We have all accepted by now that our climate is changing and we look to governments of the world to assist us in navigating the way forward while we pretty much go about our business as usual. Net Zero is a term that is being bandied about a lot right now. But what is it and what does it really mean? Will it be enough?
The Climate Council of Australia explains Net Zero as a balancing of the scales. It means that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and use other methods to contain them within the system. It means the switch to renewable sources of energy rather than the continued use of fossil fuels. Sounds perfect right? Wrong.
Before we go on to show why Net Zero is Not the best goal I would like to take a you on a little journey. An armchair travel so to speak.
If like me you were born in the latter part of the twentieth century you have already formed some opinions of what climate change is and how it will impact your life. So for the sake of this journey let’s say you were born in 1970. This means that you grew up as a child of the 1970s and 80s.
During this time here in Australia there were some significant weather events such as Cyclone Tracy and Brisbane Floods of 1974, The Millenium Drought of the early 2000s, 2009 Black Saturday Bush Fires to name a few. But for the most part, we enjoyed our childhoods with Commodore 64s, Pinball Machines, MTV, and backyards to play in. Life was good for most of us and no thought of global warming hadn’t really crossed our minds. But even then by the 1990s, our average temperature in Australia was already nudging 1 full degree hotter than average. Now I understand that doesn’t sound like much but let’s put it another way. 19 out of your first 29 years of your life were significantly hotter than in 1970. So we experienced more heatwaves, more droughts, more days in summer when the mercury went above 35 degrees Celcius. That’s okay though because we just spent more time at the beach.
During the early 2000s – like me, you would have been either having a family or out in the workforce. We continued to enjoy our long summers without too much thought for the consequences. Global Warming and Ozone were talked about from time to time but it seemed nobody could agree on what was happening and how bad it would be.
Now 20 years later, we have had our children, our babies are all grown up and moving off to university and work themselves. Maybe they have had family already. Climate Change is a part of our everyday lives and is talked about more often than most other subjects in the media. As the grandmother of 11 little ones, I have to tell you I am scared, scared for them. What will their world be like if we don’t fix this? What will happen if we get to Net Zero by 2050 as our Prime Minister is suggesting? By then it will simply be too late.
When I was a child life was simple. There was school, family, friends and that was about all I had to worry about. For my grandchildren not much of that is different except that they know the climate has changed and they are worried about it.
By the time my grandchildren reach their 50’s, as I have now, their lives will be very different due to the impacts of climate change. We have in Australia almost hit the 1.5-degree target set by the IPCC in the mid-90s as the level at which global warming must be halted. The Bureau of Meteorology State of the Climate Report for 2020 shows that the Australian temperature is up by 1.44 degrees over the reporting time since records began in 1910. This is indeed a very concerning issue because, despite a global knowledge of what needs to change, we have still managed to increase our global carbon emissions to an all-time high of 508ppm equivalent in 2019. This was a terrible year for Australians due to the bushfires that raged up and down the east coast however, on a global scale we should be ashamed that we are still haven’t woken up.
The ABC here in Australia is a well-known and trusted source for information and the information they have put up on climate change is startling. Check out the article here. To summarise it though, basically, our climate change for the next 10 years is already locked in. There is little to nothing we can do to stop it, but if we don’t act now then the conditions our grandchildren will have to live with will make Cyclone Tracy and the Black Saturday Fires pale in comparison.
Imagine a world were the entire spring/summer is basically spent indoors because its just to hot to go outside or droughts that last not for years but decades. Imagine the flora and fauna that will be lost. And oh. the Barrier Reef well they will be able to look at pictures on the internet I am sure but not in person. The image below summarises the next 20 years and the impact climate change will have.
If we do nothing our grandchildren will probably not want to have grandchildren of their own. If we do nothing their lives will be filled with disastrous weather events that we can not even begin to imagine.
So Net Zero is not enough. The Climate Council wants us to “think of it like a set of scales: producing greenhouse gas emissions tips the scales, and we want to get those scales back into balance with no new greenhouse gas being added to the atmosphere in any given year. Eventually, we will probably need to tip them the other way to repair past harm.”
But with the level of emissions, we are at now, and the 2020 report is not in yet, we have just 10 years to make the changes that will allow our grandchildren to have similar climate and weather patterns to what we have now. Wait – What? That’s right, they might be lucky enough to have the devasting fires like those experienced in 2019/20. They might be lucky enough to run out of clean drinking water and to go through the 4 years of drought that caused it. Surely we would not wish these things on our worst enemies let alone our offspring. Is this really good enough for them? I think not.
We must fight for our grandchildren – they deserve our action. They deserve to have a life worth living and one that is as fulfilling as those who came before them. They deserve to have a future filled with their own grandchildren.
So what can we do?
Every single one of us can become better informed right now and today. Everyone will be able to do something no matter how small to change our own carbon footprint right now. We can all begin to increase the pressure on governments, corporations and large companies to make the policy changes necessary to clean up our backyards.
You may not be an activist but you can act for your grandchildren. Do it today.
