Speaker 1: Kielda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. We're edging
Speaker 2: closer to exceeding one point five degrees celsius of warming
Speaker 2: globally and scientists will gather to understand the implications of
Speaker 2: missing our climate change targets. The world's best will descend
Speaker 2: upon Austria this week for the first ever Overshoot conference.
Speaker 2: It's while Winston Peters delivered a truth bomb at the
Speaker 2: un recently singling out four countries for being the world's
Speaker 2: largest emitters. So what happens if we don't meet our
Speaker 2: climate targets? Today on the front Page, Victoria University climate
Speaker 2: scientist Professor James Renwick is with us to delve into
Speaker 2: climate overshoot and why we should care about. First off, James,
Speaker 2: can you tell us what climate overshoot actually means?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: The Paris Agreement, which was drawn up in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: said that the countries of the world would do what
Speaker 1: they have to do to reduce emissions fast enough to
Speaker 1: stop at a global warming of well below two degrees
Speaker 1: above pre industrial or but a mouthful, and that the
Speaker 1: countries of the world would pursue efforts to stop at
Speaker 1: one and a half degrees of warming. So the Paris
Speaker 1: Agreement ranges between one and a half and two degrees
Speaker 1: of warming, and overshoot refers to the idea that the
Speaker 1: countries of the world have not done enough and that
Speaker 1: warming is going to exceed one and a half degrees
Speaker 1: or maybe even two degrees. So the idea there as well, Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, that could happen, but provided we can call
Speaker 1: things off again fairly quickly, it may not be the
Speaker 1: end of the world kind of thing. So it's all
Speaker 1: about what is the actual trajectory that the Earth's line
Speaker 1: in terms of temperature arise, and what can we do
Speaker 1: about cooling things down again. US temperatures do get above
Speaker 1: the thresholds and the Paris Agreement. Now you'll be aware
Speaker 1: probably that the bottom of the Paris Agreement one point
Speaker 1: five degrees.
Speaker 3: Has already been breached one year.
Speaker 1: Last year was the first year more than one and
Speaker 1: a half degrees above free industrial But that's not quite
Speaker 1: the end of that story. You really need to say
Speaker 1: ten years average of ten years above one and a
Speaker 1: half before you could say for sure that yes, we've
Speaker 1: broken through that limit, and we're not quite there yet.
Speaker 1: We're at about one point three degrees in the ten
Speaker 1: year average, but all our things are going we will
Speaker 1: be there by the.
Speaker 3: End of this decade.
Speaker 2: So what more can be done?
Speaker 1: Oh well, everything, We're not doing anything. The thing that
Speaker 1: needs to happen is we have to stop emitting greenhouse gases,
Speaker 1: especially carbon dioxide. And the main way we emit carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide is we burn fossil fuels, So burning coal, burning oil,
Speaker 1: burning natural gas all release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: And we've been putting more and more and more of
Speaker 1: this stuff into the air every year, with one or
Speaker 1: two little blips than ever. Half of the total emissions
Speaker 1: of greenhouse gases humans have managed to do since you know,
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds have happened since nineteen ninety, so really,
Speaker 1: you know, putting our foot on the gas literally, and
Speaker 1: we're changing the climate faster and faster. In the thirty
Speaker 1: years the work been talking about fixing this problem, they've
Speaker 1: made it twice as bad and we're just accelerating in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction. So the world's doing nothing apart from talking.
Speaker 1: So it would be great to see a big rollout
Speaker 1: of renewal energy and a big reduction in the burning
Speaker 1: of coal and oil, especially lots of ebs and solar panels,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff is really what the world needs.
Speaker 1: And it's happening, you know in places China are leading
Speaker 1: the world solar panels and win tair of once, but
Speaker 1: they're also leading the world and building coal fire past
Speaker 1: oceans such. Yeah, a bit of a double edged sword there. So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what we need is just a reduction and emissions across
Speaker 1: the globe. And I guess that's been the theme of
Speaker 1: or that will be one of the themes of the
Speaker 1: Overshirt Conference and certainly has been talked about at the
Speaker 1: UN Climate a week in New York.
Speaker 2: When do you think the world is going to get serious?
Speaker 2: What a great question, because I mean, you've been in
Speaker 2: this game for a long time, James, you're probably sick
Speaker 2: of you know, warning, And I mean as soon as
Speaker 2: everyone says, oh this is going to happen, that's going
Speaker 2: to happen, it happens, but nothing's done about it.
Speaker 1: No, And I really don't have an answer to that question.
Speaker 1: When is the world going to get serious? It should
Speaker 1: have happened thirty years ago, forty years ago even was possible.
Speaker 1: It was already plenty of warning back in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: But the status quo has an awful lot of power
Speaker 1: behind it. The fossil fuel industry is one of the
Speaker 1: most profitable in history. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: power and many title and doing things the way we
Speaker 1: have done them for the last two hundred years or so.
Speaker 4: So governments are reluctant to really act, and I think,
Speaker 4: you know, government's policymakers don't quite believe or they don't
Speaker 4: feel it.
Speaker 1: You know, they might know the facts, but they don't
Speaker 1: have the you know, the emotional response that you really
Speaker 1: need before you take something important on board. So when
Speaker 1: is this going to happen. I hope it's in the
Speaker 1: next five years, but it's going to take some major
Speaker 1: extreme events and some I guess well resourced, rich countries
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe a whole lot of death and
Speaker 1: destruction before government's really taken on board that, oh gee,
Speaker 1: this actually is important. It actually is affecting our economy
Speaker 1: and our lifestyles and everything. So, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to wish extremes and death and destruction on people,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't seem as though anything else, any of
Speaker 1: the science really tells the story, and so a lot
Speaker 1: of people are trying to tell the stories in different
Speaker 1: ways through the arts and so on, and maybe that's
Speaker 1: making a difference. But the pace of change has been
Speaker 1: so slow it's been just impossible even see in the
Speaker 1: last few decades that I really wonder when we'll get
Speaker 1: onto it. I suppose the good news, you could say,
Speaker 1: is that humans have all the power. You know, we
Speaker 1: are the one species doing this. We're releasing all the
Speaker 1: in housecases into the atmosphere. Whenever we stop doing that,
Speaker 1: we will stop climate change within a year or two.
Speaker 1: This is now well known, so we'll always have all
Speaker 1: the power. But it's really it really comes down to
Speaker 1: when do we use how bad do we let things
Speaker 1: get in the meantime, And that's the trade off. I
Speaker 1: suppose that policy makers around the world think about if
Speaker 1: they think about it at all, you know what about
Speaker 1: short term profit versus long term sustainability. That doesn't take
Speaker 1: much thinking about from my perspective. But if you're trying
Speaker 1: to turn a buck this year, I suppose it does
Speaker 1: take a bit of thinking about. And this year's buck
Speaker 1: just always seems to win.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So China recently pledged for the first time
Speaker 2: to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions to seven to ten
Speaker 2: percent below peak levels by twenty thirty five. This includes
Speaker 2: expanding wind and solar capacity, increasing non fossil fuel energy share,
Speaker 2: and ramping up electric vehicle sales, but it still falls
Speaker 2: short of the thirty percent of cuts that some observers
Speaker 2: say are needed for that one point five degrees. What
Speaker 2: does China's new pledge mean for global climate negotiations.
Speaker 1: Well, it is a step forward. It's great to see
Speaker 1: that China is actually pledging to actually reduce emissions, not
Speaker 1: just the intensity of emissions or the things they've come
Speaker 1: up with before. So yes, that's a step forward. That's great,
Speaker 1: But as you've just said, it's it's a bit weak,
Speaker 1: it's a bit slow. You know that there was a
Speaker 1: report from the Untergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that came
Speaker 1: out nearly ten years ago now twenty eighteen, on what
Speaker 1: do we need to do to stop at one and
Speaker 1: a half degrees of women And that document said fifty
Speaker 1: percent reductions in emissions by twenty thirty and China's talking
Speaker 1: about maybe ten percent by twenty thirty five. So it's
Speaker 1: it's going in the right direction, but it's way slow.
Speaker 1: China is the biggest committer globally, so if they did that,
Speaker 1: it would still be a win. But we need every
Speaker 1: other bigger money and smaller amount of for that matter,
Speaker 1: to do the same. And like I said before this,
Speaker 1: there's not really any country that's really managing to do that.
Speaker 1: The UK, yes, this one I can think of, has
Speaker 1: reduced its submissions significantly. Well that's you could argue that's
Speaker 1: by exporting those emissions. You know, all the manufacturing that
Speaker 1: used to happen in Britain probably nowhattans in China and
Speaker 1: other Asian countries. So the global effect has been well
Speaker 1: pretty murdered, to put it mildly.
Speaker 2: Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters recently made headlines at the
Speaker 2: UN by stating that the world's four biggest emitters that's China, India,
Speaker 2: Russia and the US bear the brunt of responsibility, comprising
Speaker 2: about sixty percent of global emissions. He urged leaders to
Speaker 2: quote face the elephant in the room and describe the
Speaker 2: situ as a battle we can't possibly win. It's been
Speaker 2: described as a truth bomb. How has that been received?
Speaker 2: And first of I mean what was your first reaction
Speaker 2: to seeing that, because it is a bit of a
Speaker 2: different change in tax for Winston Peters.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, and you could well or a truth bomb.
Speaker 1: And he's quite right in the sense that those four
Speaker 1: countries are the biggest emitters in the world, and we
Speaker 1: won't have solved the problem until those nations really get
Speaker 1: on board and reduce their emissions substantially. But you know,
Speaker 1: those countries account for sixty percent of global emissions, which
Speaker 1: means that if you put all the other countries together
Speaker 1: Supfairs in New Zealand, you get the other forty percent,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing to stop the other countries of the
Speaker 1: world doing what they need to do. And if we
Speaker 1: could produce global emissions by forty percent while all of
Speaker 1: those countries get into zero, fabulous. You know, that would
Speaker 1: be a great step forward, and maybe you would shame
Speaker 1: the bigger metis into doing the same thing totally hope. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sort of sympathetic to what he's saying,
Speaker 1: and he's quite right, but he's also kind of trying
Speaker 1: to sidestep any responsibility in this country and in other
Speaker 1: countries that only emit one percent of global emissions or less,
Speaker 1: and every country has to play their part. We've got
Speaker 1: to get the zero global emissions of carbon dioxide and
Speaker 1: that means zero country is still emitting CO two. So yep, okay,
Speaker 1: And I'd love to see the big countries respond to
Speaker 1: that appropriately, But it doesn't absolve us. And his comment
Speaker 1: that it's a battle we can't win us absolutely wrong.
Speaker 3: And like I said, we have all the power.
Speaker 1: We are the ones emitting these greenhouse gases. We can
Speaker 1: stop whenever we like I wish it was saying that,
Speaker 1: so we can absolutely win. We being the global community.
Speaker 1: So that's not anyone country, even just China got zero missions.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't fix it. It will be a stick love
Speaker 1: step forward. But all countries have to act and all
Speaker 1: countries can contribute to winning. We will definitely win if
Speaker 1: we do this.
Speaker 5: Another unofficial stated in nineteen eighty nine that within a decade,
Speaker 5: entire nations could be wiped off the map by global
Speaker 5: warming not happening. You know, it used to be global cooling.
Speaker 5: If you look back years ago, in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 5: and the nineteen thirties, they said global cooling will kill
Speaker 5: the world. We have to do something. Then they said
Speaker 5: global warming will kill the world. But then it started
Speaker 5: getting cooler, so now they could just call it a
Speaker 5: climate change because that way they can't miss climate change,
Speaker 5: because if it goes higher or lower, whatever the hell happens,
Speaker 5: is climate change. It's the greatest job ever perpetrated on
Speaker 5: the world in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of the Big Four, it's all while Donald
Speaker 2: Trump told the UN that climate change was and I quote,
Speaker 2: the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, what
Speaker 2: does the rest of the world and New Zealand I
Speaker 2: suppose do when the US president doesn't play ball?
Speaker 3: Oh boy, it's a good question.
Speaker 1: And you know, Donald Trump's a bit of a special
Speaker 1: cases and he says all sorts of crazy things, and
Speaker 1: this is as crazy as anything else I've heard him
Speaker 1: say recently. Of course, it's not a conjob. You know,
Speaker 1: there's so much of so many mountains of scientific evenents
Speaker 1: and understanding. You know, we've got the observations, we have
Speaker 1: the understanding of the physics and all the rest of it.
Speaker 1: We have the models. What's happening. There's no rome for uncertainty,
Speaker 1: and it was not it's definitely not a con job.
Speaker 1: But when the president of the US is something like that.
Speaker 1: It does, of course, it kind of gives license to
Speaker 1: people in other countries that are maybe uncertain about what
Speaker 1: they should do, to say, oh, well, okay, the US
Speaker 1: is treating it.
Speaker 3: Like a joke, why don't we do the same. So
Speaker 3: it's not good for the global conversation, of course.
Speaker 1: But I really wonder these days how much Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: you know, how much weight he carries in terms of
Speaker 1: these international conversations. He's sort of said so many strange
Speaker 1: things and passed off the countries that I wonder whether
Speaker 1: the US is just being a bit sidelines and you know,
Speaker 1: the world can carry on and do what it has
Speaker 1: to do without the US joining in, and of course
Speaker 1: that will hurt the US economy, and Trump won't be
Speaker 1: the president forever, so the US can get on board
Speaker 1: at some stage. In the meantime, a a number of
Speaker 1: you as states are doing what they need to do anyway,
Speaker 1: reducing missions. It's not as though the federal government controls
Speaker 1: what all of the states do.
Speaker 3: So it's a bit of a mixed big It's not
Speaker 3: good globally to.
Speaker 1: Have one of the world's most prominent political leaders saying
Speaker 1: these things, But you know, I think most people take
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's statements with the big grown or starved.
Speaker 2: Actually, well, you've been a climate scientist for decades now,
Speaker 2: I hope you don't mind me giving away your age.
Speaker 2: What kind of conversation has the conversation shifted from when
Speaker 2: you began looking into climate change to now.
Speaker 1: Yes, those conversations have shifted, but they started happening at
Speaker 1: the very least. You know, you do hear a lot
Speaker 1: more conversation around action on climate change. And you know,
Speaker 1: in this country, the policy landscapes quite different. Here's the
Speaker 1: Climate Change Commission, we have the Zero carbonac the government
Speaker 1: and principle at least has focused on taking action on
Speaker 1: climate change. So that's that is quite a change over
Speaker 1: the decades that I've been looking at all this. But
Speaker 1: I think, well, it's a strange. It's maybe not unexpected
Speaker 1: really when you think about it. But back in the day,
Speaker 1: back last century, the end of last century, there was
Speaker 1: a fair bit of hope around I guess, and the
Speaker 1: idea that we have time and we can take action
Speaker 1: and you know, we'll get on top of this problem.
Speaker 1: So I had some faith that governments countries around the
Speaker 1: world would actually step up and really start to reduce
Speaker 1: their emissions over the time I've been working on the problem.
Speaker 1: As time's gone on, that hasn't happened. And like I said,
Speaker 1: actually the missions have continued to go up. It's become
Speaker 1: sort of more and more desperate, I guess, And in
Speaker 1: the science community there's a lot more desperation and worry, anxiety,
Speaker 1: anger even about the lack of action, because the problem
Speaker 1: has become clearer and obviously more dangerous, but the action
Speaker 1: still isn't there. So everything's become a bit more fractureous.
Speaker 1: And I suppose this is what I'm saying. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: not too surprising. As the climate changes, that puts stresses
Speaker 1: on natural systems, that puts stresses on food security, water security,
Speaker 1: even where people can live. You know, sea level rises
Speaker 1: are already affecting that. So things are becoming gradually harder. Life's
Speaker 1: becoming a bit harder. And when that happens, people generally
Speaker 1: turn onwards, you know, circle wagons and look after their
Speaker 1: own and nationalism and you know, countries looking after themselves
Speaker 1: rather than cooperating, which is really what we need, has
Speaker 1: become the prevalent story. And I think countries want to
Speaker 1: protect their own economies. They don't want to be spending
Speaker 1: money on what they might see is some possible problem
Speaker 1: in fifty year's time or something like that. Of course,
Speaker 1: that is absolutely not what it is. It's happening right now.
Speaker 1: So it's maybe to be expected that things have gone
Speaker 1: the way that Donald Trump describes. And that's not something
Speaker 1: I anticipated back in the nineteen nineties. I genuinely thought
Speaker 1: countries would see what needed to be done and do it.
Speaker 3: But you know, that's that's a very naive thought.
Speaker 1: And it reminds me of a statement that Al Gore
Speaker 1: made in his movie An Inconvenient Truth that twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, he studied the climate system
Speaker 1: and what was going on with greenhouse gases and all
Speaker 1: the rest of it, and he went to Congress in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties and he said, oh, I just need
Speaker 1: to tell Congress what's happening and they'll get onto it.
Speaker 1: And you know, that was forty years ago, and he
Speaker 1: did tell Congress and they listened and then went back
Speaker 1: to worrying about the economy. So it's yeah, human nature
Speaker 1: is the big problem, you know, and when how much
Speaker 1: it will take to break through that kind of thinking.
Speaker 1: I dorn't no worries, mate, how much it'll take. It'll
Speaker 1: it will cost a lot of money, and I suspect
Speaker 1: a lot of lives before we see reelection.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, James, sure thing. That's it for
Speaker 2: this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
Speaker 2: about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot
Speaker 2: co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Jane
Speaker 2: Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor. I'm
Speaker 2: Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for
Speaker 2: another look behind the headlines.