The window of opportunity is closing

“The window of opportunity to avoid catastrophic climate change is fast shrinking,” executive director of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Yannick Glemarec, tells IPS. He was speaking at the GCF Private Investment for Climate (GPIC) Conference, which took place in Incheon, South Korea.

“When I started my career 30 years ago though we had 80 years before we would cross the 2 ° Celsius threshold. Today we face the real risk of crossing it within 20 to 30 years or 40 years,” Glemarec says.

“In addition what we have found over the past few years is that 2 ° Celsius might be already far too much for a number of countries for a number of communities for a number of ecosystems. We thought, for example, that we would not see major threats to ecosystems before an increase of temperature to 3, 4, 5, 6° Celsius. Today we believe that coral reefs could be wiped out by the time we reach 2 ° Celsius,” he says.