It is known that we are nowhere near approaching our climate change target of the 2 centigrade warming mark established by the Paris Agreement of 2015.
by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne
Writing from Montreal
Let’s face it, we have no time to lose… The climate emergency is a race we are losing, but it is a race we can win…António Guterres, Secretary General, United Nations
The United Nations Climate Action Summit was held in New York on 23 September 2019. The words of the Secretary General of The United Nations to world leaders attending the Summit were: “ This is not a climate talk summit. We have had enough talk. This is not a climate negotiation summit. You don’t negotiate with nature. This is a climate action summit.”
Recently an educated young man whom I know wrote to me thus: “ What is the point of my holding down a job, and earning and saving money to buy a home, if one day society will collapse and the earth will become uninhabitable despite the best efforts of some countries to invest in renewable energy and cut down on carbon emissions? And all in a matter of 10-15 years? Such a life trajectory feels like a charade and a b@#$%dy farce”.
As this youngster fears, would society collapse one day due to relentless global warming if it is unchecked?
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| Where are we going to live hereafter? |
To justify the young man’s despair, he cited an au fait sociological study published by Professor Jem Bendell of the University of Cumbria titled “Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy where the author says inter alia: “Sadly, the latest climate data, emissions data and data on the spread of carbon-intensive lifestyles show that the landslide has already begun. As the point of no return can’t be fully known until after the event, ambitious work on reducing carbon emissions and extracting more from the air (naturally and synthetically) is more critical than ever… recent research suggests that human societies will experience disruptions to their basic functioning within less than ten years due to climate stress. Such disruptions include increased levels of malnutrition, starvation, disease, civil conflict and war – and will not avoid affluent nations”.
Professor Bendell’s prognosis for the future world is supported by Emily Atkins writing for The New Republic of 16 September 2019 in an article titled The Blood-Dimmed Tide where Ms. Atkins sees the world in 2100 as follows: “So the world kept getting hotter. The global community sailed past the 1.5 degree Celsius “‘safe’ threshold of warming” mark around 2038, and summers of Saharan intensity became an annual norm in Europe—often in North America, too. These extreme bouts of heat—too routine now to be dubbed “heat waves”—claimed annual death tolls of thousands in many countries, while wildfires courted the specter of mass famine by burning up billions of dollars’ worth of cropland. Around 80 percent of Earth’s coral reefs died off, tanking fishing and tourism economies around the world. The ocean rose about 1.5 feet, exposing an additional 69 million people every year to regular extreme flooding. Residents of the tiny Pacific island nation of Kiribati, which sits an average of a little less than six feet above the precrisis sea level, began to flee to Australia and New Zealand en mass... people are being uprooted by other climate shifts as well. Heat stress, drought, and resulting declines in agricultural yields have helped push six million people in Mexico to pack their things and move north. Nearly twelve million people in sub-Saharan Africa, and millions across the Middle East, have done the same. No matter where they go, though, it’s unlikely they’ll escape the heat. Seventy-five percent of the world’s population now faces the threat of dying from hot weather”.
This dystopian view shows an alarming symbiosis and merging of two large global transformative forces that affect our existential life, which are called Megatrends. They are climate change and demography. The upshot of the combination of demographic shifts, combined with the resource constrained misery unleashed by global warming would lead to a wave of “climate refugees” that would drive global conflict and an eco-fascist proliferation of political ideology.
While The Economist, in its issue of 19 September 2019 agrees with the above, it also says: “It is not the end of the world. Humankind is not poised teetering on the edge of extinction. The planet itself is not in peril. Earth is a tough old thing and will survive. And though much may be lost, most of the wondrous life that makes Earth unique, as far as astronomers can yet tell, will persist”.
In Storms of my Grandchildren author and prominent climate scientist James Hansen decries carbon trading on a cap and trade basis and recommends strongly that all coal deposits and their use must be totally phased out. He points out that, contrary to the view held by some that it is now too late to avoid social collapse brought to bear by climate change, it is not too late for stringent action to be taken to resist the disaster looming ahead.
It is known that we are nowhere near approaching our climate change target of the 2 centigrade warming mark established by the Paris Agreement of 2015. A Report released by the Climate Summit held by the United Nations on 24 September 2019 states that current plans would lead to a rise in average global temperatures of between 2.9C and 3.4C by 2100, a shift likely to bring catastrophic change across the globe. The Report goes on to say that we must triple our emissions cutting goal if the Paris target were to be achieved.
So what stringent action is needed? First off, the mindset of the world has to be changed, from the indolent feeling that nothing will happen if we interfere with the world and its ecosystem as least as possible. Each of the 7.2 billion people must do his or her bit. This in and of itself is impossible, but not if there is worldwide coercion through political pressure and legislative means. Second, there must be worldwide education programmes sensitizing the population. Third, the world should heed and act on the plea of the Secretary General of the United Nations made at the Climate Action Summit last week – that leaders of States bring new commitments “to put the globe closer to meeting the Paris agreement goals of limiting global heating to at least 2C, and as close to 1.5C as possible, compared with pre-industrial levels”. Countries were asked to cut emissions by 45% by 2030, end fossil fuel subsidies and ban new coal plants after 2020.
Then, it might just work.
Dr. Abeyratne is the author of Aviation and the Environment, Aviation and Climate Change: In Search of a Global Market Based Measure, and Aviation and the Carbon Trade.
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