Global warming of 2C would see “extensive, long-term [and] essentially irreversible” losses from the Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers, warns a new report.
It would also lead to polar oceans that are “ice-free” in summer and suffering “essentially permanent corrosive ocean acidification”, the report says.
The 2023 “state of the cryosphere” report from the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) lays out the impacts on Earth’s frozen land and seas from sustained warming at 2C and the “catastrophic global damage” that would result.
These impacts would include “potentially rapid, irreversible sea level rise from the Earth’s ice sheets”, the report says, with a “compelling number of new studies” all pointing to thresholds of sustained ice loss for both Greenland and parts of Antarctica at well-below 2C.
This would commit the world to “between 12 and 20 metres” of sea level rise “if 2C becomes the new constant”.
Holding global warming of 2C would also not be enough to “prevent extensive permafrost thaw”, the authors say, bringing additional warming from the resulting CO2 and methane emissions. A 2C world would also see “widespread negative impacts on key fisheries and species” in polar and near-polar oceans.
First published in 2021, the focus of this year’s annual review on how 2C of warming is “too high” shows that the aspirational limit of 1.5C in the Paris Agreement “is not merely preferable to 2C”, but “the only option”, the report says.
The ICCI’s Dr James Kirkham, chief science advisor at the Ambition on Melting Ice high-level group, tells Carbon Brief that the conclusion that 2C is too high for the cryosphere “won’t come as a surprise at all” to most scientists.
With COP28 in Dubai coming later this month, Kirkham says it is time to make “crystal clear” that “2C must now be seen as an unacceptable outcome for the world because of the impacts from the cryosphere”.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief unpacks the report’s findings for the world’s ice sheets, mountain glaciers, permafrost, sea ice and polar oceans.
- How can ‘very low’ emissions slow impacts on the cryosphere?
- Is the ‘true guardrail’ for preventing dangerous sea level rise actually 1C?
- Is today’s climate already too warm to preserve some mountain glaciers?
- What impact could permafrost emissions have on the carbon budget?
- What are the prospects for sea ice at the Earth’s poles?
- What do rising temperatures and CO2 mean for the polar oceans?
How can ‘very low’ emissions slow impacts on the cryosphere?
Past emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) have “pushed the planet into a risk zone”, the report warns, with very visible impacts on the cryosphere:
“Today’s 1.2C above pre-industrial already has caused massive drops in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice; loss of glacier ice in all regions across the planet; accelerating loss from both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets; extensive permafrost thaw; and rising polar ocean acidification.”
The implications of these changes stretch beyond the Earth’s poles and mountain regions, the authors note, from accelerating sea level rise and disturbed ocean currents to declining water resources and greater carbon emissions.
Nearly all of these changes “cannot be reversed on human timescales”, the authors warn, and they will continue to grow with each additional 10th of a degree of temperature rise.
Kirkham likens the way the cryosphere responds to warming to a “bowling ball once thrown”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“The changes will continue to roll on long after its initial climatic push because the system has momentum.
“[This means] that many of the long-term challenges associated with the cryosphere are on the cusp of being locked in by decisions made by policymakers in the next few years, and the awareness in the policy world of this ‘lock in’ appears lost right now.”
While the aim of restricting global warming to “well-below” 2C is set out in the Paris Agreement, the report says the “physical reality” of the cryosphere’s response to warming means these changes “would become devastating” well before 2C is reached.
However, warming of 2C is not a “predetermined outcome”, the authors say, arguing that “only a strong, emergency scale course-correction towards 1.5C…can avert higher temperatures, to slow and eventually halt these cryosphere impacts within adaptable levels”.
A “very low” future emissions pathway that would keep warming within, or very close to, 1.5C – the more stringent part of the Paris goal – remains “physically, technologically and economically feasible”, the report says.
This is the “SSP1-1.9” pathway from the set of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) used in the sixth assessment report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Under this pathway (see table below), fossil fuel emissions decline 40% by 2030 and global warming peaks at 1.6C before declining to around 1.4C by the end of the century.
| Emissions pathway | Pathway name | Median global warming in 2100 | CO2 levels in 2100 (parts per million) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very low | SSP1-1.9 | 1.4C (after brief 1.5C overshoot) | 440 ppm |
| Low | SSP1-2.6 | 1.8C (and declining) | 450 ppm |
| Intermediate | SSP2-4.5 | 2.7C (and rising) | 650 ppm |
| High | SSP3-7.0 | 3.6C (and rising) | 800 ppm |
| Very high | SSP5-8.5 | 4.4C (and rising) | 1,000+ ppm |
IPCC AR6 emissions pathways. Credit: ICCI (2023)
Under very low emissions, the Earth’s cryosphere would “generally [begin] to stabilise in 2040-80”, the report says:
“Slow CO2 and methane emissions from permafrost continue for one-two centuries, then cease. Snowpack stabilises, though at lower levels than today. Steep glacier loss continues for several decades, but slows by 2100; some glaciers still will be lost, but others begin to show regrowth. Arctic sea ice stabilises slightly above complete summer loss. Year-round corrosive waters for shelled life are limited to scattered polar and near-polar regions for several thousand years.”
In addition, while “ice sheet loss and sea level rise will continue for several hundred to thousands of years due to ocean warming”, the authors say, it will “likely not exceed three metres globally and occur over centuries”.
All other emissions pathways, including “low” emissions where warming peaks at 1.8C, would “result in far greater committed global loss and damage from [the] cryosphere, continuing over several centuries”, the report warns.
Is the ‘true guardrail’ for preventing dangerous sea level rise actually 1C?
The Earth’s ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica together hold enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65 metres. The risks of significant amounts of this ice being lost irreversibly on human timescales “increase as temperature and rates of warming rise”, the authors say.
When the ice sheets are in equilibrium, melting ice and the breaking off of icebergs are balanced by mass gain through snowfall. However, “observations now confirm that this equilibrium has been lost” on Greenland, West Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula and potentially for portions of East Antarctica, the report says.
This is illustrated in the maps below, which show the gain (blue) and loss (red) in ice on Greenland (left) and Antarctica (right) between 2003 and 2019.
Today, the loss of ice from Greenland is “three times what it was 20 years ago”, the report notes, while Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise is “six times greater than it was 30 years ago”.
The report paints a bleak picture for the future of both ice sheets. It notes that a “compelling number of new studies” all point to thresholds where irreversible melt becomes inevitable for both Greenland and parts of Antarctica at well below 2C of warming.
This means that were 2C of warming to become “the new constant Earth temperature”, the planet would be committed to between 12 and 20 metres of sea level rise.
For example, evidence from proxy data suggests that, in Earth’s distant past, such thresholds have occurred at around 1C for West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula and between 1.5C and 2C for Greenland, the report says. (These contain enough ice to raise sea levels by around five and seven metres, respectively.) It adds:
“It should be noted that changes around past thresholds were driven by slow increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, but were paced by slow changes in Earth’s orbit – unlike today’s rapid, human-caused rates of change.”
As a result, “many ice sheet scientists now believe that by 2C, nearly all of Greenland, much of West Antarctica, and even vulnerable portions of East Antarctica will be triggered to very long-term, inexorable sea level rise”.
This occurs because a warmer ocean “will hold heat longer than the atmosphere”, in addition to “a number of self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms, so that it takes much longer for ice sheets to regrow (tens of thousands of years) than to lose their ice”.
This means that “once ice sheet melt accelerates due to higher temperatures, it cannot be stopped or reversed for many thousands of years” – even if temperatures stabilise or even decrease should the world reduce carbon emissions to net-zero, the authors warn.
Lowering sea level rise from newly reached highs would thus “not occur until temperatures go well below pre-industrial, initiating a slow ice sheet regrowth”, the report says:
“Overshooting the Paris Agreement [goal] would therefore cause essentially permanent loss and damage to the Earth’s ice sheets, with widespread impacts that are not reversible on human timescales.”
The report includes the chart below from a 2023 study, which highlights the long-term consequences of global warming. It shows projected global temperature change (top) and the implications for sea level rise (bottom) out to 2150 under four different SSPs.
Under “intermediate” emissions (SSP2-4.5, pink line), which most closely matches the path that the world is on today, sea levels continue to rise. Only “very low” emissions (SSP1-1.9, blue line) would slow and stabilise sea level rise, the report says, “preserving many coastal communities and giving others time to adapt”.
In the face of this evidence, “for a growing number of ice sheet experts”, the true “guardrail” to prevent dangerous levels and rates of sea level rise is “not 2C or even 1.5C, but 1C above pre-industrial”, the report concludes.
Staying as close as possible to the 1.5C limit will “allow us to return more quickly to the 1C level”, the authors say, “drastically slowing global impacts from ice sheet loss and especially West Antarctic ice sheet collapse”.
This would “reduce the risk of locking in significant amounts of long-term, irreversible sea level rise”, the report says. It would also “provide low-lying nations and communities more time to adapt through sustainable development, although some level of managed retreat from coastlines in the long-term is tragically inevitable”.
For world leaders, not committing to reducing emissions in line with the 1.5C limit is “de facto making a decision to erase many coastlines, displacing hundreds of millions of people – perhaps much sooner than we think”, the authors warn.
Is today’s climate already too warm to preserve some mountain glaciers?
Nearly all glaciers in the north Andes, east Africa and Indonesia – along with most mid-latitude glaciers outside the Himalaya and polar regions – could disappear if the 2C warming threshold is breached, the report warns.
Many of these glaciers are “disappearing too rapidly to be saved” even in the present climate and could be gone by 2050, while those large enough to survive the century have “already passed a point of no return”, according to the report’s latest projections.
The figure below shows projections of how much ice glaciers in tropical regions would retain, on average, over the next few centuries under different warming levels in 2100. The lines show the impact of warming by 10ths of a degree between 1.4C and 3C.
At 2C, even the Himalayas are slated to lose around half of today’s ice on average, the report estimates. In a very high emissions scenario, 70-80% of the current glacier volume in the Hindu Kush Himalaya could disappear by 2100, the report says, while low emissions would limit glacier loss to 30%.
Without human-induced warming, glaciers in the northern Andes could have served as a reliable source of water for “hundreds of thousands” of years, the report states. Their loss stands to particularly impact villages in northern Peru, Chile and Bolivia and major cities such as La Paz.
This threat to water security is “one of the greatest challenges posed by a melting cryosphere in a 2C world”, Dr Kirkham tells Carbon Brief, “especially in Asia where freshwater sourced from snow and ice provides a lifeline to over 2 billion people”. He adds:
“This loss of water will even impact some downstream countries that do not contain any snow and ice at all, such as Bangladesh, especially in years when the timing of the monsoon is unreliable.”
Mid-latitude glaciers in the Alps, the Rockies, the southern Andes, Patagonia, Scandinavia and New Zealand are also seeing severe losses.
The report quotes new findings in 2023 showing that the Swiss Alps lost 10% of its glacial ice in just two years over 2022-23, attributed especially to heatwaves, while the Andes witnessed “what may have been the most extreme heatwave on the planet in 2023” in winter.
Warmer temperatures at higher altitudes mean what should be snow is now falling as hazardous extreme rainfall, while other mountain areas face “snow droughts”.
The report finds that most glacier-covered regions outside the Himalaya and the poles have already passed a period of “peak water”, a point at which water availability will only decline each season.
Recovering lost glaciers could take hundreds to thousands of years and temperatures well below the records being set today, the authors note.
However, a low emissions scenario could limit glacier loss in the Himalaya to 30%, with steeper emission cuts stabilising high mountain Asia’s snowpack and glaciers. Some glaciers could eventually even begin to return, the report says.
Rapid cuts consistent with 1.5C of warming could preserve twice as much ice in Central Asia and the southern Andes, the report estimates.
This could benefit vulnerable communities that depend most on glacial water runoff for drinking water and subsistence agriculture while buying them time to adapt to dangerous climate impacts. For instance, one study cited by the report estimates that 15 million people across the world and especially in high mountain Asia and Peru are at risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).
A very low emissions pathway could have benefits for cities and economies beyond agriculture, the report notes. The megacities of Delhi, Los Angeles, Marrakech and Kathmandu are all dependent on meltwater, to a degree, while new research shows growing climate-driven threats to hydropower projects in high mountain Asia due to retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, GLOFs, avalanches and landslides.
Dealing with the changing water supply from glaciers and snow “may render many of these investments defunct before some of the projects are completed”, warns Kirkham.
Countries including Japan, the US and Switzerland also stand to lose significant revenues from snow-based tourism, while also being exposed to increased risk of wildfires and mudslides linked to the lack of snow cover.
The figure below contrasts the state of Switzerland’s Great Aletsch glacier today – the largest glacier in the Alps – with projections under current emissions and very low emissions scenarios in 2060 and 2100.
However, if warming were limited to 1.5C, the annual snowpack could stabilise – even if at a lower average amount than today. It adds:
“This visible snow and ice preservation, and its benefits for freshwater resources, may be one of the earliest and visible signs to humanity that steps towards low emissions have meaningful results.”
Dr Miriam Jackson, senior cryosphere specialist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and author on the mountain glaciers chapter of the report, tells Carbon Brief:
“This latest cryosphere report shows, more clearly than ever, that we have a choice. We can continue as we are now and see 80% of glacier loss by the end of this century. Or we can follow a very low emissions pathway, where glaciers and snow cover in high mountain Asia stabilise and eventually begin to return. Millions of people’s livelihoods depend on us making the second choice.”
What impact could permafrost emissions have on the carbon budget?
A global temperature rise of 2C – “and even 1.5C” – is too high to prevent the widespread thawing of an icy layer spread across more than one-fifth of the northern hemisphere’s land, the report says.
Permafrost is a mixture of soil, rock and other materials on or under the Earth’s surface that has been frozen for at least two years. It stores a huge amount of ancient, organic carbon.
Research shows that permafrost areas are rapidly warming and, as a result, thawing. This process releases some of the stored carbon into the atmosphere as CO2 and methane, further fuelling global warming. This is known as a “positive feedback”.
“These emissions are irreversibly set in motion”, the report says, and will not slow for one-to-two centuries even if permafrost re-freezes at a later point.
This means that permafrost emissions can further diminish the remaining global “carbon budget” – the amount of CO2 that can still be released while keeping warming below global limits of 1.5 or 2C.
The report says that carbon budget calculations “must take these indirect human-caused emissions from permafrost thaw into account…not just through [to] 2100, but well into the future”. It adds:
“Permafrost emissions today and in the future are on the same scale as large industrial countries, but can be minimised if the planet remains at lower temperatures.”
The chart below shows the impact of permafrost emissions (pink shaded areas) on the remaining carbon budget (red bars) to stay within 1.5C and 2C of warming. Taking permafrost emissions into account significantly reduces the budget estimates, the report says.
Prof Julie Brigham-Grette, the geosciences graduate programme director at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author on the report, says she is “very concerned” about permafrost thaw. She tells Carbon Brief:
“The bottom line is that we must reduce fossil fuel use urgently to slow down the demise of glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost, snow cover, sea ice…The climate crisis is real and it’s a threat-multiplier to social and political systems around the world.”
Currently, at 1.2C of warming, the annual emissions from permafrost are about the same as Japan – the sixth largest emitting country, based on 2019 figures, the report says.
Keeping temperatures below 1.4C would prevent “most additional new thaw”, the report says. But even at 1.5C, scientists predict a 40% loss of near-surface permafrost areas by 2100.
At a 2C global temperature rise, permafrost thawing and associated emissions would continue to climb.
At temperatures of 3C or higher by the end of this century, “much of the Arctic, and nearly all mountain” permafrost would reach the “thawed state”, where it would produce the equivalent of the combined annual GHG emissions of the US and the EU in 2019, for centuries, the report says.
As much as half of recent permafrost thaw occurred during extreme temperature events that were up to 12C above average, the authors say.
But the report notes that current global climate models do not include these “abrupt thaw” processes in their predictions. Scientists are “still working on these phenomena and what it means for emission rates”, Brigham-Grette says.
Studies analysed in the report found that, overall, permafrost thaw will have a number of “cascading impacts” with “severe” effects already being felt in the Arctic. The report adds:
“Thawing permafrost is causing the loss of Arctic lands, threatening cultural and subsistence resources, and damaging infrastructure, like roads, pipelines and houses, as the ground sinks unevenly beneath them.”
The “only means available” to reduce the problem is to “keep as much permafrost as possible in its current frozen state” and limiting global warming to 1.5C, according to the report.
What are the prospects for sea ice at the Earth’s poles?
Sea ice at the Earth’s poles undergoes an annual cycle of melting and regrowth. In the Arctic, sea ice melts during the warmer summer months towards its September minimum, before regrowing in the colder winter months. However, as the planet warms, sea ice extent at the September minimum is declining.
The area of Arctic sea ice that “survives” the summer has declined by at least 40% since 1979, the report says. Furthermore, it says, the Arctic ocean has “become dominated by a thinner, faster moving covering of seasonal ice, which typically doesn’t survive the summer”, as opposed to thick, multiyear sea ice.
The authors add:
“Ninety percent of Arctic sea ice loss can be directly attributed to anthropogenic emissions. A threshold has now been crossed in which ice-free conditions in the month of September will occur at times even with very low emissions, and with much slower and later surface freeze-up.”
There is widespread public and scientific interest in when the Arctic might see its first “ice-free” summer. The report highlights a recent study that suggests Arctic sea ice is more sensitive to GHG emissions than was described in the IPCC AR6 report.
The figure below shows projections of September Arctic sea ice area for different emissions scenarios. The different coloured lines indicate different models and the horizontal red line shows the threshold for a “practically ice-free” Arctic, which is one million square kilometres of ice. The lowest emission scenario is shown on the left and the highest emission scenario on the right.
The graphic shows that only the SSP1-1.9 scenario results in “sea ice recovery above ice-free conditions”. At 2C warming, the Arctic Ocean will be sea ice-free in summer “almost every year”, the report says.
The report concludes that the occurrence of the first ice-free Arctic summer is “unpredictable”, but “inevitable”, adding that it is likely to occur at least once before 2050 even under a “very low” emissions scenario.
Dr Zachary Labe is a postdoctoral research associate at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Program at Princeton University, and was not involved in writing the report.
He praises the report, but adds:
“There are countless studies that have evaluated future Arctic sea ice trajectories using models and emergent constraint-like methods, so I advise caution in overly relying on mostly one new study.”
At the Earth’s other pole, Antarctic sea ice saw record-breaking melt in 2023 setting a summer minimum in February 2023. “The unprecedented reduction in Antarctic sea ice extent since 2016 represents a regime shift to a new state of inevitable decline caused by ocean warming,” the authors say.
According to the report, sea ice projections around Antarctica are “considerably less certain” than those in the Arctic. However, the authors say the record-low conditions in 2023 “indicate that its threshold for complete summer sea ice loss might be even lower than for the Arctic”.
The authors also highlight recent research that found thousands of emperor penguin chicks died because of the early breakup of Antarctic sea ice in 2022.
“Perhaps more so than for any other part of the cryosphere, 2C is far too high to prevent extensive sea ice loss at both poles, with severe feedbacks to global weather and climate,” the authors conclude.
What do rising temperatures and CO2 mean for the polar oceans?
The world’s oceans absorb around one-quarter of all human-produced CO2, which reacts with seawater to produce a weak acid in a process called ocean acidification.
Rates of ocean acidification are currently faster than they have been at any point in the past 300m years, the report finds. Polar waters in the Arctic and Southern oceans have absorbed up to 60% of the carbon taken up by the world’s oceans so far, because colder and fresher waters can hold more carbon, it notes, adding:
“The Arctic Ocean appears to be most sensitive: already today, it has large regions of persistent corrosive waters.”
In 2008, a group of scientists identified atmospheric CO2 levels of 450 parts per million (ppm) as an important threshold for “serious global ocean acidification”, according to the report. This atmospheric CO2 threshold corresponds to around 1.5C warming, it says.
However, it says that current national pledges to reduce emissions under the Paris Agreement – even if completely fulfilled – will result in CO2 levels above 500ppm, resulting in temperatures of around 2.1C.
The maps below show ocean acidification in scenarios of 3-4C (top) and a 1.5C (bottom) of warming by 2100. Red shading shows “undersaturated aragonite conditions” – a measure of ocean acidification meaning that shelled organisms have difficulty building or maintaining their shells. Darker red indicates greater levels of ocean acidification.
“There is currently no practical way for humans to reverse ocean acidification,” the authors warn, adding that it will take some 30-70,000 years to bring acidification and its impacts back to pre-industrial levels.
As polar oceans become more acidic, they are also warming at an “unusually rapid” rate, the report warns. The authors note that since 1982, summer surface water temperatures in the Arctic have increased by around 2C – mainly due to sea-ice loss that allows the sun’s rays to hit the water, and an inflow of warmer water from lower latitudes.
The map below shows the change in sea surface temperature over 1993-2021. Red indicates warming and blue indicates cooling, while the white at the highest polar latitudes is due to incomplete data for this period.
The map shows that near-polar waters such as the Barents Sea have warmed “extensively” over the past two decades. The colder patch in the south of Greenland is an exception which is partly due to cold freshwater being added as the Greenland ice sheet melts, it adds.
The authors add that increased run-off from glaciers, ice sheets and rivers is also affecting global ocean circulation, which could stall ocean currents such as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
The report also warns that the dual impacts of ocean acidification and warming could have severe impacts for polar biodiversity, adding that “polar waters contain some of the world’s richest fisheries and most diverse marine ecosystems”.
Over the past decade, many polar species have experienced “lethal” temperatures which have caused mass-die offs, the report warns.
It also highlights the dangers of ocean acidification, including harm to key ocean-dwelling organisms which could “cascade” up the food chain. “Compound events combining marine heatwaves and extreme acidification have already caused population crashes even at today’s 1.2C,” the authors say.
The report concludes:
“2C will result in year-round, essentially permanent corrosive conditions in extensive regions of Earth’s polar and some near-polar seas; with widespread negative impacts on key fisheries and species.”
The post Q&A: Warming of 2C would trigger ‘catastrophic’ loss of world’s ice, new report says appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: Warming of 2C would trigger ‘catastrophic’ loss of world’s ice, new report says
In 2026, the dangers of fossil fuel dependence have been laid bare like never before. The illegal invasion of Iran has brought pain and destruction to millions across the Middle East and triggered a global energy crisis impacting us all. Communities in the Pacific have been hit especially hard by rising fuel prices, and Australians have seen their cost-of-living woes deepen.
Such moments of crisis and upheaval can lead to positive transformation. But only when leaders act with courage and foresight.
There is no clearer statement of a government’s plans and priorities for the nation than its budget — how it plans to raise money, and what services, communities, and industries it will invest in.
As we count down the days to the 2026-27 Federal Budget, will the Albanese Government deliver a budget for our times? One that starts breaking the shackles of fossil fuels, accelerates the shift to clean energy, protects nature, and sees us work together with other countries towards a safer future for all? Or one that doubles down on coal and gas, locks in more climate chaos, and keeps us beholden to the whims of tyrants and billionaires.
Here’s what we think the moment demands, and what we’ll be looking out for when Treasurer Jim Chalmers steps up to the dispatch box on 12 May.
1. Stop fuelling the fire
2. Make big polluters pay
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
4. Build the industries of the future
5. Build community resilience
6. Be a better neighbour
7. Protect nature
1. Stop fuelling the fire
In mid-April, Pacific governments and civil society met to redouble their efforts towards a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific. Moving beyond coal, oil and gas is fundamental to limiting warming to 1.5°C — a survival line for vulnerable communities and ecosystems. And as our Head of Pacific, Shiva Gounden, explained, it is “also a path of liberation that frees us from expensive, extractive and polluting fossil fuel imports and uplifts our communities”.
Pacific countries are at the forefront of growing global momentum towards a just transition away from fossil fuels, and it is way past time for Australia to get with the program. It is no longer a question of whether fossil fuel extraction will end, but whether that end will be appropriately managed and see communities supported through the transition, or whether it will be chaotic and disruptive.
So will this budget support the transition away from fossil fuels, or will it continue to prop up coal and gas?
When it comes to sensible moves the government can make right now, one stands out as a genuine low hanging fruit. Mining companies get a full rebate of the excise (or tax) that the rest of us pay on diesel fuel. This lowers their operating costs and acts as a large, ongoing subsidy on fossil fuel production — to the tune of $11 billion a year!
Greenpeace has long called for coal and gas companies to be removed from this outdated scheme, and for the billions in savings to be used to support the clean energy transition and to assist communities with adapting to the impacts of climate change. Will we see the government finally make this long overdue change, or will it once again cave to the fossil fuel lobby?
2. Make big polluters pay
While our communities continue to suffer the escalating costs of climate-fuelled disasters, our Government continues to support a massive expansion of Australia’s export gas industry. Gas is a dangerous fossil fuel, with every tonne of Australian gas adding to the global heating that endangers us all.
Moreover, companies like Santos and Woodside pay very little tax for the privilege of digging up and selling Australians’ natural endowment of fossil gas. Remarkably, the Government currently raises more tax from beer than from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) — the main tax on gas profits.
Momentum has been building to replace or supplement the PRRT with a 25% tax on gas exports. This could raise up to $17 billion a year — funds that, like savings from removing the diesel tax rebate for coal and gas companies, could be spent on supporting the clean energy transition and assisting communities with adapting to worsening fires, floods, heatwaves and other impacts of climate change.
As politicians arrive in Canberra for budget week, they will be confronted by billboards calling for a fair tax on gas exports. The push now has the support of dozens of organisations and a growing number of politicians. Let’s hope the Treasurer seizes this rare window for reform.
3. Support everyone to be part of the solution
As the price of petrol and diesel rises, electric vehicles (EVs) are helping people cut fuel use and save money. However, while EV sales have jumped since the invasion of Iran sent fuel prices rising, they still only make up a fraction of total new car sales. This budget should help more Australians switch to electric vehicles and, even more importantly, enable more Australians to get around by bike, on foot, and on public transport. This means maintaining the EV discount, investing in public and active transport, and removing tax breaks for fuel-hungry utes and vans.
Millions of Australians already enjoy the cost-saving benefits of rooftop solar, batteries, and getting off gas. This budget should enable more households, and in particular those on lower incomes, to access these benefits. This means maintaining the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, and building on the Household Energy Upgrades Fund.
4. Build the industries of the future
If we’re to transition away from fossil fuels, we need to be building the clean industries of the future.
No state is more pivotal to Australia’s energy and industrial transformation than Western Australia. The state has unrivaled potential for renewable energy development and for replacing fossil fuel exports with clean exports like green iron. Such industries offer Western Australia the promise of a vibrant economic future, and for Australia to play an outsized positive role in the world’s efforts to reduce emissions.
However, realising this potential will require focussed support from the Federal Government. Among other measures, Greenpeace has recommended establishing the Australasian Green Iron Corporation as a joint venture between the Australian and Western Australian governments, a key trading partner, a major iron ore miner and steel makers. This would unite these central players around the complex task of building a large-scale green iron industry, and unleash Western Australia’s potential as a green industrial powerhouse.
5. Build community resilience
Believe it or not, our Government continues to spend far more on subsidising fossil fuel production — and on clearing up after climate-fuelled disasters — than it does on helping communities and industries reduce disaster costs through practical, proven methods for building their resilience.
Last year, the Government estimated that the cost of recovery from disasters like the devastating 2022 east coast floods on 2019-20 fires will rise to $13.5 billion. For contrast, the Government’s Disaster Ready Fund – the main national source of funding for disaster resilience – invests just $200 million a year in grants to support disaster preparedness and resilience building. This is despite the Government’s own National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) estimating that for every dollar spent on disaster risk reduction, there is a $9.60 return on investment.
By redirecting funds currently spent on subsidising fossil fuel production, the Government can both stop incentivising climate destruction in the first place, and ensure that Australian communities and industries are better protected from worsening climate extremes.
No communities have more to lose from climate damage, or carry more knowledge of practical solutions, than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The budget should include a dedicated First Nations climate adaptation fund, ensuring First Nations communities can develop solutions on their own terms, and access the support they need with adapting to extreme heat, coastal erosion and other escalating challenges.
6. Be a better neighbour
The global response to climate change depends on the adequate flow of support from developed economies like Australia to lower income nations with shifting to clean energy, adapting to the impacts of climate change, and addressing loss and damage.
Such support is vital to building trust and cooperation, reducing global emissions, and supporting regional and global security by enabling countries to transition away from fossil fuels and build greater resilience.
Despite its central leadership role in this year’s global climate negotiations, our Government is yet to announce its contribution to international climate finance for 2025-2030. Greenpeace recommends a commitment of $11 billion for this five year period, which is aligned with the global goal under the Paris Agreement to triple international climate finance from current levels.
This new commitment should include additional funding to address loss and damage from climate change and a substantial contribution to the Pacific Resilience Facility, ensuring support is accessible to countries and communities that need it most. It should also see Australia get firmly behind the vision of a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific.
7. Protect nature
There is no safe planet without protection of the ecosystems and biodiversity that sustain us and regulate our climate.
Last year the Parliament passed important and long overdue reforms to our national environment laws to ensure better protection for our forests and other critical ecosystems. However, the Government will need to provide sufficient funding to ensure the effective implementation of these reforms.
Greenpeace has recommended $500 million over four years to establish the National Environment Agency — the body responsible for enforcing and monitoring the new laws — and a further $50 million to Environment Information Australia for providing critical information and tools.
Further resourcing will also be required to fulfil the crucial goal of fully protecting 30% of Australian land and seas by 2030. This should include $1 billion towards ending deforestation by enabling farmers and loggers to retool away from destructive practices, $2 billion a year for restoring degraded lands, $5 billion for purchasing and creating new protected areas, and $200 million for expanding domestic and international marine protected areas.
Conclusion
This is not the first time that conflict overseas has triggered an energy crisis, or that a budget has been preceded by a summer of extreme weather disasters, highlighting the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels. What’s different in 2026 is the availability of solutions. Renewable energy is now cheaper and more accessible than ever before. Global momentum is firmly behind the transition away from fossil fuels. The Albanese Government, with its overwhelming majority, has the chance to set our nation up for the future, or keep us stranded in the past. Let’s hope it makes some smart choices.
The 2026 budget test: Will Australia break free from fossil fuels?
Anne Jellema is Executive Director of 350.org.
The war on Iran and Lebanon is a deeply unjust and devastating conflict, killing civilians at home, destroying lives, and at the same time sending shockwaves through the global economy. We, at 350.org, have calculated, drawing on price forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Goldman Sachs, just how much that volatility is costing us.
Even under the IMF’s baseline scenario – a de facto “best case” scenario with a near-term end to the war and related supply chain disruptions – oil and gas price spikes are projected to cost households and businesses globally more than $600 billion by the end of the year. Under the IMF’s “adverse scenario”, with prolonged conflict and sustained price pressures, we estimate those additional costs could exceed $1 trillion, even after accounting for reduced demand.
Which is why we urgently need a power shift. Governments are under growing pressure to respond to rising fuel and food costs and deepening energy poverty. And it’s becoming clearer to both voters and elected officials that fossil dependence is not only expensive and risky, but unnecessary.
People who can are voting with their wallets: sales of solar panels and electric vehicles are increasing sharply in many countries. But the working people who have nothing to spare, ironically, are the ones stuck with using oil and gas that is either exorbitantly expensive or simply impossible to get.
Drain on households and economies
In India, street food vendors can’t get cooking gas and in the Philippines, fishermen can’t afford to take their boats to sea. A quarter of British people say that rising energy tariffs will leave them completely unable to pay their bills. This is the moment for a global push to bring abundant and affordable clean energy to all.
In April, we released Out of Pocket, our new research report on how fossil fuels are draining households and economies. We were surprised by the scale of what we found. For decades, governments have reassured people that energy price spikes are unfortunate but unavoidable – the result of distant conflicts, market forces or geopolitical shocks beyond anyone’s control. But the numbers tell a different story.
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Santa Marta: Ministers grapple with practicalities of fossil fuel phase-out
Around 60 governments that want to make progress on transitioning away from coal, oil and gas are meeting in Colombia to work out how they can do it an equitable way -
Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action
Cities will help identify concrete pathways for an equitable shift to clean energy at the Santa Marta conference, with C40 members aiming to halve their fossil fuel use by 2030
What we are living through today is not an energy crisis. It is a fossil fuel crisis. In just the first 50 days of the Middle East conflict, soaring oil and gas prices have siphoned an estimated $158 billion–$166 billion from households and businesses worldwide. That is money extracted directly from people’s pockets and transferred, almost instantly, into fossil fuel company balance sheets. And this figure only captures the immediate impact of price spikes, not the permanent economic drain of fossil dependence. Fossil fuels don’t just cost us once, they cost us over and over again.
First, through our bills. Every time there is a war, an embargo or a supply disruption, fossil fuel prices surge. For ordinary people, this means higher costs for energy, transport and food. Many Global South countries have little or no fiscal space to buffer the shock; instead, workers and families pay the price.
Second, through our taxes. Governments around the world continue to pour vast sums of public money into fossil fuel subsidies. These are often justified as a way to protect the most vulnerable at the petrol pump or in their homes. But in reality, the benefits are overwhelmingly captured by wealthier households and corporations. The poorest 20% receive just a fraction of this support, while public finances are drained.
Third, through climate impacts. New research across more than 24,000 global locations gives a granular account of the true costs of extreme heat, sea level rise and falling agricultural yields. Using this data to update IMF modelling of the social cost of carbon, we found that fossil fuel impacts on health and livelihoods amount to over $9 trillion a year. This is the biggest subsidy of all, because these massive and mounting costs are not charged to Big Oil – they are paid for by governments and households, with the poorest shouldering the lion’s share.
Massive transfer of wealth to fossil fuel industry
Adding up direct subsidies, tax breaks and the unpaid bill for climate damages, the total transfer of wealth from the public to the fossil fuel industry amounts to $12 trillion even in a “normal” year without a global oil shock. That’s more than 50% higher than the IMF has previously estimated, and equivalent to a staggering $23 million a minute.
The fossil fuel industry has become extraordinarily adept at profiting from instability. When conflict drives up prices, companies do not lose, they gain. In the current crisis, oil producers and commodity traders are on track to secure tens of billions of dollars in additional windfall profits, even as households face rising bills and governments struggle to manage the fallout.
Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say
This growing disconnect is impossible to ignore. Investors are advised to buy into fossil fuel firms precisely because of their ability to generate profits in times of crisis. Meanwhile, ordinary people are told to tighten their belts.
In 2026, unlike during the oil shocks of the 1970s, clean energy is no longer a distant alternative. Now, even more than when gas prices spiked due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, renewables are often the cheapest option available. Solar and wind can be deployed quickly, at scale, and without the volatility that defines fossil fuel markets.
How to transition from dirty to clean energy
The solutions are clear. Governments must implement permanent windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies to ensure that extraordinary profits generated during crises are redirected to support households. These revenues can be used to reduce energy bills, invest in public services, and accelerate the rollout of clean energy.
Second, we must shift subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards renewable solutions, particularly those that can be deployed quickly and equitably, such as rooftop and community solar. This is not just about cutting emissions. It is about building a more stable, fair and resilient energy system.
Finally, we need binding plans to phase out fossil fuels altogether, replacing them with homegrown renewable energy that can shield economies from future shocks. Because what the current crisis has made clear is this: as long as we remain dependent on fossil fuels, we remain vulnerable – to conflict, to price volatility and to the escalating impacts of climate change.
The true price of fossil fuels is no longer hidden. It is visible in rising bills, strained public finances and communities pushed to the brink. And it is being paid, every day, by ordinary people around the world.
It’s time for the great power shift.
Full details on the methodology used for this report are available here.
The Great Power Shift is a new campaign by 350.org global campaign to pressure governments to bring down energy bills for good by ending fossil fuel dependence and investing in clean, affordable energy for all
The post What fossil fuels really cost us in a world at war appeared first on Climate Home News.
Computer models that use artificial intelligence (AI) cannot forecast record-breaking weather as well as traditional climate models, according to a new study.
It is well established that AI climate models have surpassed traditional, physics-based climate models for some aspects of weather forecasting.
However, new research published in Science Advances finds that AI models still “underperform” in forecasting record-breaking extreme weather events.
The authors tested how well both AI and traditional weather models could simulate thousands of record-breaking hot, cold and windy events that were recorded in 2018 and 2020.
They find that AI models underestimate both the frequency and intensity of record-breaking events.
A study author tells Carbon Brief that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI weather forecasts
Extreme weather events, such as floods, heatwaves and storms, drive hundreds of billions of dollars in damages every year through the destruction of cropland, impacts on infrastructure and the loss of human life.
Many governments have developed early warning systems to prepare the general public and mobilise disaster response teams for imminent extreme weather events. These systems have been shown to minimise damages and save lives.
For decades, scientists have used numerical weather prediction models to simulate the weather days, or weeks, in advance.
These models rely on a series of complex equations that reproduce processes in the atmosphere and ocean. The equations are rooted in fundamental laws of physics, based on decades of research by climate scientists. As a result, these models are referred to as “physics-based” models.
However, AI-based climate models are gaining popularity as an alternative for weather forecasting.
Instead of using physics, these models use a statistical approach. Scientists present AI models with a large batch of historical weather data, known as training data, which teaches the model to recognise patterns and make predictions.
To produce a new forecast, the AI model draws on this bank of knowledge and follows the patterns that it knows.
There are many advantages to AI weather forecasts. For example, they use less computing power than physics-based models, because they do not have to run thousands of mathematical equations.
Furthermore, many AI models have been found to perform better than traditional physics-based models at weather forecasts.
However, these models also have drawbacks.
Study author Prof Sebastian Engelke, a professor at the research institute for statistics and information science at the University of Geneva, tells Carbon Brief that AI models “depend strongly on the training data” and are “relatively constrained to the range of this dataset”.
In other words, AI models struggle to simulate brand new weather patterns, instead tending forecast events of a similar strength to those seen before. As a result, it is unclear whether AI models can simulate unprecedented, record-breaking extreme events that, by definition, have never been seen before.
Record-breaking extremes
Extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent as the climate warms. Record-shattering extremes – those that break existing records by large margins – are also becoming more regular.
For example, during a 2021 heatwave in north-western US and Canada, local temperature records were broken by up to 5C. According to one study, the heatwave would have been “impossible” without human-caused climate change.
The new study explores how accurately AI and physics-based models can forecast such record-breaking extremes.
First, the authors identified every heat, cold and wind event in 2018 and 2020 that broke a record previously set between 1979 and 2017. (They chose these years due to data availability.) The authors use ERA5 reanalysis data to identify these records.
This produced a large sample size of record-breaking events. For the year 2020, the authors identified around 160,000 heat, 33,000 cold and 53,000 wind records, spread across different seasons and world regions.
For their traditional, physics-based model, the authors selected the High RESolution forecast model from the Integrated Forecasting System of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. This is “widely considered as the leading physics-based numerical weather prediction model”, according to the paper.
They also selected three “leading” AI weather models – the GraphCast model from Google Deepmind, Pangu-Weather developed by Huawei Cloud and the Fuxi model, developed by a team from Shanghai.
The authors then assessed how accurately each model could forecast the extremes observed in the year 2020.
Dr Zhongwei Zhang is the lead author on the study and a researcher at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He tells Carbon Brief that many AI weather forecast models were built for “general weather conditions”, as they use all historical weather data to train the models. Meanwhile, forecasting extremes is considered a “secondary task” by the models.
The authors explored a range of different “lead times” – in other words, how far into the future the model is forecasting. For example, a lead time of two days could mean the model uses the weather conditions at midnight on 1 January to simulate weather conditions at midnight on 3 January.
The plot below shows how accurately the models forecasted all extreme events (left) and heat extremes (right) under different lead times. This is measured using “root mean square error” – a metric of how accurate a model is, where a lower value indicates lower error and higher accuracy.
The chart on the left shows how two of the AI models (blue and green) performed better than the physics-based model (black) when forecasting all weather across the year 2020.
However, the chart on the right illustrates how the physics-based model (black) performed better than all three AI models (blue, red and green) when it came to forecasting heat extremes.
The authors note that the performance gap between AI and physics-based models is widest for lower lead times, indicating that AI models have greater difficulty making predictions in the near future.
They find similar results for cold and wind records.
In addition, the authors find that AI models generally “underpredict” temperature during heat records and “overpredict” during cold records.
The study finds that the larger the margin that the record is broken by, the less well the AI model predicts the intensity of the event.
‘Warning shot’
Study author Prof Erich Fischer is a climate scientist at ETH Zurich and a Carbon Brief contributing editor. He tells Carbon Brief that the result is “not unexpected”.
He adds that the analysis is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
The analysis, he continues, is a “warning shot” against replacing traditional models with AI models for weather forecasting “too quickly”.
AI models are likely to continue to improve, but scientists should “not yet” fully replace traditional forecasting models with AI ones, according to Fischer.
He explains that accurate forecasts are “most needed” in the runup to potential record-breaking extremes, because they are the trigger for early warning systems that help minimise damages caused by extreme weather.
Leonardo Olivetti is a PhD student at Uppsala University, who has published work on AI weather forecasting and was not involved in the study.
He tells Carbon Brief that “many other studies” have identified issues with using AI models for “extremes”, but this paper is novel for its specific focus on extremes.
Olivetti notes that AI models are already used alongside physics-based models at “some of the major weather forecasting centres around the world”. However, the study results suggest “caution against relying too heavily on these [AI] models”, he says.
Prof Martin Schultz, a professor in computational earth system science at the University of Cologne who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the results of the analysis are “very interesting, but not too surprising”.
He adds that the study “justifies the continued use of classical numerical weather models in operational forecasts, in spite of their tremendous computational costs”.
Advances in forecasting
The field of AI weather forecasting is evolving rapidly.
Olivetti notes that the three AI models tested in the study are an “older generation” of AI models. In the last two years, newer “probabilistic” forecast models have emerged that “claim to better capture extremes”, he explains.
The three AI models used in the analysis are “deterministic”, meaning that they only simulate one possible future outcome.
In contrast, study author Engelke tells Carbon Brief that probabilistic models “create several possible future states of the weather” and are therefore more likely to capture record-breaking extremes.
Engelke says it is “important” to evaluate the newer generation of models for their ability to forecast weather extremes.
He adds that this paper has set out a “protocol” for testing the ability of AI models to predict unprecedented extreme events, which he hopes other researchers will go on to use.
The study says that another “promising direction” for future research is to develop models that combine aspects of traditional, physics-based weather forecasts with AI models.
Engelke says this approach would be “best of both worlds”, as it would combine the ability of physics-based models to simulate record-breaking weather with the computational efficiency of AI models.
Dr Kyle Hilburn, a research scientist at Colorado State University, notes that the study does not address extreme rainfall, which he says “presents challenges for both modelling and observing”. This, he says, is an “important” area for future research.
The post Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Traditional models still ‘outperform AI’ for extreme weather forecasts
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