Paris agreement – The Green Tau

Green Tau: issue 95

27th September 2024

Is climate change an existential threat?

What does ‘existential’ mean?

Existential means pertaining to existence – including relating to or affirming existence. When used as an adjective to describe a threat, it is used to mean a situation where continued existence is in question. For example, the threat of nuclear war can be described as an existential threat.

Is climate change an existential threat?

Rising global temperatures are a threat to human life. They are also a threat to the world’s flora and fauna. They are a threat to ice sheets and glaciers and so create the threat of rising sea levels. They are threat to weather patterns creating droughts, floods, heat domes, wildfires, storms etc – all of further increasing the threats to human and other life forms on earth. These threats to life – both present and future – have been widely and extensively studied by scientists across the world.

To quote from NASA’s website: “the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organisations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world.” https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/

Further more “It’s important to remember that scientists always focus on the evidence, not on opinions. Scientific evidence continues to show that human activities (primarily the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed Earth’s surface and its ocean basins, which in turn have continued to impact Earth’s climate. This is based on over a century of scientific evidence forming the structural backbone of today’s civilisation.

“NASA Global Climate Change presents the state of scientific knowledge about climate change while highlighting the role NASA plays in better understanding our home planet. This effort includes citing multiple peer-reviewed studies from research groups across the world, illustrating the accuracy and consensus of research results (in this case, the scientific consensus on climate change) consistent with NASA’s scientific research portfolio.” https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/scientific-consensus/

In February 2021, David Attenborough in addressing the UN Security Council called climate change “the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced”. He went in to say “If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security,” he said: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperature and ocean food chains. The poorest — those with the least security — are certain to suffer. “Our duty right now is surely to do all we can to help those in the most immediate danger.” https://press.un.org/en/2021/sc14445.doc.htm

It is not just scientists that term climate change as an existential threat, but renowned world organisations too.

In 2019, Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change wrote, “Once a distant concern, climate change is now an existential threat and the greatest challenge facing this generation. It is abundantly clear that business as usual is no longer good enough. Rapid, deep and transformative hanger is needed throughout society – not only to reduce emissions and stabilise global temperatures, but to build a safer, healthier and more prosperous future for all.

“Our goals are clear and the science is non-negotiable. We must limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees and, on the road to doing so, achieve climate neutrality by 2050.This must be done urgently and cooperatively; a global project requiring the best efforts from all nations, all businesses and all people.” https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Climate_Action_Support_Trends_2019.pdf

In December 2020, five years after the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change by world leaders at COP21 in 2015, the International Energy Agency reported:

“The Paris Agreement has been ratified by 189 of the 197 signatories ─ with scope for more to do so. Since the signing, governments, companies and citizens around the world have started to take action. Indeed, addressing this existential threat is the global challenge we face.

“This has meant a special responsibility for the IEA, which as the global energy authority has a mandate to promote energy security, economic development and environmental protection. Keeping the lights and heaters on, keeping transport moving, these are themselves critical dimensions of our economies and lives. And we have to make sure we can keep doing them in a sustainable way. Energy is not a problem – emissions are the problem.

“The IEA has looked at the energy sector’s impact on climate for more than a decade, and we have significantly ramped up our efforts in recent years under the leadership of Executive Director Dr Fatih Birol, with a focus on supporting countries in their transitions to clean energy. Energy systems that continue to worsen climate change are making all of us more vulnerable and less secure.”

https://www.iea.org/commentaries/as-we-mark-the-paris-agreement-s-5th-anniversary-we-continue-to-expand-our-work-on-energy-and-climate

Two years later in September 2022, the IEA reported:

““We are in the midst of the first truly global energy crisis, with devastating knock-on consequences across the world economy, especially in developing countries. Only by speeding up the transition to clean sustainable energy can we achieve lasting energy security,’’ said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “Through international collaboration, we can make the transition quicker, cheaper and easier for everyone – on the back of faster innovation, greater economies of scale, bigger incentives to invest, level playing fields and benefits that are shared across all parts of society. Without this collaboration, the transition to net zero emissions will be much more challenging and could be delayed by decades.” https://www.iea.org/news/international-collaboration-gap-threatens-to-undermine-climate-progress-and-delay-net-zero-by-decades

The previous year in the IEA’s report Net Zero by 2050: a Road map for the Global Energy Sector, laid out how across the globe different sectors would need to change to meet the 2050 net zero emissions target, including ramping up renewable energy supplies such as solar and wind power. The Report highlighted the need to ensure fair energy costs for consumers, transitioning jobs to maintain employment opportunities, replacing the internal combustion engine with electric vehicles etc. At the same time it was equally forthright in stating that polluting energy sources would have to be phased out, referencing coal (to be phased out first) oil and gas – and the Report was clear:

No new oil and gas!

“Beyond projects already committed as of 2021, there are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway, and no new coal mines or mine extensions are required. The unwavering policy focus on climate change in the net zero pathway results in a sharp decline in fossil fuel demand, meaning that the focus for oil and gas producers switches entirely to output – and emissions reductions – from the operation of existing assets.” https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050

As time has passed – and despite both the promises and the actual actions taken by nations – the rate at which the climate is changing has not slowed but accelerated.

In October 2023 an international group of scientists wrote: “We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered.” Their writing in the journal Biosciences, was reported by the Forbes magazine: “As scientists, we are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth about the crises we face in simple and direct terms. The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023.”

In January 2024 the World Economic Forum produced its Global Risk Report.

“Nature and climate risks are getting the attention they deserve — that’s a positive first step in addressing some of the greatest challenges that we, as a global community, face. Just this week, scientists announced that temperatures in 2023 reached 1.48°C above preindustrial averages, with the 1.5°C threshold that takes the Earth into an unsafe operating space likely to be breached in the next 12 months.

“The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 named three key climate issues as critical challenges facing humanity: Extreme weather events, critical change to Earth systems — which is a new entrant this year — and biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse….

“There is no doubt that the challenge is great — it is perhaps the greatest challenge humanity has ever or will ever face. The good news: the solutions are available to us.

“The priority solution is faster emissions reduction and credible steps by all actors in our economic system to accelerate the speed and scale of a clean transition. Human emissions is the swiftest lever to postpone or avoid critical changes to Earth systems…

“Given the nature of the existential threat, it is essential to pair a realistic view of risks alongside hope and optimism. Too much focus on the risks will leave humans with a trauma response of fight, flight, freeze and fold – leading to ecoanxiety and climate grief. These responses induce inaction and serve to propel the risk rather than mitigate it. On the other hand, an overly optimistic view that is reliant on technological fixes further down the line is also unhelpful, as decision-makers kick the can down the proverbial road.

“What is needed is a mindset that recognises the full scale of the climate risk, whilst maintaining the optimism that we can and will respond in a way to avoid and mitigate the worst risks from occurring.”

Their report also noted: “The good news: the solutions are available to us. The priority solution is faster emissions reduction and credible steps by all actors in our economic system to accelerate the speed and scale of a clean transition. Human emissions is the swiftest lever to postpone or avoid critical changes to Earth systems.” https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/01/climate-risks-are-finally-front-and-centre-of-the-global-consciousness/

In July 2024 the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) produced its Global Foresight Report. This is a report that aims to understand and predict those things that can or will disrupt planetary health and human wellbeing. The Executive Summary provides the following insights.

“Through the process, it has become clear that the world is facing a different context than it faces even ten years ago. Some of the issues are the same, but the rapid rate of change combined with technological developments, more frequent and devastating disasters and an increasingly turbulent geopolitical landscape, has resulted in a new operating context, where any country can be thrown off course more easily and more often.

“The world is already on the verge of what may be termed ‘polycrisis’ – where global crises are not just amplifying and accelerating but also appear to be synchronising. The triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste is feeding into human crises such as conflict for territory and resources, displacement and deteriorating health.

“The speed of change is staggering….

“The good news is that just as the impact of multiple crises is compounded when they are linked, so are the solutions …Key to a better future is a focus on inter generational equity and a new social contract reinforcing shared values that unite us rather than divide us. A new social contract would involve the global community pursuing transformative change across technological, economic and social factors and paradigms and collective goals.” https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/45915/English-Executive-Summary-Foresight-Report.pdf?sequence=8

For scientists and for those looking at the climate crisis from a global perspective, it is clear that climate change does present us with an existential threat. However looking at the responses from governments and business concerns – that is actual responses not just words and promises – climate change is not an existential threat. It is not even an urgent priority. Economic growth (measured by the unhelpful metric of gross domestic product), the exploiting of every last drop of oil and gas, increasing dividends, ensuring profits for banks, routes for airlines, roads for car drivers, and the maintenance of industrial farming and livestock production, all take precedence.

If global bodies are saying ‘existential threat’ but government and industry are saying ‘business as usual’ then we should not be surprised if most people think that the climate change is an important global issue but not an issue that should have any impact on their daily life. So governments and industries continue to say ‘Yes we will make change’ to the global bodies whilst continuing to say to the consumers ‘No don’t worry, we’ll delay these changes till a later date’.

One body that monitors the progress being taken by nations is the Climate Action Tracker.

Their assessment shows that gap between where we should be and where we are.

Counting on … day 66

14th March 2024

Advance planning is key in tackling the climate crisis but it also has to be planning that can flex as circumstance change. The Climate Change Committee was preparing the UK’s fifth carbon budget for the period 2028-2032 back in November 2015. It the executive summary the CCC noted that the publishing of the budget was deliberately being timed to come out before COP21 in Paris – the COP where the Paris agreement was drawn up.

Amongst the various budget proposals – which largely focused on reducing the carbon intensity of energy generation, and of transport – featured things such as hydrogen powered buses no hydrogen for domestic heating. We now know that the science and the markets have gone down the line of electric buses, and that hydrogen has similarly not proved a practicable substitute for domestic heating – rather the trend has, if very slowly, been for heat pumps.

What the writers of the budget could not have predicted was the Covid pandemic which has altered working patterns and changed the pressures on the transport system. Nor could they have anticipated the war in Ukraine and the sharp increase in fuel prices which has served to reduce gas consumption.

The CCC is now working on the seventh carbon budget (for the period 2038-2042), having issued the sixth budget in 2020 (for the period 2033-2037). The advance notice of that these budgets give on the shape the economy and infrastructure need to take, should help industry with its investment plans but this does rely on the government both sticking to the plans – eg not changing the proposed date for phasing out new petrol engine cars – and facilitating change when unforeseen circumstances arise such as wars and global energy price hikes.

Counting on … day 65

13th March 2024

To monitor progress – ie whether nations are meeting the targets they set for themselves with their NDCs – there is the work of an independent body, the Climate Action Tracker.

“The Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific project that tracks government climate action and measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement aim of “holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.” A collaboration of two organisations, Climate Analytics and NewClimate Institute, the CAT has been providing this independent analysis to policymakers since 2009.” https://climateactiontracker.org/

In 2022 the UK updated its NDC, as part of the COP26 agreement, to commit to reducing it economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by at least 68% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels. (https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/NDC/2022-06/UK Nationally Determined Contribution.pdf)

The diagram below shows Climate Action Trackers assessment for the UK as of of September 2023. There clearly room for improvement.

Counting on … day 64

12th March 2024

A Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is a climate action plan that shows how a nation will cut its emissions and adapt to climate change. (Being nationally determined allows for differentiation between nations according to the current ability to effect change. Wealthier countries should be able to reduce emissions at a faster rate).

Each Party – ie nation or state – to the Paris Agreement is required to establish an NDC. Collectively these NDCs should ensure the world’s greenhouse gas emissions peak and then fall, and so address the climate crisis. Each NDC covers a five year period – being submitted to the UNFCC in 2020, 2025, 2030 etc – but is subject to ongoing review by each nation.

Since 2021 the UNFCC has produced a synthesis report that collects, collates and analyses all the NDCs, to determine whether or not nations are on track to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement. The most recent, published in November 2023 in the run up to COP28, found that the national climate action plans were still insufficient to limit the global temperature rise to just 1.5C. The hope was that this announcement would spur on the parties at COP28 to take radical action to address this shortcoming.

However it did not.

Counting on … day 63

11th March 2024

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities… It has 195 member states who govern the IPCC. The member states elect a bureau of scientists to serve through an assessment cycle. A cycle is usually six to seven years… The IPCC informs governments about the state of knowledge of climate change. It does this by examining all the relevant scientific literature on the subject. This includes the natural, economic and social impacts and risks… Thousands of scientists and other experts volunteer to review the publications. They compile key findings into “Assessment Reports” for policymakers and the general public; Experts have described this work as the biggest peer review process in the scientific community. The IPCC is an internationally accepted authority on climate change. Leading climate scientists and all member governments endorse its findings.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change

The reports produced by the IPCC have been key in enabling The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is the structure that enables the UN to negotiate an agreement whereby the nations of the world undertake to address the climate crisis. Formally it is termed an international treaty among countries to combat “dangerous human interference with the climate system” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change

The most significant UNFCCC treaty was The Paris Agreement which was hammered out at COP21 in 2015 and came into force in 2016. Its aims were to limit the rise in global temperature to less than 2ºC above pre-industrial revolution levels, while aiming to hold it at 1.5ºC.

Green Tau: issue 70

30th May 2023

Understanding Net Zero Targets

Introduction

Global temperatures have fluctuated considerably over the geological lifetime of the plants, and indeed in the past have been at much higher levels than we are currently experiencing. What is different now is the rate at which global temperatures are rising – far faster than at any previous time. The current rise in temperatures is not ‘natural’ but anthropogenic- human-made. The cause of this rise in temperatures has been the increasing quantity of greenhouse gases (principally carbon dioxide) that through human activity has been released into the atmosphere. These act like an insulation jacket on a hot water cylinder keeping in the sun’s heat.

The earth’s ecosystem can cope with a certain degree of fluctuation in global temperatures and still stay pretty much the same – with snow and glaciers on mountain tops, ice sheets at the poles, a stable Gulf Stream in the Atlantic and an equally stable jet stream in the high atmosphere – both ensuring reliable weather patterns. However there comes a point at which increases in global temperatures causes changes that are irreversible and/ or which accelerate further temperature rises.

A 1.5C temperature rise is one such tipping point. Exceeding this will likely lead to the loss of the Greenland ice sheet and the Western Antarctic ice sheet. Both will expose ground that unlike the ice sheet, absorbs rather than reflects the sun’s rays, and will thus accelerate rising temperatures. Whilst the sudden thawing of the northern permafrost which will release large amounts of methane which in the short term has an even greater greenhouse (warming) effect than carbon dioxide. The 1.5C tipping point is also likely to see the death of many coral reefs which would otherwise be absorbing carbon dioxide, again leading to further increases in temperature. These will all be irreversible events in our human timescale.

The need for action

For many decades scientists have been arguing for a reduction in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – and this has not gone un-noticed by governments and communities. Here in the UK, the Climate Change Act was passed in 2008 and sets out legally binding emissions targets, initially aiming for an 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2050. The Act also established a series of national carbon budgets, with a decreasing cap on emissions for succeeding five year time spans. (These budgets exclude emissions from aviation, shipping and from imported goods).

In 2016 nearly 174 nations plus the EU signed up to the 2015 Paris Agreement that tasked them with reducing emissions to a level that would keep the global temperature rise well below 2C and ideally no more then 1.5C. The agreed target was that the world – as represented by the parties at COP21 that had produced the agreement – should seek to half greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to cut them to net zero by 2050 (at the latest).

By this time there was a growing grassroots movement of climate activists calling on governments and institutions to take action. Across the world the demands from climate activists led to many institutions and authorities declaring a ‘climate emergency’. The first such declaration was made by the City of Darebin in Melbourne, Australia in 2016. Bristol City Council, in 2018, became the first local authority to do so in the UK, and in 2019 the UK Parliament itself declared an environment and climate emergency. This latter following 10 days of protests by Extinction Rebellion.

Terminology
Net zero is the end reference point rather than absolute zero because it is recognised that there will always be some areas of human activity that produce carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions – simply breathing produces carbon dioxide – but that these can be offset by increasing activities that absorb carbon dioxide. Such activities includes creating maintaining woodlands, peat lands, sea grasses etc.

Carbon neutral is a similar term related to net zero. It is used when an organisation/ production process etc has neutral balance vis a vis carbon produced and carbon absorbed. Another term in use is carbon negative. This is when an organisation/ production process removes more carbon dioxide than it produces. A well maintained forest could achieve this. Net zero on the other hand assumes that as far as possible all greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced with offsetting only used to compensate for a small and impossible to remove residue.

Net zero for nations

Since 2016, more nations have signed up to the Paris Agreement, with now just under 200 signatories. Each nation is tasked with working out its own plan to achieve the global net zero by 2050 target, producing a quota that is their Nationally Determined Contribution. Each NDC is added to a register at the UN, and at each subsequent Climate COP, they are invited to review and ideally improve upon their NDC.

The UK chooses to distinguish between emissions produced from within the UK borders and those from without. The UK’s measure includes thus emissions produced by companies who export products from the UK (which are often in the form of financial services which tend to have a lower footprint) and excludes emissions produced elsewhere on items that are imported (which are often manufactured goods coming in from China, India etc). The UK’s measure has also excluded emissions from aviation and shipping, but this is going to being adjusted in relation to proposals for future decades.

New Zealand for its emissions budget, chooses to exclude biogenic methane being the emissions arising from livestock, agriculture and rotting organic waste. Whilst Costa Rica’s targets covers all greenhouse gases and aims to reach net zero within national boundaries – meaning it won’t use international offsets – by 2050. The plan sets out a strategy for decarbonising ten areas of the country’s economy, with interim goals such as 30% of its public transport fleet being zero-emissions by 2035. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211028-why-not-all-net-zero-emissions-targets-are-equal

To help nations predict the effectiveness of their plans, and to enable their progress to be independently monitored, The Climate Action Tracker scrutinises nation’s climate actions and measures them against the globally agreed Paris Agreement aim of “holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.” They report publicly the progress being made by leading countries. The most recent assessment grades the UK’s rating as ‘almost sufficient’. (Costa Rica has the same rating whilst New Zealand is rated as ‘highly insufficient’. https://climateactiontracker.org/media/images/CAT_2021-09_Graph_SplitSummary_UK.original.png

CAT also draws data together to give a global overview of policies to determine likely trends in temperatures over the coming century. For example in November 2022 CAT reported on the future shape of liquified natural gas production based on future projects (approved and proposed) and showed that the projected increase in production was well outside the scenario needed to keep with it the net zero target. https://climateactiontracker.org/press/dash-for-gas-a-serious-threat-to-the-paris-agreements-warming-limit/

Net zero policies in the UK

The 2019 Environment and Climate Emergency Declaration itself has no legally binding requirements, rather the legal obligation to reduce UK emissions lies with the 2008 Climate Change Act. This, in the light of the Paris Agreement, was amended such that the end target for 2050 is now set to be net zero. And action has been taken:- UK terrestrial (ie emissions that occur within the UK borders) have fallen from 800million tonnes of CO2 in 1990 to 424.5 Mt CO2e in 2021.

The 2008 Climate Change Act also set up the Climate Change Committee as an independent statutory body which advises the Government on achieving its emissions targets. To this end the CCC produces a five yearly carbon budget. The most recent, the Sixth Carbon Budget, covers the period 2033-2037. It includes the following four key steps:

Enabling people and businesses to choose low-carbon solutions, as high carbon options are progressively phased out. By the early 2030s road transport and home heating will be largely electrical. Industry too will shift to using largely non fossil fuel energy.
UK electricity production will be zero carbon by 2035 with offshore wind the main source. With new and expanding uses for electricity (arising from the above) electricity demand is likely to increase by 50%. Hydrogen production will also increase to fuel shipping and industry.
Reducing demand for carbon-intensive activities through insulating buildings, reducing air and car travel, and reducing meat and diary consumption. These will additionally improve health and well being!
Increasing the absorption of greenhouse gas through transforming agriculture, increasing tree planting and restoring peat lands.

The effect of these steps would be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2035 to 20% of their level in 1990, putting the UK on track to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

The Climate Change Committee is also tasked with reviewing and reporting back to Government the progress being made. The most recent assessment published in March 2023 covered the period of 2018 – 2023. The CCC stated that the “found very limited evidence of the implementation of adaptation at the scale needed to fully prepare for climate risks facing the UK across cities, communities, infrastructure, economy and ecosystems.” https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/progress-in-adapting-to-climate-change-2023-report-to-parliament/

Net zero for businesses and organisations

However it is not just governments that have pledged to take action to achieve the net zero 2050 target. Educational institutions, businesses, health providers, local authorities, service providers, financial institutions etc too have drawn up climate action plans. As of 2022 75% of UK universities committed to net zero targets under scopes 1 and 2 (see below to learn more about scopes).

https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/insights-and-analysis/climate-crisis-what-progress-have

The Church of England has a route map to net zero by 2030 which includes church schools. https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/RoutemapToNetZeroCarbonFinal.pdf

As of July 2022, the NHS became the first health system to embed net zero into legislation, through the Health and Care Act 2022 covering scopes 1,2 and 3.. https://www.england.nhs.uk/greenernhs/a-net-zero-nhs/

The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames declared a climate emergency in 2019, and has a Climate Change Strategy and Action plan with the target of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. https://richmond.gov.uk/news/press_office/campaigns_and_events/climate_emergency/how_we_can_tackle_climate_change/what_are_we_doing_about_climate_change

Unilever has a Climate Transition Action Plan which aims to achieve zero emissions by 2030 for their operations (eg manufacturing products – scope 1 emissions) and net zero across their supply chain by 2039 (scope 2 emissions) and are working on reducing the emissions arising from when their products are used by customers (eg when they consume energy having a shower or running a washing machine scope 3 emissions).

https://www.unilever.com/planet-and-society/climate-action/taking-a-stand/

Greggs bakery chain plans to become net zero in its operations by 2035 and in its chains by 2040. https://www.futurenetzero.com/2022/04/12/greggs-rolls-onto-net-zero-by-2040/

Network Rail is aiming for net-zero emissions by 2045 in Scotland and by 2050 in the rest of Britain. https://www.networkrail.co.uk/sustainability/a-low-emission-railway/ whilst the train operator South West Trains, proposes to be net zero (scope 2 and 3) by 2040 https://www.southwesternrailway.com/other/about-us/our-plan/sustainability/-/media/62428c246dc84f0b97b2c055d1cda480.ashx

Of course it is in everyone’s long term interests to take such action. Every activity whether it’s teaching a class of 5 year olds, running a train service, or producing bread will become much harder as the climate crisis escalates. How do you teach 30 children when temperatures rise to 40C? How do you run a train service when floods and landslides block the line? How do you produce bread when high temperatures and extended droughts halve the wheat crop?

Monitoring emissions and what is included.

Just as the Government has it advisory committee, so businesses, institutions and others have advisers – some commercial, some not for profit and others operating as charities. The UN is backing the global campaign ‘Race to Zero’ helping companies, cities, regions, financial and educational institutions, to halve global emissions by 2030 and to net zero by 2050. https://racetozero.unfccc.int/ , and the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi): The SBTi is a partnership between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that drives ambitious climate action in the private sector by enabling companies to set science-based emissions reduction targets: https://sciencebasedtargets.org/

About a third of Britain”s largest businesses have signed up for the Race to Zero campaign, pledging to eliminate their contribution to carbon emissions by 2050.

The UK government records its net zero progress by measuring greenhouse gases emitted within its borders. (This means incidentally that it does not include in its assessment emissions that arise from items consumed in the UK but produced elsewhere such as China). Businesses likewise have to determine which emissions they are going to ‘own’. To assist this, emissions are categorised as falling into three areas –

Scope 1 emissions which are directly related to their business – eg burning gas to smelt steel, burning petrol to run a bus.

Scope 2 emissions which are generated off-site such as electricity which is produced in a regional power station but which is used to power a café‘s coffee machine, the emissions generated when your staff/ pupils travel to work school.

Scope 3 emissions which includes emissions relating to the products you use upstream of your business – eg the emissions arising from growing, transporting and roasting the coffee beans bought by the café; the emissions arising from manufacturing the bus; emissions arising in extracting the iron ore that is used at the steel works – and those expended downstream – the emissions arising from recycling or otherwise disposing of used coffee cups, the emissions that arise from running a shower for someone using Unilever’s soap, or in the case of an oil refinery, the emissions arising when that oil is burnt to run someone’s boiler.

Of these, scopes 1 and 2 are relatively easy for businesses to identify and adapt to achieve a net zero target. It maybe that they will have to shop around and find alternative suppliers for some items – eg a green electricity supplier, someone who grows organic coffee beans etc, or provide staff with bicycles. Scope 3 emissions can be trickier to adjust, and may involve a lot of working with suppliers to change the carbon footprint of what they produce – a café might work with both coffee roasters and coffee bean growers to grow, roast and ship a bean with a smaller footprint – or may mean finding new suppliers. Equally a café might look at the waste they produce – paper cups, plastic packaging, used coffee grounds – and work out ways of ensuring that the resulting emissions are reduced by for example, replacing single use cups with reusable ones, replacing plastic packaging with paper bags, or finding ways of recycling coffee grounds.

There is obviously an overlap between the different scopes – scope 3 emissions from one organisation being the scope 2 emissions of another. Working together is a key part of achieving net zero targets. This includes us as individuals as we make choices about how to travel to work/ school, whether to bring a keep cup for our take out coffees, or how long we spend in the shower.

For some organisations such as fossil fuel companies, reducing scope 3 emissions can be a challenge to the raison d’être of the company: their whole business is all about extracting and selling greenhouse gas emitting products. One such company, Ørsted, faced this challenge head on: “In the late 2000s we were one of the most coal intensive power generators in Europe with an expanding oil and gas production business. But we took a strategic decision to become a green energy company, as we were convinced it was the right approach strategically, financially and environmentally. To drive our transformation, we invested heavily in renewable energy, particularly offshore wind; exited our fossil fuel businesses, and formulated our vision of creating a world that runs entirely on green energy. We are now one of the largest renewable energy companies by capacity globally and the leading offshore wind company. Financial performance has significantly improved whilst we have reduced our carbon emissions by 86%.” https://orsted.com/en/insights/white-papers/green-transformation-lessons-learned

Other fossil fuel companies however are trying to combine fossil fuels with renewables such that they can continue to extract and sell oil and gas (which still remain highly lucrative). Is this compatible with a net zero target? There are at least three ways in which this can be orchestrated.

One is to set the net zero target for 2050, and to sit lightly to any interim targets such as halving emissions by 2030. In theory a company could continue its high emissions production until 2049 and then cut all production in the last year and achieve its net zero target.

Second, it could mask its emissions in the interim by adding renewable energy production to its portfolio, and thus show a reduced intensity of their overall emissions without cutting back on fossil fuels.

Third it could invest in carbon absorbing projects – such as planting trees – or invest in carbon capture projects – where carbon dioxide emissions are trapped as they are produced and ‘locked away’ through physically storing the gas underground or by mixing it with other materials to store it as different chemical compound. The former take time to become effective: trees need to grow before they become efficient stores of CO2 and managed to ensure a long and useful life; whilst as regards carbon capture, much of that is based in untested technology that is not yet available at the necessary scale needed.

Net zero targets and green washing

Investopedia defines green washing as “the process of conveying a false impression or misleading information about how a company’s products are environmentally sound. Greenwashing involves making an unsubstantiated claim to deceive consumers into believing that a company’s products are environmentally friendly or have a greater positive environmental impact than they actually do. In addition, greenwashing may occur when a company attempts to emphasise sustainable aspects of a product to overshadow the company’s involvement in environmentally damaging practices”.

Reliable monitoring and certification schemes are critical if ‘green washing’ is to be avoided.

In 2022 the Uk government passed legislation that requires Britain’s largest companies to report on the climate risks they face and their strategies to overcome these. In other words they must have thought through climate transition plan that shows how they will transition to a low carbon future in line with the Government’s net zero target. As well as having a duty under the UK companies Act 2006 to promote the success of the company, company directors must also have regard to the impact of the company’s operations on the environment and the community. (For more info see https://www.allenovery.com/en-gb/global/news-and-insights/publications/risks-for-directors-in-the-spotlight-climate-litigation)

Having legislated for the requirement to disclose and for the directors’ responsibilities vis a vis the environment, it is now possible for interested parties (principally share holders) to challenge companies at law to prove that they are indeed shifting their businesses in the direction needed to address the climate crisis.

In February 2023, the environmental law organisation ClientEarth announced that it was taking Shell to court. ClientEarth. “The shift to a low-carbon economy is not just inevitable, it’s already happening.”But the Shell board is persisting with a transition strategy that is “fundamentally flawed,” Benson claims. He says it leaves the company seriously exposed to the risks climate change poses to their success in the future – “despite the board’s legal duty to manage those risks”. Shell says its ‘Energy Transition Strategy’ – including its plan to be net zero by 2050 – is consistent with the 1.5C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. The company also claims its plan to halve emissions by 2030 is “industry-leading”. But ClientEarth says this covers less than 10 per cent of its overall emissions and independent assessments have found that Shell’s climate strategy is not Paris-aligned.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/02/09/shells-board-of-directors-sued-over-flawed-climate-strategy-in-first-of-its-kind-lawsuit. (NB Shell’s Energy Transition Strategy covers only scope 1 and 2 emissions)

This year’s Shell AGM faced a shareholder vote backed by big pension funds and investors to set carbon emission reduction targets for 2030, while dozens of protesters called for an immediate end to fossil fuel production – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/23/shell-agm-protests-emissions-targets-oil-fossil-fuels However the level of objection was insufficient to win a resounding vote against the Shell board.

Interim conclusion

The pursuit of net zero targets by governments and organisations will continue to be live issue.