Drawing Lines in the Climate Sand
Climate leaders often talk about future targets and deadlines for action. But they’re sometimes confusing. Should we try to limit future global warming to 1.5˚C or 2.0˚C? Do we have 31 years, 11 years, or just 18 months left to turn things around? Though these numbers are helpful, we need to remember that they are ultimately arbitrary lines in the sand, and the planet doesn’t actually notice we’ve drawn them. All it notices is our emissions.
You can’t talk about climate change these days without a lot of “magic numbers” — as Dr. Katharine Hayhoe calls them — appearing in the discussion.
These numbers are typically used to define a path towards addressing climate change. And that’s a good thing. But sometimes these numbers lead to heated debates, even among allies who are committed to taking serious climate action. Not surprisingly, these debates can get somewhat nasty on social media, as many things do, and it can lead to confusion, anxiety, and misunderstanding.
So maybe it’s time to step back and look at these numbers again, and remind ourselves when they’re potentially useful and when they’re not?
To start, many activists, scientists, and policy-makers have focused on setting climate targets for stopping future warming — that is, how much warmer will Earth have to get (and how much damage will climate change cause along the way) before we finally stop global warming?
To put this in perspective, we have already warmed the planet approximately 1˚C, and the effects are being seen today in our weather patterns, ecosystems, natural resources, and communities worldwide.
That’s not the future, it’s now.
I want to stress that we have already altered Earth’s climate, and this 1˚C warmer world is a significantly changed world — one that is more dangerous to us, with more hazards and systems breakdowns. Even if climate change stopped today (which is sadly impossible), we have already crossed the climate Rubicon; no other people in human history have lived in a world like this one.
In terms of future climate, many climate leaders have suggested we need to put the breaks on climate change before the planet warms 1.5˚C or 2.0˚C — or another half degree or full degree above what we’ve seen so far.
The general thinking is these 1.5 or 2.0˚C targets represent limits of where climate change is still potentially “safe” for humanity, but beyond this point the planet starts to unravel more and more — in ways that could seriously destabilize human societies, ecosystems, natural resources, and global environmental systems.
It is important to note that if we do absolutely nothing more to stop climate change, global warming could exceed this amount. In fact, the latest “business as usual scenario” show the potential to warm the Earth by 3˚C, or maybe more. That’s not just a changed world, that’s a world none of us would recognize.
So these numbers can be helpful. After all, we need to understand the potential dangers of a warming world, and what the ultimate targets for stopping climate change should be.
Another set of numbers is focused on the time we have left to dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions — ultimately to zero.
For example, it is often stated that we need to get to “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to keep the world close to the 1.5˚ or 2.0˚C targets discussed above. In fact, the helpful Exponential Roadmap (which uses many of our Drawdown climate solutions as guidance) goes further, saying we would should basically cut our emissions in half by 2030, by half again by 2040, and then to essentially zero by 2050. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Once again, these numbers can be helpful, especially in framing and illustrating the course of future action we must take to avoid the most dangerous aspects of climate change.
So I think discussing climate targets and deadlines is useful. And the numbers help. They help us understand the consequences of our actions and inaction.
But I worry about us taking these targets and deadlines too literally sometimes, and miss the larger point.
Why?
First of all, while these targets and deadlines are sometimes intended to inspire a sense of urgency — which is still needed — they may sometimes prove counterproductive to inspiring climate action. To many people, these numbers may seem overwhelming and unreachable, as they require a major shift in how the world works — including big changes in policy, the economy, technology, business practice, capital flows, and daily behavior. Such big changes — represented in a single number — can overwhelm many people with feelings of fatalism and despair, leading to “issue paralysis”, where we essentially give up before we’ve even begun. And we simply can’t afford to have anyone give up.
Moreover, we need to be honest about the science and recognize that these numbers are somewhat arbitrary. They aren’t precise figures, and they’re not meant to be. For example, there is no science that says 1.99˚C of warming leads to a “safe world” and 2.01˚C leads to a horribly damaged one. All we really know is that a 2.01˚C world is slightly warmer than a 1.99˚C world, and it will have somewhat more erratic weather patterns, somewhat more degraded ecosystems, and somewhat larger burdens on human societies. There is nothing inherently magical about the 1.5˚C or 2.0˚C thresholds. If we cross them, it’s not automatically “game over”, it’s just a bit worse. And the warmer it gets, the worse things will get. Period.
And the deadlines we often see discussed in the media— whether 31 years, 11 years, or 18 months — are also fairly arbitrary. For example, they do not mean that if we fail to cut greenhouse emissions precisely in half by midnight on December 31, 2029, we are all going to die. It means we will have much more work to do in the 2030s to cut emissions even more quickly to zero.
In short, these numbers are very useful as guides, but not as precise “all or nothing” specifications for our future survival. So let’s keep them in the proper perspective.
Most of all, I think that focusing too much on future targets and deadlines misses an even more important point — that climate change is here now and is causing damage to our world today. We don’t need to talk about climate change in the future tense, we can talk about it in the present.
Moving forward, I think that we need to acknowledge that climate targets and deadlines are somewhat uncertain, and we should talk about climate action more in terms of present day conditions and how to avoid making things worse, rather than focusing too much on fuzzy targets and deadlines of the future.
Here’s how I might frame the discussion instead:
- Climate change is happening now. It’s already here, and we can’t go back.
- Climate change is already causing harm — to ecosystems, natural resources, weather patterns, and human societies. Just look around.
- Our continuing to emit any greenhouse gases will make things worse.
- We should work to stop all greenhouse gas emissions as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible. Period.
- Remember: Every ton of greenhouse gases we don’t emit is a good thing. Every ton we do emit causes more harm.
- Any delay in our action makes things worse. The best time for climate action was thirty years ago. The second best time is today.
One analogy to emitting greenhouse gases, recently suggested to me by Dr. Kate Marvel, is smoking.
We all know smoking is very bad for you, and any reputable doctor will tell you that you need to quit as soon as possible. If you don’t, continued smoking could cause irreversible — maybe even fatal — damage to your body.
So, should you quit after 20 days, 30 days, or 50 days? What if you miss the deadline by a day, is everything lost? In the meantime, should you immediately cut back from 2 packs a day to 1 pack a day, or 1.5 packs?
While these numbers are probably helpful to guide your path to living smoke free, the real point is this: You should quit smoking as quickly as possible. Period. Quitting sooner is better, and smoking less in the meantime is better. Any delay is going to cause more, potentially serious, damage.
Since it’s helpful to have a common goal, maybe it’s this: Let’s start reducing emissions now — as much as we can, as quickly as we can, while being mindful of safety and equity.
Every ton of greenhouse gases matters, starting now. The fewer we emit, the better the world will be, period.
So let’s get to work.
Dr. Jonathan Foley (@GlobalEcoGuy) is a climate & environmental scientist, writer, and speaker. He is also the Executive Director of Project Drawdown, the world’s leading resource for climate solutions.
These views are his own.
Copyright © 2015–2020, Jonathan Foley. All rights reserved.
