mins 47
So impacts Physical impacts?
Physical impact? Well, yes, physical impact, if we could isolate them so easily! The physical impacts are damning between 1.5 and two degrees centigrade. This is one of the reasons that 1.5 came out in Paris as we were starting to get a better handle on the rising scale of impacts as the temperature rises. In contrast to the simplistic expectation that policy follows evidence, for 1.5°C, it’s been since Paris, where we’ve really started to understand the difference between 1.5 and 2°C. My take from reading the work of impacts experts is that the impacts look set to be significantly worse at lower temperatures than previously thought. So what we used to think were perhaps the basket of impacts at 2°C and now more likely to occur at just 1.5°C … though this shift is not all neat and linear. Put simply, we expect to see more floods, droughts, heat waves, fires, etc … with these playing out in terms of food and water insecurity – driven in part by devasting reductions in insects/pollinators, … this may then lead to internal and external migration – all set against a potential backdrop of other tensions. In an increasingly fractious world rapidly rising climate impacts are only really set to make things worse.
In addition to this perhaps more conservative view of rising temperatures and impacts, there is increasing concern related to bigger ‘tipping point’ changes – with rapid and accelerating impacts
AMOC?
Well, I was going to come to AMOC – that is one of them, yes. I was also thinking about some of the others such as the risk of rapid dieback in the Amazon, or indeed in the Congo, where we have very little detailed information. If some of the tipping point issues play out in the way that some analysis suggests they could significantly accelerate the rate of the impacts that we anticipate from the standard headline framing of the IPCC.
Another major tipping point issue relates to the ongoing weakening and even potential collapse of AMOC – which in the UK some may think of as the “Gulf Stream”, but that’s just one small part of it. AMOC is a much more global driver of weather and indeed climate. It’s a thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards.
marc hudson 6:32
Wait, are you saying the United Kingdom is not the center of the world?
Kevin Anderson 6:35
Well, to some people it may well be. But if you stand back and look at the planet from outer space. I think you probably would see the UK as a small full stop on the left side of Europe. As for AMOC, it is the thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards. It’s a fundamental mechanism of the global weather system, and if climate change continues unchecked there is a very real risk that AMOC will be significantly weakened if not collapse. Much of the world, would in various serious ways be impacted, from changes in Monsoon rainfall, and hence food production, through to dire weather implications for much of Europe.
marc hudson 7:07
You used the word “dire” in another interview. Do you mean sort of
Catastrophic
Sort of Mad Max ends up looking like the Sound of Music?
Kevin Anderson 7:18
Well Mad Max in reverse … if AMOC collapses or significantly weakens, then Europe could be a lot colder.
This illustrates one of the key challenges of rapid climate change. For example, here in Europe it could get a lot warmer or perhaps, if we lose AMOC, it could get dangerously cold. But wherever in the world, a major weakening or collapse of AMOC will create hazardous instabilities. Such a rapid shift would be catastrophic for human systems and ecosystems.
Now, if you went back 10 years, I think most people say that there’s a very, very low chance of this, the collapse or major weakening of AMOC, happening. If you look at the outputs of those working on AMOC now, it’s clear that there’s a much higher chance of it occurring that we thought previously. There’s a very real chance of major changes in AMOC happening within the next few years and out towards the end of the century. In other words during the lifetime of people listening to this, or the children of those people. That is really damning.
Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has said that the impacts of climate change that scientists had previously thought would only happen at higher global temperatures in fact “look set to be significantly worse at lower temperatures than previously thought
I was also thinking about some of the others such as the risk of rapid dieback in the Amazon, or indeed in the Congo, where we have very little detailed information. If some of the tipping point issues play out in the way that some analysis suggests they could significantly accelerate the rate of the impacts that we anticipate from the standard headline framing of the IPCC.
Another major tipping point issue relates to the ongoing weakening and even potential collapse of AMOC – which in the UK some may think of as the “Gulf Stream”, but that’s just one small part of it. AMOC is a much more global driver of weather and indeed climate. It’s a thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards.
The interview covered a range of topics, and will be released . It was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson, and the URL of this page
Tomorrow’s blog post – is Kevin on “Team Mann” or “Team Hansen”?
Let’s start with developments since last we interviewed, which I think is quite a long time ago. We had the Paris Agreement, and everyone held hands and said, “We’re aiming for two degrees”. And then they were forced to say, “well, 1.5” because otherwise the poor nations weren’t going to stay on board. You, at the time, said that this was a farce, as did James Hansen, whom I trust, and we’ll talk about later. As did I, you know? So the three titans of climate climate commentary said this.
[Laughter]
Then, you know, the pandemic happened. So the COP got canceled for the first time, and then they all met in Glasgow and cried in order to “”keep 1.5 alive.” Now that was four years ago. There about and here we are with the US saying it’s going to pull out of the Paris Agreement again, with a 3.6 PPM increase in concentrations last year, which is a new record. I think so. It might be that the sinks are failing as much as
the El Nino,as well
yep. So where are we going to be gazing into your crystal ball – not with the politics, because no one can tell what the politics are going to be – where do you think we will be first with atmospheric concentrations? Do you see three PPM as kind of what we should expect as a ‘new normal’, and where will we perhaps be with impacts five years from now? The conch is being handed over.
Kevin Anderson 3:07
In terms of ppmv. What I’ve read on various scientific forums since the report came out from Richard Betts and colleagues at the UK’s Met Office just a couple of weeks ago, [BBC, Guardian] is that the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide build up in the atmosphere will likely not remain at 3ppmv per year, but will likely fall again to more typical annual levels of increase. That said, the total concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue its relentless rise until we stop emitting.
So whilst the annual rise will likely not be as high next year, or the year after that, there is a concern that as we continue to increase the concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and therefore the temperature keeps rising, that some of the natural buffering will begin to be lost. Thus far, roughly half of all carbon emissions we put into the atmosphere every year are taken up by a mixture of the oceans and by the land, that is the buffering – its huge service that’s been provided by nature, but as the temperature continues to rise so that buffering may be weakened. If that happens, then more of the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere each year will remain there and we will start to see a higher annual rise in ppmv each year – that is more rapidly rising concentrations of carbon dioxide
But at the moment, the expectation is that last year was a little bit of an anomaly because of El Nino. But I wouldn’t be too hopeful that we won’t be back up to those sorts of levels within some reasonably short period of time.
4 mins 47
So impacts Physical impacts?
Physical impact? Well, yes, physical impact, if we could isolate them so easily! The physical impacts are damning between 1.5 and two degrees centigrade. This is one of the reasons that 1.5 came out in Paris as we were starting to get a better handle on the rising scale of impacts as the temperature rises. In contrast to the simplistic expectation that policy follows evidence, for 1.5°C, it’s been since Paris, where we’ve really started to understand the difference between 1.5 and 2°C. My take from reading the work of impacts experts is that the impacts look set to be significantly worse at lower temperatures than previously thought. So what we used to think were perhaps the basket of impacts at 2°C and now more likely to occur at just 1.5°C … though this shift is not all neat and linear. Put simply, we expect to see more floods, droughts, heat waves, fires, etc … with these playing out in terms of food and water insecurity – driven in part by devasting reductions in insects/pollinators, … this may then lead to internal and external migration – all set against a potential backdrop of other tensions. In an increasingly fractious world rapidly rising climate impacts are only really set to make things worse.
In addition to this perhaps more conservative view of rising temperatures and impacts, there is increasing concern related to bigger ‘tipping point’ changes – with rapid and accelerating impacts
AMOC?
Well, I was going to come to AMOC – that is one of them, yes. I was also thinking about some of the others such as the risk of rapid dieback in the Amazon, or indeed in the Congo, where we have very little detailed information. If some of the tipping point issues play out in the way that some analysis suggests they could significantly accelerate the rate of the impacts that we anticipate from the standard headline framing of the IPCC.
Another major tipping point issue relates to the ongoing weakening and even potential collapse of AMOC – which in the UK some may think of as the “Gulf Stream”, but that’s just one small part of it. AMOC is a much more global driver of weather and indeed climate. It’s a thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards.
marc hudson 6:32
Wait, are you saying the United Kingdom is not the center of the world?
Kevin Anderson 6:35
Well, to some people it may well be. But if you stand back and look at the planet from outer space. I think you probably would see the UK as a small full stop on the left side of Europe. As for AMOC, it is the thermal conveyor belt moving heat from the Southern oceans to the North, and moving the cooler waters of North back southwards. It’s a fundamental mechanism of the global weather system, and if climate change continues unchecked there is a very real risk that AMOC will be significantly weakened if not collapse. Much of the world, would in various serious ways be impacted, from changes in Monsoon rainfall, and hence food production, through to dire weather implications for much of Europe.
marc hudson 7:07
You used the word “dire” in another interview. Do you mean sort of
Catastrophic
Sort of Mad Max ends up looking like the Sound of Music?
Kevin Anderson 7:18
Well Mad Max in reverse … if AMOC collapses or significantly weakens, then Europe could be a lot colder.
This illustrates one of the key challenges of rapid climate change. For example, here in Europe it could get a lot warmer or perhaps, if we lose AMOC, it could get dangerously cold. But wherever in the world, a major weakening or collapse of AMOC will create hazardous instabilities. Such a rapid shift would be catastrophic for human systems and ecosystems.
Now, if you went back 10 years, I think most people say that there’s a very, very low chance of this, the collapse or major weakening of AMOC, happening. If you look at the outputs of those working on AMOC now, it’s clear that there’s a much higher chance of it occurring that we thought previously. There’s a very real chance of major changes in AMOC happening within the next few years and out towards the end of the century. In other words during the lifetime of people listening to this, or the children of those people. That is really damning.
On this day, June 24th, in 2009, the Scottish parliament unanimously passed the Climate Change (Scotland) Act. This enabled the devolved Scottish government, led by the Scottish National Party’s minority administration, to look slightly more progressive than the UK New Labour government at Westminster. This government, then led by Gordon Brown, had passed the Climate Change Act for the whole of the UK in 2008.
Some provisions in the Scottish Act went further than the UK legislation; for example a slightly higher emission reduction target for 2020. This was the result of a parliamentary bidding war (a 42% target reduction in Scotland, compared to 34% for the UK as a whole). Also, there were to be annual targets to sit within 5 year carbon budget periods (the UK Act didn’t have those annual targets).
Sarah Louise Nash has written extensively in the academic journal Environmental Politics about the alliances that were formed in Scotland to shape the Act during a period of increased activist and media attention to climate change (paywall). A key factor was the desire for Scotland to be able to position itself as a global leader at the COP19 summit held in Copenhagen later in 2009, which ended famously in acrimonious failure.
In 2019, during the latest wave of enhanced activist and media concern about the worsening climate crisis, the Climate Change (Scotland) Act was amended to set more stringent emission reduction targets. The UK Government had just altered its legislation to set a net zero target for 2050 (up from an 80% reduction target). Scotland again followed suit and positioned itself as slightly more ambitious by proposing net zero by 2045, with interim targets for 2030 and 2040. The Scottish Green Party abstained on the Bill that introduced the new targets, arguing that an 80% reduction target by 2030 is needed, instead of the Bill’s 75% target (increased from the SNP’s proposed 70%).
Just like in 2009, 2019’s legislative change came before an important global summit that failed to meet inflated expectations. COP26, scheduled to be held in Glasgow in 2020, and delayed due to Covid until 2021, involved Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon trying, with limited success, to get on stage to position Scotland as a world leader, as cringy selfies showcased by the Murdoch Press (Sunday Times) help make apparent.
Nicola Sturgeon poses in red with various leaders at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021.
The lesson to take from this history is that, despite bidding wars for the status of virtue and global leadership on climate change that help to increase legislative ambition, the numbers still fail to add up when the baseline for ‘leadership’ is so disastrously low.
Dr Robbie Watt is an academic at University of Manchester, a core group member of Climate Emergency Manchester and an all-round lovely bloke. He has another guest post on All Our Yesterdays, here.
