A major climate report will say coal-generated electricity must be phased out globally by 2050 if the world is to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of global warming, including the total destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.
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The report prepared by the United Nations body for climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, distils more than 6000 scientific references – including those from Australian researchers – and will outline the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
The IPCC releases reports regularly, but the latest version – due out at midday on Monday – has been billed as one of its most controversial in recent years because it is expected to call for swift, unprecedented cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
The findings are likely to put pressure on governments around the world to prioritise efforts to decarbonise their economies. This includes the Morrison government, which is riven by internal tensions over climate change policy and has been condemned by supporters of the Paris climate agreement. Australia has vowed to reduce greenhouse emissions, based on 2005 levels, by 26 per cent before 2030.
Laurence Tubiana, a key architect of the landmark Paris climate deal, last week said the Coalition’s inaction on greenhouse gas emissions "goes against the science”.
Leaked drafts of the report suggest global warming will exceed the critical 1.5 degrees threshold by 2040 unless rapid and radical action is taken across all sectors of the economy, including energy, transport, agriculture and the built environment.
The summary for policymakers, to be released on Monday, is expected to warn that coal use for electricity must be virtually eliminated by 2050 if the limit of 1.5 degrees is to be met. The use of natural gas would also decline substantially as electricity markets transitioned to renewable, low- or zero-emissions technology.
A source close to the talks said Australian officials sought to remove references to phasing out coal from the final version of the document when government negotiators joined scientists and diplomats from around the world in South Korea last week.
Fairfax Media was told Australia joined Japan, South Korea, Poland and Estonia in calling for the change, but the group later abandoned the push.
However a spokeswoman for Environment Minister Melissa Price said the claim was “untrue”.
Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter, and the expected findings are at odds with the Coalition government’s insistence that coal will play an essential role in the nation’s economic future.
The government is without a policy to reduce carbon emissions from the electricity sector following the dumping of the National Energy Guarantee, and has strongly backed a proposal by Indian mining giant Adani to build what would be Australia’s largest coal mine in regional Queensland. Labor has voiced concerns over the mine, but its position has shifted several times and it has not committed to cancelling Adani's approvals if it wins office.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has indicated his government would not increase Australia’s target under the Paris accord, despite it being incompatible with the treaty’s efforts to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees.
Labor has pledged to cut emissions across the economy by 45 per cent. Launching a new action plan on Sunday ahead of the federal election, leader Bill Shorten reiterated the party's goal for 50 per cent renewables in the energy mix by 2030.
"If you don’t care about doing the right thing by the environment, then you actually have no right to be the government of Australia," he said.
Will Steffen, a member of the Climate Council and a professor at the Australian National University, contributed to the IPCC report.
He told Fairfax Media the report would find the international community has “virtually almost lost the opportunities that were there for the last couple of decades” to avert the most serious climate change impacts.
“We [must] change course radically and make rapid emissions reductions ... this policy needs to take precedence over normal economic considerations,” he said.
Economic growth need not be constrained, but "there are going to be some big players who are losers, like the fossil fuel industry".
“The problem is you are fighting some entrenched ideologies about how economies ought to operate and some very powerful interest groups," he said.
Leaked drafts of the report said the loss of Arctic sea ice and the degradation of coral reefs would be significantly worse at 2 degrees than 1.5 degrees. A source told Fairfax Media that the final text would say a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees would irrevocably damage the world's reefs, and an increase of 2 degrees would all but obliterate them.
World-leading coral reef expert Terry Hughes said despite the grim predictions “there is certainly hope ... if we get our act together in time”.
“There is a narrowing window of opportunity to really knuckle down and achieve 1.5 degrees,” he said.
“If we delay action on reducing greenhouse gases for another decade or two we will sail past 1.5 degrees and probably pass 2 degrees so there is no time to lose.”
The IPCC report was commissioned as part of the Paris talks. It will inform a major international climate change conference in Katowice, Poland, in December, where governments will assess the Paris climate treaty.
