'Collective problem needing a collective solution: Global warming is projected to increase well beyond 2 degrees'

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00:00Turning now to the latest dire warning from climate scientists, a major new report warns

00:05that the world has only three more years before it uses up its carbon budget. That's essentially

00:10the amount of CO2 we can burn and still maintain the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees

00:15Celsius. That target set by the Paris Agreement is now almost certainly out of reach. For more,

00:21we can bring in Yuri Rigel, a professor of climate science and policy at the Imperial

00:25College of London. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. First, can

00:30you talk just a bit about the highlights from this report and what struck you about it?

00:36This report is actually an annual initiative of over 60 international climate scientists

00:42who update key indicators of global climate change, key indicators of where we stand in

00:49terms of the emissions that we are emitting and the effects of those emissions.

00:54The report found that last year we again saw record high greenhouse gas emissions, and

01:02as a result, we also saw the concentrations of those greenhouse gases increasing in the

01:07atmosphere. This in turn causes global warming. Last year stood above 1.5 degrees in terms

01:16of temperatures above the pre-industrial period, but that's kind of a one-year exceptionally high

01:23temperature. Underlying is a longer trend that currently stands at 1.36 degrees.

01:31With global warming increasing and coming closer to this 1.5 degree limit of the Paris Agreement,

01:39also the amount of carbon dioxide that we can still emit decreases. Currently, we estimate the amount

01:46of carbon dioxide that we can still emit ever, while limiting warming to 1.5 is around 130 billion tons

01:55of carbon dioxide. Putting that in context, last year we emitted roughly 42 billion tons of carbon dioxide,

02:03so that makes for roughly three years at current emission rates of exhausting the 1.5 degree carbon budget.

02:11So, clearly it's too late then, isn't it? I mean, is that kind of the takeaway from this report?

02:16Well, we definitely have had too little action over the past years, in the past decades, to still

02:27confidently avoid the 1.5 degrees of global warming. The question is whether that's too late for climate action,

02:36and the answer there is, of course, no. Current policies, that means what is currently on the books in terms

02:43of actions that countries are actually implementing, still point towards 2.5 and 3 degrees of global warming

02:50by the end of the century. And that's why we know that impacts will increase drastically once we exceed

03:001.5 degrees of global warming and towards 2. So, it's really not too late to really avoid significantly

03:07further harm and damages to society. We had, you know, this 2015 climate deal in Paris. Nearly 200 countries

03:15agreed. What's happened since then? I mean, why aren't these goals being met? Who's responsible?

03:24So, the Paris Agreement sets out a global temperature goal of limiting warming well below 2 degrees,

03:30while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5. And to achieve this, countries need to put forward

03:37every five years, pledges that lay out how they will contribute to reaching this goal. Now, if we take

03:46all these pledges, and we look at what they add up to, they would limit warming roughly to 1.7 degrees.

03:54So, that is actually a quite good outcome. However, these pledges or promises are not necessarily

04:00yet put into action. And what we see is that if we look at the actual policies that are being

04:06implemented, global warming is still projected to increase well beyond 2 degrees. Who is to blame?

04:14This is a collective problem that needs a collective solution. But some countries have failed more

04:22in providing and contributing to this solution than others. In the international climate

04:29negotiation, it is typically, and is well established, that countries that have a higher

04:35responsibility in terms of historical emissions, past emissions, and that also are richer, are in a

04:42better place to take the lead and reduce their emissions first. We have seen emission reductions

04:50in the EU, in the United Kingdom, in several developed parts of our global economy. However,

04:59those emission reductions have not yet been deep and low enough. So, what we are looking at here

05:08is really kind of a mixed message where it is clear that we have emitted too much greenhouse gas

05:19emissions over the past few decades. The Paris Agreement has made some progress, but this is

05:27clearly insufficient to achieve the most ambitious end of the targets set in it.

05:34And so now, concretely, kind of what has to happen? I mean, is this something that needs to happen,

05:38like more to be done at the political level? Is it the actual enacting of policies that's causing

05:44the block or kind of where, where's the problem coming from?

05:49So, at the level of the international agreement, the Paris Agreement, that still stands. I mean,

05:55the goal in the Paris Agreement is to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5. Whether we are below at or

06:02above 1.5 degrees, the implications of that goal remain exactly the same. And that means that

06:09we need to stop putting climate pollution in the atmosphere, and that means we need to reduce

06:15greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. And that in the near term, because this is a

06:22cumulative problem. Every ton of carbon dioxide that we add to the atmosphere, that we don't avoid

06:28emitting, adds to global warming permanently. And that's then also where the focus needs to be.

06:35We have pledges. Countries are also invited to put forward new pledges this year under the Paris

06:43Agreement. These pledges need to be ambitious, but then, of course, countries need to walk the talk.

06:48And they need to translate these pledges and these emissions targets into policies, into policies that

06:55change the amount of energy we use in housing, that provide good and reliable and low carbon

07:03transport systems. And that change our energy system and our power system to produce reliable energy

07:11while not producing climate pollution.

07:13And if we do get past that 1.5 degree target, I mean, say we get up to 1.7 degrees, as you were mentioning,

07:19or even beyond that, is there any hope of reversing it afterwards?

07:23Physically, we understand that if we start taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere again, we expect

07:33global warming to reverse. And in all honesty, that is probably something that we will need to consider

07:40in the long term. However, being able to cool the planet again doesn't mean that we get back to the

07:46same planet. If an ecosystem dies back, if we lose all global coral reefs, if we lose alpine ecosystems,

07:56because they have literally been pushed off the mountain, they won't be returning when we cool the

08:03planet again in roughly a century from now. So the focus really needs to be on avoiding global warming

08:11from increasing further and really avoiding near term greenhouse gas emissions and reducing them

08:17as deeply as possible. I appreciate that this is probably a sounds quite daunting in the current

08:25geopolitical in the current geopolitical context. At the same time, the physics of climate change

08:34that are well understood and that we can see play out now in the world around us, they are not not to be negotiated.

08:41And they will just progress. And climate damages will just be hitting us as if we are not reducing

08:49our greenhouse gas emissions. Hopefully more progress will be made at the next climate conference

08:53in November. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you again so much, Yuri Rogel. Again,

08:57that's Yuri Rogel, a professor of climate science and policy at the Imperial College of London. Time to take

09:03a quick break. Stay with us if you can. We'll be back with more news in just a moment.

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