The climate crisis: a race we can win
The climate crisis is the phenomenon that mostly defines our time. Scientists have delivered a “final warning” on the climate crisis, as rising greenhouse gas emissions push the world to the brink of irrevocable damage that only swift and drastic action can avert.
Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, said: “Every bit of warming avoided due to the collective actions pulled from our growing, increasingly effective toolkit of options, is less bad news for societies and the ecosystems on which we all depend.”
Climate change can affect our climate system in lots of different ways: changes in the hydrological cycles, warming oceans, melting sea ice and glaciers, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, changes in ocean currents, more extreme weather, warmer air and land, global greening
A warming planet leads to many other changes in our climate. As the planet warms, heatwaves become more likely. Over the past few years, heatwaves have been the deadliest global weather hazard.
The rise of temperature increases the intensity and, in some cases, the frequency of extreme environmental events, such as forest fires, hurricanes, heat waves, floods, droughts, and storms.
Impacts of climate change
Some of the impacts from these changes to our climate system include:
- Risk to water supplies
- Flooding of coastal regions
- Damage to marine ecosystems
- Conflict and climate migrants
- Localised flooding
- Fisheries failing
- Loss of biodiversity
- Change in seasonality
- Heat stress
- Forest mortality and increased risk of fires
- Damage to infrastructure
- Food insecurity
The full evidence of climate change impacts can be found on the Met Office.
Glaciers and ice caps are the most impacted by global warming
San Raphael glacier, Patagonia cilena
Patagonian glaciers are among the fastest retreating glaciers in the world. According to the European Space Agency, San Raphael glacier is one of the most active in the world for ice calving
All these impacts are so serious and threatening that an approach of business as usual is no longer acceptable
Nonetheless, as highlighted by the Emissions Gap Report and by IPCC scientists in 2021, we are running out of time to keep temperature rise within 1,5°C. Some scientists already consider 1,5°C to safeguard and avoid catastrophic effects on Earth, to be out of reach.
Peter Thorne, the director of the Icarus climate research center at Maynooth University in Ireland, said next year global temperatures could breach the 1.5C limit, though this did not mean the limit had been breached for the long term. “We will, almost regardless of the emissions scenario given, reach 1.5C in the first half of the next decade,” he said. “The real question is whether our collective choices mean we stabilize around 1.5C or crash through 1.5C, reach 2C° and keep going.”
Why carbon budget matters
Every year human activities are generating 40 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions caused by fossil fuel consumption, deforestation fires and intensive farming.
Every kilogram of CO2 released in the atmosphere causes a long term loss of 15 kilograms of a glacier. In terms of the impact of human behavior, every drive of 500 metres of an average car corresponds to a loss of a kilogram of glacier (University of Innsbruck).
A IPCC study, published in August 2021 has provided an updated estimate of the carbon budget – the maximum amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that can be emitted while still having a chance to limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. Carbon budgets are constructed on the premise that there is a near-linear relationship between rising global temperatures and the level of cumulative atmospheric CO2. As atmospheric CO2 rises, the temperature rises, and a looser temperature threshold like 2°C allows us to emit a higher amount of CO2 than a 1.5°C threshold.
The world in 2023 generated about 40,9 GtCO2 annually: the 1.5°C budget is likely to be exhausted in 7 years at 50% likelihood and in 15 years for 1.7 °C.
According to the Carbon Tracker Initiative,an independent think tank, to stay within 1,5°C of temperature rise, a threshold that already causes climate damage and disruptions, we have an available budget of about 420 billion tonnes of CO2.
Evidence and the sense of urgency delivered by these studies and scientific evidence leads to the necessity to undertake immediate, bold and collective action at all levels. It is a race against time that we can win but there is a risk that we will lose if we postpone action. DLinks
Learn more about the global carbon budget The Global Carbon Project
Discover climate pledges of countries Climate Action Tracker
