Inspired by a wave of climate activism, national leaders were expected to come up with new, more ambitious plans to reduce emissions over the next decade.
The COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, would be the first real test of their determination to do what they promised, under the important Paris Agreement.
The coronavirus pandemic derailed these plans, and some governments gave a new excuse to stop. But Covid-19 certainly did not stop climate change.
The pandemic has also shown the world that major, previously unimaginable changes are possible.
Despite the global upheaval, several of the world’s biggest polluters have increased their long-term climate goals, which put the world within striking distance of the goal of the Paris Agreement: to reduce emissions and thus reduce global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius restrict.
Experts are cautiously optimistic.
“There is now a recognition that once the largest economies in the world are established, they can intervene and correct these market failures,” said Mike Davis, CEO of Global Witness, an NGO focusing on human rights, climate and the environment. , said. ‘We’ve seen this to some extent in response to Covid, and perhaps it’s starting to dispel this myth that we’re all slaves of the free market, [and] there is nothing we can do. ‘
Devastating consequences
The effects of climate change became harder to ignore in 2020.
But global warming is just one aspect of the climate crisis.
“The biggest effects of climate change are due to drought, floods, rising sea levels, stronger tropical storms, hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones and also melting of glaciers,” Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the WMO, told CNN.
In the first six months of this year, nearly 10 million people were forced out of their homes by disasters caused or exacerbated by climate change, according to the Internal Displacement Center in Geneva (IDMC). For some, the move was temporary, but many had prolonged displacement.
India, Bangladesh and the Philippines were the three countries that were hit the hardest, with a total of more than 6 million displacements between them.
Developing countries are often hit excessively by the effects of climate change due to their location and lack of access to the funds and technologies that can help reduce the effects.
But 2020 has shown that no country is immune to such disruption. Hundreds of thousands of people from some of the richest countries in the world have been forced out of their homes, and their livelihoods – and sometimes their lives – have been lost due to fires, storms and floods. It is estimated that 53,000 people in the US and 51,000 more in Australia were displaced in the first six months of the year alone.
And wherever such disasters occur, the poorest still suffer the most, according to Alexandra Bilak of the IDMC.
“Even in high-income states – for example in California – there are people who have not had access to insurance and who have lost everything, and these are the ones we are particularly concerned about because they are the ones who go into very protracted situations end up where their vulnerability will increase, ‘she said.
Shine of hope
The effects of climate change were devastating in 2020, but they could even be disastrous if global warming continues in line with current trends.
The WMO says there is now at least a one-in-five chance that average global temperatures by 2024 will temporarily exceed pre-industrial levels by 1.5 degrees Celsius – a critical threshold in the Paris Agreement.
Under the agreement, most of the world agreed to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius – and strive to keep it at 1.5 degrees.
“We are already 1.2 degrees warm and the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] says for the prosperity of mankind and also for the well-being of the biosphere, the 1.5 degree target would be more favorable, “Taalas said.
“With the target of 2 degrees, we will see more negative effects of climate change, it will harm the world’s capacity for food production, and there will be many coastal cities rising below sea level, and we will see more category 4 and 5 hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones. ‘
Global greenhouse gas emissions should fall by 45% by 2010 levels from 2010 levels if there is any chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and by 25% to keep it below 2 degrees, according to the IPCC.
The good news, Taalas said, is that we have the technological and economic means to achieve those targets. The bad news? Most countries have not yet adopted concrete plans to get there.
To achieve the climate goals, emissions must fall by about the same amount (about 7.6%) annually over the next decade. There is a chance it could happen.
“Until recently, I think everyone was pretty depressed about the way climate change policies and actions are evolving,” Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare told CNN.
Hare said there was an understandable slowdown in action following the pandemic: ‘It seemed like the political momentum was disappearing, but in the last six or eight weeks, especially since September when President Xi Jinping of China announced that China will move to net zero emissions before 2060 changed the whole mood. ‘
South Africa, Japan, South Korea and Canada have all announced new 2050 zero targets, following promises by China, the EU and the UK.
According to the analysis of the Climate Action Tracker, these new promises put the world within striking distance of the Paris target. The tracker, a partnership between the NewClimate Institute and Climate Analytics, said the current plans would translate to 2100 to 2.1 degrees heating.
But the new promises are just that – promises to achieve something in three decades, when most of the current governments are long gone.
“The acid test is whether countries will really act in the short term for 2030,” Hare said.
The 2050 and 2060 targets are steps in the right direction and should not be underestimated, but what really matters is what governments are doing now. The next decade will be the real make-or-break moment.