Progress cutting emissions elusive despite the dollars

At the UN’s special climate summit in New York this week, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wants nations to come up with new abatement proposals a year earlier than the 2020 deadline that is in the Paris Agreement. Yet a new UN-backed report warns countries must triple their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions to meet the Paris goal of limiting warming to below 2C. The United in Science report says the average global temperature for 2015-19 is estimated to be 1.1C above pre-industrial times and on track to be “the warmest of any equivalent period on record”. In the past few years, warming, sea level rise and carbon pollution have all accelerated. This sober, dispiriting assessment should come as no surprise.

Such backsliding has occurred even though governments, such as our own, have spent a fortune, including billions in subsidies for renewable energy. As Bjorn Lomborg wrote on Saturday, alternative energy has increased so little because green energy remains incapable of meeting all of our needs met by fossil fuels. “Replacing cheap and reliable fossil fuel energy with more expensive and less reliable energy alternatives weighs down the economy, leading to slightly lower growth,” he wrote in Inquirer. The Paris treaty is likely to cost between $US1 trillion ($1.5 trillion) and $US2 trillion a year, making it the costliest treaty in history; it would cut about 60 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalents, whereas about 6000 billion tonnes are needed to get to the promised 2C target.

There is no sign of a peak in global emissions, even though they are growing slower than the global economy. The annual increase in global energy use is greater than the increase in renewable energy, meaning fossil fuel use continues to grow. To change the trend, the new report says a fivefold step-up is required to limit future warming to the more ambitious 1.5C goal. As environment editor Graham Lloyd writes, promises made under the Paris Agreement will not achieve anywhere near what is judged to be needed. None of the big emissions nations — the US, China, India — or the EU is expected to make any bold offers to do more in New York.

Discussions remain stuck in the same old arguments about how there must be different responsibilities for developed and developing countries and funding. Technically, it still is possible to bridge the gap in 2030 to ensure global warming stays below 2C and 1.5C. But existing ambitions are proving difficult for many countries to honour. Governments, including Australia, have fallen well short on what was pledged. Scott Morrison did not discuss climate change in his face-to-face meetings with Donald Trump, who dropped Barack Obama’s commitment to the Paris Agreement.

Yet greenhouse gas emissions are still declining in the US because of the steps industry is taking towards low emissions production. Mr Morrison is not attending the climate summit but is using his US visit to sharpen his political agenda on the environment. As political editor Dennis Shanahan reports, the Prime Minister wants to focus on reducing plastic pollution in the Pacific and building a sustainable recycling program in Australia in a bid to shift ideologically driven debate away from global climate change targets to more practical solutions. Another report released on Monday says ocean-based climate action could more than offset CO2 emissions from all of the world’s existing coal-fired power stations. Possible measures, such as building offshore wind farms, pose difficulties. Until broader agreement is reached, Australia is right to keep a practical focus. Like Boris Johnson, who is going to give scientists up to £1bn ($1.8bn) to tackle climate change, we must invest in new technology.