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- If we don’t act now, the Earth could warm enough to leave major cities underwater.
- Experts agree that “we have the knowledge and technology to get it done.” But politics can get in the way.
- These UN reports are the most authoritative assessments on the state of global heating.
This week’s United Nations climate reportThis is a dire picture. If humanity doesn’t act now to stop greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth could warm as much as 3 degrees Celsius.
At those temperatures, major cities will be underwater, unprecedented heatwaves will define summers, terrifying storms will become more frequent and millions of plant and animal species will go extinct, UN leadership warned.
It seems daunting to make the transition. A dozen years back, it would have been prohibitively expensive to switch to completely carbon-neutral power. Officials claim that today, with solar power 90% cheaper and wind power 72% less than 2009, it’s actually possible. It is possible to do well.
Inger Anderson (executive director of United Nations Environment Programme) stated, “We have both the technology and the knowledge to do this.”
Fixing climate change is no longer a technological or scientific problem, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles — it’s a political one.
“We can solve this problem, we’re just choosing not to,” he said, comparing the situation to a train speeding down a hill with dangerous curves ahead. “The engineer has perfectly functional brakes that work fine – he’s just not choosing to apply them.”
The third installment in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report. This week’s publication, details how now is the time to implement rapid mitigation measures – reductions in fossil fuels and better building practices – needed to avoid unsustainable global warming. The report focuses on the solutions already being taken for climate action and the pressing need to speed up their implementation to meet goals.
Global governments had agreed in the 2015 Paris climate agreementTo keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), before 2030, and ideally not more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.77 Fahrenheit).
UN dataCurrent emissions goals are not enough to avoid “global catastrophe”
Jake Schmidt, senior strategic advisor for international climate in The Natural Resources Defense Council’s international program, said that the tools we need to reach this goal are already available. However, we must expand their use to meet the urgency of the current climate disaster.
Here comes the sun: In 2021, wind and solar power accounted for a record 13% of U.S. electricity
“The report is pretty clear; we have kind of all the solutions we need,” Schmidt said. “When you look at what we need to get to that 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway, it’s not solutions that we’ve never heard of.”
There are many options to reduce fossil fuel use by using renewable alternatives. This has been proven to be effective in slowing down the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
These alternatives are also becoming more economically viable. According to the report, the unit cost of solar energy and wind energy has fallen over the past decade, while their use has continued to increase.
Already, Solar and wind power account for a record 13% of U.S. power generation, growing at their fastest rate ever last year, according to a report released last month.
According to the intergovernmental, utility-scale solar panels are now more affordable than the most competitive fossil fuel options. International Renewable Energy Agency.
Energy efficiency improvements, such as retrofitting residential and commercial buildings with better insulation and prioritizing energy efficiency in new construction, can take a “huge chunk” out of domestic growth in energy use, according to Schmidt.
Warmer temperatures sooner, irreversible changesFive alarming UN climate change findings
“They’re known commodities from the outset,” he said. “It’s solar and wind, smart buildings, electric cars, walkable cities. … These are all things that have been deployed at scale over a couple of decades. And they got more affordable and easier to do.
The report also identifies methane emissions reduction as a method to meet climate agreement goals. The report’s initial installment pointed out methane emission reduction as one of many fastest ways to slow the rise in global temperatures. Scientists announced this on Thursday. that the level of methane in Earth’s atmosphere surged to a record highFor the second consecutive year.
There are many solutions available. The key to mitigation is speed and urgency in addressing the crisis.
What’s in the way now is not know-how, but political pressure from those who stand to lose money in the short term as the shift happens, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.
“They are choking our planet, based on their vested interests and historic investments in fossil fuels, when cheaper, renewable solutions provide green jobs, energy security, and greater price stability,” Guterres said.
Andrea Dutton, a paleoclimatologist from the University of Wisconsin Madison, said that “The good thing about the story is that it’s possible to do this.” “We know what to do – we just have to decide to do it.”
Contributing: Dinah Pulver and Doyle Rice, USA TODAY.
