In the run-up to next month’s COP27 climate summit in Cairo, the UN has delivered increasingly strident warnings that the global pace of decarbonisation is woefully inadequate.
States were due to report back on plans made at COP26 in Glasgow last December. The implied aim was that they would now strengthen their plans in line with the commitment to accelerating the whole process. It’s not going to happen – plans are mostly inadequate or even entirely lacking.
The original goal, publicised before COP26, was to decrease carbon emissions by 7% a year through to 2030, still barely enough to curb the rate of global heating. That has fallen by the wayside, with even COVID-related lockdowns in 2021 and 2022 making only a minimal impact. Instead of year-on-year decreases we have had increases, so that an annual decrease of 9% is now needed for the remainder of the decade to achieve the same total.
UN secretary-general António Guterres is the one global political figure who is seriously and repeatedly addressing the issue, consistently warning of what is to come. He is doing so in the wake of a pre-COP27 UN report suggesting that even if the pre-summit commitments were implemented, global temperatures would still rise by between 2.1°C and 2.9°C.
Apart from exceeding the anticipated tipping point, this would mean a rapid increase in catastrophic weather events exceeding the likes of last year’s South Asian heat bubble, the recent flooding in Nigeria and the even larger floods in Pakistan. As the southern hemisphere now enters its hottest period of the year, climate scientists are carefully watching weather trends across the south, especially in South America and Australia, where there has already been serious flooding.
While all this may mean we are heading towards irreversible global disaster, another, rather different, scenario is possible. It is a parallel trend offering some hope and also opening up the potential for forward-looking political parties to have a serious impact on the debate. With the peculiar political environment in Britain just now making the Tories particularly unpopular, the Labour Party could have a major role to play if it is prepared to grasp it.
Last month two major reports, from Stanford and Oxford Universities, concluded that the rapidly decreasing costs of renewable energy systems were so impressive that a fast transition to a decarbonised system was really possible. A recent openDemocracy column quoted one of those involved as saying that it even made sense for climate change sceptics to invest in renewables.
On top of that has come this week’s report from the International Energy Agency, which predicts that global carbon emissions will peak by 2025, earlier than expected and largely due to the war in Ukraine encouraging many countries to accelerate their move to renewables. The agency pointed to major contributions likely to come from Biden’s US Inflation Reduction Act and an energy reduction package from the EU, as well as policy developments in Japan, South Korea, China and India.
The UK has a wide range of onshore and offshore renewable resources – possibly the world’s best – that could be utilised much faster
This is good news, yet it still means that emissions will only peak in three years’ time, whereas they need to be coming down now. So does that leave the UK with a role to play? The answer is a decided ‘yes’, given that it has such a wide range of onshore and offshore renewable resources – possibly the world’s best – that could be utilised much faster. This could be combined with a crash programme in energy conservation, starting with a transformative scheme for nationwide home insulation, which would begin to have an impact within months, not years.
Rishi Sunak’s government may not be quite as disastrous as the short-lived Truss experiment would have been, but the climate change deniers in the Tufton Street think tanks and elsewhere are unlikely to change their beliefs any time soon.
It is this that presents Labour with an opportunity to have a real impact.
The party starts from a tolerably good position, not least because of the commitment of a handful of front-bench politicians, especially shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband. But it could do vastly more, and should do it quickly. With Sunak declining to go to COP27, an obvious first step is for Keir Starmer to be there and for Miliband to be given the resources to have a substantial team present for the whole conference.
This should be the start of a sustained commitment to make rapid decarbonisation a core feature of Labour Party policy right through to the next election, with immediate emphasis on home insulation and a thoroughly worked-out, all-round programme for the first 12 months of a Labour government.
There should be constant criticism of the Tories, with all Labour front-line parliamentarians getting a crash course in climate breakdown and decarbonisation, enabling them to promote the policy with authority whenever the chance arose, frequently connecting it to their particular policy brief.
It can be argued that this makes sense in political terms: pushing a green agenda would go down very well with younger voters; it would meet far less opposition from the over-40s than would have been the case even five years ago; and it could be sold as providing plenty of jobs.
However, that is not the point. The Labour leadership and its advisers should be clear on one issue right from the start. The war in Ukraine is an immediate problem, the failing economy is damaging for millions across the country, and Labour would be right to speak out on these and other issues. But global heating is a challenge of a different order and requires an utterly committed response.
If doing so brings some kudos and electoral popularity then that’s all well and good, but that is decidedly not the reason for pursuing a green agenda. A worldwide disaster is already happening, one that needs political commitment that is far greater than anything envisaged so far. In the process, it may bring about badly needed new internationalism in the Labour Party, but that would just be a useful bonus.
