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PART I
ISSUES
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1
GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE
The Earth is warmer than it ought to be, given its distance from the Sun, because some of the gases in the atmosphere create what is called a greenhouse effect. This is a natural phenomenon, although it has little to do with how a greenhouse actually works. It is also a good thing as, without it, the Earth would be so cold as to make life as we know it very difficult. The extra warming is caused by so-called greenhouse gases as more heat is retained in the atmosphere than otherwise would be. The main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and water.
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the amount of some of these gases in the atmosphere has been increasing, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), and so has the warming. Changes in CO2 concentrations over the past 650,000 years have been measured by examining the composition of air trapped in Antarctic ice.
This is the current picture of a warming Earth:
• From 1880 to 2012, average combined land and ocean surface temperature rose by 0.85 ± 0.2°C. Early in 2017, NASA said that the increase had become 1.1°C.1
• Ocean warming is largest near the surface, and the upper 75m has warmed by 0.11 ± 0.2°C per decade since 1970.
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• Since 1750, the uptake of CO2 has resulted in a 26% increase in the acidity of the oceans, which is bad for coral reefs and fish.
• From 1900 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 ± 0.02m. This is larger than the rate during the previous 2,000 years.
• From 1980 to 2012, the area covered by Arctic sea ice has decreased, by about 4% per decade, leading to more absorption of solar radiation.
What about the future?
Greenhouse gas emissions are mainly driven by population size, economic activity, lifestyle, energy use, land use patterns, technology and climate policy, and there is a consistent, almost linear, relationship between cumulative CO2 emissions and projected global temperature change up to the year 2100. While a warming Earth is a problem in itself, it’s the effect on climate that is the real concern.
How much our climate changes in the future, and how it changes, depends on how much warmer it is going to get. In turn, this depends on what happens to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In terms of CO2, which contributes about 70% to warming, this depends on how successful we are in reducing the CO2 emissions that the global economy generates.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has set out four scenarios that describe different pathways for future greenhouse gas emissions.2 There is a very tight scenario (where emissions are kept low), two intermediate ones, and a loose scenario (where emissions continue to be high). The first of these assumes global warming to be no more than 2°C above 1750 levels. In 2015, it was 0.85°C above that level, and is now higher.
Future climate will depend on past and future emissions, and on natural climate variability. The IPCC says that the surface temperature change from 2016 to 2035 (compared with 1986 to 2005) is likely be between 0.3°C and 0.7°C, assuming no major volcanic eruptions, no changes in natural sources of methane and nitrous oxide, or any unexpected changes in total solar radiation. It says that warming will continue beyond 2100 under three of its scenarios and that surface temperatures will stay at elevated levels for many centuries, even when the economy stops creating CO2. The IPCC says that other changes could last thousands of years after the global surface temperature is stabilised, and that a reduction in the amount of permafrost is virtually certain if global temperatures continue to rise. This could result in a large release of methane – another strong greenhouse gas – which is trapped within the permafrost, and would likely cause another rise in temperatures, and result in feedback loops leading to even more warming.
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The IPCC says that many species will face increased extinction risk during and beyond the twenty-first century. This is because most plant species cannot shift their geographical ranges sufficiently fast to keep up with how quickly climate changes. Most small mammals and freshwater molluscs will also face this problem. Marine organisms will face progressively lower oxygen levels and high rates of acidification within the oceans, affecting the vitally important phytoplankton. These carry out photosynthesis, and are important food stocks for fish and whales. Coral reefs and polar ecosystems are highly vulnerable, and coastal systems and low-lying areas are at risk from sea level rise, which will continue for centuries.
Climate change will also likely reduce food security, particularly the availability of staple crops such as wheat, rice and maize. To begin with, it will exacerbate existing human health problems, but will then probably lead to increases in ill health in many regions, and especially in countries with low incomes. It will probably increase human migration on a huge scale, and may indirectly increase the risks of violent conflicts by increasing poverty and economic shocks.
Of course, none of this has to happen; the IPCC is just saying that it might if governments do not act to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. A UN conference in Paris in December 2015 attempted to reach agreement on doing something about all this, and resulted in the Paris Agreement, which set a new target to limit global temperature rises to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. These are some of the key points of the agreement:
• This marks a global political recognition of the reality and risks of climate change.
• On the positive side, there is an ambitious goal of having as much greenhouse gas coming out of the atmosphere as going into it in the second half of this century.
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• On the negative side, existing national pledges on climate action are more in line with a warming of 3°C than 1.5°C.
• The agreement requires $100 billion a year to move from economically developed countries to developing ones by 2020, with the amount to be reviewed in 2025. This obligation also bears (morally, at least) on rich developing countries as well: India, China, etc. It remains to be seen how well all that money will be spent.
The Paris Agreement requires countries to act, and most have now signed up to it.3,4,5 However, it says nothing concrete about what or how much they have to do; all that will need to be negotiated. The agreement marks a transition away from the age of fossil fuels, although this may well be more drawn out than many would wish, or that society needs to live well. From now on, however, the idea of investing in coal and oil may seem riskier than it once was.
Notes
1 The NASA website has a wide range of data on climate change and global warming, and excellent charts and pictures. Web link: climate.nasa.gov.
2 The IPCC website has data on climate change and details of its methodology. Web link: ipcc.ch.
3 The Paris Agreement website has a number of reading between the lines comments on the agreement and its implementation. Web link: parisagreement.org.
4 The UN Climate Change Newsroom has a range of articles and agreements about climate change, including the Paris Agreement. Web link: unfccc.int.
5 In June 2017, President Trump announced that the US would be withdrawing from the agreement in November 2020 – the earliest possible withdrawal date.
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2
INEQUALITY
In early 2017, The Times columnist Philip Collins wrote: “We are living through a long arc of progress.”1 He meant by this that democracy was thriving, with more than 4 billion people now living under a democratic government; that is, one that can be removed from power through open and fair elections. Collins saw this as a good thing because, as he put it, “Democracies are hosts to free lives.”
He cited a number of positive developments, which included:
• all Western countries recognise same-sex unions;
• the pan-African parliament endorsed a continent-wide ban on female genital mutilation;
• the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped below 10% for the first time; and
• maternal mortality has fallen 44% since 1990, with infant mortality halving over the same period.
After listing more of such good news items, many of which are explored in this book, Collins said it was no wonder that “Europeans are, on average, at their happiest since the [2008] financial crisis.” But averages are deceptive things, which, by their nature, tend to hide more than they reveal. And Europeans, whether happy or unhappy, are not the only people on the planet, even if they may be perceived as being among the luckier ones because of their comparative wealth and material advantages.
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There are, of course, poor and rich families in every country, no matter how economically (under)developed it is. Because of this, it is necessary when thinking about inequality to consider differences in wealth and income within countries, as well as between them. In his recent book, François Bourguignon says this about in-country inequality: “After a significant decline in the mid-twentieth century, followed by a long period of stabilit...
