Climate change is rapidly accelerating, many of the effects will be more severe than anticipated, and there is little chance of avoiding its worst consequences, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
According to the landmark report, even at current levels, human activities in warming the climate are causing dangerous disruptions that threaten large swathes and render many areas unlivable.
Hans-Otto Prtner is co-chair of working group 2. The IPCC has unambiguous scientific evidence that climate change poses a threat to human health and the wellbeing of the planet. Any delay in coordinating global action will leave a narrow window of opportunity to ensure a sustainable future.
Droughts and floods, heatwaves
Summary report by the global authority in climate science warns that droughts and floods are on the rise and will cause more damage.
Global temperatures rising by more than 1.5C above preindustrial levels, which is based on current trends in greenhouse gases emissions, would have irreversible consequences. These include melting of ice caps, glaciers, and a cascading process whereby wildfires (die-off of trees), the drying of peatlands, the thawing and storage of permafrost and other carbon emissions all contribute to the warming.
Atlas of human suffering
Antnio Guterres is the UN secretary-general. He said: I have seen many scientific papers in my time, but none like this. Today’s IPCC reportThis is a comprehensive analysis of human suffering and a damning condemnation of climate leadership failures.
John Kerry, the US special presidential ambassador for climate, stated that the report paints an alarming picture of the devastating effects of a warmer planet and the dangers to our planet if scientists continue to ignore science. We have seen the rise in climate-fueled extreme events and the destruction that has left behind people who lost their lives and destroyed their livelihoods. The question is not whether or not we can completely avoid the crisis, but whether or not we can avoid its worst consequences.
According to the report:
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Everywhere is affected. There are no inhabited regions that can escape the dire consequences of rising temperatures and increasingly extreme weather.
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The most vulnerable areas to climate change are home to about half of the world’s population, which is between 3.3 billion-3.6 billion people.
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Climate change has already caused water and food shortages for millions of people.
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Already, mass die-offs of all species, corals and trees, are underway.
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1.5C above preindustrial levels represents a critical threshold beyond which the effects of the climate crises accelerate strongly and some become irreversible.
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Temperatures above 1.5C can cause flooding in coastal areas and low-lying islands around the world.
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Key ecosystems are losing the ability to absorb carbon dioxide, which is turning them into carbon sinks rather than carbon sources.
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Some countries have committed to conserving 30% of the Earth’s surface, but it is possible that half of this amount must be preserved to ensure that natural ecosystems can recover from the damage they have suffered.
Chance to avoid the worst
This is the second half of the IPCCs most recent assessment report. The updated comprehensive review of global climate knowledge has taken seven years to complete. It draws on the peer reviewed work of thousands scientists. This assessment report is the sixth since 1988 when the IPCC was established. It may be the last to be published while we have a chance of avoiding the worst.
The IPCCs working group 1 published the first instalment on the physical science behind climate change last August. It stated that the climate crisis was unambiguously caused by human actions. Some of these changes were irreversible.
This second section, by working group 2, addresses the effects of climate breakdown. It identifies the most vulnerable areas and outlines how we can adapt to some of these impacts. The third section, due to be completed in April, will focus on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The final part, which will be completed in October, will summarize these lessons for governments who will meet in Egypt for the UN Cop27 Climate Summit.
Small islands are in for a cataclysmic event
Small islands will be the most affected. Walton Webson was Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador and chair of Alliance of Small Island States. He called the findings cataclysmic.
He asked the UN to convene a special session for action. We are still heading towards a precipice. While we say we are open to the risk, global emissions show that we are actually moving closer to the edge. We are not seeing the big emitters taking the necessary action to reduce emissions in this crucial decade. This means that we need to cut emissions by half by 2030. It is obvious that time is rapidly passing us by.
According to the report, governments in other regions could help their citizens adapt and mitigate some of the effects of the climate crisis. This could be done by building flood defenses, helping farmers grow new crops or building more resilient infrastructure. However, the authors state that the world’s ability for adaptation to climate change will decrease rapidly as temperatures rise. Adaptation will soon be difficult beyond hard limits.
Global dominoes
According to the report, climate change can also have the potential to increase hunger, ill health, and poverty. Director of the University of Edinburgh’s Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, Dave Reay said that climate change in the 21st Century threatens to destroy the foundations of food security and water security, rip apart the fragile structures of ecosystem and human health, and eventually shake down the very foundations of civilisation.
The report downplays fears about conflicts arising from climate crisis. It finds that displacement and involuntary movement of people would occur, but that non-climatic factors will be the main drivers of intrastate violent conflict.
Jeffrey Kargel, a senior scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in America, stated that the current warfare activity in Eastern Europe is not due to climate change. However, it is a warning about how tensions, international relations, and geopolitics can become heightened as nations are unprepared for climate change.