World on ‘thin ice’ as UN climate report gives stark warning
BERLIN — Humanity still has a chance, close to the last, to prevent the worst of climate change’s future harms, a top United Nations panel of scientists said Monday.
Denis Farrell, Associated Press
Women push wheelbarrows atop a coal mine dump at the coal-powered Duvha power station Nov. 17, 2022, near Emalahleni, east of Johannesburg.
But doing so requires quickly slashing nearly two-thirds of carbon pollution by 2035, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. The United Nations chief said it more bluntly, calling for an end to new fossil fuel exploration and for rich countries to quit coal, oil and gas by 2040.
“Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.”
Stepping up his pleas for action on fossil fuels, Guterres called for rich countries to accelerate their target for achieving net zero emissions to as early as 2040, and developing nations to aim for 2050 — about a decade earlier than most current targets. He also called for them to stop using coal by 2030 and 2040, respectively, and ensure carbon-free electricity generation in the developed world by 2035, meaning no gas-fired power plants either.
That date is key because nations soon have to come up with goals for pollution reduction by 2035, according to the Paris climate agreement. After contentious debate, the U.N. science report approved Sunday concluded that to stay under the warming limit set in Paris the world needs to cut 60% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, compared with 2019, adding a new target not previously mentioned in six previous reports issued since 2018.
“The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts for thousands of years,” the report, said calling climate change “a threat to human well-being and planetary health.”
“We are not on the right track but it’s not too late,’’ said report co-author and water scientist Aditi Mukherji. “Our intention is really a message of hope, and not that of doomsday.’’
With the world only a few tenths of a degree away from the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, scientists stressed a sense of urgency. The goal was adopted as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit).
Fareed Khan, Associated Press
Pakistani women wade through floodwaters as they take refuge Sept. 2, 2022, in Shikarpur district of Sindh Province, Pakistan.
This is likely the last warning the Nobel Peace Prize-winning collection of scientists will be able to make about the 1.5 mark because their next set of reports may well come after Earth has either breached the mark or is locked into exceeding it soon, several scientists, including report authors, told The Associated Press.
After 1.5 degrees “the risks are starting to pile on,” said report co-author Francis X. Johnson, a climate, land and policy scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute. The report mentions “tipping points” around that temperature of species extinction, including coral reefs, irreversible melting of ice sheets and sea level rise on the order of several meters (several yards).
“1.5 is a critical critical limit, particularly for small islands and mountain (communities) which depend on glaciers,” said Mukherji, who’s also the climate change impact platform director at the research institute CGIAR.
“The window is closing if emissions are not reduced as quickly as possible,” Johnson said in an interview. “Scientists are rather alarmed.”
Many scientists, including at least three co-authors, said hitting 1.5 degrees is inevitable.
“We are pretty much locked into 1.5,” said report co-author Malte Meinshausen, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia. “There’s very little way we will be able to avoid crossing 1.5 C sometime in the 2030s ” but the big issue is whether the temperature keeps rising from there or stabilizes.
Guterres insisted “the 1.5-degree limit is achievable.” Science panel chief Hoesung Lee said so far the world is far off course.
If current consumption and production patterns continue, Lee said, “the global average 1.5 degrees temperature increase will be seen sometime in this decade.”
Scientists emphasize that the world or humanity won’t end suddenly if Earth passes the 1.5 degree mark. Mukherji said “it’s not as if it’s a cliff that we all fall off.” But an earlier IPCC report detailed how the harms — including even nastier extreme weather — are much worse beyond 1.5 degrees of warming.
“It is certainly prudent to be planning for a future that’s warmer than 1.5 degrees,” said IPCC report review editor Steven Rose, an economist at the Electric Power Research Institute in the United States.
If the world continues to use all the fossil fuel-powered infrastructure either existing now or proposed Earth will warm at least 2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, the report said.
Because the report is based on data from a few years ago, the calculations about fossil fuel projects already in the pipeline do not include the increase in coal and natural gas use after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It comes a week after the Biden Administration in the United States approved the huge Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska, which could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day.
The report highlights the disparity between rich nations, which caused much of the problem because carbon dioxide emissions from industrialization stay in the air for more than a century, and poorer countries that get hit harder by extreme weather. Residents of poorer climate vulnerable nations are “up to 15 times more likely to die in floods, droughts and storms,” Lee said.
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Skinny robot documents forces eroding Doomsday GlacierMIND AND I // Shutterstock
Climate anxiety and climate-related trauma are mental health concerns rooted in real experiences, such as natural disasters, and existential worry for the future.
Roughly half of young people—those who will inherit the consequences of climate change complacency and live through the most severe effects of extreme weather—report that climate change negatively affects their daily lives, according to a global survey of 10,000 people between the ages of 16 and 25. The majority of respondents said that in the context of climate change, they are frightened of the years ahead.
This concern is prevalent in the United States as well, with more than half of Americans stating climate change is the single most important issue facing society today. Large swaths of the U.S. are facing climate-related flood risks due to rising sea and freshwater levels and increased rainfall. Roughly 80% of the country is experiencing unusually dry conditions, most notably the Western U.S., which has been gripped by a megadrought. Cities are getting hotter, while wildfires are growing in frequency and intensity. At present, virtually every bit of the U.S. is impacted by climate change.
And yet, most people have done little, or nothing at all, to change their behavior to mitigate their own impact on the environment. When facing a problem so extensive, it can be overwhelming even to attempt to find a manageable solution. But starting small—and starting at all, really—is one of the most important things you can do.
Westfield compiled a list of eight ways people can prepare their communities for the impacts of climate change. Building climate resilience, or the ability to prepare for and respond to climate-related events, may also help ease climate anxiety, improving both the environment and one's quality of life.
MIND AND I // ShutterstockClimate anxiety and climate-related trauma are mental health concerns rooted in real experiences, such as natural disasters, and existential worry for the future.
Roughly half of young people—those who will inherit the consequences of climate change complacency and live through the most severe effects of extreme weather—report that climate change negatively affects their daily lives, according to a global survey of 10,000 people between the ages of 16 and 25. The majority of respondents said that in the context of climate change, they are frightened of the years ahead.
This concern is prevalent in the United States as well, with more than half of Americans stating climate change is the single most important issue facing society today. Large swaths of the U.S. are facing climate-related flood risks due to rising sea and freshwater levels and increased rainfall. Roughly 80% of the country is experiencing unusually dry conditions, most notably the Western U.S., which has been gripped by a megadrought. Cities are getting hotter, while wildfires are growing in frequency and intensity. At present, virtually every bit of the U.S. is impacted by climate change.
And yet, most people have done little, or nothing at all, to change their behavior to mitigate their own impact on the environment. When facing a problem so extensive, it can be overwhelming even to attempt to find a manageable solution. But starting small—and starting at all, really—is one of the most important things you can do.
Westfield compiled a list of eight ways people can prepare their communities for the impacts of climate change. Building climate resilience, or the ability to prepare for and respond to climate-related events, may also help ease climate anxiety, improving both the environment and one's quality of life.
