If the UK assumed a "fair carbon budget", net zero by 2050 would bust it completely. We have to go “down the slide”
Anthony Gormley’s iron figures in the waters of Liverpool. Photo by Donald Judge
Tim Jackson is a highly respected eco-macroeconomist (and also an eloquent essayist - see the opening link for his work on this site). It’s his former role that’s to the fore in this CUSP paper. It sets out very starkly that the UK’s overall projected climate deadline - net zero carbon and emissions by 2050 - is far too late.
The recent IPCC report spoke of a ‘remaining carbon budget’ - the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that can be emitted into the atmosphere from now until net zero is reached. Jackson suggests that the UK should accept the concept of a “fair carbon budget” - meaning one that acknowledges both the damage the UK has inflicted on the biosphere historically, as well as currently.
Calculated on that basis, the overall number of tonnes of carbon in the UK’s budget reduces from 2.8 Gigatonnes of CO2, in Jackson’s estimate, to 2.4 GtCO2.
That means the deadlines have to become much sooner. It’s best illustrated by the graphs Jackson provides - see below.
Four scenarios for UK emissions
Four scenarios for UK consumption
We’ve taken to calling the path required to avoid runaway climate change, seen in so many climate science pathways, to go “down the slide”. Here, in Jackson’s visualisation, and especially from the consumerist perspective, we see two kinds of vertiginous drops (straight and curved).
It is worth reading this piece carefully. If we accept the ethical size of our carbon budget, says Jackson, we should be aiming at 2030-35 as our net zero targets, not 2050. There is also a presumption that we will have “negative emissions technologies” - carbon capture - that will actively take carbon out of the atmosphere.
As our recent article on this technology pointed out, we can’t wait on market incentives to develop carbon capture sufficiently - it implies a level of public/state commitment that doesn't seem to have much political possibility of coming about (though some are struggling towards it). So hard reductions in emissions and consumption - which we know we can do - must be considered.
Jackson concludes:
Ultimately, the setting of a target date depends on the position a country takes in relation to its global responsibility and the speed with which it is prepared to take action to reduce emissions to net zero. Despite the challenges associated with such extensive emission reductions, the lessons from this analysis are clear.
There is every indication that the current UK net zero target of 2050 is insufficient either to reflect our global responsibility - or to motivate the early action that is needed, if the carbon budget is not to be exhausted long before the target date.
In summary, the moral and prudential case for the UK to adopt a zero target sooner than 2050—perhaps as soon as 2030—appears to be a very strong one.
If Jackson and others (like Jason Hickel) are correct, then the deep cultural, social and psychological shifts required to go “down the slide” are as important as any intergovernmental targets or integrated “greening” of infrastructure and systems - if not more so. The multitudinous means to enable those shifts, both existing and imagined, is what we are constantly trying to map, explore, curate and innovate at The Alternative UK.
Update, from David Wallace-Wells: