Climate change will radically change life on Earth in the next 30 years, even if people can reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
Details: As noted, “species extinction, widespread disease, unbearable heat, the collapse of ecosystems, cities threatened by rising sea levels — these and other devastating climatic impacts are accelerating and will inevitably become painfully obvious before the baby is born today will celebrate it’s 30th birthday”.
It is noted that the document, designed to influence important policy decisions, is not planned to be issued until February 2022 — it is reported that it is too late for this year’s crucial UN summits on climate, biodiversity and food systems.
The draft report has at least four main conclusions that are unlikely to be changed before it is issued.
With a warming of 1.1 degrees Celsius, the climate is already changing. Prolonged warming even above 1.5 degrees Celsius can lead to “progressively serious, centuries-old and, in some cases, irreversible consequences.” Some organisms will not be able to adapt — such as coral reefs. Ten years ago, scientists thought that limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above mid-nineteenth-century levels would suffice. This goal is enshrined in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Judging by current trends, at best the world is approaching 3 degrees Celsius.
The world must recognize this reality and prepare for an attack, because the current level of adaptation will be insufficient to respond to future climate risks. By 2050, tens of millions more are likely to face chronic hunger, and another 130 million could find themselves in extreme poverty within a decade if inequality deepens. In 2050, hundreds of millions of people in coastal cities at the forefront of the climate crisis will be threatened by floods and increasingly frequent storm surges, which will become even more dangerous due to rising sea levels. Another 350 million people living in urban areas will face water shortages due to severe drought with warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius — or 410 million at 2 degrees Celsius. These additional half-degrees also mean that another 420 million people are experiencing extreme and potentially dangerous heat waves.
The report describes the dangers of complex and cascading impacts, as well as thresholds for the non-return point in the climate system, known as turning points that scientists have only just begun to measure and understand. Recent studies have shown that a warming of 2 degrees Celsius could push the melting of ice sheets on top of Greenland and West Antarctica — if there is enough ice to lift the oceans by 13 meters — beyond the point of no return. Other turning points could lead to the transformation of the Amazon Basin from tropical forests to savannas and the permafrost of Siberia, which will contribute to further warming. In the near future, some regions — eastern Brazil, Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean, central China — and coastlines almost everywhere may be affected by several climatic disasters: drought, heat waves, cyclones, forest fires, floods.
At the same time, according to the IPCC, much can be done to avoid the worst-case scenarios and prepare for unforeseen strikes. In particular, the conservation and restoration of so-called blue carbon ecosystems — such as kelp and mangrove forests — increase carbon stocks. Switching to a more plant-based diet can also reduce food-related emissions by 70% by 2050. It is noted that transformational changes are needed that affect processes and behavior at all levels: the individual, the community, business, institutions and governments.
Source: https://ruslo.info/
