There’s been a lot of talk of the year 2030 in climate circles, though 2050 for some reason seems to be the year many think of as the year for net zero. Let’s start 2022 off remembering why 2030 is such a big year to work toward:
In 2018, the UN IPCC said that in order to have a 2/3 chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C we had to limit all future carbon emissions to a total of 420 gigatons. If we want to take a bigger risk and give ourselves only a 1/2 chance of limiting warming to that level, we had to limit all future carbon emissions to a total of 580 gigatons. This is to say nothing about other greenhouse gases and how they could potentially make things worse (the IPCC speaks about it, if you want the details. It’s not good news).
(Quick digression: the UN IPCC is an absolute authority on the science of climate change. I know, you can probably point to scientists who disagree and may appear to be making legitimate points. But if you don’t “believe” the IPCC then you are making a conscious choice to avoid facing the (admittedly scary and painful and disgusting) scientific reality. So let’s move on from this digression.)
The IEA’s Global Energy Review 2021 reported that global CO2 emissions were 33 gigatons in 2021. This is slightly higher than Covid-reduced 2020 emissions of 31.5 gigatons, and in line with the 33.4 gigatons and 33.5 gigatons it reports for 2019 and 2018, respectively.
This is a lot of numbers, I know! But here’s my point: Since the IPCC report was published in 2018, we have used 131.4 gigatons of a 420 gigaton budget. We have 288 gigatons remaining…or, at Covid-assisted rates of 33 gigatons/year, 8 years. At this rate, we will have used our ENTIRE remaining carbon budget BY 2030!
So, yeah. The next 8 years really matter.
Second digression: I started to write about why 1.5 degrees matters. I started to talk about the catastrophe that is not an asteroid hit or a sudden mass extinction but more a slow (in human terms), painful and constant degradation of life on Earth. But why? It sounds hyperbolic (though it isn’t) and others have done it better than I can. And for those who think 1.5 degrees doesn’t matter, or it’s a natural cycle, or some other nonsense that one of those scientists says, I can point only to the IPCC report and all of the science behind it, and the reality that is staring us in our faces. I know our cars, a/cs, fridges, yards, family vacations, etc. all are important. They really are! And it doesn’t feel like we are facing a choice between those and, say, water, livable outside air temperature, food, soil, etc. But, sadly, we are, and we have 8 years left to figure out how to move away from that stuff we love so much so we can keep all that we absolutely need and preserve the best of what we have today. Let’s keep imagining if, and figuring out how, that can go from being a bad, scary thing, to something that allows us to create a new and better way of living.