The UK government is in breach of international law over failing to tackle extreme levels of poverty and destitution in the country, according to a scathing assessment made by the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
It comes after the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently released a report showing that almost 4 million people experienced destitution in 2022, including more than a million children.
Government data recently revealed that 14.4 million people lived in relative poverty in 2021-22 – a million more than the previous year.
With a cost of living crisis and soaring food and fuel prices as well as increasing housing costs, Olivier De Schutter, the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, slammed the UK’s woefully inadequate welfare system, citing research showing universal credit payments of £85 a week for single adults over 25 were “grossly insufficient” and described the UK’s main welfare system as “a leaking bucket”.
The pace of change among governments and corporations is set to form a central part of the COP28 climate talks in Dubai.
Half of the world’s 2,000 biggest listed companies have set a target to get to net-zero emissions by 2050 but just a fraction meet tough United Nations guidelines for what constitutes a quality pledge, a report released on Monday shows.
That is according to the latest analysis of the Forbes Global 2000 – a list of the world’s largest companies – by Net Zero Tracker, an independent data consortium including Oxford University.
It says that the number of companies setting net zero emissions targets has risen by 40 per cent from 702 in June 2022 to 1,003 in October 2023.
Quantity over quality?
The group warns, however, that despite progress in terms of the number of companies setting net-zero targets, there is an urgent need to ensure these targets are credible and deliver on promised emissions reductions.
Just 4 per cent of targets meet the criteria laid down by the UN’s Race to Zero campaign for example, by ensuring that they cover all greenhouse gas emissions, start to cut them immediately, and include an annual progress update on interim and longer-term targets.
Climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades that this type of event will become more frequent as the world continues to warm. The major culprit behind this is the burning of fossil fuels. So it’s extremely concerning that the UK government has announced its intention to grant hundreds of licences for new North Sea oil and gas extraction.
Although burning fossil fuels to generate power and heat has enabled society to develop and flourish, we are now experiencing the unintended side effects. The carbon dioxide that has been added to the atmosphere is leading to a rise in global temperatures, causing heatwaves to become hotter and downpours more intense. The resulting large-scale disruption and suffering is becoming ever more visible.
This warming will continue, with worsening climatic consequences, until we reduce global carbon dioxide emissions to “net zero”. After that, we will still have to live and suffer in a warmer climate for generations. The collective choices we make now will matter in the future.
The small-scale, but high-profile, disruptions caused by Just Stop Oil protesters in the UK are extremely frustrating for many. But their single demand – for no licenses for new UK coal, oil and gas projects – is consistent with the science underpinning the international agreements that the UK has signed.
Temperatures are rising
Since the 1860s, the scientific community has understood that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would warm the climate. And as long ago as 1938, the burning of fossil fuels was linked to the observed rise in both carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. Fast forward to now and global temperatures are warmer, and increasing faster, than at any point in human civilisation.
In response to the overwhelming scientific evidence, the UK and 193 other nations came together in 2015 to ratify the Paris agreement on climate change. One of the agreed goals is to limit global warming to well below 2°C, and even aim for 1.5°C, compared to the pre-industrial era.
However, the latest synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which all governments explicitly endorsed, paints a stark reality. If we burn all of the fossil fuels that we currently have access to, then global warming will exceed 1.5°C and may reach 2°C.
To avoid breaching the limits set out by the Paris agreement, some of the coal, oil and gas that we can already extract must remain unburnt. New fossil fuel extraction projects will make it even harder to stop further global warming.
Build up renewable infrastructure
There are other options. The UK government’s official advisers, the Climate Change Committee, have put forward a vision for UK power generation consistent with a net zero future. They say that the UK could provide all of its energy needs by 2050 through a combination of renewables, bioenergy, nuclear, hydrogen, storage and demand management, with some carbon capture and storage for fossil gas-based generation in the meantime.
The UK can achieve energy security without causing additional global warming. Nigel Jarvis/Shutterstock
If the UK followed the example of China and rapidly increased its investments in renewable energy, then it could achieve energy security without causing additional global warming. China emits the most carbon dioxide of any country in the world. But it is installing more renewable energy generation than the rest of the world combined.
Rapidly reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, and not issuing new licenses to extract oil and gas, is the most effective way of minimising future climate-related disruptions. The sooner those with the power to shape our future recognise this, the better.
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After four months of global records being “obliterated”, temperatures in October have left climate scientists nearly certain that 2023 will be the hottest on record.
Scientists now say that 2023 is “virtually certain” to be the warmest year on record.
Data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reveals that this October was the warmest on record globally. As a whole, it was 1.7ºC above pre-industrial averages after four consecutive months of temperature records being broken.
In Europe, it was the fourth warmest October on record with temperatures 1.3ºC higher than the 1991 to 2020 average.
“October 2023 has seen exceptional temperature anomalies, following on from four months of global temperature records being obliterated,” says Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, the European Union’s climate change agency.
Globally averaged surface air temperature anomalies relative to 1991–2020 for each October from 1940 to 2023. Data Source: ERA5.C3S/ECMWF
Fresh emissions targets from Saudi Arabia and Australia – two of the world’s largest fossil-fuel producers – are due to arrive just in time for global climate talks in Glasgow. These would commit the two countries to reducing domestic emissions to net zero by around mid-century – though both are expected to continue exporting fossil fuels for decades to come.
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For the leaders of countries and governments that produce fossil fuels, UN climate summits are a public relations boon. They get to talk up their commitments to a green and clean future without being held to account for their disproportionate role in fuelling the problem. It’s hard for experts, let alone the average citizen, to tell fact from fiction.
Because it’s only domestic greenhouse gas emissions that are counted for the purpose of the UN climate negotiations, burning exported fossil fuels counts towards the emissions of the importing country. Accordingly, the role that major fossil fuel exporters like Saudi Arabia (oil and natural gas) and Australia (coal and natural gas) play in stoking global heating is not accurately reflected in the talks.
Unlike some areas of international cooperation, like limiting the spread of nuclear weapons, climate-change summits aim to control something which evades easy calculation. Nuclear weapons and their production facilities are tangible, chunky and relatively few in number. Greenhouse gases are everywhere, invisible and caused by lots of different processes – from cow digestion to steel production.
These gases are also in constant flux. Emissions are produced from ubiquitous sources, but there are also natural systems – especially forests and soil – that suck carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere. These natural removals of carbon are known as sinks. That is why scientists and governments speak of net greenhouse gas emissions: emissions minus removals.
It’s relatively easy to monitor aggregate levels of CO₂ in the global atmosphere. This is why scientists have a clear picture of how badly off-track the world is with tackling the climate crisis. But all this complexity concerning sources and sinks makes it easy for governments and corporations to obfuscate their real contribution to climate change.
For example, countries with lots of uninhabited land, like Australia, have become especially adept at gaming the systems of accounting for net emissions of CO₂. Australia effectively gets credited for large amounts of carbon stored in forests, which make it look like overall emissions have been falling, even though emissions from burning fossil fuels have been growing for decades.
The Australian government claims the country’s natural sinks offset its emissions elsewhere. Norman Allchin/Shutterstock
One sure-fire way of telling whether a government official is hoodwinking you when lauding their government’s climate credentials is to look upstream and see whether they’re producing the coal, oil or gas that ultimately causes about three-quarters of global emissions, and if so, what they’re doing about it.
Extracted fossil fuels are much easier to monitor and verify than greenhouse gas emissions. They come from a relatively small number of sources and are already measured by multiple parties for a range of purposes. Customers need proof that the shipments they receive reflect their contracts with suppliers. Governments collect production information to assess a company’s compliance with licensing requirements, tax liabilities and customs obligations.
Fossil-fuel infrastructure and projects are even easier to monitor. Oil rigs, gas pipelines and coal mines are large, making them easy to see both on the ground and via satellite. These features make it simpler to hold fossil fuel-producing countries to account for their contribution to global heating, compared with the more slippery measure of net emissions.
The fossil fuel production gap
In a new report, the UN Environment Programme and other research institutions found that governments plan to produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – the goal of the Paris Agreement. Countries’ fossil-fuel production plans and projections in aggregate even exceed, by close to 10%, the levels of global fossil-fuel production implied by their own climate pledges.
Shockingly, governments are pouring fuel on the fire. G20 countries have directed more than US$300 billion (£218 billion) in new funds towards supporting fossil-fuel production, such as subsidies and tax breaks, since the beginning of the pandemic – about 10% more than they have invested in clean energy.
The report echoes recent calls for greater transparency around fossil-fuel production and the support – financial and otherwise – governments provide at home and abroad. Research by various organisations has provided a better understanding of this, but the information is incomplete, inconsistent and scattered.
Governments could help by disclosing plans, funding and projections for fossil-fuel production, and how they intend to manage a just transition away from coal, oil and gas. Fossil-fuel companies should disclose their spending and infrastructure plans, as well as all the greenhouse gas emissions their product is responsible for, and financial risks to their business from climate change.
Numerous environmental organisations are working to build a global picture of the sources and flows of fossil fuels. So even if governments fail to illuminate the activities of fossil-fuel companies and their role in it, they can still be named and shamed.
Talking only about a country’s net greenhouse gas emissions gives fossil fuel-producing companies and governments a free pass to bullshit their way through the climate negotiations. If we want to force the PR managers to really earn their money, we should turn the conversation to fossil-fuel production.
This story is part of The Conversation’s coverage on COP26, the Glasgow climate conference, by experts from around the world.
Amid a rising tide of climate news and stories, The Conversation is here to clear the air and make sure you get information you can trust. More.
Fergus Green, Lecturer in Political Theory and Public Policy, UCL
