Code Red for Humanity
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to provide policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.
Its most recent report released early last month is most alarming. It described climate change as “rapid, widespread, and intensifying…” The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said that the report was nothing less than a “code red for humanity.” He said: “The evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions are choking our planet and placing billions of people in danger. Global heating is affecting every region of the earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible.” He noted that the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, agreed to in Paris in 2015 by 196 countries as the amount of increase to which climate change would be limited in this entire century, is already “perilously close.” He urged action in Glasgow in November at the COP 26 conference on climate change at which the G 20 economies would have the opportunity to join the net zero coalition to slow down and reverse global heating “with credible, concrete, and enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions.”
The report, prepared by 234 scientists from 66 countries, found that human activity has created unprecedented climate warming over the past 2,000 years. In 2019 carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere were higher than at any time in at least 2 million years. Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide were higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years. Global temperature has increased faster than at any time since 1970 than in any other 50-year period in the last 2,000 years. In the meantime, global mean sea level has risen faster since 1900 than over any preceding century in at least the last 3,000 years. The report concludes that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming between 1850-1900. Over the next 20 years global warming is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of heating. Clearly, the report concludes, global warming of 2 degrees Celsius will be exceeded in the 21st century unless rapid and deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse emissions are reduced in the coming decades.
The IPCC report projects that at 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming there will be increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons and shorter cold seasons, being some of the conditions mentioned above. At 2 degrees Celsius heat extremes are more likely to reach critical tolerance thresholds for agriculture and health. The water cycle will be affected, resulting in intensifying rainfall and associated flooding as in Guyana, as well as more intense drought in many regions. In high altitudes precipitation is likely to increase, while it is projected to decrease over large parts of the subtropics. Coastal areas will see coastal rise throughout the 21st century, contributing to more frequent and severe flooding in lowlying areas and coastal flooding. Extreme sea level events such as tsunami, that previously occurred once in 100 years could become annual events. Further warming will amplify permafrost thawing and the loss of seasonal cover, melting of glaciers and ice sheets, and the loss of summer Arctic sea ice. Changes to the ocean, including warming, more frequent heatwaves, ocean acidification, and reduced oxygen levels, will affect ocean ecosystems and the people, such as fishermen, who rely in them, and they will continue for the remainder of the century.
The recent ferocity in hurricanes, such as Ida landing in the US, recent flooding in central China and western Europe and the danger to countries like Guyana from rising sea levels now place the world in grave danger. Reducing agricultural output and more economic refugees are predicted.
“Stabilising the climate will require strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in gas emissions and reaching net zero CO2 emissions,” says the Working Group 1 Chair. Progress towards this end will require a strong commitment by the G 20 economies at the COP 26 conference in Glasgow in November. Since the Paris Agreement, many developed countries have voluntarily committed to zero emissions by 2050. While many regard this as optimistic, the intrusive role of international politics, with a new cold war declared against China and Russia, is creating pessimism for a hopeful outcome.
For countries like Guyana and those in the Caribbean, which have contributed nothing to the climate crisis, but are suffering its negative consequences, urgent help to mitigate its devastating progress is necessary. Unless this happens, these countries will be unable to cope. Guyana is a special case. Providing a carbon sink with its massive forests, it is poised to increase its carbon footprint with the production of petroleum. Should Guyana, below sea level and threatened by the Atlantic, give up its massive resources, abandon itself to the mercies of the ocean, in the interests of the polluting, developed, world? If so, what do we get for it? And from whom?
(This article relies heavily on UN News of 9 August, 2021, which summarises the 150-page IPCC Report).