Scientists want climate change brought to heel
A GROUP of scientists, including Jamaica’s own Professor Michael Taylor and 20 others from across the world, has come out with an urgent plea to tighten the reins on climate change.
In an article published in the journal Science and titled ‘The Human imperative of stabilising climate change at 1.5 degrees Celsius’, they maintain that the world should aim for 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming (above the pre-industrial levels) and must not miss.
In it, the group of 21 scientists – including Taylor, who is dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology at The University of the West Indies, Mona – revealed that “In broad terms, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will require an annual investment in the energy sector between 2016 and 2050 of $1.46 to $3.51 trillion (US$2010) in energy supply and $640 to $910 billion in energy demand measures in order to reach netzero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050”.
Net-zero gas emissions is when man-made greenhouse gas emissions are balanced by emissions-removal interventions or otherwise through the elimination of emissions.
“On the other hand,” the scientists say in the article, “the mean net present value (in 2008) of the damage that would be avoided by 2200 by making these investments estimated as totalling $496 trillion (based on the value of the US dollar in 2010).
“This, together with other damage that is difficult to quantify – for example, disruption and migration of human communities; reductions in ecosystem services associated with biodiversity loss – suggests that the potential economic benefits arising from limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius may be at least four or five times the size of the investments needed in the energy system until 2050,” the group added.
NO TIME TO TARRY
According to the scientists, there is no time to tarry.
Already the ill effects of warming of one degree Celsius are being experienced, as evidenced by increased temperatures and dryness in the Mediterranean region that fuel longer and more intense fire seasons.
Among other things, low-lying countries, such as the Maldives, are experiencing flooding while they remain at greater risk of sea level rise and extreme weather events.
“Coral reefs clearly illustrate the linkage among climate change, ecosystem services and human well-being. At 1.0 degrees Celsius, large-scale mortality events driven by lengthening marine heatwaves have already reduced coral populations in many places, with prominent coral reef ecosystems, such as the Greater Barrier Reef in Australia, losing as much as 50% of their shallow-water corals in the past four years alone,” they added.
Taylor, meanwhile, has explained that the group had felt compelled to act and for two main reasons.
“One was that the 1.5 science had been proposed and there seems to have been, in some circles, a little bit of resistance to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report. And so that is one of the things that prompted us to do this, to say that this science of the 1.5 report is very important, and even since then, there has been more science. This journal article picks up on the additional science,” he explained.
FASTER RATE OF CHANGE
There is, too, Taylor said, “a general recognition that the climate is changing at a faster rate than even we the scientists had thought”.
“The kind of impacts climate change is having on humans and the rest of the natural world is perhaps more extensive, more severe than even the science seems to be suggesting,” he noted.
“And, therefore, it puts a greater burden on humanity to really act, especially if we are to achieve the 1.5-degree target. The window for action is really closing, but there is still an opportunity, but we need to add our voice to say there needs to be greater urgency. So the two things combined is what prompted us,” Taylor added.