You may have seen references to 2050 in regard to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, along with a target of 1.5 degrees Celsuis of temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution.
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The sad fact is, we are not looking like we will meet these targets, and the consequences are dire. We're already over 1 degree of warming, and that's still rising.
So why the urgency? Well, we're running out of time to fix the problem. There are things called tipping points that are rapidly approaching. They work like this:
Global warming causes ice to melt - in the Arctic, Antarctic, Iceland, Greenland, in mountains or northerly regions which are usually covered in snow or ice, which reflect light and heat back away from earth.
When they melt, there is either bare rock or ocean water exposed. They don't reflect heat, they absorb it. So they get warmer, which causes more ice to melt. And so on ... The loss of ice and snow cover in all the places mentioned is a fact.
Iceland in 2019 held a funeral to bid farewell to one of their glaciers, Okjokull. Once they are lost, they are very difficult to get back.
The consequences of a global temperature increase more than 1.5 degrees are dire. No more Great Barrier Reef - it will almost all be bleached. We can expect more horrendous bushfires, floods and droughts, hot summers, and sea level rises.
Predictions are that we'll exceed 1.5 degrees in the 2030s.
We urgently need to reduce emissions and the rest of the developed world is taking this much more seriously than Australia.
What does our government do? It appoints a former energy company executive to the Climate Change Authority, and spruiks a "gas-led recovery". Er, no ... burning gas makes carbon dioxide just like coal, and won't help at all.
It certainly won't lead to a 75 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, or zero emissions by 2035, which is the least we should be aiming at. We've been sitting on our hands for a decade, and 2050 is likely to be too late.
The government has done a pretty good job with COVID by just listening to the science. Why they cannot do the same with climate change is beyond me.
Snowy Hydro 2 is a good start, but how about subsidising batteries for houses, or using some of the new storage technologies that are emerging almost every day?
David Ashton is a member of BCCAN
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