Bleakest Warning Yet on Impacts of Climate Breakdown
The breakdown of the world climate is accelerating rapidly, many of the results will be worse expected and there is only a narrow window left to avoid the worst effects, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said.
Even the current levels of heating are already causing widespread, dangerous disruptions, threatening devastation to vast parts of the natural world and rendering many areas unliveable, according to the landmark report published in March.
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a co-chair of the IPCC group behind the report. “Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.”
In what some scientists call “the bleakest warning yet”, the summary report from the global authority on climate science says droughts, floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather are accelerating and becoming more severe.
World temperatures are likely to continue to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, based on current emissions trends. The report says this will lead to “irreversible” impacts, including the melting of ice caps and glaciers, and a cascading effect whereby wildfires, the die-off of trees, the drying of peatlands and the thawing of permafrost release additional carbon emissions, causing further warming.
‘Failed Climate Leadership’
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said, “I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this. Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.”
The report says that every part of the world is affected, with no inhabited region escaping dire impacts from rising temperatures and increasingly extreme weather. Roughly half of all people — between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion— are in regions “highly vulnerable” to climate change effects. Millions face food and water shortages, even at current levels of change.
1.5C of warming is a “critical level”, above which climate change will accelerate and many impacts of the climate crisis will become irreversible.
Coastal areas around the world, and low-lying islands, face inundation at levels higher than 1.5C.
Mass die-offs of species, from trees to corals, are already happening. Key ecosystems that absorb carbon dioxide are losing their ability to do so, resulting in them turning from carbon sinks into sources of even more carbon emissions.
A handful of nations have agreed to conserve 30% of their land, but conserving 50% may be necessary to restore the ability of natural ecosystems to cope with the damage we have caused.
Window to avoid the worst
This latest report is the second part of the IPCC’s latest assessment, a result of seven years’ work drawing on the peer-reviewed results of thousands of scientists. It’s the sixth IPCC review since 1988 and could be the final one published before the world runs out of time to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis.
The first part, published in August 2021, covered the physical science of climate change. It confirmed that the climate crisis was “unequivocally” caused by human actions, and that it has caused “unprecedented” changes, some of which are “irreversible”.
This recently published second instalment looks at the impacts of climate breakdown, what areas of the world are most vulnerable, and how we can try to adapt and guard against some of the impacts. The third instalment, in April 2022, will discuss ways to cut emissions. In October, the final section of the report will summarise all three ahead of the UN Cop27 climate summit in Egypt.
Hard Limits to Our Ability to Adapt
Low lying and small islands will be some of the worst affected. Walton Webson, an ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda and the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, called the findings “cataclysmic”.
In response to the report, Webson urged the UN to convene a special session to consider possible actions. “We are continuing to head for a precipice — we say our eyes are open to the risks, but when you look at global emissions, if anything we are accelerating towards the cliff edge. We are not seeing the action from the big emitters that is required to get emissions down in this critical decade — this means halving emissions by 2030 at the latest. It is clear that time is slipping away from us.”
In less vulnerable regions, governments could help their people adapt to some of the impacts of the climate crisis. The report recommends helping farmers switch crops, building flood defences and more resilient infrastructure. However, the authors warn that the ability of the world to adapt to changes will rapidly diminish as temperatures continue to rise, hitting points beyond which humanity cannot adapt.
Prof Mark Howden, vice-chair of the IPCC working group behind the report and director of the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, said the evidence showed “climate change impacts are here, they matter, they are mostly negative but, if implemented, adaptation can take the edge off them”.
“The latest IPCC report makes one thing crystal clear – adaptation policy, finance and practice have to be stepped up urgently if our systems are to keep pace with climate change,” he said. “Simply put, adaptation is key to maintaining our health, our industries and our environment.”