EXPERT REACTION: Climate tipping points described in leaked IPCC Report

It is disappointing that this document was leaked and that a journalist chose to produce a story on it.

The IPCC provides a forum for assessing current knowledge on climate change and synthesising this for policy makers and for wider communication. Draft reports are provided to governments and reviewers as confidential working documents on the condition they are not publicly distributed, quoted or cited.

These reports can change considerably during the review and synthesis process as the Panel reaches an agreed consensus. Disclosing reports makes this already difficult task more challenging. It undermines the robust and inclusive processes developed by the IPCC over more than 30 years.

The IPCC will drip feed information on climate tipping points over the coming year because the world will need time to adjust to its implications.

We cannot rely on technology to pull us away from the precipice of a climate tipping point. So far all our climate models, even without tipping points, have suggested a bleak future by 2080 and 2100 that exceeds the safe limit for climate change set by the Paris Agreement - by doubling it.

My argument, and those of others for many decades, has been that we need social and political mitigation - wholesale behaviour change - as well as technological adaptation. This doesn't mean we all go to war or become communist, or slaves to reptilian alien overlords or whatever other conspiratorial garbage floats around on social media. We don't have to pursue degrowth in economic policy but rather pursue growth in healthier outcomes. That means moderating the extremes of consumption, pulling back on big houses and power bills, perhaps living in multigenerational homes when they're large, more local produce including more consumption of local arts and music instead of elevating celebrities. And yes, it includes more equity in distribution of resources across classes, countries and generations.

But it's not an anti-competitive attack on human freedoms and property ownership. Many objective, nonpartisan people have been working on what a healthy society would look like in a climate constrained future and it's not half bad. People would live longer and be happier. All people of all ages could flourish. But it won't happen while we mess around at the edges of the old and toxic socio-economic systems we have in place because we're rapidly heading for tipping points that will guarantee war, hardly happiness, much less human survival. For our living children we need to act now and we need to be bold, non-partisan, objective and compassionate.

The draft IPCC report is not the final report and therefore it is inappropriate for me to comment on the report itself. However, in general climate tipping points are extremely concerning. Essentially a tipping point is a switch from one state to another with often a much slower pathway back to the original state. Ice sheet melting is an example of this, with rapid rises in sea level – metres-worth of sea-level rise – as a consequence. Past ocean acidification is another example with the geological record showing an acidification event 56 million years ago occurring in a few thousand years compared to the recovery taking 200,000 years. The message here is that there really are dire and costly consequences of increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. It is in all of our best interests to reduce emissions as soon as we possibly can.

A scary thing about tipping points is that they’re often ‘unknown unknowns’—sudden, calamitous environmental changes that come flying out of nowhere and smack us in the back of the head. 

For example, the Amazon Rainforest, where I work, has been suffering badly from bizarre droughts in recent years.  These droughts are being triggered by exceptionally warm Atlantic seas that drive rain-bearing winds away from the rainforest—killing hundreds of millions of trees and triggering severe wildfires.  

No one expected this new type of killer drought in the Amazon—but it’s here now.  Global warming isn’t just affecting cold parts of the world.  It’s also disrupting the climate and ecology of the world’s biggest rainforest, with serious implications for us all.

The problem with tipping points is that we won’t know we have passed them until it is too late.  But we do know that every reduction in emissions reduces the chance that we pass thresholds from which we can’t return and that the sooner we start reducing emissions, the better our chances will be. In this context, those who stand against action for short-term political and economic gain will be judged harshly in the future, and quite possibly in the near future.

In many ways, the new IPCC conclusions are not a surprise. For instance, we already know that the language of previous IPCC reports has erred on the conservative side because of political and syntax-imposed inflation of the true uncertainty and severity of change. We also observe an accelerating extinction rate from climate change and other threats, indicating that we are firmly within the sixth mass extinction. Finally, most projections are predicated on the assumption of gradual change, when abrupt disruptions are far more in keeping with observations of past climate variation.

The forthcoming IPCC report is not surprising for anyone paying attention to the climate science. As in every such report, the reality is that climate change is here, but just how bad the impacts will be remain up to governments and corporate decision-makers. Rapid decarbonisation is both possible and crucial – and the political obstacles to making it a reality, especially in Australia, need to be addressed. The IPCC makes as clear as possible the need for a rapid energy transition, now, without excuses or delay.
 
In Australia, we often focus on the ongoing denial and delay on the part of the federal government – its refusal to plan for rapid decarbonisation. There is a well-known need for much more investment in substantive and inclusive adaptation planning to address existing community threats from heat, fire, and sea level rise. But what this IPCC report makes very clear is that given the potentially rapid climate change on the horizon, Australia also needs to plan for substantial adaptation pathways; that will inevitably include planned retreat from the most threatened areas. The more we ignore what’s coming, the worse the impacts will be.

The IPCC is mandated to undertake three activities: 1) Assess the scientific information on climate change; 2) Assess the environmental and socio-economic impacts of climate change; and 3) Formulate response strategies. The leaked draft of the forthcoming IPCC report highlights the scientific research done globally on how climate change is fundamentally altering the life systems of our planet, with increasingly dire consequences for humanity. We have a rapidly closing window to radically reduce our carbon emissions to prevent catastrophic climate change.

We are already experiencing enhanced ice melts, sea level rises, heatwaves, droughts, and the unprecedented largescale bushfires of record intensity that occurred during Australia’s Black Summer, as well as elsewhere around the world. Not only do we continue to see global temperatures break records we are moving towards a more disaster-prone world that will surpass our known experience. The report reinforces our urgent need to act now.

Climate change and food availability are irrevocably intertwined – and the pandemic has exacerbated pressure on already vulnerable supply chains. It has exposed the fragility of a just-in-time (JIT) model of industrial overproduction and supply that enables some markets ‘to pile it high and sell it cheap’ while depriving others of adequate healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food.

Port closures and shortages of agricultural labour have exacerbated food insecurity in countries already crippled by climate shocks, corruption and conflict.

The globalisation of the food economy has had unintended consequences for many of these communities which, ironically, are least responsible for global warming. Social costs include land grabs and dispossession, labour exploitation and gender inequality; environmental costs included depleted soils, polluted waterways, and deforestation.

These wrongs can be traced back to our colonial heritage, which has shaped a global division in food production and policies that promotes the production of commodity or cash crops, including soy and sugar, at the expense of diverse and resilient local food ecosystems, livelihoods, and collective well-being.

This is a welcome recognition by the IPCC of the risk of tipping points beyond which we will see non-linear and irreversible changes. I have been warning since the late 1980s that the climate models are inherently conservative because they cannot quantify these risks. It is a timely reminder, coming at the time climate deniers have hailed a new US book which says the science is not settled. Science is never settled, it is always a work in progress, but the more we learn about natural systems and the risks of climate change, the more concerned we become. Our national government is dithering about whether its backbench rump will allow it to adopt a target of net zero emissions by 2050, but it is now clear we need to move much more rapidly than that to avoid catastrophic climate change. The good news is that the technology exists for a rapid transition to cleaner energy and more efficient use. We just need our government to be dragged into the twenty-first century.

Climate change poses a significant threat to human health now and into the future.  The IPCC report highlights the serious impact on food, water and cities posed by climate change.  All of this affects human health.  The rise in temperatures and increase in extreme weather events will affect the health and wellbeing of an increasing number of people around the world, including here in Australia. We learned this directly in 2019/2020. 

Learning from Australia's Black Summer and the subsequent Royal Commission report, serious policy action for both mitigation and adaptation with collaboration from federal, state, and local jurisdictions, will save lives and see us better prepared for a future that may challenge our imagination today.

With this new report, the world's scientists are clanging the alarm bell as loudly as they can, yet some in our federal parliament remain deaf to it. Zero carbon by 2050 is the absolute minimum we should be doing, yet some cannot bring themselves to commit even to that.

It's hard to communicate how disastrous it will be for humanity if we cross these tipping points, which we are on the verge of doing. Already the Earth has entered into a new geological state, the Anthropocene, which will be much less friendly to humans than the one in which civilisation emerged. 

It raises the question of whether there is something deep within human civilisation that gives us a death wish, because if we keep ignoring the scientific warnings for a few more years that is where we are headed.

I knew about the W11 report and how it was pushing the accelerator button for climate action. The report I am working on is in W111 on mitigation and we are not due until later in the year. I believe the biggest event in 2021 will be Glasgow as it will be where the world ramps up its commitments to reduce emissions, or not. This report is just part of the ongoing need for everyone to get serious and stop playing politics with the no-change lobby who are appealing to the Coalition to keep us as a ‘shag on the rock’ globally. Let's get serious Australia.