Overview
The stated purpose of international climate negotiations is to avoid “dangerous” climate change or, more formally, to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. But if conditions existing today are already sufficient to push more climate system elements past their tipping points and create “catastrophic” breakdown without any further emissions, what then is our purpose and what do we say? This report explores recent scientific literature to explore seven myths of the predominant climate policy-making paradigm:
Myth 1: Climate change is not yet dangerous
Myth 2: 2°C is an appropriate focus for policy making
Myth 3: Big tipping points are unlikely before 2°C
Myth 4: We should mitigate for 2°C, but plan to adapt to 4°C
Myth 5: We have a substantial carbon budget left for 2°C
Myth 6: Long-term feedbacks are not materially relevant for carbon budgeting
Myth 7: There is time for an orderly, non-disruptive reduction in emissions within the current political-economic paradigm
Dangerous climate warming: Myth and reality Few would disagree that the world should avoid "dangerous" (or unsafe) climate warming, but what does that term mean? What does climate safety mean? Is climate change already dangerous? Are greenhouse gas levels already too high? This report surveys some recent developments in climate science knowledge as a way of discerning the gaps between myth and reality in climate policy-making. Scientific and political reticence Amongst advocates for substantial action on climate warming, there is a presumption of agreement on the core climate science knowledge that underlies policy-making, even though differences exist in campaign strategy. But the boundaries between science and politics have become blurred in framing both the problem and the solutions. Amongst advocates, advisors and policy-makers there are very different levels of understandings of the core climate science knowledge, how it is changing, what constitutes "danger", what needs to be done, and at what pace. On the science side, the challenge is of a fast-developing discipline in a rapidly changing physical world. There is a concerted and unwarranted global attack on climate scientists and, in Australia, intimidation and fear of job loss generated by the Abbott government’s hostility to science and cuts in climate research funding. As well, there are always uncertainties and unknowns in science, and difficulties in communicating complex understandings in a non-technical manner. Together these factors can produce over-cautiousness in public presentation and scientific reticence. In his 2011 climate science update for the Australian Government, Prof. Ross Garnaut gave some "reflections on scholarly reticence", questioned whether climate research had a conservative "systematic bias", pointed to "unfortunate delays between discovery and influence in the policy discussion", and asked "whether the reason why most of the new knowledge confirms the established science or changes it for the worse is scholarly reticence". Garnaut pointed to a pattern across diverse intellectual fields of research being "not too far away from the mainstream", but says in the climate field that this "has been associated with understatement of the risks". With masterly restraint, he concluded that we should be "alert to the possibility that the reputable science in future will suggest that it is in Australians’ and humanity’s interests to take much stronger and much more urgent action on climate change than might seem warranted from today’s peer-reviewed published literature. We have to be ready to adjust expectations and policy in response to changes in the wisdom from the mainstream science" (Garnaut, 2011). On the politics side, often insufficient attention is paid to the breadth and depth of published research, and there is a tendency to prioritise perceived political relevance over uncomfortable scientific evidence. Most climate advocacy organisations allocate few resources to critically interrogating the climate research as part of strategy and policy development, and generally fall into a middle-of-the-road advocacy consensus which downplays the warn- ings from the more forthright scientists whose expert elicitations – on such topics as the stability of ice sheets and sea ice to future sea-level rises – have generally proven more robust than those of their more reticent colleagues. A desire amongst advocacy organisations to stick together and present a common mainstream view is understandable, but Garnaut has pointed out the scientific danger, and his observation is just as powerful for climate politics. There is little point in constructing campaign strategies discordant with a fast-changing reality. The mainstream representation of climate science as it blurs with politics – in public discourse in Australia, across most civil society sectors, and at the global policy-making level – could reasonably be described as follows:
• Climate change is not yet dangerous, and two degrees of warming (2°C) is the appropriate focus for policy-making, because 2°C impacts are manageable and big tipping points are unlikely before 2°C.
• We should plan to mitigate (reduce emissions) for 2°C, but we may fail so we should also plan to adapt to 4°C (which is the likely “business-as-usual” outcome by 2100 if high rates of emission continue).
• We have a substantial carbon budget left for 2°C, because long-term feedbacks are not materially relevant, and high risks of failure can be accepted because 2°C is a “target” (which can be exceeded) rather than a “cap” (an upper boundary not to be exceeded).
• Hence, there is time for an orderly, non-disruptive reduction in emissions within the current political and economic paradigm. Much of the recent international policy discourse has focused on “what percentage reductions by when and by whom” in emissions would stop warming passing 2°C. In Australia, is it 5% by 2020, or 19%, or a lot more? Till 2030 or 2050? An observer of this discourse would not think that 2°C is other than a reasonable target, and that we have plenty of carbon emissions left for a few decades more. They would certainly not understand that such propositions are dangerous myths. Here’s why.
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Hear his May 2024 interview on an Australian podcast here.
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