The
United
Nations
website
is very clear about what has been agreed at
an international level concerning the global response
required to limit the
Earth’s global
warming to an average 1.5°C, thereby limiting the
negative impacts of climate change in intensity and time span –
hopefully to spans of multiple generations rather than millennia.
The
Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate
change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change
Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015. It entered
into force on 4 November 2016.
Its
overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average
temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and
pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above
pre-industrial levels.”
Australia
is a party to the 2015 Paris Agreement, effective 4 November 2016.
However,
in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global
warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century.
That’s
because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far
more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and
severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.
To
limit global warming to 1.5°C, greenhouse gas emissions must peak
before 2025 at the latest and decline 43% by 2030.
All
those nations which entered into the Paris Agreement agreed to
participate in the global attempt to reduce the world’s greenhouse
gas emission by establishing firm undertakings in Nationally
Determined Contributions (NDCs).
In
their NDCs, countries communicate actions they will take to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions in order to reach the goals of the
Paris Agreement. Countries also communicate in their NDCs actions
they will take to build resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate
change.
Australia
submitted its first NDC to the United
Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)
in 2015
and
updated
that
version
of the
NDC
in 2022.
This
update commits Australia to reducing
its emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by 2030.
It
should be noted that in 2005 Australia’s total
national
greenhouse
gas emissions
of 559.1 million
tonnes of carbon equivalent gases (MT
CO2-e)
was
already
102.2% of its 1990
annual total of 515.9
MT
CO2-e.
It
could be said that even now our national reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions is sluggish at best.
"For the year to June [2023], according to the preliminary numbers from the government’s latest national greenhouse gas inventory, emissions were 4.1 million tonnes above those for the corresponding period the previous year." [The Saturday Paper, 08.09.23]
In
the year
to December
2015
Australia’s “annual
unadjusted”
greenhouse gas emissions stood at 529.2
MT
CO2-e.
An artificially constructed figure because per government policy it
excluded emissions
from from land use, land use change and forestry. These
excluded emissions
would have possibly added more than 1.0 MT
CO2-e
bringing the national annual total to over 30 MT
CO2-e
in
2015.
By
year to December 2022 Australia’s
“actual annual” greenhouse gas emissions were
recorded as 463.9 MT CO2-e.
A figure arrived at by an alleged fall in emissions from land use,
land use change and forestry of est. -13.6 MT CO2-e due
to professed reductions in land clearing and native forest
harvesting, increases in plantations and native vegetation, and
improvements in soil carbon. NOTE: By year to December 2022
each person in Australia was estimated to be responsible for 17.8
tonnes CO2-e of that year’s greenhouse gas
emissions total.
What Australian governments and industries has effected was a paltry national greenhouse gas emissions change of est.
-65.3
MT CO2-e spread over eight
years – an average of 8.1. Or est. -95.2 MT CO2-e
spread over 17 years – an average of 5.6 MT CO2-e
per annum. And that change was to a significant degree on the back of the adoption of rooftop renewable energy by the general population which in the year to December 2022 was contributing to an electricity sector emissions reduction of 5.5 MT CO2-e, according to the Dept. of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Either
way, leaving Australia with an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by at least the promised -240.4 MT CO2-e
within the next seven years. That’s roughly 34.3 MT
CO2-e emissions we have to cease releasing
into the air, waterways and oceans each and every year
until 2030 to even have a chance at surviving as a nation and a
functioning society beyond that year.
Creative
accounting using offsets, hiding behind green washing propaganda, pushing hard
decisions further down the track into the future, just won’t work.
We need to immediately tighten polluting emissions regulations & abatement requirements, begin phasing out current unabated fossils
greenhouse gas and, from this point in time where we stand right now, we must
refuse all new or expanded proposals for fossil fuel extraction and use.
Australian
industry and corporations both foreign and domestic are laughing in
our faces and, federal & state governments appear all but frozen
into inaction by the magnitude of the climate crisis before us.
There will be no heroes coming down from the mountains to save us, no
ships arriving to sail us all to as yet undiscovered safety, no
divine miracles falling from the skies.
Australia’s
estimated resident population stood at 26,268,359 men, women
and children in December 2022 according to the Australian Bureau of
Statistics.
An
estimated 21,461,249 of the resident population in 2022
were individuals 15 years of age and older.
By default theirs
is the burden of stopping that 240.4 MT CO2-e of
additional pollution entering earth’s atmosphere over Australia by
2030. That’s an extra 11.2 tonnes CO2-e
per person averaging 1.6 tonne of carbon equivalent a year.
So how do we each attempt to shoulder this terrible burden?
"Key
finding 4: global emissions are not in line with modelled global
mitigation pathways consistent with the temperature goal of the Paris
Agreement, and there is a rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition
and implement existing commitments in order to limit warming to 1.5
°C above pre-industrial levels."
[United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), Technical dialogue of the first global stocktake, Advance Version 8 September 2023, excerpt]
PRINCIPAL
SOURCES
- UN.,
Climate
Change,
retrieved 8 September 2023
- U.N.,
The
Paris Agreement
- U.N.,
Technical
dialogue of the first global stocktake. Synthesis report by the
co-facilitators on the technical dialogue,
Advance Version 8 September 2023
- U.N.,
Nationally
Determined Contributions Registry
- DCCEEW,
Australia’s
National Greenhouse Accounts,
1990
onwards
- DCCEEW,
National
Inventory Reports
- DCCEEW,
National
Greenhouse Gas Inventory: Quarterly updates 2009-2023
- ABS,
Australia's
Environment: Issues and Trends,
2002
onwards
- ABS,
Year
Book Australia, 2005
- Our
Word In Data, C02
Emissions
- Nature, Food, Global food-miles account for nearly 20% of total food-systems emissions, 15 December 2022
Postscript:
Stocktaking our personal emissions level and, looking at ways of reducing that average per head of population average green house gas emission excessive budget of 17.8 tonnes CO2-e, may be something we can all attempt.
For example:
- the average vehicle in Australia is estimated to travel 12,100 km per year or 33.2 km per day, which represents around 2.1 tonne CO2-e annually;
- while the average household across all power supply types is estimated to consume 5,818.6kw/h of electricity each year, which can be as high as 3 tonne CO2-e annually depending on the mix of supply types per household; and
- imported food or imported ingredients have food transport kilometres attached, which in Australia's case means food importation from the European Union represents est. 1.3 MT CO2-e annually or approx. 50 kg CO2-e per capita. A serve of deli sausage from Denmark travels est. 25,000 food kilometres to reach the supermarket counter.
Time to get cracking and shame the devils who brought us to this catastrophic pass - even if the task appears impossible and we merely so many cursed children of a condemned Sisyphus.
