Policymakers 5, planet and people 0
Like many I’ve been surprised at the speed of climate change, says Mike Rigby, CEO of MRA Research, but it appears that past IPCC forecasts were toned down by policymakers.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its sixth report in March, warning that without immediate and massive emissions reductions we will fail to limit global warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial temperatures and avoid severe planetary disruption. Worse, the authors say, if we don’t act with speed we will shoot past it, possibly past 2ºC, and the world is likely now to reach 1.5ºC in the first half of the next decade regardless of what happens with emissions. They say we know what to do to avoid that, even at this late stage, but the scale of action required is becoming ever more socially and politically infeasible, even if it’s technically possible.
The warming so far is already contributing to more extreme events, record heatwaves and widespread damage and the losses and impacts – killing people, destroying their livelihoods and damaging the global economy – will continue to worsen with every increase in extra warming. Some of the consequences may not be reversible, even if we do manage to remove some of the extra CO2 later this century when we have acquired the capability.
The IPCC is a global group of climate researchers set up in 1988 by the UN to review objectively the science of climate change and how to limit it. Their reports were criticised in the early days for being too conservative and understating future sea levels, says New Scientist magazine. But while hundreds of scientists work unpaid to review thousands of studies and write the reports, in the summaries for policymakers – the only parts most journalists and commentators read – every sentence is argued over by representatives from UN member states. Some major fossil-producing countries, reports New Scientist, try to tone down the wording. In other words, things were worse than reported in the previous five IPCC reports. The alarm bells were muffled!
Coincidentally, rules announced recently in Brussels targeted at preventing greenwashing have been attacked by consumer and environmental groups for being watered down to such an extent that they are now ‘too vague’ to have any impact.
The European Commission said companies using unsubstantiated environmental claims to market their products could face penalties of at least 4% of revenue or exclusions of up to a year from public procurement processes or subsidies under new rules proposed in March.
Half of green claims in adverts are misleading or unfounded, Brussels finds. Nevertheless, industry bodies have lobbied heavily to weaken the guidelines and the proposal no longer has clear enough rules to prevent misleading claims, such as companies saying their product was ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘carbon neutral’, independent monitoring and campaign groups said.
The Financial Times, which had seen drafts of the original proposal, said it indicated it would use a methodology known as product environmental footprint to assess green claims, but this has been removed from the final directive. Instead, the commission said it would present legislation in future to “complement the requirements on substantiation for certain types of claims”. The commission “got so much pushback that they removed everything that was concrete, left the principles, and left the scene-setting for more to come,” said the Environmental Coalition on Standards.
Greenwashing has risen up the global policymakers’ agendas as companies respond to demands from consumers for products that will not damage the environment by marketing them as “100% recycled”, “sustainable”, or “zero emissions”. Words not deeds.
