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Big business stepping up?
HIGH AND DRY: A boat sits stranded on the bottom of the dam Paljurci, near Bogdanci in southeastern Macedonia, in August this year. After the harshest winter in decades, the Balkans in the southeast of Europe suffered its hottest summer and the worst drought in nearly 40 years, according to officials across the region. The record-setting average temperatures which scientists say have been steadily rising over the past years as the result of the global warming have ravaged crops, vegetable, fruit and power production in the region which is already badly hit by the global economic crisis. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski).
In recent weeks, we’ve seen some debate – in the Isle of Man Examiner letters columns and in the wider press – over whether global warming (as climate change used to be referred to) has ceased.
In particular, I mentioned that the UK’s Meteorological Office had to berate the Daily Mail (again) for printing false allegations that it had published a study concluding that global warming stopped 16 years ago.
With admirable timing (it’s as if they were reading this column!), on November 5 international accountancy and consulting firm PriceWaterhouse Coopers published the results of its annual Low Carbon Economy Index.
Rather startlingly, the report states that if global warming is to remain contained at no more than 2C, we would need to cut world carbon intensity by an average of 5.1 per cent a year – for the next 39 years.
Given that we’ve not managed cuts of that level for a single year yet, this seems laughably unlikely without some big, and prompt, changes in the way we do things.
The financial crisis hasn’t helped, despite the fact that lower growth can sometimes help contain carbon emissions – carbon intensity has fallen by less than 1 per cent a year in each of the four years since the financial crisis began.
So what? What if we don’t make these changes?
PwC had something to say on this matter too – echoing predictions being made by a number of climate scientists in the last year or so, but less easily dismissable by the climate change denial camp because of PwC’s standing as a ‘friend of the business community’, rather than an environmentally concerned group of academics.
PwC’s Jonathan Grant says: ‘Even doubling our current annual rates of decarbonisation globally every year to 2050 would still lead to 6°C, making governments’ ambitions to limit warming to 2°C appear highly unrealistic.’
6°C, said quickly, it doesn’t sound too scary, does it? Nice hot summers, less chilly winters. But these images are not what the reality would be.
Remember, 6°C is the global average increase that would result from our continuing on the current path. But with most of the planet’s surface being ocean, an average global temperature rise of 6° actually means land temperature rises of considerably more – well into double digits for continental Europe, and edging into them for the US.
Recall the heatwaves we saw in Europe in 2003, which resulted in 15,000 ‘excess deaths’ and undertakers in Paris having to open warehouses to cope with the large numbers of (particularly elderly) people succumbing to heatstroke, in temperatures of 36 to 38°C. Add another 10°C to that scenario and you have something truly frightening.
Another PwC spokesman, Leo Johnson, weighed into the debate, saying: ‘While we’ve reversed the increase in emissions intensity reported last year, we’re still seeing results that are simply too little, too late. This isn’t about shock tactics, it’s simple maths.
‘We’re heading into uncharted territory for the scale of transformation and technical innovations required. Whatever the scenario, or the response, “business as usual” is not an option.
‘Business leaders have been asking for clarity in political ambition on climate change. Now one thing is clear: businesses, governments and communities across the world need to plan for a warming world – not just 2°C, but 4°C, or even 6°C.’
It’s hard to see this as anything other than a global emergency – unless you’re amongst those who like to trust that technology will ‘find a way to save us’. Good luck with that, as it’s clearly not done much so far.
The trend is still inexorably upwards, despite the efforts of denialists to seize on short-run variations in the trends.
So against that backdrop, and the pleas not just of the mainstream scientific community but, increasingly, business interests, it’s surprising that governments (including our own in the island) aren’t doing more to engage openly and courageously with the public on the matter, and find more effective ways of working towards solutions.
There are some beacons of positive news though, and one in particular not too far from our shores.
Next week, we’ll look at the inspiring work being done by Manchester City Council, which is doing great work in ‘decoupling growth from carbon emissions, driving economic success, creating jobs – and the plans have stayed on course despite the recession’. It’s an example of forward-thinking, inspiring and searingly honest leadership – something we should be demanding ourselves from Tynwald. Check the Green Column next week to read about Manchester’s journey to a lower-emission future, through carbon reductions and an entire programme of cultural/behavioural change.
Wouldn’t it be great for us, here at home, also to feel we lived somewhere which was a part of the solution?
• If you’d like to learn more about IoMFoE’s campaigning on this and other issues, contact us on iomfoe(at)manx.net.
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Weather for Isle of Man
Sunday 19 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 8 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: North west
