Marking milestone for changing weather conditions on our planet, scientists say that Earth continues its higher temperature in 2017 (since record keeping began in 1880) – almost equalling the record set in the last two consecutive years, which beat one set in 2014. It is the first time that temperatures have past the previous record four years in a row. Since 1880, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) records show only one other instance when global temperature records were three years in a row; in 1939, 1940, and 1941. The Earth has warmed so much in the recent decades, however, that 1941 now ranks as only the 37th warmest year on record.
Temperatures are heading towards levels that many experts believe will pose a profound threat to both the natural world and to human civilization. In 2015 and 2016, the planetary warming was intensified by El Nino. But the bigger factor that continues in setting the records was the long-term trend of rising temperature, which scientists say was being driven by increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – the real cause the planet undergoing big changes.
The heat extremes were especially pervasive in the Arctic, with temperature in the fall running 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Sea ice in the region has been in precipitous decline for years, and Arctic communities are already wrestling with enormous problems, such as rapid coastal erosion, caused by the changing climate. The scale of the heat burst has been startling to many of the researchers, and some of them fear an accelerated era of global warming could be at hand over the next few years. Even at current temperatures, billions of tons of land ice are melting. The sea is also absorbing most of the heat trapped by human emissions. Those factors are causing the ocean and coastal communities in many countries across the globe to witness increased tidal flooding.
Poverty, starvation, flooding, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, war and disease already lead to human tragedies. They are likely to worsen as the Earth warms from man-made climate change. Throughout the 21st century, climate change impacts will slow down economic growth and poverty reduction, further erode food security and trigger new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger. Climate change will exacerbate poverty in low and lower-middle income countries and create new poverty pockets in upper-middle to high-income countries with increasing inequality, experts warned.
According to researchers, a warmer world, with bursts of heavy rain and prolonged drought, will worsen some of the existing effects. For North America, the highest risks over the long term are from wildfires, heat waves and flooding. Water – too much and too little – and heat waves are the biggest risks for Europe, South America and Asia having to deal with drought-related food shortages. Africa gets those risks and more; starvation, pests and disease. Australia and New Zealand get the unique risk of losing their coral reef ecosystems.
“Unless we take decisive action now, we are headed for real disastrous outcomes”, agreed World leaders who met during ‘One Planet Summit’ convened by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris recently, in order to unlock more money to drive the global economy’s shift to green energy; exactly two years after signing a global pact which had taken nearly 200 nations more than two decades of negotiation to avert worst-case-scenario the global warming. Without trillion of US dollars invested in clean energy technology, the Paris Agreement’s goal to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial levels, will remain a pipe dream, 60 World leaders participating in the Summit warned.
Mankind’s voracious burning of oil, coal and natural gas is blamed for planet-warming greenhouse gases that have caused the average global temperature to rise by about one degree Celsius to date. On current emissions trends, the world was on course for warming of 3 degrees Celsius, experts warn, with life and asset threatening super-storms, sea-level rise, floods and droughts the result. The world leaders at the Paris summit have opined that much stronger mobilisation by remaining partners on this issue was the need of the hour.
Environmentalists and economists, however, are of the view that the estimated investment of more than a trillion dollars over a decade in the developing countries which offer the best opportunities sounds big, but is a ridiculously small amount; 6 per cent of Europe’s GDP annually. Consider also the same speed with which Europe is renewing its internal infrastructure under the Juncker Plan; it has spend 700 billion dollars over five years. A similar plan for climate would yield even better consequences for all.
They pointed out that two things are working right now in our favour. First, well-proven technologies to reduce carbon emissions are now widely available at low cost and on large scale. This involves not just solar panels, but energy storage, electric buses, large scale mass transport, climate-friendly railways and safer cities, agriculture and water. But the transition will cost a lot, because we need to build an entirely new network.
The second thing in our favour is that private savings, held by pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, philanthropists and asset managers are waiting to shift from increasingly risky and troubled fossil fuel assets into sustainable infrastructure. Global bond markets have about 100 trillion dollars.
Governments could partially de-risk these investments. They only need to ‘nudge’ the system of finance, by taking some risks off the table intelligently in areas that are best suited for it. The world of finance will then do what it usually does well: Shift capital faster to finance a new engine of growth in the low-carbon economy, experts suggest.
(The writer is a freelance journalist)
