The recent eye-opening Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report sent tremors around the world. The IPCC represents the sum total of global knowledge regarding climate change, and the report has been described as a ‘code red’ for humanity. FORBES AFRICA speaks exclusively with Professor Francois Engelbrecht, one of South Africa’s pre-eminent climatologists and lead author on the report on the collective decisions needed to combat the crisis.
Q: The recent IPCC report details keeping the globe below an average of 1.5ºC increase. Why is this temperature target so crucial to combating climate change?
A: So the most important targets we need to look at here are those of 1.5ºC and 2.0ºC. When we look at climate change from a global perspective, once these temperature increases have been exceeded, some aspects of climate change may become irreversible; for example, the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet – the melting may become unstoppable regardless of human technology.
This will negatively impact the rising of sea levels globally, and also increase the rate of extreme weather events such as wildfires and storm systems among other things. This is similarly true for the Arctic Ice Shelf, which has been studied to a lesser degree – somewhere between these two temperature targets we have a high likelihood of being able to reverse these changes.
The IPCC report presents low- and high-mitigation strategies; obviously, the best solution for us as a species is to pursue the high-mitigation strategies. However, the IPCC is strictly policy-neutral – we are here to present policy-relevant findings, and it’s up to national governments and people to decide the way forward.
Q: There is obviously a massive discrepancy in contributions to climate change between developed and developed nations, both in their historical contributions and current contributions per capita. Some would ask valid questions as to how nations with these differences would be able to reconcile in order to meet the IPCC targets?
A: The threat that climate change presents is a species-level threat. As scientists, we set up these reports, in the end, it’s the governments of the world that have to choose how to deal with this. In the last two decades, one could argue that they haven’t been able to move forward collectively, finding a solution that works for everyone. The priorities of individual nations have featured prominently in these negotiations, and stark differences in positions of countries have been taken.
At the IPCC regional representation has always featured prominently, and the IPCC special report of 2018 was largely driven by negotiations from the small island development cases and the Africa group – what you can term negotiation blocs. The reason for this is that the way in which climate change affects regions can be vastly different.
The upcoming COP26 (UN Climate Change Conference) in November will be crucial. A solution must be found that is best for everyone, not in the interest of a few countries. One major aspect of hope is that all countries are affected; even the most developed countries with the best infrastructure to cope against extreme weather are feeling the impact. This is one area where nations who have had historical differences – such as the USA and China – might find themselves co-operating. If the economic powerhouses are in agreement, the rest of the world will have to cooperate.
Using South Africa as an example, roughly speaking, we are only responsible for around 1% of global C02 emissions. We might argue that the developing world hasn’t had the opportunity to develop using fossil fuels unlike some developed nations. While this might be fair, the hard reality as that it is not in our interest to do so, because the impact of climate change will be tremendously felt here as in other developing nations, and our adaptive capacity and existing infrastructure [to fight climate change] is so much lower.
Under the Paris Agreement, the budget was meant to be allocated to developing economies for big infrastructure projects to make them less vulnerable to the impact of further warming and to develop from renewable sources. A big sticking point is that these promised funds never materialized as they should.
If we take Namibia’s recent discovery of oil for example; if Namibia chooses not to exploit that oil, it’s only fair that they are compensated and supported to rather build solar farms or the like with investment from developed countries; the point is that everyone contributes their fair share for their own interest.
Q: While the 1.5ºC target exists as a global average, the regional impact of climate change obviously vary very widely. What is the impact and future expected impact on an environment like southern Africa?
A: Well, we’ve already seen the regional impact of this on South Africa clearly. In a warmer world, cold fronts that usually bring winter rain to the southern African coast are already shifting toward the South Pole – there’s an increased risk of having several years in a row with low frontal rainfall – and this risk has been increasing as the planet continues to warm. The Cape Town drought of 2015-2017; the risks of such a drought to occur is already three times higher than what it should be.
During the last major El Nino event, we had a four-year drought that ended in September of 2016. In Gauteng for example, [during that drought], the Vaal Dam, which supplies around 50% of Johannesburg’s water, dropped below 25%. If you speak to Rand Water, they’ll tell you that if the water level drops below 20%, for water quality and engineering reasons, the Dam will no longer be able to supply water.
Part of our job is to consider the worst case scenarios. If we reach a global increase of 3ºC, both the maize crop and the cattle industry in southern Africa are likely to collapse, due to the combined workings of more frequent droughts and heatwaves of unprecedented intensity and duration. This is the single biggest risk for South Africa at the moment in terms of climate change, and in the next decade this risk will keep on growing. Our job is to quantify that risk and how it’s increasing, because these regional tipping points are something we need to be extremely aware of.
Q: Many people who’ve read news articles and follow the IPCC report might feel that there isn’t very much hope for change. How do you feel about this?
A: The November negotiations are going to be fascinating – they are our one big chance for a fair agreement, and there’s substantial hope that we can avoid the 2ºC increase.
There’s this assumption that people care more about their children than themselves, but if you look at our collective decisions around climate change, one can wonder if that is true, because the world we are leaving future generations will be far more harsh, and cause tremendous hardship and tragedy.
However if we do care more about the future than ourselves as a species, we need to accept the costs in the short-term so that we can have substantial benefits in the long-term. One example is that the estimated cost [for the world] to convert from fossil fuels to renewable energy will be around $130 trillion – while we accept those costs, more opportunities and investments will appear, growth in GDP due to renewables etc. When other scientists, specialists in what we call integrated assessment models, look at these scenarios, they assess that benefits can be substantial, four times the cost of moving away from fossil fuels.
What I tell my students is that the world is going to change substantially due to climate change-induced effects. There will be a revolution over the next 20 years towards renewable energy, in the South African economy and landscape, and as future environmental scientists, they have an important role to play to help South Africa understand these risks and choose the best path forwards.