Climate Change news in the News - January 2020
DOMINANT DISCOURSE - Australian Fires, Warmest Decade and Activism.
The intensity and quality of discourse has been steadily rising in the past few years. With 2019 proving to be path-breaking year with the emergence of street opposition to climate inaction, the course was set to take up Climate Change challenges at a global level, not just by activists but also by various government. The past decade ending on 31st December, 2019 has just been declared as the warmest decade on record and January 2020 was already recorded as the warmest on record and in a way set the tone for the fight coming up.
The defining feature of Climate related news in January revolved around the Australian Fires and the spillover of the Street movement against Climate Change Lethargy.
The realisation that we have deposited more than 500 billions tonnes of carbon since the start of the industrial revolution and continue to sump at-least 10 billion tonnes of carbon every year is now considered to be a fact, a fact that even climate change deniers cannot disagree about. Also, drilled into the popular consciousness is the fact that the Paris Agreement goals of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is now a question of the very survivability of the human race and not some obscure scientific figure. It is achievable and Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that by 2050, wind and solar can satisfy 80 percent of electricity demand in most advanced countries. However, new and improving technology can only get us halfway there, the really real difficult part is about cutting back on energy consumption and it is not just about individual decisions to cut back on your emissions but through large scale government. The good news about this bad news is that 2020 began with a promise that this is what we need to reduce climate change, in a way setting the tone for future action for the entire year.
In saying that 1.5 Degrees Celsius Is Long Gone as a Climate Change Target, it is apparent that unless a superhuman effort is undertaken by all sections of the human race, it is virtually impossible to adhere to the targets set in the Paris Agreement. There is also an intriguing aspect of human emotions at play here as the outwardly public optimism about achieving the target is smudged by the inward apprehensions about failing even as we start to fight. Perhaps, it would not be unwise to say and/or to think that we should start looking at a higher number and then work backwards to achieve that higher target rather than staring at 1.5 degrees which is just a huge dark wall that cannot be scaled. The truth is disturbing, as, to hit 1.5˚C, emissions would need to fall off a cliff, falling by 15 percent a year every year, starting in 2020, until they hit net zero. This may not happen but acknowledging that it may not happen is equally important. What is important, is perhaps the realisation that we need a wartime mobilisation or If I could use a metaphor from the future - A corona level mobilisation - to reduce emissions.
Finally, in the defining image of January 2020 was the visual bombing of the Australian Bush Fires. Nowehere as dramatic as the fires in the Amazon or in the hills around Los Angeles, the Australian fires neverthless made up for its lack of visuals by its sheer spread in terms of area. And unfortunately, visuals soon exploded with the vulnerability of wild animals and communities alike coming to the fore. As one of the first globally acknowledged manifestations of the climate crisis, the heat and drought combined to charr more than 14.3 million acres of land. The year seemed to be primed and set for increasingly hyperbole bad news.
So, to recap - for the sceptics, deniers and generally "unable to read the fine print" people - here are some facts -
- The World is Getting Hotter
- The year 2019 set all sorts of records
- We are not on track to meet climate change targets
- Urban areas are particularly under threat
The intensity and quality of discourse has been steadily rising in the past few years. With 2019 proving to be path-breaking year with the emergence of street opposition to climate inaction, the course was set to take up Climate Change challenges at a global level, not just by activists but also by various government. The past decade ending on 31st December, 2019 has just been declared as the warmest decade on record and January 2020 was already recorded as the warmest on record and in a way set the tone for the fight coming up.
The defining feature of Climate related news in January revolved around the Australian Fires and the spillover of the Street movement against Climate Change Lethargy.
The realisation that we have deposited more than 500 billions tonnes of carbon since the start of the industrial revolution and continue to sump at-least 10 billion tonnes of carbon every year is now considered to be a fact, a fact that even climate change deniers cannot disagree about. Also, drilled into the popular consciousness is the fact that the Paris Agreement goals of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is now a question of the very survivability of the human race and not some obscure scientific figure. It is achievable and Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that by 2050, wind and solar can satisfy 80 percent of electricity demand in most advanced countries. However, new and improving technology can only get us halfway there, the really real difficult part is about cutting back on energy consumption and it is not just about individual decisions to cut back on your emissions but through large scale government. The good news about this bad news is that 2020 began with a promise that this is what we need to reduce climate change, in a way setting the tone for future action for the entire year.
In saying that 1.5 Degrees Celsius Is Long Gone as a Climate Change Target, it is apparent that unless a superhuman effort is undertaken by all sections of the human race, it is virtually impossible to adhere to the targets set in the Paris Agreement. There is also an intriguing aspect of human emotions at play here as the outwardly public optimism about achieving the target is smudged by the inward apprehensions about failing even as we start to fight. Perhaps, it would not be unwise to say and/or to think that we should start looking at a higher number and then work backwards to achieve that higher target rather than staring at 1.5 degrees which is just a huge dark wall that cannot be scaled. The truth is disturbing, as, to hit 1.5˚C, emissions would need to fall off a cliff, falling by 15 percent a year every year, starting in 2020, until they hit net zero. This may not happen but acknowledging that it may not happen is equally important. What is important, is perhaps the realisation that we need a wartime mobilisation or If I could use a metaphor from the future - A corona level mobilisation - to reduce emissions.
Finally, in the defining image of January 2020 was the visual bombing of the Australian Bush Fires. Nowehere as dramatic as the fires in the Amazon or in the hills around Los Angeles, the Australian fires neverthless made up for its lack of visuals by its sheer spread in terms of area. And unfortunately, visuals soon exploded with the vulnerability of wild animals and communities alike coming to the fore. As one of the first globally acknowledged manifestations of the climate crisis, the heat and drought combined to charr more than 14.3 million acres of land. The year seemed to be primed and set for increasingly hyperbole bad news.
So, to recap - for the sceptics, deniers and generally "unable to read the fine print" people - here are some facts -
- The World is Getting Hotter
- The year 2019 set all sorts of records
- We are not on track to meet climate change targets
- Urban areas are particularly under threat
