By David Suzuki
German scientists are warning that global warming is accelerating, that the planet could heat by as much as 3 C over pre-industrial levels by 2050 — just 24 years from now — and that we could exceed 5 C of warming by the century’s end.
This should be top headline news. It should alarm us all. It should spur politicians to urgent action.
The consequences would be catastrophic. A 3 C rise doesn’t mean a temperature increase of that amount over the whole world. Some areas could see temperatures up to 10 degrees higher than normal, reaching more than 50 C.
It would mean more long-lasting droughts, widespread water shortages, intense wildfires and desert zones spreading from the Sahara to Spain. Weather would become increasingly unpredictable, with more extreme events, including heavy rains and flooding in some areas. Prolonged heat waves would cause more illness and death and drive more migration as people flee inhospitable areas.
In some tropical areas, extreme heat and humidity would make it impossible to survive outdoors for the first time in recorded history. Agricultural failures and drought would cause food shortages. More plants and animals would go extinct. High ocean temperatures, decreasing oxygen content and increased carbonic acid concentration — already becoming more common — would put aquatic life at even greater risk. Sea level rise would increase further, endangering coastal communities.
The German Physics Society and the German Meteorological Society’s joint statement says global average temperature has already exceeded 1.5 C several times over the past two years, and that the threshold — the aspirational level the world’s nations agreed to stay below with the 2015 Paris Agreement — may have been permanently breached.
The statement notes these scenarios don’t represent an inescapable fate. But keeping below the agreed-upon hard target of 2 C, the scientists warn, will require the international community to significantly step up efforts.
That means quickly shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy, conserving and using energy more efficiently and protecting and restoring carbon sinks such as forests, peatlands and wetlands. It will also require expanding technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as we’ve already pumped enough to ensure the world will continue to heat for years.
We’ll also have to implement more measures to adapt to the irreversible changes we’ve already set in motion with our profligate use of coal, oil and gas, and our insane destruction of natural systems that store carbon.
“The purpose of climate conferences was to slow the rise of CO2 and ideally reverse it,” German Meteorological Society chair Frank Böttcher told the weekly Die Zeit. “Yet despite all the pledges, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is still climbing. Looking at the political response, I would sum it up like this: too little, too slow, too late.”
The scientists note that we face an uphill battle, especially given the actions of the current United States administration, which is stepping away from international agreements, overturning climate policies and attempting to ramp up fossil fuel production — not to mention trying to seize Venezuela’s vast heavy crude oil reserves.
“Our colleagues in the United States, in particular, are under heavy pressure, especially in climate science,” Klaus Richter, president of the German Physical Society, told Die Zeit. “But limiting global warming requires the input of nearly every scientific discipline in dialogue with society, far beyond the natural sciences.”
These scientists offer a range of solutions, most of which we already know. They include raising awareness of the real and pressing danger of human-caused global heating, rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adhering to the Paris Agreement, using economic measures to avoid greenhouse gas emissions and incentivize low-emission products, promoting ways to store CO2 through afforestation, protection and restoration of peatlands and using wood as a building material, developing methods to adapt to global warming consequences in ways that also protect the climate, planning to withdraw from some coastal areas and ensuring that society receives credible, science-based information.
Most people alive today will suffer the fury of a hothouse planet. We’ve created an emergency that threatens all of humankind.
Politics and the economy can no longer block us from adopting these actions immediately. If scientists and their findings aren’t held up to guide us, what will?
David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.
Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.
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EXCERPT: Most people alive today will suffer the fury of a hothouse planet. We’ve created an emergency that threatens all of humankind.
KEY WORDS: Paris Agreement, sea level rise, drought, fossil fuels, renewable energy,
REFERENCES:
German scientists are warning:
German Physics Society and the German Meteorological Society’s joint statement:
2015 Paris Agreement:
Actions of the current United States administration:
Seize Venezuela’s vast heavy crude oil reserves:
