Net Zero Delusion

James Dyke, Robert Watson, and Wolfgang Knorr argue that the idea of combining emissions reductions with carbon removal technologies is dangerously misguided.

We have arrived at the painful realisation that the idea of net zero has licensed a recklessly cavalier “burn now, pay later” approach which has seen carbon emissions continue to soar.

By including carbon sinks in climate-economic models, a Pandora’s box had been opened. ... [T]he mere prospect of carbon capture and storage gave policy makers a way out of making the much needed cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead of confronting our doubts, we scientists decided to construct ever more elaborate fantasy worlds in which we would be safe. The price to pay for our cowardice: having to keep our mouths shut about the ever growing absurdity of the required planetary-scale carbon dioxide removal.

It should now be getting clear where the journey is heading. As the mirage of each magical technical solution disappears, another equally unworkable alternative [such as geoengineering] pops up to take its place.

[T]here will be some small role for a number of different carbon dioxide removal approaches. The problems come when it is assumed that these can be deployed at vast scale. This effectively serves as a blank cheque for the continued burning of fossil fuels and the acceleration of habitat destruction.

The only way to keep humanity safe is the immediate and sustained radical cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in a socially just way. ... That is the very simple acid test that must be applied to all climate policies. The time for wishful thinking is over.

Emboldening the Liar

"Cancel culture" at its finest:

Republicans voted during an internal party meeting on Wednesday morning to remove [Representative Liz] Cheney from her position as House Republican Conference chair, the third-highest rank among Republicans in the House of Representatives. They removed her via voice vote soon after the meeting commenced, meaning no member went on the record.

She got in trouble for accepting reality and expressing the truth.

Today, we face a threat America has never seen before. A former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol in an effort to steal the election has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence.

To be sure, Cheney is no friend of democracy, yet only a handful in the party can resist the Big Lie. Hopefully voters are paying attention and John Stoehr says the strategy risks blowing up in their face.

Now that Biden is president, the Republicans expect 2022 to be their year. But this dynamic depends on the incredibly short memories of voters. It depends on voters not comparing presidents but instead judging them in isolation. The Republicans, by going all-in on [Dear Leader], are threatening that dynamic entirely.

Stoehr argues Republicans are essentially at war against democracy.

[People] hear what leaders like Liz Cheney are saying, and the message is, I think, pretty simple. There is something profoundly rotten at the core of the Republican Party. There is something about the Republican Party that's against America itself.

An Urgent Call for Action

From a statement inspired by the 2021 Nobel Prize Summit and published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine:

We need to reinvent our relationship with planet Earth. The future of all life on this planet, humans and our societies included, requires us to become effective stewards of the global commons — the climate, ice, land, ocean, freshwater, forests, soils, and rich diversity of life that regulate the state of the planet, and combine to create a unique and harmonious life-support system. There is now an existential need to build economies and societies that support Earth system harmony rather than disrupt it.

Update (July 1):  A draft of next year's IPCC report was leaked to Agence France-Presse. Fiona Harvey describes a key point.

The draft warns of a series of thresholds beyond which recovery from climate breakdown may become impossible. It warns: "Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems … humans cannot."

Al Jazeera adds:

Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas – these and other devastating climate effects are accelerating and are bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.

Missed Target

A report from the Climate Action Tracker finds that the non-binding pledges to reduce emissions under the Paris Agreement will fail to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.