The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report says the threshold of 1.5 degrees will be breached around 2050, regardless of how aggressively humanity draws down carbon pollution.According to the report even if we achieve the 1.5°C target, it would still generate heatwaves, floods, drought and other extreme weather. The report says that we will see Earth’s average temperature reach 1.5°C above preindustrial levels around 2030, a decade earlier than projected only three years ago.
By Harinder Mahil
If the recent heat waves and forest fires raging in British Columbia were not enough to convince us that climate change is real, a new UN report from ninety-one climate scientists from around the world says that climate crisis is now well under way. The report, released this week, says that heat from humans has caused irreparable damage to the Earth that may get much worse in coming decades.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report says the threshold of 1.5 degrees will be breached around 2050, regardless of how aggressively humanity draws down carbon pollution.According to the report even if we achieve the 1.5°C target, it would still generate heatwaves, floods, drought and other extreme weather.
The report says that we will see Earth’s average temperature reach 1.5°C above preindustrial levels around 2030, a decade earlier than projected only three years ago.
The report, approved by 195 nations from all continents, shines a spotlight on governments’inaction in the face of mounting evidence that climate change is a serious threat.Here are the report’s keyfindings:
Climate change is now a fact: The report notes: “Each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850.” Yet in the past few years, global warming has moved from a statistical property to a reality of modern life.
Sea-level rise will be worse than once thought: Most researchers now believe that the oceans will rise roughly half a foot more than once projected. In a relatively optimistic “intermediate” emissions scenario, for instance, the IPCC once projected that oceans would rise about one and a half feet by 2100. The new report finds that just under two feet is more likely, and two and a half feet is not out of the question.
Sea-level rise is irreversible:If humans successfully learn how to remove carbon from the atmosphere, some of the impacts of climate change, such as ocean acidification and the rise in land temperatures, may be reversible. Sea-level rise is chief among them. The slow increase in sea levels could continue for hundreds of years.
The report does offer a sliver of hope for keeping the 1.5°C goal alive. But under the most optimistic scenario, Earth’s surface will have cooled a notch to 1.4°C by century’s end. The other long-term trajectories, however, do not look promising.
It is not possible to properly summarize the report in a column like this. The bottom line is that climate change is a reality and we must take steps to address it. There was a time the scientists warned us of disasters that may happen in the future. Now we see those disasters taking place on a regular basis.
Here are two steps we can take to make an impact on global climate change:
We can voice our concerns to our elected officials and let them know that we care about climate change. We should encourage them to limit carbon emissions and require polluters to pay for the emissions they produce. Let them know that we need stronger legal accountability to ensure current and subsequent governments follow through on their commitments.
Urge our members of parliament to take a bolder emissions reduction target to ensure that we don’t surpass 1.5 C warming.
The climate crisis is here, and we should expect climate leadership from our federal and provincial governments. Inaction on climate change has real consequences for all of us.
Harinder Mahil is a community activist and a board member of the Dr. Hari Sharma Foundation.
