Climate scientists revealed to the world a report that laid out the planet’s future and the stark reality is life on Earth beyond 1.5C of global warming will become far more difficult, and we are currently on track to surpass this limit within just a couple of decades. The climate scientists are warning that heatwaves, drought and sea level rise are going to be harder to ignore.
The Paris climate agreement in 2015 mentioned keeping warming below 2C, it also said nations would “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C”. Since then scientists have been scrambling to assess what 1.5C means for the people living on the front lines of climate change.
Landry Ninteretse, a climate change activist from Burundi, says that “as an African, 1.5 is a matter of survival”.
“1.5C is a red line for our survival,” says Joseph Zane Sikulu, an activist and self-styled “Pacific climate warrior” of Tongan heritage.
The IPCC report stresses that while global warming of 1.5 degrees will still entail huge risks, particularly to the world's poorest people, such communities would have a better opportunity to adapt than under 2-degree warming.
Sabine Minninger of aid organization Bread for the World told DW, "The difference of this half degree will make a huge difference for whether people can keep their home or not. Whether they lose their livelihoods, their land rights, their home, their identity, their culture — or not."
While industrialised nations have been the engines driving climate change with their greenhouse gas emissions, it is communities in poorer parts of the world that stand to lose the most.
“It’s the ultimate injustice that the communities that are least responsible for climate change are the ones suffering the worst impacts,” says Payal Parekh, programme director at campaign group 350.org.
The effects of global warming will become more pronounced and obvious. Governments have ignored repeated warnings that they are far off meeting climate targets, refusing to do anything to correct the current course. All the promises by countries to cut emissions are just not enough. In fact, we will break the 1.5C barrier by 2040 and hit a catastrophic 3C rise by the time a child born today has lived their three score years and 10.
The report says that in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, we would need to cut global emissions 45 percent by 2030 (compared to 2010 levels), and the IPCC has concluded that by 2050, the world must be carbon neutral: emitting, on balance, zero greenhouse gas emissions. That requires the phaseout of fossil fuels and the mass deployment of solar and wind energy – globally, and at a pace and scale never seen before. Its findings are unequivocal about the urgency and depth of action needed. The report says that only “rapid and far-reaching” changes to the world economy will suffice. For capitalism, in practice, this will mean investing billions and billions into a low-carbon economy and green technologies. Stephen Cornelius, chief advisor on climate change for WWF, says the difference between the possible and the impossible boils down to political will.
The Socialist Party realises that profit will always be the priority for capitalism, the solution in our hands is to bring the means of production under direct democratic control so that everybody can take part in deciding how global resources are used. People everywhere are beginning to understand that their loyalty is to each other and to the maintenance of a protected, sustainable world environment, not just for now, but for all future generations. We cannot expect the problems to be solved within capitalism; all the powers tilt the opposite way. Consider the fact that this has been on the international agenda for over three decades and nothing has been achieved; emissions have increased over this period (and were only halted as an effect of the global recession). Additionally, note that national governments have declared that the environment must come second to the economy. Ultimately the issue of the environment is an issue of power: who has the power to determine what happens to this planet? Only in a society where we have the power to determine what can and cannot be done will we be able to stop this headlong rush to environmental devastation. That means a world of common ownership and democratic control. Only socialism can deliver on the environment.
The IPCC report is nonsense. It is the result, going on for decades, of employed wage slave scientists not wanting to be "the first", so to speak, to say we are fucked. They would be attacked by their peers and more than likely lose their jobs or never have a chance for advancement. Probably one of the early cases was a statement in 2002 announced by David Suzuki and ten Nobel winners that by the year 2012 the world would pass the point-of-no-return in the planet's heating up. It was covered in a 6:00 am news report of the CBC and never repeated -- despite repeated requests for information from both the CBC and The Suzuki Foundation.
ReplyDeleteEver heard of the huge black hole absent of all life swirling around in the pristine Arctic Ocean in the early 1960's? Have you noticed that all prognostications of (imminent) disaster are said to be between 10 and 30 years away? At least?
I have a list of "imminent extinctions". The latest one (within the last couple of months) was a scientific paper reporting that the insect world -- the most populous species on earth -- weighed by body mass has lost 90% WORLDWIDE.
Living as I do in rural southern Quebec I have observed it for the last few years, and the accompanying reduction in bird life -- I suspect of the insect-eating species. This information comes to me through an interview on the CBC of the scientist discussing his peer-reviewed paper. I have not been able to acquire further information. Interestingly, at one point the scientist mentioned that anyone could physically observe insect reduction at "work" just by counting the number of insects splatting on the windscreen of your car driving on the highway.
What he didn't mention was the implication of the vast and continuing reduction of the insect population and the pollination of plant life. All I've heard was humans whining about their honey bees and the commercial implications.
As we say, mindlessly, "Have a nice day."