AFP | Paris
Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Climate change poses an “existential threat” to life on Earth, leading scientists warned on Tuesday in an assessment of this year’s heat record and an avalanche of extreme weather events, warning that the impact could be more severe than expected. He said that
2023 is expected to be the hottest year on record, with regions around the globe experiencing deadly heatwaves.
Some areas have been hit by flooding, and in some cases, extremes of both in quick succession.
“The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of extreme weather events in 2023. We now fear the unknown into which we have tread,” the International Union of Authors wrote in the journal Bioscience. stated in a new report.
Their harsh assessment was that “life on Earth is under siege.”
As major greenhouse gases hit record levels and fossil fuel subsidies soared last year, researchers say humanity has made “minimal progress” in curbing global warming emissions. Stated.
The damning assessment was released just a month before the United Nations COP28 climate change negotiations, to be held in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.
“We need to shift our view of the climate emergency from just an isolated environmental issue to a systemic, existential threat,” the authors said.
The study on the state of the climate examined recent data on the “vital signs” of 35 planets and found that 20 of them were at record extreme conditions this year.
– “Off the charts” –
A rise in temperature of just about 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels has led to a range of dire and costly consequences.
This year, another warming El Niño phenomenon has begun.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Agency said the three months to September will be the hottest on record, possibly the warmest in about 120,000 years.
The report said many climate-related records would be broken by “significant margins” in 2023, with ocean temperatures in particular absorbing almost all of the excess heat caused by human carbon pollution.
Co-author Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said sea surface temperature records are “completely off the charts” and scientists still can’t fully explain why. Stated.
Potentially serious impacts include threats to marine life and coral reefs, and an increase in the intensity of major tropical storms, the report said.
This year, people around the world faced heatwaves and droughts, and severe flooding occurred in the United States, China, India and elsewhere.
In Canada, record wildfires linked in part to climate change have released more carbon dioxide than the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, the report said.
~1.5C era~
The authors say that before 2023, average global temperatures were rarely more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This year, by mid-September, 38 such days have already been recorded.
The more ambitious Paris Agreement goal of 1.5°C will be measured over several decades.
But lead author William Ripple, a professor at Oregon State University, said we are likely entering a period where annual temperatures will exceed that level, putting us at risk from climate feedback loops and tipping points.
“Once these tipping points are crossed, the climate can change in ways that are difficult or impossible to reverse,” he told AFP.
These could include the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, widespread permafrost thawing, and widespread coral reef die-off.
There are some tipping points, but “we’re not going to avoid it now; it’s more about delaying the damage,” said co-author Tim Renton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.
To achieve this, it is necessary to reduce emissions and limit temperature rise.
“Every fraction of a degree matters,” Renton told AFP. “There are still many challenges to tackle.”
This includes the number of people who may face intolerable conditions in the coming decades, including severe heat, limited food availability, and extreme weather.
The report said between 3 billion and 6 billion people could be “trapped beyond habitable areas” by the end of this century.
“Many world leaders continue to generally support business as usual, rather than enacting policies to curb climate change and sustain life on Earth,” Ripple said.
“Recent extreme weather events will motivate policymakers at the upcoming COP28 climate change conference to support deep cuts in fossil fuel emissions and increased financing for climate adaptation, especially in the world’s most vulnerable regions.” I look forward to giving you.”