On Thin Ice -- Climate Change

"Humanity is on thin ice -- and that ice is melting fast."

"Our world needs climate action on all fronts -- everything, everywhere, all at once."

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

"The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts for thousands of years. [Climate change is] a threat to human well-being and planetary health."

"We are not on the right track but it's not too late."

"Our intention is really a message of hope, and not that of doomsday."

UN science report co-author, water scientist Aditi Mukherji

"We are pretty much locked into 1.5."

"There's very little way we will be able to avoid crossing 1.5C sometime in the 2030s [the big issue is whether the temperature keeps rising or stabilizes]."

Report co-author Malte Meinshausen, climate scientist, University of Melbourne

We are those for whom the bell tolls. Once again being informed that the future harms of climate change are upon us. But, the message continues, there remains yet the opportunity -- a slight one which may be the ultimate turning point -- to prevent the most egregious of those future damages to Earth's environment. To do so would require swift action in eliminating close to two-thirds of carbon pollution by 2035,

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is adamant and their interpretation of our climate changes is not open to argument. An end to new fossil fuel exploration must be agreed upon. And it is the wealthy countries of the world that must stop the use of coal for energy, along with oil and gas by the year 2040. Action to put an end to the use of fossil fuels has a finite timeline.

Rich countries, stresses Mr. Guterres, must accelerate their target to achieve net zero emissions as early as 2040 as the most urgent of issues. Developing nations have been given slightly more leeway, by a decade. The use of coal must come to an end by 2030 and 2040 respectively. Carbon-free electricity generation must be achieved at the earliest possible date as well as the elimination of gas-fired power plants. The developed world is given to 2035 for this signal goal.

 

 

Nations are expected to arrive at goals for pollution reduction by 2035, in accordance with the Paris climate agreement under which 60 percent of greenhouse gas must be cut by 2035 -- representing a new time-target not previously mentioned in the panel's previous six such reports -- reflecting the urgency of the new declarations. 

Only a few tenths of a degree distant from the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 1.5C since pre-industrial times, scientists now stress a sense of urgency, alerting the world community. Adopted as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the world has reached the warming point of 1.1 degrees Celsius.

"Tipping points" surrounding that temperature linked to species extinction, includes coral reefs, irreversible melting of ice sheets, and sea level rises of several metres. Reaching the dread 1.5 degrees of warming is inevitable, according to many scientists, in particular at least three co-authors of this latest climate report.