By: Andrea Rodgers, Senior Litigation Attorney, Our Children's Trust; Paul Rink, Climate Law Fellow, Our Children’s Trust
The cornerstone of our legal work at Our Children’s Trust is to obtain systemic, science-based solutions for children whose fundamental rights are being infringed by government conduct that causes climate change. Scientists with expertise on the physical principles underlying the climate crisis have found that preserving a stable climate requires reducing CO2 from 416 parts per million (ppm)[i] to below 350 ppm by 2100.[ii] By creating energy systems dominated by fossil fuels, governments exacerbate the dangerous climate conditions that are already harming fundamental human rights. One need only witness the deadly wildfires ravaging the West and the floods drowning the East to know the calamitous circumstances we are facing already. It is essential for advocates pursuing climate change litigation against governments, which is the work we do at Our Children’s Trust, to provide judges with the best scientific information available explaining how to preserve a stable climate system. The absence of this information leads to unfortunate jurisprudence which ultimately endorses and locks in unsafe levels of global heating and legalizes the very government conduct that is the root cause of the climate crisis. This blog post summarizes the best available scientific information that informs the litigation we pursue at Our Children’s Trust on behalf of youth.
Earth’s climate has largely remained stable for 10,000 years, resulting in predictable sea levels[iii] and productive agriculture that are the foundations of modern civilization.[iv] Because of a buildup of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere (due to human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation), more solar energy is retained in the atmosphere and less energy is released back into space. CO2, a greenhouse gas (GHG), is the primary driver (or forcer) of climate change. This excess accumulation of GHGs in our atmosphere results in an Earth energy imbalance (EEI) and thus an accumulation of heat in our climate system.[v] Because of continuing GHG emissions, EEI is increasing and amounted to 0.87 ± 0.12 watts per square meter (W/m2) during 2010–2018. This energy increase is equivalent to the calories consumed if each person in the United States ate 1.7 billion Twinkies—enough to fill 110 Olympic swimming pools. Between 2005–2019, the EEI doubled, representing an unprecedented and rapid warming of our planet. The best available science today prescribes that global atmospheric CO2 concentrations must be restored to less than 350 ppm by 2100 (with further reductions thereafter) in order to stabilize Earth’s energy balance and restore the climate system on which humanity depends.
With just the 1°C of heating from pre-industrial levels that we have experienced today, ice sheets are approaching irreversible melting,[vi] which would cause multi-meter sea level rise.[vii] NASA reports that “[r]esearch based on satellite data indicates that between 2002 and 2020, Greenland shed an average of 279 billion metric tons of ice per year, adding to global sea level rise.”[viii] The last time atmospheric CO2 was over 400 ppm, seas were 82 feet higher than today.[ix] Elevated CO2 has also caused extreme ocean warming[x] and acidification[xi] that will cause corals to “completely disappear if carbon dioxide concentrations exceed much more than today’s concentrations.”[xii]
Melting permafrost in places like the Arctic releases methane that further contributes to planetary warming,[xiii] a “feedback” that can become irreversible, even at 1.5°C of heating (roughly correlated to 430 ppm),[xiv] a level the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recognizes “is not considered ‘safe’ for most nations, communities, ecosystems, and sectors.”[xv] The concept of 1.5°C is frequently bandied about as a goal or target to arrest the worst consequences of climate change, but there is no scientific support for this. One of the lead scientists who advocated for the < 2°C or 1.5°C goal enshrined in the Paris Agreement, Sir David King, now agrees that global heating of up to 1.5°C or “well below” 2°C is dangerous and that the 350 ppm target is supported by best available science as the appropriate numeric target to which government policies should be tiered. Specifically, Sir David King has said: “So I have now changed my position. I’m now saying to everyone, I was wrong. 1.5 degrees is far too much.” “We need to get ourselves back down to 350 parts per million or less carbon dioxide equivalent.”[xvi]
Fortunately, scientists have described technologically and economically feasible pathways to meet a 350ppm target by phasing out fossil fuels in the U.S. by 2050[xvii] and improving carbon storage in forests, soils, and wetlands.[xviii] Reaching this target is not only technically and economically feasible, it is absolutely required to preserve the world as we know it for children and future generations.
A deep understanding of this scientific research has been a fundamental aspect of Our Children’s Trust’s legal advocacy for over a decade. The scientific evidence underpinning Our Children’s Trust’s legal campaigns has been presented to judicial bodies and decisionmakers in the form of sworn testimony in declarations, expert reports, depositions, and live testimony. As legal advocates representing children, we should do our best through human laws to respect the laws of nature, listen to the science, and seek to ensure a safe and healthy world for children and future generations who will walk this Earth long after we are gone.
Sources:
[i] NOAA global average CO2 concentration.
[ii] James Hansen, et al., Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim? (2008); James Hansen, et al., Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature (2013) [hereinafter Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”]; James Hansen, et al., Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: Evidence From Paleoclimate Data, Climate Modeling, and Modern Observations That 2ºC Global Warming Could Be Dangerous (2016) [hereinafter Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms]; James Hansen, et al., Young People’s Burden: Requirement of Negative CO2 Emissions (2017); Veron, J., et al., The Coral Reef Crisis: The Critical Importance of <350 ppm CO2 (2009); Frieler, K., et al., Limiting global warming to 2 ◦C is unlikely to save most coral reefs (2012).
[iii] Hansen, Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”.
[iv] James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren (2009).
[v] Karina von Schuckmann et al., Heat Stored in the Earth System: Where Does the Energy Go?, 12 Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2013, 2014–15 (2020).
[vi] Zemp et al., Global glacier mass changes and their contributions to sea-level rise from 1961-2016. Nature (2019); B. Menounos, Heterogeneous Changes in Western North American Glaciers Linked to Decadal Variability in Zonal Wind Strength, Geophysical Research Letters (2018).
[vii] Hansen, Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change,” at 13; see also Hansen, Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms.
[viii] https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/264/video-greenland-ice-mass-loss-2002-2020/#:~:text=The%20Greenland%20ice%20sheet's%20mass,to%20global%20sea%20level%20rise.
[ix] Wuebbles, D.J., et al. Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I (pg. 53) U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2017.
[x] Hansen, Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change,” at 1; Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2013); Cheng et al., How fast are the oceans warming? 363 Science 128 (2019).
[xi] Hughes et al., Global warming impairs stock-recruitment dynamics of corals, Nature (2019); Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove, et al., Impacts of 1.5ºC Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, What is Ocean Acidification?.
[xii] Foster v. Wash. Dep’t of Ecology, No. 14-2-25295-1 SEA, 1 (Wash. Super. Ct. Aug. 24, 2015) (Decl. of Ove Hoegh-Guldberg in Support of Petitioners’ Response to Court’s Aug. 12, 2015 Show Cause Order) (Aug. 24, 2015).
[xiii] Hansen, Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change,” at 15.
[xiv] IPCC, Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014); Hansen, Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change,”at 13. See also Hansen, Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms.
[xv] Roy, J., et al., Sustainable Development, Poverty Eradication and Reducing Inequalities. In Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty at 447 (2018) (emphasis added).
[xvi] The Do One Better Podcast with Alberto Lidji, Sir David King Founder & Chair Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge University, https://www.lidji.org/sir-david-king.
[xvii] B. Haley et al., 350 ppm pathways for the United States (2019). See also Mark Z. Jacobson et al., 100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight (WWS) All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for the 50 United States, 8 Energy & Envtl. Sci. 2093 (2015) (for plans on how the United States and over 100 other countries can transition to a 100% renewable energy economy see www.thesolutionsproject.org); see also Arjun Makhijani, Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy (2007); For a graphic depicting the overview of the plan for the United States see: https://thesolutionsproject.org/why-clean-energy/#/map/countries/location/USA
[xviii] Benson W. Griscom et al., Natural Climate Solutions, Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (2017); Joseph E. Fargione et al., Natural Climate Solutions for the United States, Science Advances (2018).