LAST year was meant to be a blockbuster for action on the climate crisis. But the unexpected covid-19 pandemic upended climate choreography, postponing the major UN summit COP26 and forcing striking students off the streets. There are good reasons to think 2021 will be different.
Global carbon dioxide emissions fell an unprecedented 7 per cent in 2020 due to coronavirus restrictions, making a rebound in 2021 very likely, says Corinne Le Qu茅r茅 at the University of East Anglia in the UK.
鈥淲hat is more difficult to say is what the size of the rebound will be in 2021, whether it will come back to 2019 levels, or perhaps even higher,鈥� says Le Qu茅r茅, who serves as an adviser to the UK and French governments. She expects the transport sector, which saw the steepest drops in emissions in 2020, will continue to be impacted this year as covid-19 restrictions remain for a time. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot less certain what will happen to the rest of the economy,鈥� she says.
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What happens to emissions hinges largely on the colour of governments鈥� stimulus packages as the pandemic recedes, be they green, with investments in renewable energy, or brown with money ploughed into fossil fuel projects. Le Qu茅r茅 says green recovery plans could make a dent in 2021 emissions, such as policies encouraging more walking and cycling, but many environmental pay-offs from such plans will take longer to be noticeable, such as investments to support electric cars.
However, just 1 per cent of the stimulus announced worldwide is green so far, according to an analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. 鈥淲hat we鈥檙e actually seeing is largely brown recovery programmes. That needs to change,鈥� says Peter Betts at UK think tank Chatham House and the UK鈥檚 top climate negotiator until 2018. If a recovery plan that prioritised lower carbon emissions did come to pass, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) recently estimated it could cut the emissions we would see in 2030 by a whopping 25 per cent, compared with what they would be if we continue on our current track.
However 2021 pans out, one year is almost certainly not enough time to change trajectory and dodge the catastrophic warming that leaders agreed to try to avoid under the Paris Agreement. That is why ahead of COP26, which is now set to take place in November 2021, governments are due to submit more ambitious goals for carbon cuts by 2030, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). In addition, many are declaring longer-term goals to reach net-zero carbon emissions.
Last year ended with big emitters making a flurry of important pledges. In September, China said it would aim to be carbon neutral by 2060, followed by promises by Japan andSouth Korea to reach net zero by 2050. They were quickly followed by the UK and EU setting targets to cut emissions by 68 and 55 per cent by 2030, respectively. 鈥淚 think the envelope of the possible has increased very sharply in the past couple of months,鈥� says Betts.
The US election result holds major ramifications for the climate. President-elect Joe Biden has said he will immediately reverse the country鈥檚 exit from the Paris Agreement when he is inaugurated on 20 January, meaning the US should be formally back in the accord within weeks. Far more important will be a new NDC for the US, which is likely to take months to draw up. Biden also indicated he will adopt a 2050 net-zero goal. If that happens, it would mean countries responsible for 63 per cent of global emissions have a net-zero plan, up from 51 per cent now, according to UNEP.
Bill Hare at Climate Action Tracker (CAT), which analyses national climate targets, says the situation as we enter 2021 is a mixed bag. 鈥淭here is a big gap between promising to do net zero and promising to do something in the short run,鈥� he says.
If achieved, the recent net-zero goals could hold the global temperature rise to 2.1掳C by 2100, close to the Paris deal鈥檚 upper limit of 2掳C, CAT has found. The bad news is that the actual policies of governments, not targets, put Earth on track for more like 2.9掳C of warming. Fortunately, Hare says new short-term targets could drive more real action: 鈥淚n the next 12 months, we should see quite a lot of countries come up with much better 2030 goals.鈥�
鈥淭he envelope of the possible has increased very sharply in the past couple of months鈥�
Extreme weather
Throughout 2021, the US, China and EU will be pivotal in international climate talks and geopolitics, says Richard Black at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, a UK think tank. China鈥檚 revised NDC is expected soon, and a 鈥渓ow ball鈥� one would be disappointing, says Betts.
Feeding into these international efforts will be a mix of science, activism and any highly destructive extreme weather-related events akin to 2020鈥檚 wildfires in Australia and the US. The UN鈥檚 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was due to publish three reports this year. One on how to slow climate change and another on how to adapt to it are likely to be delayed to 2022 due to covid-19. However, one on the physical science of climate change should be published around July, early enough to influence negotiators at COP26. 鈥淚t will show the evidence is even stronger: even more confidence about it being real and human-caused,鈥� says Richard Betts at the Met Office in the UK.
2020 was on track to be the warmest or second warmest year on record, despite the cooling effect of the current La Ni帽a weather pattern, which should continue until the northern hemisphere spring. The UK鈥檚 Met Office forecasts that 2021 will be 0.91-1.15掳C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures, making it unlikely to break records.
Key climate action events will come like drumbeats through 2021. The postponed UN biodiversity summit is now scheduled for May in China, and is expected to touch on natural ways to mitigate climate change, such as tree planting. The G20 and G7 summits of leading economies will be important, with Italy and the UK holding the respective presidencies, and both countries co-organising COP26. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting on 21 June will be a chance for the UK to 鈥渕ake common cause鈥� with countries vulnerable to climate change, says Black.
How much pressure citizens put on their governments will influence the outcome of COP26, and therefore how dangerously hot the world will get this century. The Fridays for Future youth climate movement inspired by Greta Thunberg 鈥渃ould be very important鈥� in 2021, says Black, though he thinks Extinction Rebellion is 鈥減robably on the way out as a force鈥�. Health and faith groups could play a key role too, he adds. 鈥淲hat is needed is much more pressure from civil society,鈥� says Hare.
