3rd August 2024
We have a climate crisis! Who is going to raise the alarm?
“Ground temperatures across great swathes of the ice sheets of Antarctica have soared an average of 10C above normal over the past month, in what has been described as a near record heatwave.”
“Shell’s half-year profits climb to £10.9bn after focusing on fossil fuels”
“Five Just Stop Oil protesters jailed for climbing gantries to block M25”
These are all headlines from the Guardian newspaper on 1st August 2024 (which coincidently was also Earth Overshoot Day marking the day on which we humans had consumed a full year’s worth of the earth’s regenerative resources and thereafter are consuming the resources of future generations).
I can’t be the only one to see here both cause and effect of the climate crisis, and the outrageous response to those brave enough to shout ‘Emergency!’?
How can we go on punishing people for telling the truth about the crisis whilst allowing those who are fuelling it to carry in making ever greater profits?
As early as the 19th century, scientists were exploring the way in which increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – such as carbon dioxide – could increase global temperatures, potentially altering the earth’s climate. (1)
As early as the 1970s Exxon knew of climate change and the contribution made by fossil fuel emissions. Indeed they even commissions scientists to investigate this phenomenon. (2)
Scientific evidence has continued to accrue showing not just the link between greenhouse gas emissions and increasing global temperatures, but also the sharp shape of the curve which demonstrates the speed with which this human-made change to the earth’s climate – and therefore environment – is happening.
The bar chart shows ‘Yearly temperature compared to the twentieth-century average from 1850–2023. Red bars mean warmer-than-average years; blue bars mean colder-than-average years. (line graph) Atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts: 1850-1958 from IAC, 1959-2023 from NOAA Global Monitoring Lab.’ It is a NOAA Climate.gov graph, adapted from original by Dr. Howard Diamond (NOAA ARL).(3)
In 2008 the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act which tasked the Secretary of State with reducing the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by 100% by 2050 compared with those of 1990. The Act also established the Climate Change Committee to advise the government on the steps and targets needed to achieve this. (4) To date the government has managed to meet these targets but its policies – and the way we carry out transport, manufacturing, agricultural and other tasks such as insulating buildings – are not on track to meet the 2030 and 2050 targets.
In 2015 under the auspices of the United Nation’s Conference on Climate Change (COP21) the nations agreed a legally binding international treaty. Known as the Paris Agreement its aim is to collectively limit greenhouse gas emissions such that global temperatures increases should not exceed 2C and ideally stay below a 1.5C increase. (5) NB the increase in global temperatures for the period February 2023 to January 2024 exceeded 1.5C.
To implement the Paris Agreement, the UK government requires large businesses to create plans to show how they will transition to net zero by 2050. To enable this to happen, the government set up the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). (6)(7)
Companies can be judged as to whether they are Paris compliant or not. This applies to both companies in the UK and across the world. There are independent organisations that keep track of the progress being made by companies whether that is at the planning stage or in implementing their plans. One such organisation is Carbon Tracker which has a particular focus on companies dealing in fossil fuels. (8)
Are fossil fuel companies transitioning away from the production of oil and gas towards a 2050 future of renewable energy? Are fossil fuel emissions being cut? Is less oil and gas being produced? No! And no! And no!
A report produced by Carbon Tracker in March 2024, concluded that of the 25 largest oil companies, none was on track to achieve either the 1.5C nor the less-than-2C warming targeted in the Paris Agreement. (9) This was startling but perhaps not unexpected. At COP28 in Dubai Antonio Gutierrez, the UN General Secretary, told world leaders that they “cannot save a burning planet with a fire hose of fossil fuels… The 1.5-degree limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate.” (10)
This year, both BP and Shell have declared their intentions to cut back on green energy projects and rather focus on increasing what is still the more profitable (for shareholders if not for the world) oil and gas production.
From BP as they announces their second quarter results, “We are in action focusing, simplifying and growing the value of bp and have accomplished a lot in the past six months. We are high-grading our biofuels portfolio, including an agreement to take full ownership of bp Bunge. We are concentrating our strategy in hydrogen, including taking investment decisions on green hydrogen projects at our Castellón and Lingen refineries. We have also given the go-ahead to Kaskida, which will be our sixth production hub in the Gulf of Mexico, as we progress the development of new oil and gas resources.” (11)
For Shell, the Guardian reported that Sawan, the new chief executive, had ‘reversed a plan to reduce Shell’s oil and gas production by 1-2% a year in pursuit of higher profits. Instead the company would add 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day to its production in 2024 and by 2025 would start enough new fossil fuel projects to add half a million barrels a day.’ (12)
With all this increasing production of fossil fuels and resultant emissions, and increasing global temperatures, where – apart from the UN Secretary General – are the voices of outrage, the voices raising the alarm: WHY ARE WE STILL FACING THIS EXISTENTIAL HUMAN-MADE CLIMATE CRISIS?
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science
(2) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
(3) https://www.climate.gov/media/13840
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Change_Act_2008
(5) https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement
(6) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59136214
(7) https://kpmg.com/uk/en/home/insights/2022/05/climate-transition-plan-what-you-need-to-know.html
(8) https://carbontracker.org/
The Green Tau 