At the beginning of June, the UN Climate Change Science Panel (IPCC) presented its report on climate mitigation to the assembled countries that have signed the Paris Agreement at a UN meeting in Bonn. It was confrontational. While in the Netherlands the results are mainly received with benevolent interest, in other countries the results of the report are existential. The representatives of the atolls in the Pacific Ocean, which with 2 degrees of warming will not only lose all their coral reefs, but will also disappear into the waves themselves, asked probing questions. What exactly is needed to stay below 1.5 °C? What are hard conditions?
They want to know very precisely, because the survival of their country and culture depends on the countries that cause the most greenhouse gas emissions – the countries with a lot of industry, consumption and agriculture. Countries such as the Netherlands. They need to know what to ask for in the climate negotiations.
The latest three reports from the IPCC indicate: it’s a hit or miss for climate change mitigation. The door to global warming below 1.5°C is still ajar, and with each year that we continue on the old foot, it closes further. But with the exception of 2020, global emissions have only grown in recent years. Above 1.5°C warming, all kinds of consequences become much more serious, with enormous ecological damage and humanitarian consequences that we are barely beginning to comprehend.
Coal-fired power stations at full capacity
The fact that the Netherlands and Germany are running the coal-fired power stations again at full capacity to save on gas, as became clear this week, does not help. Fortunately, politics is not standing still. Minister for Climate and Energy Rob Jetten (D66) recently sent the draft of a climate policy program to the House of Representatives, in which plans are discussed to achieve a 60 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 in the coming years.
Also read: IPCC: Climate change is inevitable and now affects the whole world
But in fact the real work will only start after 2030. Because we have lingered for so long with serious climate policy, the required reduction speed has now become very high. The IPCC report states that by 2050 the entire world will be CO2– should be neutral. That means that the CO2emissions that we cannot avoid must be compensated by removing CO2 from the atmosphere, for example through agriculture that stores carbon in the soil, through forestry or through new technology that uses CO2 filters from the air and stores underground. A huge task.
For rich countries, such as the Netherlands, the global target means that they will reach net zero CO . a little sooner2emissions should be achieved in about twenty years’ time. Halving global emissions by 2030 can be done with technologically feasible measures at limited costs, but climate neutrality within a few decades is a transformation assignment, the IPCC writes. Such system transformations can happen quickly, provided the conditions are right and the starting blocks are set up well in advance. Jetten’s climate program seems to imply that for the purpose of CO2-neutrality just have to do a little more and a little faster what we already did. And that is an illusion.
Transformation
What does the required transformation look like then, and how is it different from what we need to do for 2030? System transformation means not only changing technology and perhaps some of our behavior, but changing the building blocks and underlying principles of all the systems on which our society and economy are built. Such as industry, energy, infrastructure, agriculture and urban development.
Take our mobility system: for real sustainability, with which we achieve the significant emission reductions that are necessary to become climate neutral, simply replacing petrol cars with electric cars is not enough. That does indeed reduce CO2emissions, noise and air pollution, but it does not solve other problems, such as land take, health and safety. And the claim on natural resources – with all the social and environmental consequences that this entails outside the Netherlands – is changing, but not going away. For truly sustainable mobility, the entire system needs to be rethought, including legislation and regulations and the design of cities. And also our relationship with mobility and travel, which now boils down to: the more and faster, the better. When you think about that, you come up with other investments, technologies and ways of living.
In order for these system changes to take place in mutual coherence, the right conditions must be created. In the IPCC report we mention six necessary preconditions that can jointly accelerate such transitions: more cooperation and coordination between countries, cities and neighbourhoods; financial systems that work for instead of against sustainability; more human resources in technical execution and planning; international cooperation in the fields of knowledge, training, policy and financing; faster, targeted innovation; and finally behavioral change and acceptance of measures.
Many people are motivated to live more sustainably, provided it becomes more possible and attractive
The great thing is: these necessary conditions can reinforce each other. Take behavioral change, which the IPCC has written extensively about for the first time. Worldwide, many poor people will have to use even more energy, food and belongings to support themselves. Yet demand reduction and behavioral change could reduce as much as 40 to 70 percent of global emissions by 2050. For example, because people make different transport and food choices, aided by an innovation-enhanced and policy-enabled range of affordable, attractive sustainable products and services.
That is not impossible. A lot of research shows that people are not only focused on their own interests: many people consider environmental conservation very important and are motivated to live more sustainably, if it becomes more possible and attractive, and the policy is implemented in a fair way. And governments and companies can influence this, for example through citizen involvement, infrastructure and product development. The more people trust a government that delivers long-term, vision-consistent policies, the more acceptable government policies will be, funding will flow more easily, and businesses and citizens will know which way to go.
Jetten’s ambitious policy for 2030 is good but not sufficient. In order to maintain a chance of staying below 1.5°C warming, the minister should not only focus on the reductions for 2030, but also seriously work on the necessary preconditions for a transformation. If he does not, we may achieve the goals of 2030, but we will be too late for those crucial system transformations and we will miss the opportunities that society already offers.
And then we really don’t know what to tell those threatened countries in the climate negotiations with the next IPCC report.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of June 25, 2022
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