Though our attention has been appropriately focused on COVID-19, the climate change problem has not gone away.
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Indeed, the world has six months to avert a climate crisis, said the International Energy Agency chief, who warned of the need to prevent a post-lockdown surge in emissions.
That's the bad news of today's column, though there is some good news towards the end of today's piece, if the Morrison/McCormack government wakes up and takes notice, that is.
"This year is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound," said Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA.
Governments are planning to spend $9tn (£7.2tn) globally in the next few months on rescuing their economies from the coronavirus crisis, the IEA has calculated. The stimulus packages created this year will determine the shape of the global economy for the next three years, according to Birol, and within that time emissions must start to fall sharply and permanently, or climate targets will be out of reach.
"The next three years will determine the course of the next 30 years and beyond," Birol told The Guardian. "If we do not take action we will surely see a rebound in emissions. If emissions rebound, it is very difficult to see how they will be brought down in future. This is why we are urging governments to have sustainable recovery packages."
Carbon dioxide emissions plunged by a global average of 17 per cent in April, compared with last year, but have since surged again to within about 5 per cent of last year's levels. In its report, the IEA set out the first global blueprint for a green recovery, focusing on reforms to energy generation and consumption. Wind and solar power should be a top focus, the report advised, alongside energy efficiency improvements to buildings and industries, and the modernisation of electricity grids.
Sam Fankhauser, executive director of the Grantham Research Institute on climate change at the London School of Economics, warned that governments must not try to "preserve existing jobs in formaldehyde" through furlough schemes and other efforts to keep people in employment, but provide retraining and other opportunities for people to "move into the jobs of the future".
Indeed, the money spent worldwide so far has tended to prop up the high carbon economy. At least $33bn has been directed towards airlines, with few or no green strings attached, according to the campaigning group Transport and Environment. According to analyst company Bloomberg New Energy Finance, more than half a trillion dollars worldwide,$509bn, is to be poured into high-carbon industries, with no conditions to ensure they reduce their carbon output.
Birol warned that IEA research shows that by the end of May the amount invested in coal-fired power plants in Asia had accelerated compared with last year. "There are already signs of a rebound in emissions," he said.
Putting the IEA's recommendations into action would boost the economy, added Rosie Rogers, head of green recovery at Greenpeace UK. "Government putting money behind sustainable solutions really is an economic no-brainer. It can see us build a recovery that both tackles the climate emergency and improves people's lives through cleaner air and lower bills."
Here in Australia, the good news is that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created by hurrying the shift to zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Here in Australia, the good news is that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created by hurrying the shift to zero greenhouse gas emissions, a study backed by business and investment leaders has found.
Though the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates 835,000 jobs have been lost since the coronavirus pandemic shutdown began in March a report by Beyond Zero Emissions, an energy and climate change thinktank, says practical projects to decarbonise the economy could create 1.78m "job years" over the next five years - on average, 355,000 people in work each year - while modernising Australian industry.
Called the "million jobs plan", it says further stimulus measures needed to fight the Covid-19 recession are "a unique opportunity to lay the foundations for a globally competitive Australian economy fit for 21st century challenges". If the Liberal/Nationals coalition government we are currently saddled with could stir itself to action we could act immediately against climate change and create hundreds of thousands of new 'green' jobs at the same time.