The Climate Noose - Rupert Darwall with a note on Covid-19

The Coronavirus and the 1.5-degree limit
Shutting down the whole global economy is the only way of achieving a two-degree goal, the
former UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said in in the run-up to the 2015 Paris Agreement. 56 We can
now see what a global shutdown looks like. Unlike any economic bounce back from Covid-19 lock-
down, decarbonisation permits no let up; it goes on year after year, decade after decade. In a ra-
tional world, governments will prioritise economic growth over decarbonisation. Yet adoption of
the 1.5°C target was based on a PR soundbite, not reason or analysis. Two factors, however, doom
1.5 degrees and net zero. The first is the growth of non-Western emissions, as shown on the graph
on the previous page:
• From 1979, it took the Rest of the World 33 years to increase carbon dioxide emissions by 63%,
a compound average growth rate of 1.6% per year.
• There is a marked inflection point in 2002, after which it took only 12 years for the Rest of the
World's emissions to rise by 77% – a compound average growth rate of 4.9% per year – to a
level three times higher than the West’s.
The second is the return of geopolitics. In its handling of the pandemic, China – the world’s largest
emitter of greenhouse gases – has proven itself a bad-faith actor. Great-power rivalry has no place
for a multilateral process that undermines participants’ economies and their national security. At
some point, the penny will drop.