{"id":290161,"date":"2023-12-06T10:27:37","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T09:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=290161"},"modified":"2023-12-06T10:27:40","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T09:27:40","slug":"netzero-is-impeding-progress-on-un-sustainable-development-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=290161","title":{"rendered":"NETZERO is impeding progress on UN Sustainable Development Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Climate Etc.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Judith Curry<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWorking in global energy and development, I often hear people say, \u2018Because of climate, we just can\u2019t a\ufb00ord for everyone to live our lifestyles.\u2019 That viewpoint is worse than patronizing. It\u2019s a form of racism, and it\u2019s creating a two-tier global energy system, with energy abundance for the rich and tiny solar lamps for Africans.\u201d \u2013 Kenyan activist and materials scientist Rose Mutiso<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo deny the developing world access to the very infrastructure that has propelled us forward, all in the name of an uncertain future, is not environmentalism, but neocolonialism masquerading as virtue.\u201d \u2013 Earth Scientist Matthew Wielicki<\/p>\n\n\n\n

100 years ago, the global population was 2 billion.  Over the past century, the population has increased to 8 billion, life expectancy has more than doubled, a much smaller percent of the global population is living in poverty, global wealth has increased by a factor of 20, agricultural productivity and yields have increased substantially, and a far smaller fraction of the population die from extreme weather and climate events.  Hannah Ritchie\u2019s ourworldindata.org provides fascinating data on global progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And all this has occurred during a period where the global temperatures have increased by about 1o<\/sup>C.  The UN has dropped the extreme emissions scenarios (RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5) from use in policy making, and the UNFCCC COP27 worked from an estimated 2100 warming of 2.5\u00baC.[1]<\/a> The 2023 IEA Roadmap to NetZero Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS) projects a rise in average global temperature of 2.4\u00baC by 2100.[2]<\/a> When plausible scenarios of natural climate variability and values of climate sensitivity on the lower end of the IPCC range are accounted for, the expected warming could be significantly lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So our current best estimates of global warming by 2100 indicate that we will likely be close to, or within, the 2\u00baC target by 2100, based on our current understanding.   So we are looking at an additional 0.8 to 1.2o<\/sup>C warming over the remainder of the 21st<\/sup> century, according to our current understanding.  Natural climate variability is of course a wild card that can cut both ways, but the portion of the 21st<\/sup> century warming that the UN is hoping to control is order of 1o<\/sup>C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world has already shown that it can thrive under a warming rate of 1o<\/sup>C\/century.  To support continued human development and progress in the 21st<\/sup> century, there is widespread international agreement on the UNSDG Sustainable Development Goals, which provides a ranked list of 17 goals.[3]<\/a>  The goals related to climate and energy policy include (with numerical ranking):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. No poverty<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. No hunger<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Affordable and clean energy<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Industry, innovation and infrastructure<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Climate action<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    There is growing recognition that climate change is as much a development problem as it is an environmental one. Development deals with the alleviation (or eradication) of poverty. More recent notions of development include sustainable development and climate resilient development, which emphasize economic development without depletion of natural resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Tensions arise when the \u201csustainable\u201d part\u2014which includes no new fossil fuel-based energy systems\u2014conflicts with poverty eradication and other sustainable development goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Inconsistency of Net Zero by 2050 with UN Sustainable Development Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A recent UN Report on Progress Towards Sustainable Development Goals states:[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cUnder current trends, 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030, and only about one third of countries will meet the target to halve national poverty levels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cShockingly, the world is back at hunger levels not seen since 2005, and food prices remain higher in more countries than in the period 2015\u20132019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cAt the current rate of progress, renewable energy sources will continue to account for a mere fraction of our energy supplies in 2030, some 660 million people will remain without electricity, and close to 2 billion people will continue to rely on polluting fuels and technologies for cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Neglecting these sustainability objectives in favor of rapidly reducing CO2<\/sub> emissions is slowing down or even countering progress on the most important Sustainable Development Goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Efforts to rapidly restrict the use of fossil fuels is hampering the #1 goal of poverty reduction in Africa and is restricting Africa\u2019s efforts to develop and utilize its own oil and gas resources (goal #7), as funds previously used for development are being redirected to CO2<\/sub> mitigation (goal #13).[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The #2 goal of no hunger is being hampered by food prices and availability are being worsened by climate mitigation efforts (goal #13), such as disincentives for fossil fuel development causing less supply and higher prices of fuels necessary for agriculture, biofuels (e.g. corn and seed oils), restrictions on livestock, and restrictions on fertilizer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Industry and infrastructure (goal #8) require steel and cement, which are currently produced by fossil fuels.  Until such a time when steel and cement can be produced economically without fossil fuels, restricting fossil fuel access particularly in developing countries to support CO2<\/sub> mitigation targets (goal #13) is hampering the development of industry and infrastructure, including clean energy projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Should one element of Goal 13, related to net-zero emissions, trump the higher priority goals of poverty and hunger and the availability of energy? Not if human well-being, flourishing and thriving are the objectives.  Climate policy driven by the perceived urgency of eliminating fossil fuels and without regard to other needs and trade-offs is itself dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Conflict between NETZERO, Development and Adaptation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There\u2019s no such thing as a low energy, rich country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Economic development and resilience in underdeveloped countries are being slowed down by a growing emphasis on linking international development funds to reducing emissions. This emphasis comes at the expense of development funds that have historically been targeted for poverty reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Resilience to weather and climate extremes requires adaptive capacity. The UN Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015\u20132030<\/em> focuses on the adoption of measures that address all dimensions of disaster risk\u2014hazard, exposure, vulnerability and coping capacity.[1]<\/a> The Sendai Framework includes seven targets intended to define and measure progress towards its overall goal to increase resilience by reducing risk. The first four targets are to substantially reduce disaster impacts: mortality, number of people affected, economic loss, and damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services. The other three targets are to substantially increase the adoption of national and local disaster risk reduction strategies, international cooperation to developing countries and access to multi-hazard early warning systems.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Now, more than halfway through the period for the Sendai Framework (2015\u201330), none of the Sendai Framework\u2019s \u201csubstantially reduce\u201d targets are on track to be achieved by 2030. Instead, direct economic loss and damage to critical infrastructure having increased substantially over the past decade. Adoption of multi-hazard early warning systems have been the most successful element of the Framework, although these efforts need to be scaled up and made more effective. While disaster-related financing has increased since 2010, most of the resources have supported activities to respond to and recover from disasters.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Simply put, people are considerably less exposed to weather and climate shocks if they aren\u2019t poor. Creating more resiliency in poor countries will require energy-intensive investments in housing, transportation infrastructure, and agricultural technology. Economic development requires the availability of cheap, reliable, and abundant energy.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The World Bank and other development banks provide loans and grants for development projects, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) helps poor countries overcome currency crises and keep their \ufb01nances stable. However, these institutions are under pressure from their donor governments to focus on climate change\u2014specifically, to reduce emissions.[5]<\/a> The IMF recently proposed the creation of a US$50 billion Resilience and Sustainability Trust to help countries tackle climate change, where support would be contingent on recipient countries\u2019 plans to reduce emissions.[6]<\/a> Similarly, the World Bank has unveiled a climate action plan promising to align all future projects with the Paris Agreement to slash emissions.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As a result, international funds for development are being redirected away from reducing poverty and increasing resilience, and towards reducing carbon emissions. By limiting development of electric power, this redirection is exacerbating the harms from weather hazards and climate change for the world\u2019s poor. Development and poverty reduction require abundant and cheap energy, and natural gas is regarded as the best near-term solution for most countries. Working against this need in developing countries, UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres has called on countries to end all new fossil fuel exploration and production. The United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union are aggressively limiting fossil fuel investments; the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other development banks are being pressured to do the same. The African Development Bank is increasingly unable to support large natural gas projects in the face of European shareholder pressure.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Limiting the development of fossil fuel projects is profoundly hampering development in Africa. Africa is starved for energy; sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s one billion people have the power generation capacity that is less than the United Kingdom with 67 million people. Natural gas is needed not only for power, but also for industry and fertilizer and for cleaner cooking to avoid loss of life from indoor air pollution. One cannot overemphasize the significance of natural gas as a transition fuel in developing countries, especially in Africa. The irony is that even tripling energy use and emissions in sub-Saharan Africa driven by natural gas would add a meager 0.6 % to overall global emissions.[9]<\/a> The IEA projects that Africa won\u2019t exceed 4 percent of global CO2<\/sub> emissions by 2050 regardless of energy scenario.[10]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Leaders from developing countries have been outspoken in criticizing these changes in international funding practices. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni warns that by pushing climate mitigation on African countries, the West will \u201cforestall Africa\u2019s attempts to rise out of poverty.\u201d[11]<\/a> A widely viewed Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Talk by Kenyan energy expert Rose Mutiso characterized forcing emissions mitigation on the world\u2019s poor that is widening economic inequality as equivalent to \u201cenergy apartheid.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Africa\u2019s fragile progress in recent decades could be undone by international efforts to curb investments in all fossil fuels. However, these same countries that are working to restrict fossil fuel investments in Africa include natural gas in their own multidecade plans to transition to clean energy. The greatest hypocrisy is that some of the largest private European and US firms are developing natural gas in Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Senegal to export to Asia and Europe, since it can\u2019t be used in the countries of origin for lack of infrastructure.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Prioritizing SDGs over Net-Zero<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Every dollar spent on reducing carbon emissions can have a significantly greater impact if directed into education, medical services, food security, and critical infrastructure. To promote human well-being and thrivability, climate action in the poorest countries should concentrate on reducing poverty, increasing energy access, and building resilience via investments in housing, transportation, infrastructure, and agricultural technology.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Wise climate policy needs to recognize that there are no climate \u201ccliff-edges\u201d in the climate system, that there is a plurality of values at play, and that a plurality of goals should be accommodated in policy-making. In this spirit, climate scientist Mike Hulme has called for \u201cclimate pragmatism,\u201d which would prioritize SDGs over Net-Zero. This approach \u201cwould not necessarily deliver the objective of the Paris Agreement: stabilizing global temperature at between 1.5C and 2C.\u201d  Recognizing that trade-offs between different SDGs and between SDGs and stabilizing global temperature are unavoidable, Hulme posits that \u201c[i]t is quite easy to imagine future worlds in which global temperature exceeds 2C of warming which are \u2018better\u2019 for human well-being, political stability and ecological integrity, for example, than other worlds in which \u2013 by all means and at all costs \u2013 global temperature was stabilized at 1.5C.\u201d In relation to the tension between zero-carbon and the need for affordable energy, Hulme states:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cSeveral of the SDGs \u2013 for example, eradicating poverty (SDG#1), securing quality education (SDG#4), ensuring decent work and economic growth (SDG#8) \u2013 will require the expansion of affordable and reliable energy services for billions of people, not least in Africa and South Asia. Only some of these services can be delivered by zero-carbon energy.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How to respond to so-called the climate \u201ccrisis\u201d in the midst of genuine crises associated with food and energy shortages and the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is best reflected by the response of the New Zealand government. In defending its decision to issue fossil fuel prospecting permits in spite of declaring a climate emergency, the New Zealand government stated that the climate crisis was \u201cinsufficient\u201d to halt oil and gas exploration.[15]<\/a> Climate change is indeed a crisis of insufficient weight that will be increasingly ignored by many countries as they grapple with the basic human needs for energy and food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There is no human right to a safe or stable climate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has stated that:[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201c\u2026  environmental degradation, climate change and unsustainable development constitute some of the most pressing and serious threats to the ability of present and future generations to enjoy the right to life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Reference is further given to a 2019 Report written by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, which concluded the following:[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cThere is now global agreement that human rights norms apply to the full spectrum of environmental issues, including climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    No attempt has been made by the UN to create international support for a new human right to be protected from climate change.  Such a right is neither implicit or explicit in the UNFCCC Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Even if Net Zero objectives were achieved globally by 2050, the climate would continue to change from natural weather and climate variability: volcanic eruptions, solar effects, large-scale oscillations of ocean circulations, and other geologic processes.  Further, given the inertia in the climate system (particularly oceans and ice sheets), it would be many decades before there was any noticeable change in extreme weather\/climate events and sea level rise after Net Zero was achieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Exaggeration of the risks from human-caused climate change leads to serious contradictions in context of beliefs that human rights offer protection against the impacts of dangerous climate change. Specifically with regards to the right to life, global mortality (per 100,000 people) from extreme weather and climate events have declined by 99% since 1920.[9]<\/a>  Between the period 1980 and 2016, global mortality (per 100,000 people) from extreme weather and climate events has dropped by 6.5 times.[10]<\/a>  For the mortality statistics since 1980, there is a clear negative relation between vulnerability and wealth.[11]<\/a>  Thus, an increase in wealth provides much greater and much more certain protection against climate-related risks than emissions reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The trend in mortality statistics does not mean that weather and climate disasters have become less frequent or less intense.  The trend implies that the world is now much better at preventing deaths from extreme weather and climate events than in the past. This has been accomplished through increasing wealth, which provides better infrastructure, greater reserves, advance warnings, and greater recovery capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Towards an Energy Transition that Supports Sustainable Development Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Yes, we can seek to lower emissions as low as reasonably practical, ideally while minimizing our regrets and maximizing our opportunities through the energy transition. But we should not pretend that we are controlling the climate. And people are less inclined to act on the energy transition if they can\u2019t imagine the endpoint, and can\u2019t see themselves better off in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The IEA Net Zero Roadmap makes a fundamentally important statement about the transition to Net Zero. Clean energy investment and demand reductions will drive the energy transition, not a premature removal of fossil fuel resources:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cA large and sustained surge in clean energy investment is what removes the need for new fossil fuel projects in the NZE Scenario: reducing fossil fuel supply investment in advance of, or instead of, policy action and investment to reduce demand would not lead to the same outcomes. Prolonged high prices would result if the decline in fossil fuel investment in this scenario were to precede the expansion of clean energy and the action to cut overall energy demand that are also set out in this scenario<\/em>. This would reduce the chances of an orderly transition to net zero emissions by 2050 and underlines the importance of action to secure the kind of surge in investment in clean energy and the demand reductions that are seen in the NZE Scenario.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As the IEA emphasizes, clean energy development reduces the demand for fossil fuels; forced reduced supply of fossil fuels, on the other hand, causes adverse and counter-productive effects. In other words, clean energy supply precedes fossil fuels phase-out, not the other way around. The IEA prioritizes an orderly transition that aims to safeguard energy security through strong and coordinated policies and incentives that enable all actors to anticipate the rapid changes required, and to minimize energy market volatility and stranded assets.[13]<\/a> The IEA recognizes that coal-to-gas switching is reducing emissions, particularly in the U.S.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The rapid transition of electric power systems away from fossil fuels to meet net-zero emissions targets is introducing substantial new risks to electric power systems.  A transition of the electric power system that produces reduced amounts of electricity, less reliable electricity and\/or more expensive electricity to achieve net-zero goals would be a tourniquet that restricts the lifeblood of modern society and hampers development and will thwart sustainability efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The debate is then between imposition of certain, intolerable risks from the rapid transition away from fossil fuels, versus the highly uncertain future impacts from climate change. This conflict can be resolved by relaxing the time horizon for reducing CO2<\/sub> emissions while maintaining energy abundance, reliability and security through the energy transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The energy transition can be facilitated with minimal regrets by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n