No matter how close you got to it, even when the colours were incredibly vivid, the end became shimmeringly hazy and impossible to pin down.
Unfortunately, it seems to be much the same when it comes to targets we set to try to minimise the effects of climate change.
Our world’s consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are continually outpacing our efforts to put a line in the sand and say, this is where it must stop.
At the Paris climate-change conference COP21 in late 2015, nations agreed to keep the increase in global temperatures this century to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
To reduce the speed and likely effects of climate change, a goal was set to attempt to limit that rise to 1.5°C.
Those average global temperatures are already 1.26°C above pre-industrial times and some have calculated this year may be the first to surpass the 1.5°C mark.
Climate scientists have now, reluctantly, tossed that target out.
In the past couple of weeks, they have declared it has become nigh-on impossible to rein in temperature rise to that extent and that 1.6°C of warming this century is the best-case scenario.
In New Scientist, researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research in Germany say huge political efforts from high-income nations will be needed to achieve that new figure. They rate the chance of meeting that goal at between 5% and 45%.
The Berkeley Earth organisation in the United States says the world is not going to end because warming has exceeded 1.5°C.
However, every tenth of a degree above that comes with weighty repercussions on the natural world and on future generations.
One of the difficulties we face with efforts to reduce emissions is being able to know precisely where we are at and if the big companies which say they are making changes and achieving reductions are actually doing so.
He Kaupapa Hononga, the University of Otago’s Climate Change Research Network, has stepped up to the challenge of measuring the achievements of New Zealand’s biggest emitters and calling out any greenwashing it finds.
Their Climate Action Tracker Aotearoa (CATA), launched late last week, will allow carbon emissions reporting from businesses, and their reduction plans, to be measured comparably.
Prof Sara Walton, who leads the project and is co-director of the research network, says there can be too many corporate reports which blur what companies are doing and how effective those emission-reduction strategies may be.
An unbiased and transparent evaluation which can demystify reporting, hold big emitters to account, and reveal best practice will provide a much better idea of how New Zealand is tracking, she says.
The tracker’s first results of 21 companies, between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023, put Meridian Energy and Fonterra at the top of the chart, with an 8 out of 10 each.
At the other end of the scale, both Air New Zealand and Mitre 10 scored 1.5 out of 10, with the Alliance Group at the bottom, with 0.5 out of 10.
These three organisations were less than happy with the results and said they did not reflect their current emission-reduction work.
Whether you are a fan of such charts or not, they can play a valuable role in encouraging some and calling others out.
As we know, New Zealand is not immune to the effects of climate change.
Niwa has just released a joint study which concluded that global warming increased by 10% the amount of rain which fell during Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023.
A Treasury report this week said there was an 80% chance of another extreme storm like Gabrielle in the next 50 years.
There is never a great deal of good news on the climate change front.
But at least we now know we have to go harder if we are to stay within the new 1.6°C target.
