The Paris Climate Agreement was ratified by most countries in the world in 2016. So, two years down the track – how are we are going, then, with following up on that promise to reduce our carbon emissions? Well, the United Nations Environmental Program put it like this: “to date, we have failed.”

Melbourne-based climate researcher David Spratt has written a document for Breakthrough about this.

In our live radio interview in The Sustainable Hour on 18 April 2018, David Spratt told the listeners:

“We can now see that climate change could be so severe that it is what we would now call an existential crisis. In fact, the head of Emergency Management Australia, which is Australia’s and the federal government’s umbrella body for responding to emergencies, like bushfires and so on, a couple of weeks ago he said: “Look, we now face an existential risk which is a risk that could actually put human civilisation to an end, so, this is not you and I saying it on the radio, this is the head of emergency management of the federal government. I think that is important because while people might not be intellectually be able to put together a long argument about what is happening to climate change, I think in our hearts, emotionally, most people in the world – and public opinion show that – we know that we are going to a bad place. The public in general are actually well ahead of the politicians.”

“This idea that we can put off action for another decade is really embedded in the policy making. It is just delusional. Climate change could so significantly affect human society as well as our natural systems that we won’t be there, or won’t live the way we do, and that means that as a society, you’d want to say: “Hey, this is actually number one priority. If we don’t solve this, we won’t be here. And as a society we have to throw everything we need at this. Not overdue a bit now and a bit later. This is emergency. This is our number one priority. This is the sort of thing where we just have to commit every resource we can find, and that would be such a shift from what is happening and the advocacy we are getting at the moment. This is now or never time. I will put it that way.”

David Spratt is a research director for Breakthrough and co-author of ‘Climate Code Red: The case for emergency action’ (Scribe 2008). His recent reports include ‘Recount: It’s time to “Do the math” again’, ‘Climate Reality Check’ and ‘Antarctic Tipping Points for a Multi-metre Sea-level Rise’.

» Resilience – 5 April 2018:

1.5°C of Warming is Closer than We Imagine, Just a Decade Away

» Breakthrough – 8 April 2018:

1.5°C just a decade away

“The Paris text was a political fix in which grand words masked inadequate deeds. The voluntary national emission reduction commitments since Paris now put the world on a path of 3.4°C of warming by 2100 (as illustrated), and more than 5°C if high-end risks including carbon-cycle feedbacks are taken into account.”

~ David Spratt

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