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The science behind Carbon Capture and Storage technology doesn’t measure up
by IISD, Amnesty, HRW, CIEL, Lancet, agencies
 
28 Nov. 2023
 
Unpacking Carbon Capture and Storage: The Technology Behind the Promise, by Zachary Rempel, Laura Cameron, Olivier Bois von Kursk for the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
 
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is the shiny toy in climate change mitigation spaces these days, expected to draw all eyes at COP28. The technology proposes to reduce emissions by capturing carbon dioxide from industrial processes and injecting it deep underground.
 
Many oil and gas producing countries, such as the US and Canada, are looking to CCS to reduce emissions from production, while coal-reliant nations such China and India are exploring the feasibility of fitting coal-fired power plants with the technology.
 
Despite the substantial interest that has been stirred up around the technology, many questions remain about its feasibility, persistently high costs, and track record to date. What is the current status of CCS technology and why doesn’t it live up to its reputation as a definitive solution?
 
What is CCS?
 
CCS technology aims to capture emissions at a large source, before they are released into the atmosphere. This is different from Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) which focuses on retroactively withdrawing CO2 already in the atmosphere through means such as planting trees or using direct air capture technologies.
 
When CCS is used in fossil fuel production, it aims to capture upstream emissions – those created during the extraction and processing of the fuels – but does not reduce the bulk of emissions that are produced downstream, when the fuel is burned.
 
It also requires significant amounts of energy to operate the CCS technology itself, leading to more emissions if that energy is from fossil fuels. In fact, critical analysis of CCS technology finds that CCS can in some cases produce more emissions than it sequesters.
 
Studies that try to show the promise of CCS technology often don’t include a full Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of the CCS process, thereby missing the full picture of the technology’s true inefficiency.
 
While CCS is currently one of the only means to address emissions in hard-to-abate sectors such as the cement industry, fossil fuel energy with CCS is outcompeted by renewable energy. CCS in the fossil fuel sector is proposed as a pathway to allow continued expansion of fossil fuel production.
 
Is CCS technologically feasible at scale?
 
CCS has developed at a snail’s pace over the past few decades. Despite decades in development, there are only 30 commercial CCS projects globally, capturing a total of around 42.5 MtCO2/year, or less than 0.2% of the necessary emissions reduction needed to close the emissions gap by 2030.
 
This falls dramatically short of the IEA’s previous projection that we would reach 300 MtCO2/year of storage by 2020. A majority of the 149 CCS projects that were projected to be storing carbon by 2020 globally have been either cancelled or put on an indefinite hold, because of incredibly high costs and technological challenges.
 
Is it possible to rapidly scale-up CCS in the fossil fuel sector? The IPCC assessed this potential, and found that there are big challenges associated with sequestering lots of CO2 (more than 3.8 GtCO2/year by 2050). In other words, the IPCC indicated that there are serious feasibility concerns over the large-scale deployment of CCS in the fossil fuel sector and that we ought to limit our expectations.
 
Despite this, many emissions reductions models still design scenarios with fossil fuel CCS playing a much larger role (up to 10GtCO2/year by 2050) to compensate for slower declines in fossil fuel production and consumption. But achieving these levels of carbon storage would imply building the equivalent of the world’s biggest current carbon capture facility – capturing about 7MtCO2/year – every week until 2050.
 
Moreover, the potential for safe geological storage of the CO2 underground might be more limited than expected. Analysis of financial, contractual, and institutional barriers of long-term CO2 sequestration indicates that global use of CCS technologies is unlikely to be able to store more than 5 GtCO2/year underground by 2050.
 
The big distances between the emitting facilities are located (where the carbon would be captured) and the appropriate geological repositories often constitute a barrier to implementation. Transporting the CO2 requires significant investment in pipelines and transportation infrastructure.
 
Currently, it is common for the fossil fuel industry to avoid the need for transportation by injecting the CO2 into ageing wells on-site, which in turn increases pressure and helps extract more oil through “enhanced oil recovery” (EOR). The irony is, CCS is supposed to help reduce emissions, and EOR ultimately generates more carbon emissions by producing more oil.
 
Is CCS Cost Competitive?
 
The costs of CCS vary depending on: the industrial process that it’s applied to and how concentrated the CO2 is; how far the CO2 is transported; and where it is stored. CO2 capture costs are projected to range from CAD 27–48/tCO2 to CAD 50–150/tCO2. But these costs estimates are mostly drawn from modelling; there are too few projects that have been operational long enough to give a good sense of long-term costs.
 
Despite decades of development of the technology, the costs of CCS in the oil and gas sector have been slow to fall. This is because the technology design is complex, with many different components, making innovation slow. It also needs to be highly customized for different applications; CCS in a refinery is much different than CCS in cement production, for instance. While technologies such as solar PV and batteries for electric vehicles have experienced dramatic cost reductions as they reached economies of scale, it’s unlikely that the same will happen for CCS.
 
Because of its high cost, CCS in the fossil fuel sector continues to rely heavily on government subsidies in order to be economically viable. At the same time, oil and gas companies globally are investing very little of their own money in CCS or renewable energy, spending less than 1% of their capital expenditures on clean energy investment in 2020.
 
In determining cost competitiveness for emissions reductions, CCS in the energy sector should be judged against alternative energies that can reduce emissions by replacing fossil fuels. The IPCC finds that CCS in the energy sector is among the most expensive and least effective mitigation technologies in the near-term.
 
Closer Look: CCS in Coal-fired Power Generation
 
As of November 2023, four coal-fired plants with CCS are operational worldwide: two in China, one in the United States, and one in Canada. The development of CCS technology for coal power has been particularly slow, with only one plant operational as of 2021.
 
China's two CCS facilities, launched in 2021 and 2023, capture a combined 0.65 Mtpa of CO2 annually. The Petra Nova plant in the United States, operational since 2016, was temporarily shut down in 2020 due to declining oil prices and reopened in September 2023. This facility, used for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), has historically not achieved its target of 1.4 Mtpa of captured emissions.
 
Canada’s Boundary Dam CCS facility, operational since 2014 in Saskatchewan, had an original target to capture 90% of the plant’s emissions but captures only about 50% on average.
 
Collectively, these four CCS facilities represent billions of dollars of investment and capture less than 0.02% of the coal industry's total emissions. In India, the national government has not announced any policy support for CCS, but there is emerging interest in the technology from power producers.
 
Closer Look: CCS in Canada’s Oil and Gas Sector
 
Canada currently has seven operational CCS projects, mostly in the oil and gas sector. These projects capture only about 0.5% of the country's total emissions, and the majority of the carbon captured is used to enable further extraction through enhanced oil recovery.
 
Despite its limited efficacy, CCS is being touted as the central emissions reduction solution by Canadian oil and gas proponents such as the Pathways Alliance, and has received extensive financial support from governments in Canada. The federal government has committed at least CAD 9.1 billion, in addition to CAD 3.8 billion from the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan, with Alberta set to invest more. This level of investment outpaces support offered by the 2022 U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
 
This public investment in CCS is risky for taxpayers, and takes away from funds available to support other, more cost-effective emission reduction strategies. Moreover, investing in CCS for oil and gas prolongs production and reliance on the fuels, without addressing the vast majority of emissions that are created when those fuels are burned downstream. Not to mention that these supports for CCS in fossil fuel production constitute subsidies under the World Trade Organization’s definition and contradict Canada’s commitment to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
 
What role will fossil fuel CCS play in limiting warming to 1.5C?
 
In order to limit warming to 1.5C, the IPCC finds that the production of oil and gas needs to decline by 65% by 2050. IISD research further shows that selected IPCC 1.5C scenarios which only rely on feasible levels of CCS, indicate that the world should be producing 30% less oil and gas compared by 2030 compared to 2020 levels. Coal production needs to decline by nearly 80% already this decade to align with the 1.5C target.
 
These findings are echoed by the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Net Zero Emissions scenario which concludes that there is no room for any new fossil fuel extraction projects.
 
Extraction and use of fossil fuels from mines and fields that are already in operation or under development today is more than enough to meet global demand under 1.5C pathways; there is no need to develop any more oil and gas fields.
 
In addition to the IPCC scenarios, IISD analysis shows that 1.5C pathways from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), UNEP Production Gap Report, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and various other authoritative intergovernmental organizations and energy consultancies all feature such steep declines in oil and gas production that developing any fossil fuels extraction activities from new fields or mines would generate emissions in excess of what is necessary to limit warming to 1.5C.
 
Closer Look: CCS and the push for phase-out of “unabated” fossil fuel production at COP28
 
The topic of phasing out fossil fuels promises to be a central part of the discussion at COP 28 in Dubai. The European Union, among others, is calling for a phase out of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels. The language of ‘abatement’ leaves a loophole for continued use of fossil fuels as long as a technology to capture the emissions from production is used.
 
The technological and economic feasibility of CCS is central in the conversation around ‘abated’ production. Given the challenges that the technology has faced, limiting its use and efficacy to date, it is clear that CCS is not able to abate emissions from fossil fuels sufficiently. Given the absence of other deep and fully developed emissions reductions technologies, abated production is not possible.
 
Moreover, this loophole is being used to push for prolonging and expanding fossil fuel production and use, with the assumption that CCS and other emissions reductions technologies will suffice. This is problematic, given that the majority of emissions are produced at the end uses of fossil fuels which are not address through CCS. Countries are already planning to produce double the amount of fossil fuels as would be needed under a 1.5C scenario in 2030, exceeding expected global demand, a gap which CCS will not address.
 
Conclusion
 
Despite the hype, the science behind CCS technology doesn’t measure up. The technology is incredibly expensive, captures relatively minimal amounts of CO2, and is heavily reliant on large government subsidies. In the coal industry specifically, CCS has demonstrated a particularly poor performance, with a sluggish rollout that further underscores the inefficiency of the technology.
 
Worryingly, some fossil fuel companies have been trying to use CCS technology as a justification for a further expansion of production, which is incompatible with global climate targets.
 
Heavy reliance on CCS in the energy sector is misguided as renewable energy has seen dramatic cost reductions that make it more and more economical. Discussions of ‘abated’ fossil fuels at COP28 and beyond should take a closer look at the technology behind the promise.
 
http://www.iisd.org/articles/insight/unpacking-carbon-capture-storage-technology http://www.ciel.org/reports/beyond-abatement-securing-a-full-phase-out-of-fossil-fuels-at-cop-28/ http://www.ciel.org/reports/deep-trouble-the-risks-of-offshore-carbon-capture-and-storage-november-2023/ http://climateanalytics.org/press-releases/carbon-capture-and-storage-could-unleash-86-billion-tonne-carbon-bomb http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/news/heavy-dependence-carbon-capture-and-storage-highly-economically-damaging-says-oxford-report http://priceofoil.org/2023/11/30/ccs-data/ http://www.iisd.org/articles/press-release/world-governments-hit-record-high-usd-17-trillion-fossil-fuel-support http://www.iisd.org/inside-cop-28
 
http://www.carbonbombs.org/ http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/global-agreement-at-cop28-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels-is-vital-to-prevent-a-climate-and-human-rights-catastrophe/ http://fossilfueltreaty.org/european-parliament-2023 http://fossilfueltreaty.org http://350.org/press-release/powering-up-for-climate-justice-350-org-launches-report-on-global-renewable-energy-target/ http://climatenetwork.org/updates/press-releases/ http://climateanalytics.org/press-releases/oil-and-gas-majors-could-have-paid-for-their-share-of-climate-loss-and-damage-and-still-earned-10-trillion-usd-new-report http://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/30/united-nations-climate-change-conference-cop28 http://actionaid.org/publications/2023/how-finance-flows-banks-fuelling-climate-crisis
 
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/earth2019s-vital-signs-reach-new-record-extremes-in-2023 http://www.reuters.com/business/environment/ahead-cop28-research-shows-world-far-behind-climate-fight-2023-11-29/ http://www.msf.org/cop28-more-failure-not-option-vulnerable-communities http://www.lancetcountdown.org/2023-report/ http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/ http://tinyurl.com/3v7myx4b http://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/global-witness-and-cop28-people-not-polluters/#global-witnesss-cop28-policy-positions http://influencemap.org/ http://billmckibben.substack.com/p/a-corrupted-cop http://climate-reporting.org/stories/ http://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/climate-equality-a-planet-for-the-99-621551/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-environment/annual-thematic-reports
 
Why Carbon Capture is Not a Climate Solution - Center for International Environmental Law
 
The world is confronting a climate emergency. Avoiding climate catastrophe requires immediate and dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are possible only with a significant investment of resources in proven mitigation measures, beginning with eliminating fossil fuel use and halting deforestation.
 
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) will not address these core drivers of the climate crisis or meaningfully reduce GHG emissions, and should not distract from real climate solutions. CCS and CCUS technologies are not only unnecessary for the rapid transformation required to keep warming under 1.5°C, they delay that transformation, providing the fossil fuel industry with a license to continue polluting.
 
The unproven scalability of CCS technologies and their prohibitive costs mean they cannot play any significant role in the rapid reduction of global emissions necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C. Despite the existence of the technology for decades and billions of dollars in government subsidies to date, deployment of CCS at scale still faces insurmountable challenges of feasibility, effectiveness, and expense.
 
In 2021, the 1,500 member-organizations of Climate Action Network (CAN) International adopted a shared position statement that the largest network of climate organizations worldwide “does not consider currently envisioned CCS applications as proven sustainable climate solutions.” The organizations warned that CCS “risks distracting from the need to take concerted action across multiple sectors in the near-term to dramatically reduce emissions.”
 
Accordingly, CAN urged that “all government subsidies, loans, grants, tax credit, incentives, and financial support for fossil fuels and technologies that use or otherwise support the continued use of fossil fuels, including CCS, should be phased out as soon as possible.”
 
* The Universal Rights Network notes with concern that Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies were cited in a section of the most recent IPCC report.
 
"The key section of the IPCC report, which ignited the controversy, was fiercely fought over by scientists and governments up until the last moments before the document was finalised. The handful of mentions of CDR in the final 36-page summary for policymakers – which distils the key messages and is compiled by scientists alongside government representatives from any UN member that wants to take part – were only inserted after hours of desperate wrangling.
 
Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries were most insistent that CDR and CCS should be included and emphasised. In the end, nine references to CDR were left in the summary, and several more to CCS. “Saudi Arabia.. tried to take out references to renewable energy and tried to insist that references to carbon capture should be in there instead of, or at least as well as, renewables.”
 
But many scientists, campaigners and green experts are unhappy with the references. They fear that giving the impression there are viable options for removing carbon dioxide might engender a false sense of security. Most CDR technologies are unproven, are likely to be limited in scope, take years to develop and will cost large amounts of money.
 
Lili Fuhr, the director of the climate and energy programme at the Center for International Environmental Law, said: “We need to challenge the idea that we have to do less now, because we can do more later, with technofixes. This is a dangerous idea.”
 
Growing renewables must replace fossil fuels far quicker to curb climate crisis, warns WWF
 
WWF responds to the IEA’s annual market report on renewables - Renewables 2023 - which shows that cleaner sources of energy are being rolled out faster than any other time in recent decades. The world added 50% more renewable capacity in 2023 than it did in the previous year, with solar PV accounting for three-quarters of additions worldwide.
 
However, the world is not yet on track to triple renewable capacity by 2030, which was agreed at COP28.
 
Dean Cooper, WWF Global Energy Lead, said: “Renewable energy generation is increasing fast but not fast enough. We will not avert climate catastrophe while fossil fuels continue to be burned. We must phase out coal, oil and gas and replace them with cleaner and cheaper renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.”
 
“Countries agreeing to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ and to triple renewable energy generation at the UN COP28 climate talks was significant. Those who want to see a livable planet should increase pressure on their government to convert words into action by demanding they urgently transform their energy systems. That means no delays and no loopholes. It must involve the full phase out of all fossil fuels and a move to 100% renewable energy.”
 
“Dangerous distractions, such as large-scale carbon capture utilization and storage and so-called ‘transitional fuels’, are no replacement for the massive scaling-up of proven and affordable renewable energy technology. The sooner and more decisively we act, the sooner people and nature can reap the benefits of a cleaner, safer and more stable future, including cost savings, new jobs, cleaner air, and the recovery of nature.”
 
http://climateactiontracker.org/press/COP28-must-focus-on-oil-and-gas-phase-out-not-distractions-like-CCS/ http://climateanalytics.org/latest/at-least-15-tw-of-new-wind-and-solar-capacity-needed-each-year-by-2030-to-meet-15c-limit-sustainably/ http://climateanalytics.org/publications/2023/2030-targets-aligned-to-15c-evidence-from-the-latest-global-pathways/ http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/press_releases/?10498441/WWF-responds-to-IEA-Renewables-2023-report http://www.reuters.com/business/environment/study-says-renewables-must-ramp-up-5-times-faster-avert-thunbergs-climate-cliff-2023-06-13/ http://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/245295/without-fully-implementing-net-zero-pledges-world http://www.ciel.org/news/end-the-carbon-capture-of-climate-policy/ http://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Confronting-the-Myth-of-Carbon-Free-Fossil-Fuels.pdf http://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/fossil-gas/world-cannot-meet-climate-targets-relying-carbon-capture-and-storage/ http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/the-carbon-capture-scam/


 


Life on planet Earth is under siege
by Bioscience Journal, UNU-EHS, BMJ, agencies
 
Oct. 2023
 
Life on planet Earth is under siege, by Christopher Wolf, William Ripple, Johan Rockstrom. (Bioscience Journal)
 
We are now in an uncharted territory. For several decades, scientists have consistently warned of a future marked by extreme climatic conditions because of escalating global temperatures caused by ongoing human activities that release harmful greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
 
Unfortunately, time is up. We are seeing the manifestation of those predictions as an alarming and unprecedented succession of climate records are broken, causing profoundly distressing scenes of suffering to unfold. We are entering an unfamiliar domain regarding our climate crisis, a situation no one has ever witnessed firsthand in the history of humanity.
 
In the present report, we display a diverse set of vital signs of the planet and the potential drivers of climate change and climate-related responses first presented by Ripple and Wolf and colleagues (2020), who declared a climate emergency, now with more than 15,000 scientist signatories.
 
The trends reveal new all-time climate-related records and deeply concerning patterns of climate-related disasters. At the same time, we report minimal progress by humanity in combating climate change.
 
Given these distressing developments, our goal is to communicate climate facts and policy recommendations to scientists, policymakers, and the public. It is the moral duty of us scientists and our institutions to clearly alert humanity of any potential existential threat and to show leadership in taking action.
 
Climate-related all-time records
 
In 2023, we witnessed an extraordinary series of climate-related records being broken around the world. The rapid pace of change has surprised scientists and caused concern about the dangers of extreme weather, risky climate feedback loops, and the approach of damaging tipping points sooner than expected.
 
This year, exceptional heat waves have swept across the world, leading to record high temperatures. The oceans have been historically warm, with global and North Atlantic sea surface temperatures both breaking records and unprecedented low levels of sea ice surrounding Antarctica.
 
In addition, June through August of this year was the warmest period ever recorded, and in early July, we witnessed Earth's highest global daily average surface temperature ever measured, possibly the warmest temperature on Earth over the past 100,000 years. It is a sign that we are pushing our planetary systems into dangerous instability.
 
We are venturing into uncharted climate territory. Global daily mean temperatures never exceeded 1.5-degree Celsius (°C) above preindustrial levels prior to 2000 and have only occasionally exceeded that number since then. However, 2023 has already seen 38 days with global average temperatures above 1.5°C by 12 September—more than any other year—and the total may continue to rise.
 
Even more striking are the enormous margins by which 2023 conditions are exceeding past extremes. Similarly, on 7 July 2023, Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest daily relative extent since the advent of satellite data, at 2.67 million square kilometers below the 1991–2023 average. Other variables far outside their historical ranges include the area burned by wildfires in Canada, which may indicate a tipping point into a new fire regime.
 
Recent trends in planetary vital signs
 
On the basis of time series data, 20 of the 35 vital signs are now showing record extremes. As we describe, these data show how the continued pursuit of business as usual has, ironically, led to unprecedented pressure on the Earth system, resulting in many climate-related variables entering uncharted territory.
 
Climate change is contributing significantly to human suffering, with many climate impacts expected to further intensify in the coming years. We may have already experienced abrupt increases in certain types of extreme weather, possibly surpassing the rate of temperature rise.
 
In 2023, climate change likely contributed to a number of major extreme weather events and disasters. Several of these events demonstrate how climate extremes are threatening wider areas that have not typically been prone to such extremes.
 
As these impacts continue to accelerate, more funding to compensate for climate-related loss and damage in developing countries is urgently needed. The United Nations’ new loss and damage global fund established at COP27 is a promising development, but its success will require robust support by wealthy countries.
 
Motivated by recent events and trends, we continue to issue specific warnings and recommendations involving topics ranging from food security to climate justice. Coordinated efforts in each of these areas could help to support a broader agenda focused on holistic and equitable climate policy.
 
Economic growth, as it is conventionally pursued, is unlikely to allow us to achieve our social, climate, and biodiversity goals. The fundamental challenge lies in the difficulty of decoupling economic growth from harmful environmental impacts. Although technological advancements and efficiency improvements can contribute to some degree of decoupling, they often fall short in mitigating the overall ecological footprint of economic activities.
 
The impacts vary greatly by wealth; in 2019, the top 10% of emitters were responsible for 48% of global emissions, whereas the bottom 50% were responsible for just 12%. We therefore need to change our economy to a system that supports meeting basic needs for all people instead of excessive consumption by the wealthy.
 
The elevated rates of climate disasters and other impacts that we are presently seeing are largely a consequence of historical and ongoing greenhouse gas emissions. To mitigate these past emissions and stop global warming, efforts must be directed toward eliminating emissions from fossil fuels and land-use change and increasing carbon sequestration with nature-based climate solutions.
 
We should not rely on unproven carbon removal techniques. Although research efforts should be accelerated, depending heavily on future large-scale carbon removal strategies at this juncture may create a deceptive perception of security and postpone the imperative mitigation actions that are essential to tackle climate change now.
 
The effects of global warming are progressively more severe, and possibilities such as a worldwide societal breakdown are feasible and dangerously underexplored. By the end of this century, an estimated 3 to 6 billion individuals—approximately one-third to one-half of the global population—might find themselves confined beyond the livable region, encountering severe heat, limited food availability, and elevated mortality rates because of the effects of climate change.
 
Big problems need big solutions. Therefore, we must shift our perspective on the climate emergency from being just an isolated environmental issue to a systemic, existential threat.
 
Although global heating is devastating, it represents only one aspect of the escalating and interconnected environmental crisis that we are facing (e.g., biodiversity loss, fresh water scarcity, pandemics). We need policies that target the underlying issues of ecological overshoot where the human demand on Earth's resources results in overexploitation of our planet and biodiversity decline. As long as humanity continues to exert extreme pressure on the Earth, any attempted climate-only solutions will only redistribute this pressure.
 
To address the overexploitation of our planet, we challenge the prevailing notion of endless growth and overconsumption by rich countries and individuals as unsustainable and unjust. Instead, we advocate for reducing resource overconsumption; reducing, reusing, and recycling waste in a more circular economy; and prioritizing human flourishing and sustainability.
 
We emphasize climate justice and fair distribution of the costs and benefits of climate action, particularly for vulnerable communities. We call for a transformation of the global economy to prioritize human well-being and to provide for a more equitable distribution of resources.
 
As scientists, we are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth about the crises we face in simple and direct terms. The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023. We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered.
 
Conditions are going to get very distressing and potentially unmanageable for large regions of the world, with the 2.6°C warming expected over the course of the century, even if the self-proposed national emissions reduction commitments of the Paris Agreement are met.
 
We warn of potential collapse of natural and socioeconomic systems in such a world where we will face unbearable heat, frequent extreme weather events, food and fresh water shortages, rising seas, more emerging diseases, and increased social unrest and geopolitical conflict.
 
Massive suffering due to climate change is already here, and we have now exceeded many safe and just Earth system boundaries, imperiling stability and life-support systems.
 
As we will soon bear witness to failing to meet the Paris agreement's aspirational 1.5°C goal, the significance of immediately curbing fossil fuel use and preventing every further 0.1°C increase in future global heating cannot be overstated.
 
Rather than focusing only on carbon reduction and climate change, addressing the underlying issue of ecological overshoot will give us our best shot at surviving these challenges in the long run. This is our moment to make a profound difference for all life on Earth, and we must embrace it with unwavering courage and determination to create a legacy of change that will stand the test of time.
 
http://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biad080/7319571 http://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/5610806
 
Oct. 2023
 
A United Nations University report released today finds that drastic changes are approaching if risks to our fundamental socioecological systems are not addressed.
 
The Interconnected Disaster Risks report 2023 published by the United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) warns of six risk tipping points ahead of us:
 
Accelerating extinctions; Groundwater depletion; Mountain glaciers melting; Space debris; Unbearable heat; Uninsurable future
 
Systems are all around us and closely connected to us: ecosystems, food systems, water systems and more. When they deteriorate, it is typically not a simple and predictable process. Rather, instability slowly builds until suddenly a tipping point is reached and the system changes fundamentally or even collapses, with potentially catastrophic impacts.
 
A risk tipping point is defined in the report as the moment at which a given socioecological system is no longer able to buffer risks and provide its expected functions, after which the risk of catastrophic impacts to these systems increases substantially.
 
These diverse cases illustrate that risk tipping points extend beyond the single domains of climate, ecosystems, society or technology. Instead, they are inherently interconnected, and they are also closely linked to human activities and livelihoods.
 
Many new risks emerge when and where our physical and natural worlds interconnect with human society.
 
One example of a risk tipping point that the report explains is groundwater depletion. Underground water reservoirs called aquifers are an essential freshwater resource around the world, and they supply drinking water to over 2 billion people. Around 70 per cent of groundwater withdrawals are used for agriculture, oftentimes when there is not sufficient water from above-ground sources available. Today, aquifers help to mitigate half of the losses in agriculture caused by drought, a phenomenon which is only expected to increase in the future due to climate change.
 
But the report warns that now it’s the aquifers themselves that are approaching a tipping point: More than half of the world’s major aquifers are being depleted faster than they can be naturally replenished. If the water table falls below a level that existing wells can access, farmers can suddenly find themselves without the ability to access water, which puts entire food production systems at risk of failure.
 
“As we indiscriminately extract our water resources, damage nature and biodiversity, and pollute both Earth and space, we are moving dangerously close to the brink of multiple risk tipping points that could destroy the very systems that our life depends on,” said Dr. Zita Sebesvari, Lead Author of the Interconnected Disaster Risks report and Deputy Director of UNU-EHS.
 
In the case of the “Unbearable heat” risk tipping point described in the report, it is human-induced climate change that is causing a global rise in temperatures, leading to more frequent and intense heatwaves that will in some areas reach temperatures in which the human body can no longer survive.
 
http://ehs.unu.edu/media/press-releases/press-release-new-un-university-report-warns-about-risk-tipping-points-with-irreversible-impacts-on-people-and-planet.html http://interconnectedrisks.org/ http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458
 
Oct. 2023
 
More than 200 health journals have urged the World Health Organization to sound the alarm on climate change and dwindling biodiversity. (BMJ)
 
Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so severe as to be a global health emergency.
 
The world is currently responding to the climate crisis and the nature crisis as if they were separate challenges. This is a dangerous mistake. The 28th UN Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change is about to be held in Dubai while the 16th COP on biodiversity is due to be held in Turkey in 2024. The research communities that provide the evidence for the two COPs are unfortunately largely separate, but they were brought together for a workshop in 2020 when they concluded: “Only by considering climate and biodiversity as parts of the same complex problem … can solutions be developed that avoid maladaptation and maximize the beneficial outcomes.”
 
As the health world has recognised with the development of the concept of planetary health, the natural world is made up of one overall interdependent system. Damage to one subsystem can create feedback that damages another—for example, drought, wildfires, floods, and the other effects of rising global temperatures destroy plant life and lead to soil erosion and so inhibit carbon storage, which means more global warming. Climate change is set to overtake deforestation and other land use change as the primary driver of nature loss.
 
Human health is damaged directly by both the climate crisis, as the journals have described in previous editorials,89 and the nature crisis.10 This indivisible planetary crisis will have major effects on health as a result of the disruption of social and economic systems—shortages of land, shelter, food, and water, exacerbating poverty, which in turn will lead to mass migration and conflict. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, air pollution, and the spread of infectious diseases are some of the major health threats exacerbated by climate change.
 
“Without nature, we have nothing,” was UN Secretary General António Guterres’s blunt summary at the biodiversity COP in Montreal last year.12 Even if we could keep global warming below an increase of 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels, we could still cause catastrophic harm to health by destroying nature.
 
Access to clean water is fundamental to human health, and yet pollution has damaged water quality, causing a rise in waterborne diseases.13 Contamination of water on land can also have far reaching effects on distant ecosystems when that water runs off into the ocean.
 
Good nutrition is underpinned by diversity in the variety of foods, but there has been a striking loss of genetic diversity in the food system. Globally, about a fifth of people rely on wild species for food and their livelihoods.
 
Declines in wildlife are a major challenge for these populations, particularly in low and middle income countries. Fish provide more than half of dietary protein in many African, South Asian, and small island nations, but ocean acidification has reduced the quality and quantity of seafood.
 
Changes in land use have forced tens of thousands of species into closer contact, increasing the exchange of pathogens and the emergence of new diseases and pandemics.
 
People losing contact with the natural environment and the declining loss in biodiversity have both been linked to increases in non-communicable, autoimmune, and inflammatory diseases and metabolic, allergic, and neuropsychiatric disorders.
 
For Indigenous people, caring for and connecting with nature is especially important for their health. Nature has also been an important source of medicines, and thus reduced diversity also constrains the discovery of new medicines.
 
Communities are healthier if they have access to high quality green spaces that help filter air pollution, reduce air and ground temperatures, and provide opportunities for physical activity.
 
The health effects of climate change and biodiversity loss will be experienced unequally between and within countries, with the most vulnerable communities often bearing the highest burden. Linked to this, inequality is also arguably fuelling these environmental crises. Environmental challenges and social and health inequities are challenges that share drivers, and there are potential co-benefits from addressing them.
 
Global health emergency
 
In December 2022 the biodiversity COP agreed on the effective conservation and management of at least 30% of the world’s land, coastal areas, and oceans by 2030. Industrialised countries agreed to mobilise $30bn a year to support developing nations to do so. These agreements echo promises made at climate COPs.
 
Yet many commitments made at COPs have not been met. This has allowed ecosystems to be pushed further to the brink, greatly increasing the risk of arriving at “tipping points”— abrupt breakdowns in the functioning of nature. If these events were to occur, the impacts on health would be globally catastrophic.
 
This risk, combined with the severe impacts on health already occurring, means that the World Health Organization should declare the indivisible climate and nature crisis as a global health emergency.
 
The three preconditions for WHO to declare a situation to be a public health emergency of international concern are that it is serious, sudden, unusual, or unexpected; carries implications for public health beyond the affected state’s national border; and may require immediate international action. Climate change seems to fulfil all those conditions.
 
While the accelerating climate change and loss of biodiversity are not sudden or unexpected, they are certainly serious and unusual. Hence, we call for WHO to make this declaration before or at the 77th World Health Assembly in May 2024.
 
Health professionals must be powerful advocates for both restoring biodiversity and tackling climate change for the good of health. Political leaders must recognise both the severe threats to health from the planetary crisis and the benefits that can flow to health from tackling the crisis. But, first, we must recognise this crisis for what it is: a global health emergency. http://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2355


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