Despite all the talk, emissions will be almost 50 per cent higher in 2050, speeding up global warming and bringing tipping points closer. The US’s coercive neocolonialism trades medicines for minerals. And Australian mammals’ eyes, ears and noses help them enjoy the night.

UN projects emissions will keep increasing until 2050

The figure below (taken from the UN Environment Programme’s recently published Global Environment Outlook 7) contains what has to be the most depressing information I have presented in P&I.

The graph demonstrates that the annual global emissions of all greenhouse gases (GHGs) in 2020 was around 53 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent per year (Gt CO2-e/year). By 2050, under the Current Trends scenario, emissions are projected to be around 75 Gt CO2-e/year. And if you think that’s bad, the report says that after 2050 there will be a “slight decline towards the end of the century”. (I read about this increase in a commentary on the 1,200-page report and thought it might be a typo, so I checked for myself; it’s on page 509 if you don’t believe me.)

Most of the increase is attributable to the past and current principal culprits: emissions of CO2 from energy and industrial processes and methane.

So, business as usual for the next 75 years. All the international discussions and agreements about emissions reductions are just well-scripted hooey. As Greta Thunberg said, “Blah, blah, blah”.

The Key Messages section of the Executive Summary has been condensed to just six pages but even it contains a snake pit of distressing information. Here are some snippets:

The rate of global warming in coming decades is likely to be higher than previously projected – no wonder, if we are going to keep pumping out more GHGs.

Crossing environmental tipping points will be more likely and earlier than expected.

One million of Earth’s (known) eight billion species are threatened with extinction, some within decades.

Between 20 and 40 per cent of Earth’s land area was degraded by 2022. Between 2015 and 2019, at least 100 million hectares of productive land were degraded annually worldwide (over the period, that’s equivalent to WA, Queensland and NSW combined).

Annual solid waste exceeds two billion tonnes and will double by 2050.

These environmental crises are causing substantial damage to health, livelihoods, food, energy and water security, economies, infrastructure and basic services, increasing poverty and inequalities and decreasing life........

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