INFO:

When we hear politicians and some scientists talk about climate change, it is easy to get the impression that we just need to build lots of low-carbon technology to reach ‘net’ zero emissions by 2050. But that is far from honest, and dangerously misleading. We explain why it is the total amount of carbon dioxide that we put into the atmosphere that causes global warming. This can be expressed as a ‘carbon budget’ for a given probability of staying within a particular temperature rise. Such a scientifically robust framing of the climate challenge has major political and social implications. Critically, it brings the key timescale to act forward to between now and 2030. We unpack the budgets for 1.5°C and 2°C, and suggest what would have to be done to keep warming to no more than 2°C, and how everyone has a role to play. Contents: 00:00 Can we solve climate change with new technology? 00:27 Rising temperatures are driven by emissions 00:48 Why are rising temperatures a problem? 01:13 How much warming might we get? 01:40 How much can we still emit before 1.5 u0026 2°C? 02:27 How can we hold warming to below 2°C? 02:38 Decarbonise u0026 electrify the energy system 03:07 Increase the efficiency of energy use u0026 prevent rebounds 03:27 Immediate cuts in energy use by high energy users 03:40 Half of all emissions are from just 10% of people 04:10 Why equity (fairness) is important 04:27 Whose job is it to sort this out? --- ℹ️ ABOUT THE CARBON BUDGETS IN THIS FILM We recorded this in summer 2021. The 800 GtCO2 mentioned in the video is based on the budget for a 50/50 chance of 1.7°C in the IPCC’s SR1.5 report [1], which at the time had the most up to date science on emissions budgets. 1.7°C was taken to capture the essence of the commitments in the Paris Agreement to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C… and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”, at least as far as a single value can. This year (2022) the IPCC released AR6, its Sixth Assessment Report [2], which contains several updates to the carbon budgets, as a result of improvements in understanding of how the climate responds to emissions, and of the likely risk and scale of earth system feedbacks (sometimes referred to as ‘tipping points’). AR6 puts the budget for a 50/50 chance of staying below 1.7°C at 850 GtCO2 from the start of 2020. From the start of September 2022, the remaining budget has dropped to around 740 GtCO2, for all CO2 emissions sources (energy, food, industrial processes, and land use change u0026 deforestation). Note: the AR6 budget for a 50% chance of 1.7°C is very close to that for a 'good chance' (83%) of staying below 2°C (900 GtCO2 from start of 2020). Once process emissions from cement production are excluded, this leaves around 17 years’ worth of emissions from the energy system. However, in recent years there has been increasing emphasis on the 1.5°C limit in the Paris Agreement, as a more appropriate threshold for ‘dangerous climate change’. This is a result of improved scientific understanding of the severity and immediacy of impacts at 1.5°C, particularly for climate vulnerable nations in the Global South. Again based on AR6, the global carbon budget remaining for all emissions sources from September 2022 for a 50/50 chance of keeping within 1.5°C is around 390 GtCO2. Once an allowance is made for cement production, this amounts to around 7 years at the rate of current emissions from energy. For a 'good chance' (83%) of staying below 1.5°C, there is less than 3 years’ worth of budget left for energy. Note that these global budgets take no account of differential responsibilities between countries for causing or dealing with climate change. Once EQUITY is taken into consideration, industrialised countries clearly have far fewer years' worth of emissions remaining than poorer countries. Our next video on equity will deal with this in more detail. [1] https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ [2] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ --- 👉For more info, please visit: https://climateuncensored.com/ 👉Follow us on social media: https://twitter.com/Clim8Uncensored https://www.instagram.com/climateuncensored/ https://www.facebook.com/ClimateUncensored CREDITS: 📓 Content: Kevin Anderson (🎤) u0026 Dan Calverley 🎨Animation: Ingrid M. Rieser https://www.ingridmrieser.com 🎧Sound editing u0026 social media: Oscar Betancourt https://picturelle.com 🙏 For caption translations, we are grateful to: Gaurav Gharde, Jingyi Li, Wenzhu Li, Dwica Wulandari, Hitesh Potdar, Himanshu Chutia Saikia, Harshita Jha, Nevin Sulthan, Oscar Betancourt, Marian Schini, Jesse Schrage, MatTrad. 🙏 Thanks also to the Centre for Environment u0026 Development Studies (CEMUS) at the University of Uppsala, for permission to update u0026 promote this animation, building on previous work done for them. #climatechange #emission #energy