INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Risks of extreme heat and weather events just rise and rise as temperatures do
(File)The world stands on the brink of failure when it comes to holding global warming to moderate levels, and nations will need to take
"unprecedented" actions to cut their carbon emissions over the next decade, according to a landmark report by the globe's top scientific
body studying climate change.With global emissions showing few signs of slowing and the United States - the world's second-largest emitter
of carbon dioxide - rolling back a suite of Obama-era climate measures, the prospects for meeting the most ambitious goals of the 2015 Paris
agreement look increasingly slim
To avoid racing past warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over preindustrial levels would require a "rapid and far
reaching" transformation of human civilization at a magnitude that has simply never happened before, the group found."There is no documented
historic precedent" for the sweeping change to energy, transportation and other systems required to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius, the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, wrote in a report requested as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.At the
same time, however, the report is being received with hope in some quarters because it affirms that 1.5 C is still possible - if emissions
stopped today, for instance, the planet would not reach that temperature
It is also likely to galvanize even stronger climate action by focusing on 1.5 C, rather than 2 degrees, as a target that the world cannot
afford to miss.Plastic flakes drop into a sack at a Junyoung Industrial facility in Gimpo, South Korea, in April.Nonetheless, the
transformation described in the document raises inevitable questions about its feasibility.Most strikingly, the document says the world's
annual carbon dioxide emissions, which currently amount to more than 40 billion tons per year, would have to be on an extremely steep
downward path by 2030 to either hold the globe entirely below 1.5 degrees Celsius, or allow only a brief "overshoot" in temperatures.Overall
reductions in emissions in the next decade would probably need to be more than 1 billion tons per year, larger than the current emissions of
all but a few of the very largest emitting countries
By 2050, the report calls for a total or near-total phaseout of the burning of coal."It's like a deafening, piercing smoke alarm going off
We have to put out the fire," said Erik Solheim, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme
He added that the need to either stop emissions entirely by 2050 or find some way of removing as much carbon dioxide from the air as we put
there "means net zero must be the new global mantra."Empty beach chairs rest on the sand as oil washes ashore in Alabama.The radical
transformation also would mean that, in a world projected to have over 2 billion more people by 2050, large swaths of land used to produce
food would instead have to be converted to growing trees that store carbon and crops designated for energy use."Such large transitions pose
profound challenges for sustainable management of the various demands on land for human settlements, food, livestock feed, fibre, bioenergy,
carbon storage, biodiversity and other ecosystem services," the report states.The document was produced relatively rapidly for the
deliberative IPCC, representing the work of nearly 100 scientists
It went through an elaborate peer review process involving tens of thousands of comments
The final 34-page "summary for policymakers" was agreed to in a marathon session by scientists and government officials in Incheon, South
Korea, over the past week.The report says the world will need to develop large-scale "negative emissions" programs to remove significant
volumes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
While the basic technologies exist, they have not caught on widely, and a number of scientists have strongly questioned whether we can scale
up in the brief time period available.The bottom line, Sunday's report found, is that the world is woefully off target.Current promises made
by countries as part of the Paris climate agreement would lead to around 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by the end of
the century, and the Trump administration recently released an analysis assuming about 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 if
the world takes no action.The IPCC is considered the definitive source on the state of climate science, but it also tends to be conservative
That's because it is driven by a consensus-finding process, and its results are the product of not only science, but negotiation with
governments over its precise language.In Sunday's report, the group detailed the magnitude and unprecedented nature of the changes that
would be required to hold warming to 1.5 Celsius, but it held back from taking a specific stand on the feasibility of meeting that goal
(An early draft had cited a "very high risk" of warming exceeding 1.5 Celsius; that language is now gone, even if the basic message is still
easily inferred.)"If you're expecting IPCC to jump up and down and wave red flags, you're going to be disappointed," said Phil Duffy, the
president of Woods Hole Research Center
"They're going to do what they always do, which is to release very cautious reports in extremely dispassionate language."Some researchers,
including Duffy, are skeptical of the scenarios that the IPCC presents that hold warming to 1.5 C, particularly the reliance on negative-
emissions technologies to keep the window open."Even if it is technically possible, without aligning the technical, political and social
aspects of feasibility, it is not going to happen," added Glen Peters, research director of the Center for International Climate Research in
"To limit warming below 1.5 C, or 2 C for that matter, requires all countries and all sectors to act."Underscoring the difficulty of
interpreting what's possible, the IPCC gave two separate numbers in the report for the Earth's remaining "carbon budget," or how much carbon
dioxide we can emit and still have a reasonable chance of remaining below 1.5 C
The upshot is that we are allowed either 10 or 14 years of current emissions, and no more, if we want a two-thirds or better chance of
avoiding 1.5 C.The already limited budget would shrink further if we fail to control other greenhouse gases, such as methane, or if and when
Arctic permafrost becomes a major source of new emissions.Meanwhile, the report clearly documents that a warming of 1.5 Celsius would be
very damaging, and that 2 degrees - which used to be considered a reasonable goal - could approach intolerable in parts of the world."1.5
degrees is the new 2 degrees," said Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, who was in Incheon, South Korea, for
the finalization of the report.Specifically, the document finds that instabilities in Antarctica and Greenland, which could usher in sea
level rise measured in feet rather than inches, "could be triggered around 1.5 Degree C to 2 Degree C of global warming." Moreover, the
total loss of tropical coral reefs is at stake because 70 to 90 are expected to vanish at 1.5 C, the report finds
At 2 degrees, that number grows to more than 99 percent.The report found that holding warming to 1.5 degrees could save an Alaska-size area
of the Arctic from permafrost thaw, muting a feedback loop that could lead to still more global emissions
The occurrence of entirely ice-free summers in the Arctic Ocean goes from one per century to one per decade between 1.5 and 2 degrees, it
found - one of many ways in which the mere half a degree has large real-world consequences.Risks of extreme heat and weather events just
rise and rise as temperatures do, meaning these would be worse across the globe the more it warms.To avoid that, in barely more than 10
years, the world's percentage of electricity from renewables like solar and wind would have to jump from the current 24 percent to something
more like 50 or 60 percent
Coal and gas plants that remain in operation would need to be equipped with technologies, collectively called carbon capture and storage
(CCS), that prevent them from emitting carbon dioxide into the air and instead funnel it to be buried underground
By 2050, most coal plants would shut down.Cars and other forms of transportation, meanwhile, would need to be shifting strongly toward being
electrified, powered by these same renewable energy sources
Transportation is far behind the power sector in the shift to low-carbon fuel sources - just 4 percent of road transportation is powered by
renewable fuels.The World Coal Association challenged the report's statements on the need to jettison coal."While we are still reviewing the
draft, the World Coal Association believes that any credible pathway to meeting the 1.5 degree scenario must focus on emissions rather than
fuel," the group's interim chief executive, Katie Warrick, said in a statement
"That is why CCS is so vital."That's an approach largely embraced by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, which under Trump has
taken numerous steps to roll back regulations on the coal industry.In an interview with The Washington Post last week, the EPA's acting
administrator, Andrew Wheeler, said the United States will "continue to remain engaged in the U.N.'s effort," despite the fact that Trump
has said he intends to withdraw from the Paris climate accord as soon as legally possible.But asked specifically about what it would take to
keep the world below a dangerous level of climate change, Wheeler declined to identify a specific threshold
The agency's regulatory approach is that it would allow the coal industry "to continue to innovate on clean coal technologies, and those
technologies will be exported to other countries."(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff
and is published from a syndicated feed.)
