Of course we are going to blow out 1.5degrees – global warming is here and it will only get worse
You can’t be surprised…
Global warming will inevitably overshoot 1.5°C Paris Agreement target – UN report
Global warming beyond 1.5°C is now inevitable and the world must limit the ‘overshoot’ as much as possibly before reversing it, a new report says.
The UN Environmental Programme report, ‘Limiting Overshoot’, is the first UN-level report to acknowledge that keeping warming below 1.5°C is no longer possible, even if countries honour all of their current emissions pledges.
Best-case scenarios now showed global temperature increases would peak at about 1.8°C – likely beyond the threshold for some ‘tipping points’, like the loss of the world’s coral reefs.
The world needed to make deep emissions cuts to limit that warming peak and its duration as much as possible, and ramp up carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere, the report said.
Getting to carbon-zero, and then to carbon-negative, might be able to bend the temperature curve back below 1.5°C by the end of the century, it concluded.
“This is by no means an acceptable or preferred pathway; it is simply the best remaining option.”
RNZ
…of course we will blow it out.
NZ is not alone in failing to live up to our Paris Accord obligations, but this Governments war on the environment hasn’t helped.
Russel Norman at Greenpeace does a devastating timeline of this Government’s war on the environment…
Luxon’s War on Nature Timeline
When the Luxon-led coalition took office nearly two years ago, its war on nature started within days of taking office. In that time, the government has made a bewildering number of changes leading to environmental harm. Greenpeace Aotearoa Executive Director Russel Norman has undertaken the gargantuan task of tracking them all.
It has been nearly two years since the the formation of the Christopher Luxon led Government, a coalition between the National, Act and NZ First parties.
It has been two years of a veritable war on nature. New Zealand and the world is already facing a climate crisis and a biodiversity crisis, and this Government has been systematically making it worse.
There have been so many anti-environment initiatives, across so many government agencies, through so many law and regulation changes, across a raft of budget changes, it is hard to keep track of them all. The aim of this article is to create a comprehensive timeline of them.
The timeline starts below, and feel free to jump straight into it. But I thought it might be helpful to draw out some of the themes at the beginning.
- The Government is absolutely obsessed with allowing the dairy industry to put more pollution into freshwater. A massive amount of ministerial and officials’ time and energy has been devoted to unwinding rules that protect freshwater.
- The victory of the environment movement, to change the fast track legislation so that the decision makers are expert panels rather than three ministers, has proved consequential. Many bad projects may still get through the process, but some of Chris Bishop and Shane Jones’ donor’s pet projects have died under simple questioning from an expert panel.
- The Government is increasingly playing a climate obstructionist role domestically and to some extent internationally. But its primary interest in climate change is keeping up appearances. They feel obliged to pretend to honour the climate clauses of free trade deals, while a growing pile of drowned climate policies is hidden under a blue tarp. How long before the EU notices the smell?
- The Government’s energy policy is to throw the country into the arms of fossil fuels – ‘drill baby drill’. But their ideology is blinding them to the laws of geology – even with subsidies, fossil fuels in New Zealand are expensive and unreliable. This reality is partially dawning on them.
- The Government is giving the fishing industry whatever they want, but reality has an ecological bias. Over a bottle or five of chardonnay they might promise Seafood NZ that they can stripmine seamounts for orange roughy, but that doesn’t stop the collapse of the fishery.
- Motorway policy operates in a parallel fiscal universe. Money is apparently short yet if you want $50 billion for ten motorways, chosen as personal projects by individual ministers, normal critical evaluation faculties simply stop.
- The war on nature is matched by the war on Te Tiriti, and Te Tiriti itself has functioned as a protector of the environment. It hasn’t all gone the Government’s way, and in some ways the activism on Te Tiriti has spilled over into environmental activism and vice versa. The voice of iwi in fast track hearings remains unbowed.
- Finally, they are Trumpian in so many ways but the concentration of power and attacks on civil society are striking. Local and regional councils are sidelined. Fish and Game is to have its advocacy function sterilised, environmental legal aid is gone, as is funding for community environmental centres. And the fast track process excluded most community groups from hearings on projects that impacted them. They are threatening the charities registration of environmental advocates like Greenpeace.
So, to the specifics. I’ve gone through every week of the last two years of the Luxon Government to pull out their environment policies and laid them out below. I’m afraid this is really more of a reference document than an easy-to-read narrative, and it is unpleasant reading at the best of times. So here goes.
…so the Right have done everything to acquiesce to Big Polluters while robbing public transport budgets, climate change adaptation budgets and Civil Defence budgets.
That’s why I’m popping the pop corn, because no matter what the Political Right say about Climate Change being a socialist hoax, the reality of what’s coming will burn and drown their denial.
We face a Godzilla El Niño, (which TDB has been warning about since the beginning of this year), and that is going to cause enormous damage, which is but the beginning of multiple years of increased global warming releasing even more catastrophic events.
That’s why what happens next is so super exciting.
How will Federated Farmers, ACT, NZF, National, Groundswell, Taxpayers’ Union, NZ Initiative, Atlas Network and the Big Polluters lie next?
How will they pretend there is no catastrophic climate collapse looming?
How will they convince you that you aren’t burning and drowning as it’s happening?
I see in the near future a sudden rise in Environmental Militancy.
I see activists bombing and attacking the infrastructure of the climate deniers and their industry.
Those who have denied climate change will become targets from a next Generation doomed by the current generations refusal to act.
I want to hear the lies and spin that Federated Farmers, ACT, NZF, National, Groundswell, Taxpayers’ Union, NZ Initiative, Atlas Network and the Big Polluters try to make you believe as you drown and burn.
I’m excited to see how the latest realities crash into the denial of those who profit from the pollution.
Pop that popcorn.
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a couple of questions
has the Paris agreement changed anything?
and what would reducing the CO2 emitted by NZ do to the overall level of emissions?
” We’re all on a wild ride man so is this how we stop to get off? ”
One of mine
“The reason why we don’t have intelligent leaders is because we don’t have intelligent followers and therein lies the rub”.
Another one of mine.
” You can lose your health, you can lose your wealth but you can’t afford to lose your sense of humour.”
Ronnie Biggs. Train robber.
” We’re all on a wild ride man so is how we stop to get off? ”
One of mine
“The reason why we don’t have intelligent leaders is because we don’t have intelligent followers and therein lies the rub”.
Another one of mine.
” You can lose your health, you can lose your wealth but you can’t afford to lose your sense of humour.”
Ronnie Biggs. Train robber.
I don’t believe anyone, including me, has a clue how bad this El Nino and subsequent weather will be. NZ’s current CoC has stupidly ignored this major threat. So time for a giant ‘wake-up’ call and a rethink about our farming practices, mining, over-fishing, excess travel, LNG etc. We have been guilty and naive and now it’s time to face the consquences. I do hope all of you reading this article take it seriously and put in place what’s needed to survive this. We MUST remain in the Paris Agreement and we MUST lessen our carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions! We are a tiny nation and we can do this, but need a leading political party that will take this action seriously.