Can UK lead world back from brink?
AS DOOMSDAY REPORT WARNS OF APOCALYPTIC CLIMATE CHANGE...
THE world must ‘wake up’ and act on climate change following a landmark report which warned that a target of limiting global warming to 1.5C will be breached within two decades, Britain said yesterday.
Following devastating flash floods in Germany and wildfires in Greece, the United Nations report says that climate change is already affecting every region across the globe.
UN chief Antonio Guterres described the warning as a ‘code red for humanity’.
Just weeks away from the Cop26 climate talks when world leaders will travel to Glasgow, scientists said a sea level rise of 2metres by the end of the century ‘cannot be ruled out’.
The stark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also says:
■ Climate change is already causing droughts and more frequent, more intense heatwaves;
■Once-a-century coastal flooding events could happen every year in many areas by 2100; ■The Arctic could be practically free of summer sea ice in September in at least one year before 2050;
■The sea level rise caused by climate change is irreversible and it will continue for centuries;
■But every tonne of CO2 matters, and our actions now can still protect against further damage.
It is ‘unequivocal’ that it is humans who are warming the atmosphere, land and oceans, the IPCC concludes for the first time.
The Paris Agreement, adopted six years ago, set the target of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which many experts see as the ‘guardrail’ beyond which climate change becomes particularly dangerous.
But the IPCC report found this target will be reached or exceeded over the next 20 years, even under the lowest-emission scenario.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the report makes for ‘sobering reading’, adding: ‘It is clear that the next decade is going to be pivotal to securing the future of our planet. We know what must be done to limit global warming – consign coal to history and shift to clean energy sources, protect nature and provide climate finance for countries on the frontline.’
The bombshell report piles pressure on the UK’s Cop26 president Alok Sharma, who is urging coal-hungry countries such as China and India to cut down and pushing for net zero pledges from seven G20 nations which have not already made them.
He is also aiming to resurrect a failed promise for wealthier countries to raise $100billion to help developing countries cope with
climate change. Mr Sharma was only appointed full-time Cop26 president in January after former Tory leaders David Cameron and William Hague reportedly turned the job down. Yesterday he described the IPCC report as a ‘wake-up call for the world’.
The UK’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said action was not needed in 2050, which is the year for many climate targets, but now, adding: ‘If we don’t do it now, then we don’t stand a chance of getting this right.’
UN secretary-general Mr Guterres said: ‘The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. The internationally agreed threshold of 1.5C is perilously close.’
The IPCC report, approved by 195 member governments, marks a striking change of language. An IPCC review in 1995 suggested only a ‘discernible human influence’ on global climate.
But the latest report states: ‘It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.’ Global surface temperatures have risen faster since 1970 than during any other period over at least the 2,000 years, according to the experts. Cities are at particular risk. They experience hotter temperatures in heatwaves and flash flooding from heavy rain.
The IPCC report sets out five scenarios and estimates the level of global warming compared to the ‘pre-industrial’ era of 1850 to 1900.
Under all five scenarios, the world will exceed the 1.5C threshold between 2021 and 2040, although in the low-emissions scenario, this would be temporary, the planet would overshoot it by no more than 0.1C and return below it by 2100.
But Professor Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading, one of the lead authors of the report, said: ‘The 1.5C or 2C goals from the political process, they’re not cliff edges – every bit of warming matters.
‘The consequences get worse and worse and worse as we get warmer, so every tonne of CO2 matters.’ Mr
Sharma told reporters: If ever there was going to be a wake-up call for the world when it comes to climate, then it is this report.’
The UK Government has been praised for its 2050 target to reach net zero emissions. But ministers are often less than forthcoming when asked to describe exactly how people’s lives will change.