The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has just published The Closing Window. The climate crisis demands a swift societal transformation" which leaves a mixed impression upon reading: on the one hand, the material commands professional respect for its meticulous calculations and, hopefully, the authors’ earnest call for humanity to unite against greenhouse gas emissions, but, on the other hand, in the context of a multi-layered crisis of universal proportions, the key line of the report — where and what must be done to reduce average temperature increases — looks extremely detached. It turns out to be such unintentional “greenwashing” without regard to context, with the desired image getting further and further removed from reality.
The UNEP report “A Closing Window. Climate Crisis Requires Rapid Societal Transformation” is the 13th in an annual series that provides an analysis of the gap between projected greenhouse gas emissions levels in 2030 and those needed to avert the worst impacts of climate change.
The world remains on track for higher temperatures
The report states the dismal results of climate action, both over the past year and cumulatively. The renewed commitments made a year ago after COP26 in Glasgow reduce projected greenhouse gas emissions for 2030 by less than 1% (!), with emissions needing to be reduced by 45% to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. The world is heading rapidly towards a temperature rise well above the Paris Agreement target. The report predicts that continuation of current policies will lead to a temperature increase of 2.8 °C by the end of the century.
It turns out that, year after year, the combined efforts of all the countries that signed up to the Paris Agreement in 2015 have chronically fallen short of their targets. Very often, inadequate climate finance is blamed: developed countries fail to honour their promises of grant support for the energy transition from developing countries, private investment suffers from greenwashing, and governments invest little in the climate and do not make full use of incentives for economic actors. That’s right.
However, in this vicious circle of cause-effect relationships, there is an almost taboo question: if targets are not being achieved year after year, maybe there is something wrong not only with the roadmaps, promises and instruments, but also with target-setting or, more precisely, with its feasibility? You can look for reasons for climate “resistance” for as long as you like, but the fact is that the global “target” for reducing CO2 emissions does not and is no longer likely to limit average temperature rise to the target by 2030.
In my view, the Paris Agreement is an overambitious and difficult document even for the era of globalisation. The geopolitical crisis, the subsequent processes of de-globalisation, the polarisation of countries into “sandboxes” make this agreement almost ephemeral. In the figurative language of the sustainable development system, it is a veritable "greenwashing“ 1, when wishful thinking is visibly detached from reality.
Climate plans must be realistic
The UNEP report recommends what needs to be done to meet the climate ambitions of the Paris Agreement. It identifies four areas where the transition to zero emissions has already begun and needs to be developed on the basis of best available technologies — electricity, industry, transport and buildings.
The transformation of food systems has been singled out for special attention, where, alongside the organisational and technical challenges of decarbonising supply chains and preserving ecosystems, there is also the question of changing demand-side behaviour. The latter clearly “hints” at replacing meat, especially beef, in people’s diets with plant-based protein foods and other modern solutions for producing artificial, or cultured, meat. While there is an obvious need to find ways to overcome world hunger and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, I am convinced that artificial food is not only a matter of climate and economics, but also ethics, justice and other intangibles that go to the heart of the acceptability of transhumanist ideas in any given society.
As might be expected, the main issue on the international climate agenda remains the prevention or mitigation of greenhouse gas impacts on climate, while the use of fossil fuels as an energy source is rejected in the given mainstream logic. And this is where one gets a sense of a global disconnect from reality, as it does not fit at all with the energy crisis, which in fact has already led to an increase in the consumption of coal and all other fossil fuels, both in Europe and in other parts of the world.
In this regard, I find very reasonable the proposal made by Petr Bobylev, Director of the Department of Coal Industry of the Ministry of Energy, at the Climate Dialogues, to measure the efficiency of the energy transition not by the use of particular energy sources, but by the dynamics of reduction of CO2 emissions from a particular production process. Perhaps this approach will be part of the Russian delegation’s package of proposals for promotion at the forthcoming UN conference in Sharm el-Sheikh. Incidentally, as well as an assessment by effect rather than source of emissions, it would be advisable for the global climate agenda to ban any sanctions against companies, projects and chains if they contribute to decarbonising economic activity. After all, it is almost impossible to delineate boundaries and put up barriers in real climate processes. So there should be more science, technology and calculation than politics on the subject.
The financial system needs to be set up to adapt
UNEP estimates that the global transition to a low-emissions economy will require an investment of at least $4–6 trillion per year. This is no more than 2% of total financial assets in the global market, but it is a significant proportion — 20–28% in terms of additional annual resources to be allocated. How realistic is such funding in a global imbalance?
Based on the UNEP report, as well as numerous other papers showing lagging behind the Paris Agreement, humanity is unlikely to be able to stop warming. So the pragmatic approach is not to fight the climate, but to survive in the face of rising temperatures. Therefore, along with financing the energy transition, the most important focus (and maybe the main focus) of the climate agenda should be the adaptation of people, economies and territories to the new climate conditions of life. And, according to respected experts, the emphasis on providing funding for the energy transition and adaptation by the private sector alone is a mistake on the global climate agenda.
Therefore the financial system in every country must be transformed so that programmes, projects and businesses that help adapt human livelihoods to rising temperatures take priority. And maybe when we put the citizen of each country at the centre of saving people, then we will all be able to save the planet in the face of de-globalisation. I hope that at the upcoming UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, important agreements will be reached on adaptation.
1 Greenwishing is the English phrase. The term was first used by investment consultant Duncan Austin in “Greenwish: wishful thinking undermines the pursuit of sustainable business”. The term is applied to climate-related initiatives where wishful thinking is being passed off as reality.
Cover photo: Pavel Byrkin / iStock
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