EXPERT REACTION: Global science leaders call for further action on climate change ahead of CHOGM 2018

The science leaders of the Commonwealth have restated, with growing urgency, what we have known for the past twenty years: human action is causing dangerous climate change, and determined action is needed to mitigate this change. The Australian government will doubtless respond, if at all with meaningless platitudes.

The reality is that climate policy in Australia is held hostage by anti-science culture warriors on the government benches, and that the Prime Minister is unable or unwilling to challenge them.

I support scientists from around the Commonwealth calling for government action to reach net-zero greenhouse gases emissions. This action can support economic as well as environmental goals.

My masters students at the Australian National University are investigating ways computers and telecommunications can reduce carbon emissions. One area for investigation is how the environmental effects of bitcoin can be reduced and block-chain used for environmental benefit.

The way to very deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions is clear - a rapid shift to solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind energy followed by electrification of nearly all energy services.

PV and wind constitute more than half of net new generation capacity being installed worldwide, and all new generation capacity in Australia.

Renewable electricity coupled with electrification of land transport and air & water heating allows 50 per cent emission reductions worldwide and in Australia by 2030 at zero net cost, because PV and wind are cheaper than other electricity sources, and continue to fall in price.

Sustainable food production and food security are a major concern and are likely to be exacerbated by projected climate change and variability. It is expected that changes in meteorological patterns such as precipitation and temperature will result in decreasing the mean yield of all crops especially due to drought and high temperatures - the main constraints for crop productivity. This in turn will adversely impact food and nutritional security in regions where the bulk of the population is dealing with chronic hunger and malnutrition.

Australia faces the challenges of climate change especially frequent droughts, high temperatures, nutrient poor soils and dryland salinity. It is the driest human inhabited continent in the world and our agricultural system is largely based on drylands. 

Drylands cover more than 40% of the world’s land area and are home for one third (2.5 billion people) of the global population. Thus, Australia is well-placed to find improved adaptation and resilience in agricultural production and food supply through high quality science and technology.

The University of Western Australia collaborates with national and international partners to find strategies by which farmers around the world can adapt to the immense challenges facing global food production systems especially in the drylands. We support the call to use the best available science and technology to guide action on climate change.

It gives scientists no pleasure in bringing news of the difficult challenges facing humanity. But it is essential that they do engage with government and with all sectors of society. But it also isn’t any wonder that they are getting frustrated. Collectively the science community understands deeply the perils facing humanity. They also know that it makes sense economically and socially to be acting with urgency. 

The one degree of human-induced warming already being experienced is having significant impact world-wide, regionally and locally in most sectors of society. Much adaptation is happening to this 1 degree (as demonstrated in ‘four corners’ this week). Much is known on the impacts of 2 degrees, 3 degrees and beyond. Humanity is facing a serious turning point. Adaptation may not be enough if society does not act with greater urgency. 

So far there has been a collective failure to appreciate and build in both emission reduction and adaptation mechanisms with an appropriate level of urgency. It is at least as serious as if we are facing imminent invasion. We have the skills and capacity to act. We need the courage to do so and to sell that need in all the ways we can muster. We have dealt with imminent perils before. We must do so again. It will require government, scientists and society as a whole to act collectively – and very soon indeed.

To protect ourselves, our children and our planet, adaptation must occur in synchrony with mitigation efforts. Yet investment in human health adaptation research stalled in 2012, just when we needed it, and just when Australia was gaining international recognition. 

Australia is well adapted to our naturally highly variable and extreme climate, but this does not imply current practices will provide future protection against increasing climatic extremes. We know that 50°C days are coming. If we don’t act, death rates will soar. The lead time to transform urban infrastructure, transport systems, work practices and cooling landscapes that can continue to produce our food and secure water supply is very long. Health systems need to prepare for shifts in the health burden. Indeed, alongside personal mitigation efforts, everyone and every industry needs to embrace adaptation, so the looming climate shocks are less damaging to our national health and wellbeing, our economy and ecosystem. 

Financial returns on investment in health protection commonly vary from 3:1 to 70:1 and higher. So it makes good economic sense to invest now in climate protection. The moral imperative clinches the deal. Australia’s children deserve a healthy future.

I strongly support the position taken by the Australian Academy of Science. Climate change is one of the most critical issues facing the human population and the natural world.

The predicted effects of climate change are rapidly getting worse and determined, fact based leadership is now essential. It is critical that political leaders have the courage to lead on this issue, and that they support our scientists and industry to face and tackle this challenge of our time."

Peak scientific bodies from 22 nations have called on the 2018 London meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) to live up to its stated ideals of achieving a common future of sustainable prosperity, fairness and security. 

If this petition on behalf of 2.3 billion of the world's people is to succeed, it's high time to recognise that the issue of planetary health is bigger than any other issue, its global impact when multiplied by risk bigger even than recent threats of nuclear war.  At every level of the ecosystem this planet is deeply unwell and the changes are happening under our noses - climate change, plastics in the ocean, poisons in the soil, endocrine disruptors in the waterways, particulates in the air, massive loss of species. 

This is the one planet we have to live from, and many are living as if we can borrow three planet's worth every year.  That's ultimately like borrowing from the mouths of children to support your own drug habit.

The most respected scientists and scientific peak bodies from 22 nations have called on CHOGM to make a commitment to the future of the planet and humanity. 

Without soberly facing up to this issue most every other government decision made will have but an illusory and short-term effect, in fact the role of government - if not to protect all, not just the wealthy - is called into question. 

Government must immediately allow for proper funding of cross-disciplinary work that helps integrate social and economic systems with sustainability, focusing simultaneously on both mitigation and adaptation. 

There's no choice here anymore - we need both as time runs out - and the problems are now so intimately entangled with the ways in which we live and relate to each other politically and economically that nothing short of a global spring-cleaning exercise will make the difference we need. 

Note that the very countries representing the extremes of both communism and capitalism not only represent the biggest threats to our common future but also have the greatest pollution and the most inhuman, indecent, frankly obscene, levels of wealth inequity the world has ever seen. If the democratic free-market is too slow to act, then I'm afraid the invisible hand of the market is blind - the market simply does not respond to ecological and social externalities.

By social, yes, I'm pointing to poverty, slavery, starvation - the tip of the iceberg of human misery that our systems need to fess up to. We must use our brains and manage markets for the good of all, and it's far better we move now and control the way we want to live in the future than to wait and see how circumstances, both planetary and political, ultimately force us to live. 

Led by the Royal Society and others we must as a commonwealth of nations protect that common wealth and resist the forces that would erode it.  The planet is part of that wealth of nations - we can protect planetary health and simultaneously protect what we value most of humanity.  But it has to be done soon.

As a researcher involved in the study of climate change impacts for the past 15 years I support the statement by the Academy of Sciences. This is a strong statement delivered by some of the most outstanding scientists. 

We are no longer in the position to believe or not believe in climate change. Climate change is a fact that our societies need to address in all aspects. Adapting to climate change is necessary but reducing climate change drivers an obligation. We need many nations to come together and the Commonwealth Nations should act as leaders. 

To meet the Paris Target of keeping temperatures well below 2C requires significant greater mitigation than current commitments.  Thresholds leading to metres of sea level rise with major impacts around the globe are fast approaching and are likely to be crossed without significant and urgent mitigation.