[D66] Earth to Hit Critical Global Warming Threshold by Early 2030s

[René Oudeweg]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/climate/global-warming-ipcc-earth.html

nytimes.com
Earth to Hit Critical Global Warming Threshold by Early 2030s
Brad Plumer
11–14 minutes

Climate Change Is Speeding Toward Catastrophe. The Next Decade Is 
Crucial, U.N. Panel Says.

A new report says it is still possible to hold global warming to 
relatively safe levels, but doing so will require global cooperation, 
billions of dollars and big changes.
Hoesung Lee, in a dark business suit, a red tie and glasses, stands 
before microphones at a white lectern on a stage with a blue background.
Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 
speaking at the global climate talks on Nov. 6 in Sharm el Sheikh, 
Egypt.Credit...Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Published March 20, 2023Updated March 21, 2023

Earth is likely to cross a critical threshold for global warming within 
the next decade, and nations will need to make an immediate and drastic 
shift away from fossil fuels to prevent the planet from overheating 
dangerously beyond that level, according to a major new report released 
on Monday.

The report, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of 
experts convened by the United Nations, offers the most comprehensive 
understanding to date of ways in which the planet is changing. It says 
that global average temperatures are estimated to rise 1.5 degrees 
Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels sometime 
around “the first half of the 2030s,” as humans continue to burn coal, 
oil and natural gas.

That number holds a special significance in global climate politics: 
Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, virtually every nation agreed to 
“pursue efforts” to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Beyond 
that point, scientists say, the impacts of catastrophic heat waves, 
flooding, drought, crop failures and species extinction become 
significantly harder for humanity to handle.

But Earth has already warmed an average of 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 
industrial age, and, with global fossil-fuel emissions setting records 
last year, that goal is quickly slipping out of reach.

There is still one last chance to shift course, the new report says. But 
it would require industrialized nations to join together immediately to 
slash greenhouse gases roughly in half by 2030 and then stop adding 
carbon dioxide to the atmosphere altogether by the early 2050s. If those 
two steps were taken, the world would have about a 50 percent chance of 
limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Delays of even a few years would most likely make that goal 
unattainable, guaranteeing a hotter, more perilous future.

“The pace and scale of what has been done so far and current plans are 
insufficient to tackle climate change,” said Hoesung Lee, the chair of 
the climate panel. “We are walking when we should be sprinting.”

Image
A wide array of strategies are now available for reducing fossil-fuel 
emissions, such as scaling up wind and solar power.Credit...Ryan David 
Brown for The New York Times

The report, which was approved by 195 governments, says that existing 
and currently planned fossil fuel infrastructure — coal-fired power 
plants, oil wells, factories, cars and trucks across the globe — will 
already produce enough carbon dioxide to warm the planet roughly 2 
degrees Celsius this century. To keep warming below that level, many of 
those projects would need to be canceled, retired early or otherwise 
cleaned up.

“The 1.5 degree limit is achievable, but it will take a quantum leap in 
climate action,” António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, 
said. In response to the report, Mr. Guterres called on countries to 
stop building new coal plants and to stop approving new oil and gas 
projects.

Many scientists have pointed out that surpassing the 1.5 degree 
threshold will not mean humanity is doomed. But every fraction of a 
degree of additional warming is expected to increase the severity of 
dangers that people around the world face, such as water scarcity, 
malnutrition and deadly heat waves.

The difference between 1.5 degrees of warming and 2 degrees might mean 
that tens of millions more people worldwide experience life-threatening 
heat waves, water shortages and coastal flooding. A 1.5-degree world 
might still have coral reefs and summer Arctic sea ice, while a 2-degree 
world most likely would not.

“It’s not that if we go past 1.5 degrees everything is lost,” said Joeri 
Rogelj, director of research at the Grantham Institute for Climate 
Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. “But there’s 
clear evidence that 1.5 is better than 1.6, which is better than 1.7, 
and so on. The point is we need to do everything we can to keep warming 
as low as possible.”

Scientists say that warming will largely halt once humans stop adding 
heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, a concept known as “net zero” 
emissions. How quickly nations reach net zero will determine how hot the 
planet ultimately becomes. Under the current policies of national 
governments, Earth is on pace to heat up by 2.1 to 2.9 degrees Celsius 
this century, analysts have estimated.

Both the United States and European Union have set goals of reaching net 
zero emissions by 2050, while China has set a 2060 goal and India is 
aiming for 2070. But in light of the report’s findings, Mr. Guterres 
said, all countries should move faster and wealthy countries should aim 
to reach net zero by 2040.

The new report is a synthesis of six previous landmark reports on 
climate change issued by the U.N. panel since 2018, each one compiled by 
hundreds of experts across the globe, approved by 195 countries and 
based on thousands of scientific studies. Taken together, the reports 
represent the most comprehensive look to date at the causes of global 
warming, the impacts that rising temperatures are having on people and 
ecosystems across the world and the strategies that countries can pursue 
to halt global warming.

The report makes clear that humanity’s actions today have the potential 
to fundamentally reshape the planet for thousands of years.

Image
Storms in California caused flooding in Felton Grove, Calif., in 
January.Credit...Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times

Many of the most dire climate scenarios once feared by scientists, such 
as those forecasting warming of 4 degrees Celsius or more, now look 
unlikely, as nations have invested more heavily in clean energy. At 
least 18 countries, including the United States, have managed to reduce 
their emissions for more than a decade, the report finds, while the 
costs of solar panels, wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries for 
electric vehicles have plummeted.

At the same time, even relatively modest increases in global temperature 
are now expected to be more disruptive than previously thought, the 
report concludes.

At current levels of warming, for instance, food production is starting 
to come under strain. The world is still producing more food each year, 
thanks to improvements in farming and crop technology, but climate 
change has slowed the rate of growth, the report says. It’s an ominous 
trend that puts food security at risk as the world’s population soars 
past eight billion people.

Today, the world is seeing record-shattering storms in California and 
catastrophic drought in places like East Africa. But by the 2030s, as 
temperatures rise, climate hazards are expected to increase all over the 
globe as different countries face more crippling heat waves, worsening 
coastal flooding and crop failures, the report says. At the same time, 
mosquitoes carrying diseases like malaria and dengue will spread into 
new areas, it adds.

Nations have made some strides in preparing for the dangers of global 
warming, the report says, for instance by building coastal barriers 
against rising oceans or establishing early-warning systems for future 
storms. But many of those adaptation efforts are “incremental” and lack 
sufficient funding, particularly in poorer countries, the report finds.

Image
A boat passes through the Maeslantkering, a storm surge barrier, in Hoek 
van Holland, the Netherlands, in 2021. It was constructed in response to 
water-level predictions.Credit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

And if temperatures keep rising, many parts of the world may soon face 
limits in how much they can adapt. Beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius of 
warming, low-lying island nations and communities that depend on 
glaciers may face severe freshwater shortages.

To stave off a chaotic future, the report recommends that nations move 
away from the fossil fuels that have underpinned economies for more than 
180 years.

Governments and companies would need to invest three to six times the 
roughly $600 billion they now spend annually on encouraging clean energy 
in order to hold global warming at 1.5 or 2 degrees, the report says. 
While there is currently enough global capital to do so, much of it is 
difficult for developing countries to acquire. The question of what 
wealthy, industrialized nations owe to poor, developing countries has 
been divisive at global climate negotiations.

A wide array of strategies are available for reducing fossil-fuel 
emissions, such as scaling up wind and solar power, shifting to electric 
vehicles and electric heat pumps in buildings, curbing methane emissions 
from oil and gas operations, and protecting forests.

But that may not be enough: Countries may also have to remove billions 
of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, relying on 
technology that barely exists today.

The report acknowledges the enormous challenges ahead. Winding down 
coal, oil and gas projects would mean job losses and economic 
dislocation. Some climate solutions come with difficult trade-offs: 
Protecting forests, for instance, means less land for agriculture; 
manufacturing electric vehicles requires mining metals for use in their 
batteries.

And because nations have waited so long to cut emissions, they will have 
to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to adapt to climate risks that 
are now unavoidable.

The new report is expected to inform the next round of United Nations 
climate talks this December in Dubai, where world leaders will gather to 
assess their progress in tackling global warming. At last year’s climate 
talks in Sharm el Sheik, language calling for an end to fossil fuels was 
struck from the final agreement after pressure from several 
oil-producing nations.

“Without a radical shift away from fossil fuels over the next few years, 
the world is certain to blow past the 1.5 C goal.” said Ani Dasgupta, 
president of the World Resources Institute, an environmental group. “The 
I.P.C.C. makes plain that continuing to build new unabated fossil fuel 
power plants would seal that fate,” he added, using the abbreviation for 
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group, responded by 
saying that oil and gas companies were working on technologies to curb 
emissions such as carbon capture, but that policymakers “must also 
consider the importance of adequate, affordable and reliable energy to 
meet growing global needs,” said Christina Noel, a spokesperson for the 
institute.

While the next decade is almost certain to be hotter, scientists said 
the main takeaway from the report should be that nations still have 
enormous influence over the climate for the rest of the century.

The report “is quite clear that whatever future we end up with is within 
our control,” said Piers Forster, a climate scientist at the University 
of Leeds who helped write one of the panel’s earlier reports. “It is up 
to humanity,” he added, “to determine what we end up with.”