{"id":43009,"date":"2018-10-26T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T19:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=43009"},"modified":"2018-10-26T10:20:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T23:20:27","slug":"a-difference-of-degrees-the-looming-climate-catastrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-difference-of-degrees-the-looming-climate-catastrophe\/","title":{"rendered":"A difference of degrees: the looming climate catastrophe"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The release earlier this month of a major UN-sponsored scientific report on the significant impacts expected from 1.5\u00b0C of global warming\u2014the aspirational limit countries adopted in the Paris climate agreement<\/a>\u2014generated widespread media interest. Much of the commentary has rightly focused on the rapidly closing window of opportunity to achieve the aspiration and the huge scale of the societal changes required.<\/p>\n

But the recent coverage has largely overlooked an equally important aspect of the study. Based on the most recent scientific evidence, researchers have now determined that extremely harmful climate impacts will strike at much lower temperature thresholds than previously projected.<\/p>\n

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u2019s special report<\/a> on the impacts of global warming of 1.5\u00b0C, which was produced at the request of countries adopting the Paris agreement,<\/em> is an authoritative and cautious document. It\u2019s the culmination of the efforts of 133 contributing authors who analysed more than 6,000 scientific studies and incorporated comments from over 40,000 expert and government reviews.<\/p>\n

The report highlights the enormous challenge of limiting global warming to 1.5\u00b0. Annual emissions of CO2<\/sub> will need to be halved by 2030 relative to 2016 levels and renewable energy will need to supply 70\u201385% of global electricity demand (with coal\u2019s contribution essentially ceasing) by 2050. It notes that systemic changes on this scale would be historically unprecedented and require \u2018deep emissions reductions in all sectors, a wide portfolio of mitigation options and a significant upscaling of investments in those options\u2019.<\/p>\n

A key objective of the report is to describe how the climate-related risks at 1.5\u00b0 would differ from those at 2\u00b0 of warming (the upper limit agreed in Paris). Not surprisingly, the report concludes that the risks for human and natural systems are higher at 2\u00b0, but it is the scale<\/em> of the difference that is most worrying\u2014particularly given that without further ambition to reduce greenhouse gases, we can expect between 3\u00b0 and 4\u00b0<\/a> of warming.<\/p>\n

For example, that 0.5\u00b0 difference would, according to the report, result in several hundred million additional people falling into poverty; a 50% increase in the proportion of the global population experiencing water stress; 420 million more people frequently exposed to extreme heatwaves; 184 to 270 million more people exposed to an increase in water scarcity; and a 10-fold increase (from 8 million to 81 million) in the number of vulnerable people affected by changes to crop yields (jumping to a 50-fold increase at 3\u00b0 of warming).<\/p>\n

As distressing as these projections may be, they probably underestimate the actual harm because they don\u2019t generally take account of the cascading impacts<\/a> of disasters, which can often be more severe than the proximate impacts. The report in effect acknowledges this, noting that \u2018The literature on compound as well as interacting risk at warming of 1.5\u00b0C and 2.0\u00b0C is limited.\u2019 It observes that \u2018Multi-sector risks are projected to overlap spatially and temporally, creating new (and exacerbating current) hazards, exposures, and vulnerabilities that will affect increasing numbers of people and regions with additional warming.\u2019<\/p>\n

Media coverage of one of the report\u2019s most important findings has been relatively low-key. Recent research has now determined that global warming will trigger highly harmful societal impacts at significantly lower temperatures than was previously assumed.<\/p>\n

The IPCC\u2019s 2014 Fifth Assessment Report<\/a> identified five categories of impacts and determined for each the implications at various levels of warming for people, economies and ecosystems. The categories are: unique and threatened systems; extreme weather events; distribution of impacts; global aggregate impacts; and large-scale singular impacts (so-called climate tipping points). The current study, drawing on the most up-to-date scientific evidence, has determined that the 2014 assessment significantly underestimated <\/em>the risks in four of the five categories.<\/p>\n

For example, in the case of \u2018unique and threatened systems\u2019, the threshold for the transition from \u2018high\u2019 to \u2018very high\u2019 risk has been lowered from 2.6\u00b0 to between 1.5\u00b0 and 2\u00b0 of warming. The change reflects recent research that, among other things, has now determined with \u2018very high confidence\u2019 that 2\u00b0 of warming will result in the total<\/em> loss of coral reefs from the world\u2019s tropical and subtropical regions.<\/p>\n

\u2018Extreme weather\u2019 is the only category of impacts for which the report\u2019s finding<\/a> is relatively unchanged from 2014. However, that is largely because, as the authors point out, \u2018The impact literature contains very limited information about the potential for human society to adapt to extreme weather events and hence it has not been possible to locate the transition from \u201chigh\u201d \u2026 to \u201cvery high\u201d risk within the context of assessing impacts at 1.5\u00b0C versus 2\u00b0C global warming.\u2019<\/p>\n

Given the hugely disproportionate effect climate change will have on less developed countries and the likelihood of cascading impacts, there is good reason to suspect that plugging this research gap will reveal a significantly lower threshold in this major category as well.<\/p>\n

As the scientific uncertainty diminishes, it is becoming increasingly clear that we have greatly underestimated the impacts of climate change. The IPCC report\u2019s findings make it urgent for nations, including Australia, to scale up rapidly their national commitments under the Paris agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The release earlier this month of a major UN-sponsored scientific report on the significant impacts expected from 1.5\u00b0C of global warming\u2014the aspirational limit countries adopted in the Paris climate agreement\u2014generated widespread media interest. 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