Surging levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) has increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a new high, while oceans, which absorb the emissions, have become more acidic than ever. The United Nations (UN) says that without any doubt our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels, and that we need to reverse the trend by cutting emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases across the board.
According to a UN report, concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide all broke fresh records in recent years. Global concentrations of CO2, the main culprit in global warming, soared to 396 parts per million, or 142 per cent of pre-industrial levels — defined as before 1750. That marked a hike of 2.9 parts per million in the last about a year – the largest annual increase in 30 years.
In another 85 years, Earth is expected to be the warmest ever. Recently, scientists have reconstructed earth’s temperature history back to the end of the last Ice Age using data from 73 sites across the Globe. They have found that the planet today is warmer than it has been over the last 11,300 years.
The projection of global temperature for the year 2100 is most alarming. Data collected by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that temperatures are set to surpass the maximum temperatures in the 11,300-year period known as the Holocene — all plausible greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The Holocene spans the entire period of human civilisation. According to the researchers, History shows that over the past 5,000 years, the earth on average cooled about -17 degree Celsius – until the past 100 years, when it warmed by –I7 degree Celsius.
Previous research on past global temperature change has largely focused on the last 2,000 years. Extending the reconstruction of global temperature back to the end of the last Ice Age put today’s climate into a larger context. Researchers say we already knew that on a global scale, earth is warmer today than it was over much of the past 2,000 years, but now we know that it is warmer than most of the past 11,300 years. They pointed out that when you just look at one part of the world, the temperature history can be affected by regional climate process like El Nino or monsoon variations, but when you combine the data from sites all around the world, you can average out these regional anomalies and get a clear sense of the earth’s global temperature history.
The largest changes were in the Northern Hemisphere, especially Asia. Climate models project that global temperature will rise another –I6.7 to – II.3 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, largely dependent on the magnitude of carbon emissions. What is serious is that this warming will be significantly greater than at any time during the past 11,300 years. The research team also said that the most important natural factor affecting global temperatures during the last 11,300 years, is a gradual change in the distribution of solar insolation linked with earth’s position relative to the sun.
Researchers pointed out that during the warmest period of the Holocene, the earth was positioned such that northern hemisphere summers warmed more. As the earth’s orientation changed, northern hemisphere summers became cooler, and we should now be near of this long-term cooling trend – but obviously, we’re not. Scientists concluded that the earth’s climate responds tremendously to carbon dioxide and solar insulation.
The UN-backed Lima conference of I94 nations which was held in December last, was an important stepping stone towards preparation and signing of climate agreement in Paris at the end of this year. An important deal was concluded, including agreement for the first time that all countries (not Just developed nations) must cut greenhouse gas emissions, even though many of the hard issues have been deferred.
And even while prospects for a comprehensive, global treaty with the required ambition remaining uncertain, there is growing consensus that a better and faster response to climate change is badly needed.
The most important agenda at the Lima summit was to determine how the world will cut emissions to stay below 2 degrees Celsius increase guardrail, as scientists have concluded that this is the highest increase in temperature that the world should risk. The year 20I4 was the warmest on record; already the world is seeing extreme weather events which are devastating livelihoods and economies.
The world representatives in Lima for the 20th Conference of Parties (C0P20) have expressed serious concern that the world is running out of time| and that their Job is to work out the details of the post 2020 agreement that should be ready for signature in Paris at COP 21. All countries are now expected to come out with their ‘intended’ goals of cutting emissions, by March this year.
The problem is that the world has not only run out of time, it has also run out of space. In 1992 when the global Climate Change convention was signed, it was agreed that the already rich countries, which had released carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for their growth, would cut emissions and make space for the rest of the world to grow. It was also agreed that the developing world would get access to funds and technology so that they could grow differently, so that they avoid emissions – as carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. But these commitments were never fulfilled.
A report released sometime back has suggested that rich countries have largely cheated the developing nations of the $ 30 billion funds they had committed to transfer to the poor ones between 2010 and 2012. The money was not Aid or a loan, but it was reparation for having contributed to climate change. The fund has largely been a green-wash – recycling and renaming existing funding as ‘climate funding’ and giving loans instead of grants, the report said.
Climate experts and environmentalists believe that whatever top emitters have done so far or pledged to do in future, is well short of what is needed from them to limit warming by the end of the century.
