Moses Amweelo
From 2010-2019, average annual global greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history, but the rate of growth has slowed. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius is beyond reach.
However, there is increasing evidence of climate action, said scientists in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Since 2010, there have been sustained decreases of up to 85% in the costs of solar and wind energy, and batteries. An increasing range of policies and laws have enhanced energy efficiency, reduced rates of deforestation and accelerated the deployment of renewable energy.
“We are at a crossroads. The decisions we make now can secure a liveable future. We have the tools and know-how required to limit warming,” said IPCC chair Hoesung Lee. “I am encouraged by climate action being taken in many countries. There are policies, regulations and market instruments that are proving effective. If they are scaled up and applied more widely and equitably, they can support deep emissions reductions and stimulate innovation.”
Climate change is no longer a far-off threat - it is an ongoing disaster that is already endangering human and natural environments around the world, according to an urgent new report from the United Nations that says the world is running out of time to stave off the most devastating consequences of global warming.
The report, released by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlines the increasing risk that climate change poses to human health, infrastructure, the stability of food and water resources and the biodiversity of the planet’s ecosystems.
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the planet,” Hans-Otto Portner, climatologist and co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group II, said in a statement.
“Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.” The humanity will have to contend with multiple climate hazards over the coming decades if global warming exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Human-caused climate change has already contributed to the planet’s warming about 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The effect of climate change on the availability of food and water is particularly worrisome. Heatwaves, droughts and floods – all of which are aggravated by climate change - have already exposed millions of people around the world to acute food and water insecurity, according to the report.
“Overall, the picture is stark for food systems,” one of the authors of the report, Rachel Bezner Kerr, a professor of global development at Cornell University, said in a news briefing. “No one is left unaffected by climate change.” Although climate change is expected to hit every region of the planet, the assessment found that people in Africa, South America and Central America are particularly vulnerable and at greater risk of negative consequences, including death.
The climate crisis has reached a “really bleak moment”, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has said, after a slew of major reports laid bare how close the planet is to catastrophe. Collective action is needed by the world’s nations more now than at any point since the second world war to avoid climate tipping points, professor Johan Rockstrom said, but geopolitical tensions are at a high. He said the world was coming “very, very close to irreversible changes… time is really running out very, very fast”. Emissions must fall by about half by 2030 to meet the internationally agreed target of 1.5 degrees Celsius of heating but are still rising, at a time when oil giants are making astronomical amounts of money. Earth is likely to cross a critical threshold for global warming within the next decades, and nations will need to make an immediate and drastic shift away from fossil fuels to prevent the planet from overheating dangerously beyond that level, according to a major new report released recently. There is still one last chance to shift course, but it would require industrialised nations to join together immediately to slash greenhouse gases roughly in half by 2030 and stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere altogether by the early 2050s. If those two steps were taken, the world would have about a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Delays of even a few years would most likely make that goal unattainable, guaranteeing a hotter, more perilous future. “The pace and scale of what has been done so far and current plans are insufficient to tackle climate change,” said Hoesung Lee, the chair of the climate panel. “We are walking when we should be sprinting.”
Today, the world is seeing record-shattering storms in California and catastrophic droughts in places like East Africa. But by the 2030s, as temperatures rise, climate hazards are expected to increase all over the globe as different countries face more crippling heat waves, worsening coastal flooding and crop failure.
At the same time, mosquitoes carrying diseases like malaria and dengue will spread into new areas. Nations have made some strides in preparing for the dangers of global warming, for instance by building coastal barriers against rising oceans or establishing early-warning systems for future storms. But many of those adaptation efforts are “incremental” and lack sufficient funding, particularly in poorer countries.
* Dr Moses Amweelo is a former minister of works, transport and communication. He earned a doctorate in Technical Science, Industrial Engineering and Management from the International Transport Academy (St Petersburg, Russia).