“I have been impressed by the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Being willing is not enough, we must do.”
— Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Humans are one of the dominant forces on climate and the environment and climate change is arguably the defining issue of the 21st century, dubbed the Anthropocene era.
During the past year, we have endured unprecedented scorching heat waves all over the planet and the past seven years have been the hottest on record. Last year, a Canadian record temperature of 49.6 C was recorded at Lytton, B.C., the day before the town burned to the ground. The heat dome that seared the Pacific Northwest was one of the most anomalous extreme heat events ever observed.
There is a litany of climate change consequences ranging from heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires, polar ice melt, sea-level rise, the disappearance of rivers, lakes and reservoirs, marine heat waves and the like.
The Earth’s energy imbalance has increased due to the greenhouse effect and considerably more radiation now enters the atmosphere than is radiated out to space.
The energy imbalance is increasing, raising the spectre of further destabilization of the ocean-atmosphere system that regulates the climate.
The most meaningful metric for monitoring climate change is CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
Reliable measurements began at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory in 1958 and the so-called Keeling Curve has accurately tracked the inexorable increase of atmospheric CO2.
In 1958, atmospheric CO2 concentration registered 313 parts per million (ppm). As shown on the graph below, this year, CO2 surpassed 420 ppm. International organization 350.org maintains that 350 ppm represents a safe concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
This graph, known as the Keeling Curve, depicts the upward trajectory of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Except for the melting polar ice caps, which are several kilometres thick, it is conceivable the Earth could become essentially ice-free within a human lifetime. The consequences of a global ice and snow meltdown would fundamentally alter the planet's livability.
While the situation continues to evolve, politicians have waded in with emission targets, global confabs, pledges and strategies that collectively have had no impact whatsoever on the Keeling Curve, the bottom line for climate change mitigation.
Simply put, unless we can effectively bend the Keeling Curve and substantially reduce atmospheric CO2, climate conditions will continue to deteriorate.
Separate from the Keeling Curve, the emissions curve will also need to bend, something that is yet to occur on a global basis. There is an unknown time lag between emission decreases and atmospheric CO2 reductions due to the elevated CO2 content in the oceans, which will dampen the atmospheric response.
The atmosphere doesn’t care how we collectively reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases, whether by emission reductions or other means, but until this occurs, the climate will continue to get hotter. Mitigation attempts have tried to control emissions, but global emissions continue to rise, and few countries have lived up to their climate pledges.
The 2015 Paris Agreement established 1.5 C as a relatively safe increase to support life as we know it. To moderate the most severe impacts, global emissions need to decline to net-zero. Achievement of this target by 2050 will require a highly unlikely emissions reduction of around 40 per cent by 2030.
Social, political and technological inertia have been identified as factors that work against the achievement of the 1.5 C target and will create an overshoot situation with the magnitude and duration dependent on the actions we take in the near future. Presently, global emissions and temperatures are increasing, leaving precious little time for human response.
Canada produces around 1.5 per cent of global emissions and while it is crucial to get our house in order, until the largest emitters, including China, the U.S. and India, rein in their emissions (which collectively contribute around 50 per cent of the total), the Keeling Curve will continue to increase.
War can result when nations and human livelihoods are threatened. The most pressing war we can engage in is a war on inaction. We urgently require actions that drive down atmospheric CO2 concentrations coupled with an unprecedented societal transformation and a shift away from the pursuit of economic growth.
David Levy is an ecologist who has worked on salmon and climate change in the Fraser River.
Comments
Pierre Poilievre will abandon any reg meant to reduce our CO2. Why? Like many politicians he gets funding from business and I don't think we Canadians realize how influential lobbyists and Big Money are. Liberals and Conservatives both. So folks, how much are you willing to sacrifice? When I stop in at my Cold Lake City Hall, every vehicle parked is a Pickup or SUV, except my little 40 plus MPG Ford.
I have tried to drive fuel efficient vehicles since the 1970s energy crisis. So I do my small bit. I live in a province where electricity is generated mostly by fossil fuels yet Albertans seem unaware, this doesn't app,y to the rest of Canada
Yet we are the most progressive in installing renewable electricity but we need far mire investment.
So that curve will continue to rise, and as areas of this wonderful planet become uninhabitable, where are the people who live there , who can't grow food or even live in 40+ degrees C going to move to? Think about that
I know the feeling. We live on a half block with eight small houses built on half lots that were subdivided cross-wise from two standard lots on both sides of the street in 1910, almost 50 years before Vancouver's first zoning bylaws were created. The half block is 37 metres (122 ft) long and is crammed with 15 resident's cars. Yep, we have a problem. There are only two multiple resident houses with a single car on our street, ours is one of them. It's the smallest econobox on the street, and we hardly use it because we live in a walkable neighbourhood with hundreds of shops with a 15-minute walk.
For the life of me I don't understand why the neighbours feel they will die without their multiple cars, many of which are not used often enough, for work purposes or with loads that justify their size and cost. There is great resistance to permit parking and any notion that car dependency has resulted in not just irresponsible urbanism, but also helped catalyze a planetary environmental crisis. Some respond with their loose plans to buy EVs with the same tonnage and size but at even greater expense. While that may result in cancelling 60 litre fillups and lower volumes of refined bitumen flowing in the TM pipe from Alberta, it says nothing about urban efficacy, taxes spent on road maintenance or lowering the horrendous levels of consumer waste in our society.
We run out of town elder care missions once every month or six weeks that require a car for hauling luggage and coolers of frozen meals. Once the elder departs this mortal coil we will not have enough justification to keep the car, and every justification to consider car share memberships, investments in good quality walking shoes for every season, and keeping the transit card topped up.
I think it is fair to affirm that the majority of Albertans, Canadians, even Americans and anybody else in the world are disturbed and scared by climate change and it effects: they want their government to take appropriate actions to stop climate change.
The problem is that, even if we are technically a democracy (i.e. governed by the people), we are not at all governed by the people. We are governed by a small minority of politicians, business leaders and others who recommend decisions to the governments, and these decisions are overwhelmingly aimed at expanding the economy, increasing profits . Somehow, the People must take control of governments in order to change the priorities; this has been attempted in many countries and been severely repressed by the governments in power.
We can only count on the younger generation to do something. I will be dead by then, and If things do not change, all will be dead!
"Canada produces around 1.5 per cent of global emissions and while it is crucial to get our house in order, until the largest emitters, including China, the U.S. and India, rein in their emissions (which collectively contribute around 50 per cent of the total), the Keeling Curve will continue to increase."
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Canada ranks tenth in the world, though nowhere near tenth in population.
Climate change cannot be stopped if only the biggest nations or top emitters reduce emissions. Even if the top 3 emitters reduced emissions to zero, that would still leave about half of global emissions on the table. Unless smaller national emitters do their part as well, global targets remain out of reach.
The biggest bang for our climate action buck is reducing the emissions of high- and super-emitters. That's us. Not people in India.
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How to assign responsibility for emissions (reductions)? Target the nations with the highest emissions or the people with the highest emissions?
Which nation has the highest emissions? Who are the highest emitters? Different questions.
The answer to the first question does not tell us the answer to the second. The first question confuses population size with emissions behavior. That does not tell us what we need to know. It tells us which nations have the most people, not which people have the highest emissions. It does not tell us where the top emitters live.
Total global emissions matters to the climate, but total national emissions does not identify the top emitters. To reduce emissions, we need to target the top emitters, not the most populous nations.
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Line up everybody in the world. Highest emitters at the front of the line. Lowest emitters at the back.
At the front of the line, you find mostly Canadians, Americans, and Australians. At the back, people from the developing world. The (carbon) footprint of those in front is ten or a hundred times larger.
The biggest emissions cuts fall to the rich energy hogs at the front of the line. Worry less about the larger number of poor people at the back of the line with negligible emissions. As a matter of equity and justice, we do not ask the poorest million to tighten their belts, while the jet setters and energy hogs carry on as usual.
Obviously, the last million people in the lineup have greater total emissions than the first ten. Of course, India has higher total emissions than Belgium. Not a valid comparison.
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"Carbon emissions of richest 1% more than double those of poorest half of the world" (Oxfam, 2021)
Between 1990 and 2015 the carbon emissions of the richest 1% were more than double those of the 3 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity.
The richest 10% (c 630 million people) accounted for over half (52%) of the CO2 emissions. The richest 1% accounted for 15% of emissions – more than twice that of the poorest half of humanity (7%).
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Per capita helps us tell the high emitters from the low, no matter the size of their nation. Per capita tells us, for example, that Canadians and Americans are similar in their energy extravagance and emissions.
Draw squares on a world map, with each square representing 40 million people. The square we call Canada has higher emissions than just about any other square on the map.
Draw squares on a world map, with each square representing 4 million people. The square we call Alberta has higher emissions than just about any other square on the map.
Canadians' carbon footprint is 3x the global average.
If Canada is "too small to matter," what message does that send to the 183 nations with smaller carbon footprints than ours?
If Alberta were a country, its per capita emissions would be higher than any other country's in the world.
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Climate change cannot be stopped if only the biggest nations or top emitters reduce emissions. Even if the top 3 emitters reduced emissions to zero, that would still leave about half of global emissions on the table. Unless smaller national emitters do their part as well, global targets remain out of reach.
Historically and cumulatively, the industrialized West is responsible for the bulk of emissions and global warming thus far. Canada ranks #9 on the list.
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The emissions intensity of Canada's buildings, transportation, and agriculture are all well above the G20 average.
Canada produces almost 3x more GHG per capita than the average bloc member.
"Canada among worst offenders as world falls short of climate-change targets" (CBC)
• www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/national-today-newsletter-climate-change-tw…
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Canadians produce more GHG emissions per person than any other G20 economy (Climate Transparency 2018 rpt based on 2016 numbers).
Canada is the 38th country in the world by population, has the 11th largest economy, and is the seventh biggest emitter.
On average, each Canadian produces 22 tonnes of GHG per year —the highest among all G20 members and nearly 3x the G20 average of 8 tonnes per person.
"Canada produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any other G20 country, new report says" (Toronto Star, 2018)
• www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/11/14/canada-produces-most-greenhouse-…
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Canada has the worst vehicle fuel economy in the world. Canada's vehicles have the highest average fuel consumption and CO2 emissions per km driven (IEA). Canada's vehicles are also the largest and the second heaviest in the world.
Canadians produce more garbage per capita than 16 other OECD nations.
Canada is one of the biggest food wasters on the planet.
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Many Canadians drive everywhere they go in single-passenger vehicles in sprawled cities. Idle at drive-thrus. Live far from work and school. Long commutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Lights and computers are left on in office towers and homes. Living in big houses stuffed with things they don't need. Shop till they drop. Single-use disposables. Fly around the world for vacations. Holiday in huge RVs. Eat a heavy meat diet. Throw out 40% of their food.
Canadians contribute disproportionately to a collective problem; we need to contribute to the collective solution.