Every five years nations must evaluate their progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. But this “stocktake” lacks detail making it difficult to measure progress on climate action.
IPCC authors go beyond the headlines to explain how 1.5°C warming is measured – and why there’s still reason to hope, and act, if Earth exceeds that limit.
Consider Ireland. Like New Zealand, it has high agricultural emissions and a poor climate track record so far, but it has adopted much stronger targets to cut emissions by 51% between 2018 and 2030.
The IPCC’s review process is among the most exhaustive for any scientific process. Each report generates thousands of comments from hundreds of reviewers across a range of scientific perspectives.
None of Australia’s highest-emitting energy firms are fully or even closely aligned with global climate goals. Just one goes even partway, and five appeared to be taking no action at all.
Sam Crawley, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Vested interests have lobbied against climate policy worldwide, but that’s only one reason for the slow political response. While most people want climate action, they rank other issues as more urgent.
The Victorian Government recently released their Climate Change Strategy and committed to halving greenhouse emissions by 2030. Don’t applaud this just yet, there’s much more to do.
The new commitments of state governments go some way to filling the void left by the lack of a national climate policy. The states should, and can, coordinate their efforts. Here’s how.
Humanity can still limit global warming to 1.5°C this century. But political action will determine whether it actually does. Conflating the two questions amounts to dangerous, misplaced punditry.
Australia must treble its emissions reduction targets and reach net-zero emissions by 2035. Without this and other radical global action, the chance to hold warming to well below 2°C will pass us by.
Lesley Hughes, Macquarie University; John Hewson, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; Malte Meinshausen, The University of Melbourne, and Will Steffen, Australian National University
We hear a lot about the Morrison government ‘kicking the can down the road’ on emissions reduction. New research reveals the precise burden that forces onto young Australians.