January 9, 2025 • 22 mins
In December, Europe’s Copernicus weather service announced that it was “virtually certain” that 2024 would be the hottest year ever. What’s more, the global average temperature last year appears to have surpassed 1.5C for the first time, blowing past a threshold that’s taken on enormous significance in the fight against climate change. Does that mean governments, corporations, and activists recalibrate their climate goals? Akshat Rathi speaks with reporters Eric Roston and Zahra Hirji about what this new reality means.
Explore further:
- Past episode about sci-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s visions for 2025
- Past episode with Eric Roston and Katharine Hayhoe about the extreme weather events brought on by rising temperatures
- Past episode with the Berghof Foundation’s Andrew Gilmour about conflict and peace-building on a warming planet
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Mythili Rao. Special thanks this week to Sharon Chen, Siobhan Wagner, Ethan Steinberg, and Jessica Beck. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to zero. I am aksha darti. This week a
climate science mystery. One year is out and a new
(00:22):
year is here. And if you're observing the broad trends
of climate change, that might be enough to worry you.
The ten hottest years on record have all occurred in
the past decade, and twenty twenty four isn't bucking the trend.
In December, the European Union's Kupernikus unit said that when
the final numbers are tallied, it is virtually certain that
(00:44):
twenty twenty four will be the hottest year ever and
for the first time, the global average temperature for the
entire year is likely to go past the threshold of
one point five degrees celsius above pre industrial levels. In
his New Year's message, UN Secretary General Antonio Guteriz said,
(01:05):
this is quote climate breakdown in real time. If you've
been following this, it might be my numbing to hear
scientists repeat hottest year, hottest year, hottest ear like a
broken record year after year. But it's pretty significant if
you go past one point five C and something worth
(01:27):
unpacking because it's going to affect all of us. One
point five C is the goal under the Paris Agreement
that all governments agreed on. It's also resulted in corporations
tying their net zero goals to the one point five
sea target. So this week I wanted to speak with
two Bloomberg Green reporters who have followed this closely, Eric
(01:47):
Rosston in New York and Zarah Heirgee in Washington, d c.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Eric, let's start with you, because you and I both
know that this one point five c breach is important,
and yet it is not quite the breach of the
Paris Agreement, right.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It is significant. There's been so much attention in recent
years to the one point five degree goal, and there's
also been increasing concern as global temperatures are approaching it.
It's important to remember, though, that the Paris goal is
understood to be an average like over twenty years. They're
(02:38):
concerned about a one point five degree c temperature rise,
and so this is not great, but technically it's not
the ballgame.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Still going about one point five degree celsius for the
entire year is pretty dramatic, but there was also a
build up towards it, with phenomena like al Ninio contributing
to it. Do we know how much of the one
point five ce was climate change and how much was
other stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It's a great question, and I suppose the answer is no,
which is what makes it a great question. Climate change
is always adding more heat, and so when you get
in al Nino and global weather is a little hotter
than normal, you're more likely to get a record temperature,
as we did in twenty twenty three and now in
twenty twenty four as well. And consequently, when there's a
(03:26):
La Nina, which is a cooling phase, you get the
warming signal, but there's like a little speed bump, and
so those years tend to be like the fifth hottest years. Ever,
what's concerning this year has less to do with the
actual final numbers one point five. It has to do
with the fact that that simple rule of thumb climate
change plus La Nina, climate change plus El Nino, it
(03:49):
doesn't explain what's happening. And scientists can't explain with confidence
yet why this year is so much hotter than it
has been a past and what makes it a kind
of who done it is? They've assembled some suspects, but
they just can't say which one or which combination is
responsible for the numbers. They're seeing from twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
A scientific mystery. I'm all is up for one, but
somehow when it comes to climate science, not really.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, well, it's ominous because climate change is bad and
we don't want more of it. But it's also concerning
because notwithstanding the twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four records,
scientists are afraid that it could signal an acceleration in warming.
And if that's the case, we're not looking anymore at
(04:42):
a couple of years that were in aberration. We're looking
at a potential scenario that's worse than the pathway scientists
had assumed we've been on.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So acceleration, I mean, there was a period about ten
years ago where people were talking about this quote unquote
hiatus when warming had slowed down. Of course, that turned
out to be spoonious data. Is there any worry that
this acceleration might also be kind of spurious?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
A number of scientists have told me that what they're
seeing now with these faster moving temperatures feels similar to
that period of the hiatus ten or fifteen years ago
that turned out to be sort of a data artifact,
like temperatures just kind of started moving up again, and
(05:33):
also there were important updates to the data itself that
sort of corrected what turned out to be a kind
of bias. I think scientists, a couple of them have
told me that they're more concerned about this because they
understand it better. All through that hiatus period, one of
the things you heard was, well, we're not sure what
it is, but really you can have like fifteen or
(05:55):
twenty years of flatline temperatures and still not echo the
prediction range for climate change. What's different now is that
they have these suspects, and so there's there's a much
stronger physical underpinning to the concerns, even though again they're
just not sure what's causing the spikes.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay, so who done it? Who are the suspects, and
what do we know about them, and which ones are
sort of the highly suspected and which ones we might
want to drop out.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
So there is, as I said, there's climate change that
makes things hotter. There is an al Nino through through
the spring of twenty twenty four, and that made things hotter.
The sun has entered the sort of increasing output of
it of its eleven year cycle, and so that adds
like a little bit of heat, but sort of a
rounding error. The real culprit does have to do with
(06:51):
these sulfur aerosols that humans put out. So nothing is
clean in climate change, right, there's no free lunch. And
so after you negotiation, the world's shipping industry a few
years ago was able to make a path to reduce
the sulfur content of the fuels they use. And that's
great because that means less pollution.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
However, because this sulfur pollution causes air pollution, especially at ports,
and that's really bad for humans. But there's a climate
effect that comes from those sulfur particles too.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Right, So that sulfur pollution is acid rain, right, and
so that's what we wanted to get rid of in
the West in the eighties and nineties. But there is
this cooling effect. So all that shipping pollution actually had
a little cooling effect. So when there was an eighty
percent drop off in the sulfur pollution from shipping, there
was no longer these chemicals to sort of reflect heat,
(07:47):
and so it got a little warmer, particularly in the
North Atlantic. Another thing that I think people just haven't
talked about enough is a really monumental decline in these
aerosol emissions from China. So between the shipping regulations and
China and further progress in the US and Europe, we're
seeing the disappearance of these cooling chemicals and that consequently
(08:13):
is making things a little bit hotter.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But is that a one time thing? Because like once
the a results have disappeared and have led to this
additional warming, will they continue to contribute to warming like
carbon dioxide does, which is a greenhouse gas that keeps
on absorbing the heat.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It's a short term phenomenon, right, The atmosphere is catching up.
There's conversations about whether we should spray the stratosphere with
these chemicals on purpose in order to cool the atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Quote unquote geo engineering.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, And one of the problems with that is if
you ever stopped doing that, you'll get a heat spike
like we're doing now. A big paper that made us
splash and added a lot of explanation to what we've
been seeing. Paper came out a month or two ago
about how they ben like we're missing clouds. Low lying
clouds do us a huge favor because they reflect a
(09:06):
lot of sunlight, just sort of in the way that
polar at ice caps do, and so the fact that
we're starting to miss these low lying clouds, it's a
real red flag for scientists because again, if that's just
a blip and they come back, then we're on our
warming trajectory we've been familiar with. But if that marks
(09:30):
a change in the Earth's system itself, then we could
be in line for more warming than we expected.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And Zara, we talk about these temperature goals because well,
they are goals and they are very important, but there
are some real life implications off this level of warming,
and particularly in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four,
we saw some of the most extreme weather events around
the world. So beyond the fact that there is an
(09:58):
arbitrary one point five seagull, why does it matter that
we pay attention to these reports?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So I guess there are a couple of reasons. First is,
you know, when we think about one point five C
as a goal and one point five C being broken
in a particular year, I think something that all of
us have heard when we've talked to scientists is like
last year with sort of a preview and what a
warmer world looks like. So when you have a full
(10:26):
year where the temperature is basically above one point five CE.
We saw the impacts of that in terms of extreme
whether at least some of the impacts, and how destructive
and uncomfortable it is. It's a reminder that we don't
want to live in that all the time. I mean,
when it's really hot, when we're getting devastating hurricanes, when
we're getting brutal floods. That's not good. It kills people,
(10:50):
it's bad for economy. I mean, it's it's not a
great way to live, and it's a reminder of what
is at stake in the long run as these impacts
get worse. And so when we think about this goal
and passing this goal, because that is the trajectory that
we are on undeniably and something that's come out of
(11:11):
my reporting, you know, this is what worth talking about,
having to deal with more and more these kind of
impacts all the time, and how disruptive they are.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And the one point five C goal again is one
that we talk about at cop meetings where there are all
these countries coming together wanting to find new ways of
addressing the challenge. But we also talk about it at
corporate level because a lot of the net zero targets
are tied to one point five C or a lot
of the banks are trying to fund things so that
(11:41):
they can keep temperatures below one point five C. How
should they be thinking about perhaps changing their goals, finding
new ways talking about a new goal, like what is
it that they should think about if we have gone
beyond one point five c?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
H One point five c as a goal is such
a tricky thing, and there are so many like caught
up emotions in it. I think a lot of scientists
sort of hate it as a goal because in a
way it feels rather arbitrary in the sense that there's
nothing that is different at one point four to nine
versus one point five versus one point five to one c.
(12:20):
You know, those small increments. We can't actually tease out
a lot of differences there, and so to them it's
just we need to talk about trying to reduce or
keep warming down as much as possible, and every tenth
of degree matters. But obviously goals are important, and one
point five C has been this rallying cry that we
(12:41):
saw really truly drove momentum on climate action, and it
is something that as you said, governments and companies can use.
They like to have a number that they can push towards.
You know, one of the things that I think about
a lot that has been really important about one point
five C is I was taught with Sam at the
(13:01):
Gross from the Brookings Institution, and she was saying, you know,
it wasn't that long ago that we were on a
traructory of three C four C degree and now we're not.
And that's sort of because we set on this goal
and people really tried to reach it. But the thing is,
the goal was always really ambitious and potentially always out
(13:22):
of reach, and now we're sort of hitting up against
that point when it's really becoming clear that we're not
going to reach it. And so the question is does
it lose its value as a goal, and do we
need to have a new goal? But in the sense,
you know, the thing that's tricky about this, and this
is something that David Victor, who's a professor at the
(13:44):
University of California at San Diego, told me, is right now,
there's no context out there where groups can talk about
things other than one point five SE and not be
accused of backsliding. And I think there are people who
would love to discuss a goal that's a little bit different,
that seems a little bit more realistic, like a one
(14:06):
point six or a one point seven or a one
point seven to five, But at the end of the day,
you still the actions that you're going to take to
meet that goal versus one point five are pretty similar,
and that you need to figure out how you're going
to cut your emissions really fast, and companies and governments
(14:28):
aren't doing enough of that, so it sort of doesn't
matter what their goal is because they need to be
doing more. And that's sort of the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
After the break, more from my conversation with Zara and Eric.
And by the way, if you've been enjoying this episode,
please take a moment to rate and review the show
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It helps other listeners find
the show. This is a place where science and politics
(15:03):
interacts in interesting ways. So the arbitrary nature of this goal, Eric,
the fact that this is one point five C not
one point six C, just give us a history. Why
is it that we have these goals one point five
C and two C.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Well, while you're right, while it started out arbitrary, it's
become less arbitrary. And that's because the UN diplomatic body
that hosts the All nations to talk about climate change
every year, they asked the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
very specifically in Paris when they were doing the Paris Agreement,
(15:41):
to really study and understand the difference between one point
five C and two degrees C, and that led to
a super influential report in twenty eighteen that really for
the first time puts specificity into what one point five
I've seen means versus two degree cee versus one degree C,
(16:03):
which is now in the rear view window. So it's
somewhere between arbitrary and it's not a threshold, as Zara said,
you know, it's not a threshold. It's not a cliff.
But every ton of CO two that we put up
in the air matters.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
But we are also living in twenty twenty five, sort
of a year after all these elections that happen around
the world, and we are seeing many parts of the world,
including where you live Zara in the US, put in
leaders who are likely to be very hostile to climate policy.
So at the exact time that we are in the
hottest year reaching one point five CE we're also getting
(16:39):
politicians who are unlikely to be doing much on climate.
How should people make sense of this moment?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I'm still trying to make sense of this moment. I mean,
I think it's awkward, but it really gets at something
we've seen over and over again when it comes to
climate politics, and it's really sort of coming to a head,
which is that bringing down emissions and dealing with the
climate crisis is hard, it costs money, and it's scary.
(17:09):
I do think it's important to remember that the last
time that Donald Trump was elected president in the US,
there were some surprising outcomes that sort of led to
the we are all in coalition and kind of a
bumping up of the one point five c rallying cry
(17:29):
and people sort of pushing back on that, and so
there's always sort of this push and pull. But what's
hard about this is there is you know, you can
have climate action from the bottom up and the top down,
and I think we've seen that the most effective action
really involves that top down. And when you're not having
countries setting new regulations like that's going to push back progress.
(17:55):
And so people recognizing that as much as you have
politicians talking and downplaying these issues. They're not going to
go away with the type of policies that they're advocating,
and they're just pushing down the road the problems that
are going to grow and arise out of this.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Eric, you talked about the twenty eighteen report where scientists
sort of work through what one point five C means.
And in some way, scientists are very good at doing that.
If you give them a goal, they'll tell you what
is needed to meet it. So is one point five
SE still possible even though technically everybody says we are
going to preach it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, So scientists started talking about overshoot when they realized
we may not stay within our carbon budget and temperatures
may rise beyond one point five sea or even higher temperatures,
And it became a word that's it's sort of an
impetus to find ways to correct the problem that we've
(18:53):
now created.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And so these are technologies like director capture, which will
remove carbon dioxide from the air. What else is there
this list of dealing with overshoot?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
The biggest tool in our toolbox, though, is not polluting more.
You know, we're still putting up more than one hundred
million tons of co two a day from fossil fuel
and cement making, and that is the main thing we
need to do to prevent overshoot. You can't address overshoot
until you stop making the problem worse.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
If we do eventually get serious about these goals and
you know, want to still stay beyond one point five,
see overshoot might be an option. But if the politics
is hard right now, how much harder is it going
to be when you're trying to convince people you have
to do all these weird wacco things that are going
to be necessary in a world of overshoot.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
I mean, I think the assumption is that overshoot is
already on the table. When a lot of people are
talking about one point five still being alive, they're actually
the unspoken part is they are assuming or banking on overshoot,
this idea that we are going to go above one
point five and then have the tools necessary to eventually
bring it down. The concern about focusing too much on
(20:07):
overshoot is that then we sort of lose sight of
the fact that we need to bring emissions down, not
just invest in the technologies that can help pull it
out of the air and rely on that or overly
rely on that because we don't know a lot about
how that will work. And so I feel like the
answer is we have to do both. That's not actually
(20:29):
a pitch you have to make to people. I think
that's just where we are today, and you're sort of
starting to see it with the policies that came underway
with the Biden administration and how actually a lot of
the companies and industries that are going to need or
rely on overshoot are the ones getting text credits and
sort of investing on it. And the problem is you
(20:51):
don't want them to overinvest on that versus not actually
changing anything to their business. But I think we actually
need to talk about it it more as something that
is on the table now and just dig into a
little bit more about what that looks like. But I
don't think it's a matter of if or when, Like
we're here and we're dealing with it, and it's just
(21:13):
maybe changing what that means and what we need to
do about it.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Well, climate change one point five and twenty twenty five,
it's going to be a messier. Thank you both for
at least setting the stage for what is going to
be a messier and we'll talk a lot more about it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to Zero.
(21:40):
And now for the sound of the week, which I
should want you is not a gunshot. That's the sound
of a balloon filled with hydrogen exploding. Now take a
listen to what it sounds like when the same size
balloon has hydrogen mixed with oxygen exploding this episode, Please
(22:01):
take a moment to rate or review the show on
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in touch at zero port at Bloomberg dot net. Zero's
producer is might Lee Raw. Bloomberg's head of podcast is
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theme music is composed by Wonderly Special Thanks to Sharon Chen,
(22:23):
Shwan Wagner, Ethan Steinberg, and Jessica beck I am Aksha
Drati Back soon.
Welcome to zero. I am aksha darti. This week a
climate science mystery. One year is out and a new
(00:22):
year is here. And if you're observing the broad trends
of climate change, that might be enough to worry you.
The ten hottest years on record have all occurred in
the past decade, and twenty twenty four isn't bucking the trend.
In December, the European Union's Kupernikus unit said that when
the final numbers are tallied, it is virtually certain that
(00:44):
twenty twenty four will be the hottest year ever and
for the first time, the global average temperature for the
entire year is likely to go past the threshold of
one point five degrees celsius above pre industrial levels. In
his New Year's message, UN Secretary General Antonio Guteriz said,
(01:05):
this is quote climate breakdown in real time. If you've
been following this, it might be my numbing to hear
scientists repeat hottest year, hottest year, hottest ear like a
broken record year after year. But it's pretty significant if
you go past one point five C and something worth
(01:27):
unpacking because it's going to affect all of us. One
point five C is the goal under the Paris Agreement
that all governments agreed on. It's also resulted in corporations
tying their net zero goals to the one point five
sea target. So this week I wanted to speak with
two Bloomberg Green reporters who have followed this closely, Eric
(01:47):
Rosston in New York and Zarah Heirgee in Washington, d c.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Eric, let's start with you, because you and I both
know that this one point five c breach is important,
and yet it is not quite the breach of the
Paris Agreement, right.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It is significant. There's been so much attention in recent
years to the one point five degree goal, and there's
also been increasing concern as global temperatures are approaching it.
It's important to remember, though, that the Paris goal is
understood to be an average like over twenty years. They're
(02:38):
concerned about a one point five degree c temperature rise,
and so this is not great, but technically it's not
the ballgame.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Still going about one point five degree celsius for the
entire year is pretty dramatic, but there was also a
build up towards it, with phenomena like al Ninio contributing
to it. Do we know how much of the one
point five ce was climate change and how much was
other stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It's a great question, and I suppose the answer is no,
which is what makes it a great question. Climate change
is always adding more heat, and so when you get
in al Nino and global weather is a little hotter
than normal, you're more likely to get a record temperature,
as we did in twenty twenty three and now in
twenty twenty four as well. And consequently, when there's a
(03:26):
La Nina, which is a cooling phase, you get the
warming signal, but there's like a little speed bump, and
so those years tend to be like the fifth hottest years. Ever,
what's concerning this year has less to do with the
actual final numbers one point five. It has to do
with the fact that that simple rule of thumb climate
change plus La Nina, climate change plus El Nino, it
(03:49):
doesn't explain what's happening. And scientists can't explain with confidence
yet why this year is so much hotter than it
has been a past and what makes it a kind
of who done it is? They've assembled some suspects, but
they just can't say which one or which combination is
responsible for the numbers. They're seeing from twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
A scientific mystery. I'm all is up for one, but
somehow when it comes to climate science, not really.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, well, it's ominous because climate change is bad and
we don't want more of it. But it's also concerning
because notwithstanding the twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four records,
scientists are afraid that it could signal an acceleration in warming.
And if that's the case, we're not looking anymore at
(04:42):
a couple of years that were in aberration. We're looking
at a potential scenario that's worse than the pathway scientists
had assumed we've been on.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So acceleration, I mean, there was a period about ten
years ago where people were talking about this quote unquote
hiatus when warming had slowed down. Of course, that turned
out to be spoonious data. Is there any worry that
this acceleration might also be kind of spurious?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
A number of scientists have told me that what they're
seeing now with these faster moving temperatures feels similar to
that period of the hiatus ten or fifteen years ago
that turned out to be sort of a data artifact,
like temperatures just kind of started moving up again, and
(05:33):
also there were important updates to the data itself that
sort of corrected what turned out to be a kind
of bias. I think scientists, a couple of them have
told me that they're more concerned about this because they
understand it better. All through that hiatus period, one of
the things you heard was, well, we're not sure what
it is, but really you can have like fifteen or
(05:55):
twenty years of flatline temperatures and still not echo the
prediction range for climate change. What's different now is that
they have these suspects, and so there's there's a much
stronger physical underpinning to the concerns, even though again they're
just not sure what's causing the spikes.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay, so who done it? Who are the suspects, and
what do we know about them, and which ones are
sort of the highly suspected and which ones we might
want to drop out.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
So there is, as I said, there's climate change that
makes things hotter. There is an al Nino through through
the spring of twenty twenty four, and that made things hotter.
The sun has entered the sort of increasing output of
it of its eleven year cycle, and so that adds
like a little bit of heat, but sort of a
rounding error. The real culprit does have to do with
(06:51):
these sulfur aerosols that humans put out. So nothing is
clean in climate change, right, there's no free lunch. And
so after you negotiation, the world's shipping industry a few
years ago was able to make a path to reduce
the sulfur content of the fuels they use. And that's
great because that means less pollution.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
However, because this sulfur pollution causes air pollution, especially at ports,
and that's really bad for humans. But there's a climate
effect that comes from those sulfur particles too.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Right, So that sulfur pollution is acid rain, right, and
so that's what we wanted to get rid of in
the West in the eighties and nineties. But there is
this cooling effect. So all that shipping pollution actually had
a little cooling effect. So when there was an eighty
percent drop off in the sulfur pollution from shipping, there
was no longer these chemicals to sort of reflect heat,
(07:47):
and so it got a little warmer, particularly in the
North Atlantic. Another thing that I think people just haven't
talked about enough is a really monumental decline in these
aerosol emissions from China. So between the shipping regulations and
China and further progress in the US and Europe, we're
seeing the disappearance of these cooling chemicals and that consequently
(08:13):
is making things a little bit hotter.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But is that a one time thing? Because like once
the a results have disappeared and have led to this
additional warming, will they continue to contribute to warming like
carbon dioxide does, which is a greenhouse gas that keeps
on absorbing the heat.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It's a short term phenomenon, right, The atmosphere is catching up.
There's conversations about whether we should spray the stratosphere with
these chemicals on purpose in order to cool the atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Quote unquote geo engineering.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, And one of the problems with that is if
you ever stopped doing that, you'll get a heat spike
like we're doing now. A big paper that made us
splash and added a lot of explanation to what we've
been seeing. Paper came out a month or two ago
about how they ben like we're missing clouds. Low lying
clouds do us a huge favor because they reflect a
(09:06):
lot of sunlight, just sort of in the way that
polar at ice caps do, and so the fact that
we're starting to miss these low lying clouds, it's a
real red flag for scientists because again, if that's just
a blip and they come back, then we're on our
warming trajectory we've been familiar with. But if that marks
(09:30):
a change in the Earth's system itself, then we could
be in line for more warming than we expected.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And Zara, we talk about these temperature goals because well,
they are goals and they are very important, but there
are some real life implications off this level of warming,
and particularly in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four,
we saw some of the most extreme weather events around
the world. So beyond the fact that there is an
(09:58):
arbitrary one point five seagull, why does it matter that
we pay attention to these reports?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
So I guess there are a couple of reasons. First is,
you know, when we think about one point five C
as a goal and one point five C being broken
in a particular year, I think something that all of
us have heard when we've talked to scientists is like
last year with sort of a preview and what a
warmer world looks like. So when you have a full
(10:26):
year where the temperature is basically above one point five CE.
We saw the impacts of that in terms of extreme
whether at least some of the impacts, and how destructive
and uncomfortable it is. It's a reminder that we don't
want to live in that all the time. I mean,
when it's really hot, when we're getting devastating hurricanes, when
we're getting brutal floods. That's not good. It kills people,
(10:50):
it's bad for economy. I mean, it's it's not a
great way to live, and it's a reminder of what
is at stake in the long run as these impacts
get worse. And so when we think about this goal
and passing this goal, because that is the trajectory that
we are on undeniably and something that's come out of
(11:11):
my reporting, you know, this is what worth talking about,
having to deal with more and more these kind of
impacts all the time, and how disruptive they are.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And the one point five C goal again is one
that we talk about at cop meetings where there are all
these countries coming together wanting to find new ways of
addressing the challenge. But we also talk about it at
corporate level because a lot of the net zero targets
are tied to one point five C or a lot
of the banks are trying to fund things so that
(11:41):
they can keep temperatures below one point five C. How
should they be thinking about perhaps changing their goals, finding
new ways talking about a new goal, like what is
it that they should think about if we have gone
beyond one point five c?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
H One point five c as a goal is such
a tricky thing, and there are so many like caught
up emotions in it. I think a lot of scientists
sort of hate it as a goal because in a
way it feels rather arbitrary in the sense that there's
nothing that is different at one point four to nine
versus one point five versus one point five to one c.
(12:20):
You know, those small increments. We can't actually tease out
a lot of differences there, and so to them it's
just we need to talk about trying to reduce or
keep warming down as much as possible, and every tenth
of degree matters. But obviously goals are important, and one
point five C has been this rallying cry that we
(12:41):
saw really truly drove momentum on climate action, and it
is something that as you said, governments and companies can use.
They like to have a number that they can push towards.
You know, one of the things that I think about
a lot that has been really important about one point
five C is I was taught with Sam at the
(13:01):
Gross from the Brookings Institution, and she was saying, you know,
it wasn't that long ago that we were on a
traructory of three C four C degree and now we're not.
And that's sort of because we set on this goal
and people really tried to reach it. But the thing is,
the goal was always really ambitious and potentially always out
(13:22):
of reach, and now we're sort of hitting up against
that point when it's really becoming clear that we're not
going to reach it. And so the question is does
it lose its value as a goal, and do we
need to have a new goal? But in the sense,
you know, the thing that's tricky about this, and this
is something that David Victor, who's a professor at the
(13:44):
University of California at San Diego, told me, is right now,
there's no context out there where groups can talk about
things other than one point five SE and not be
accused of backsliding. And I think there are people who
would love to discuss a goal that's a little bit different,
that seems a little bit more realistic, like a one
(14:06):
point six or a one point seven or a one
point seven to five, But at the end of the day,
you still the actions that you're going to take to
meet that goal versus one point five are pretty similar,
and that you need to figure out how you're going
to cut your emissions really fast, and companies and governments
(14:28):
aren't doing enough of that, so it sort of doesn't
matter what their goal is because they need to be
doing more. And that's sort of the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
After the break, more from my conversation with Zara and Eric.
And by the way, if you've been enjoying this episode,
please take a moment to rate and review the show
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It helps other listeners find
the show. This is a place where science and politics
(15:03):
interacts in interesting ways. So the arbitrary nature of this goal, Eric,
the fact that this is one point five C not
one point six C, just give us a history. Why
is it that we have these goals one point five
C and two C.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Well, while you're right, while it started out arbitrary, it's
become less arbitrary. And that's because the UN diplomatic body
that hosts the All nations to talk about climate change
every year, they asked the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
very specifically in Paris when they were doing the Paris Agreement,
(15:41):
to really study and understand the difference between one point
five C and two degrees C, and that led to
a super influential report in twenty eighteen that really for
the first time puts specificity into what one point five
I've seen means versus two degree cee versus one degree C,
(16:03):
which is now in the rear view window. So it's
somewhere between arbitrary and it's not a threshold, as Zara said,
you know, it's not a threshold. It's not a cliff.
But every ton of CO two that we put up
in the air matters.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
But we are also living in twenty twenty five, sort
of a year after all these elections that happen around
the world, and we are seeing many parts of the world,
including where you live Zara in the US, put in
leaders who are likely to be very hostile to climate policy.
So at the exact time that we are in the
hottest year reaching one point five CE we're also getting
(16:39):
politicians who are unlikely to be doing much on climate.
How should people make sense of this moment?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I'm still trying to make sense of this moment. I mean,
I think it's awkward, but it really gets at something
we've seen over and over again when it comes to
climate politics, and it's really sort of coming to a head,
which is that bringing down emissions and dealing with the
climate crisis is hard, it costs money, and it's scary.
(17:09):
I do think it's important to remember that the last
time that Donald Trump was elected president in the US,
there were some surprising outcomes that sort of led to
the we are all in coalition and kind of a
bumping up of the one point five c rallying cry
(17:29):
and people sort of pushing back on that, and so
there's always sort of this push and pull. But what's
hard about this is there is you know, you can
have climate action from the bottom up and the top down,
and I think we've seen that the most effective action
really involves that top down. And when you're not having
countries setting new regulations like that's going to push back progress.
(17:55):
And so people recognizing that as much as you have
politicians talking and downplaying these issues. They're not going to
go away with the type of policies that they're advocating,
and they're just pushing down the road the problems that
are going to grow and arise out of this.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Eric, you talked about the twenty eighteen report where scientists
sort of work through what one point five C means.
And in some way, scientists are very good at doing that.
If you give them a goal, they'll tell you what
is needed to meet it. So is one point five
SE still possible even though technically everybody says we are
going to preach it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, So scientists started talking about overshoot when they realized
we may not stay within our carbon budget and temperatures
may rise beyond one point five sea or even higher temperatures,
And it became a word that's it's sort of an
impetus to find ways to correct the problem that we've
(18:53):
now created.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And so these are technologies like director capture, which will
remove carbon dioxide from the air. What else is there
this list of dealing with overshoot?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
The biggest tool in our toolbox, though, is not polluting more.
You know, we're still putting up more than one hundred
million tons of co two a day from fossil fuel
and cement making, and that is the main thing we
need to do to prevent overshoot. You can't address overshoot
until you stop making the problem worse.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
If we do eventually get serious about these goals and
you know, want to still stay beyond one point five,
see overshoot might be an option. But if the politics
is hard right now, how much harder is it going
to be when you're trying to convince people you have
to do all these weird wacco things that are going
to be necessary in a world of overshoot.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
I mean, I think the assumption is that overshoot is
already on the table. When a lot of people are
talking about one point five still being alive, they're actually
the unspoken part is they are assuming or banking on overshoot,
this idea that we are going to go above one
point five and then have the tools necessary to eventually
bring it down. The concern about focusing too much on
(20:07):
overshoot is that then we sort of lose sight of
the fact that we need to bring emissions down, not
just invest in the technologies that can help pull it
out of the air and rely on that or overly
rely on that because we don't know a lot about
how that will work. And so I feel like the
answer is we have to do both. That's not actually
(20:29):
a pitch you have to make to people. I think
that's just where we are today, and you're sort of
starting to see it with the policies that came underway
with the Biden administration and how actually a lot of
the companies and industries that are going to need or
rely on overshoot are the ones getting text credits and
sort of investing on it. And the problem is you
(20:51):
don't want them to overinvest on that versus not actually
changing anything to their business. But I think we actually
need to talk about it it more as something that
is on the table now and just dig into a
little bit more about what that looks like. But I
don't think it's a matter of if or when, Like
we're here and we're dealing with it, and it's just
(21:13):
maybe changing what that means and what we need to
do about it.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Well, climate change one point five and twenty twenty five,
it's going to be a messier. Thank you both for
at least setting the stage for what is going to
be a messier and we'll talk a lot more about it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to Zero.
(21:40):
And now for the sound of the week, which I
should want you is not a gunshot. That's the sound
of a balloon filled with hydrogen exploding. Now take a
listen to what it sounds like when the same size
balloon has hydrogen mixed with oxygen exploding this episode, Please
(22:01):
take a moment to rate or review the show on
Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Share this episode with a friend
or with someone who likes breaking records. You can get
in touch at zero port at Bloomberg dot net. Zero's
producer is might Lee Raw. Bloomberg's head of podcast is
Sage Bauman, and head of Talk is Brendan Newnan. Our
theme music is composed by Wonderly Special Thanks to Sharon Chen,
(22:23):
Shwan Wagner, Ethan Steinberg, and Jessica beck I am Aksha
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