This week
scientists advised the UN that current global emission reduction targets are insufficient and will cause warming of 2.9 to 3.4 degrees Celsius by 2100, with significant risk of even more warming due to run-away feedback effects. They estimated that emission reductions need to be increased five-fold immediately to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The UN appealed to all nations to take urgent action.
Scott Morrison then told the UN that Australia will not make further emission reductions, and that our policy is to meet our existing emissions targets.
This implies that our government considers warming by 3.4 degrees in 2100 would be an acceptable outcome.
But do they really think that? I have read lots of commentary about climate change this week by Scott Morrison, other government politicians and their supporters in the media, hoping to hear an answer to this question. But I didn't find it.
In the Paris agreement in 2015, Australia committed to making sufficient emission reductions to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and also agreed to improve our emissions targets in response to 5-yearly progress reviews and updates to the scientific advice. The first 5-yearly review at the UN conference this week asked for a 5-fold improvement in emission reductions, but Australia refused to make any. At Paris we agreed to make our "highest possible" efforts to reduce emissions.
Here is an explanation of the 5-yearly review process. Particularly,
The stocktake works as part of the Paris Agreement's effort to create a "ratcheting up" of ambition in emissions cuts. Because analysts have agreed that the current NDCs will not limit rising temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius, the global stocktake reconvenes parties to assess how their new NDCs must evolve so that they continually reflect a country's "highest possible ambition".
I think we just breached our Paris commitments.
