The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, called the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report on climate change a “survival guide for humanity”. The document highlights how the use of clean energy and innovative technologies can help avert an increasingly imminent climate disaster.
That train has already left, though.
At a meeting in Switzerland to discuss the report's findings, scientists and climate scientists raised the alarm that the global goal of limiting temperature increases has not been reached. The IPCC report explains how only a very rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels can mitigate the most devastating effects of climate change.
For this reason, following the publication, Guterres asked all countries in the world to accelerate their plans to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions within a decade. A goal that borders on the impossible. The metaphor that comes to mind is: a particularly precise archer has a few seconds to hit a window that is getting smaller and smaller. With one small problem: the archer is sleeping. Deeply. I don't know if I got the idea. Does this turn a “survival guide” into a “dream book”? No. But we're almost there.
Rivers of words (sooner or later they take us away)
Previously: Governments had previously pledged to take action to prevent global temperature rise from exceeding 1,5°C. However, the world has already warmed by 1,1°C and, according to experts, it is probable that not only will we reach, but overcome it the 1,5°C threshold as early as 2030.
The British government said the report makes clear the need to commit to “much more ambitious climate targets” ahead of the COP28 UN climate summit in November. I think it was already mentioned for the COP27 or am I wrong? The inhabitants of the small Pacific islands that continue to sink remember this well. The president of theAlliance of Island States, Walton Alfonso Webson, bluntly says: “While our citizens are displaced from their homes, the fossil fuel industry continues to enjoy billions in profits. There is no excuse for this lack of action."
Guide to shared survival
The IPCC report, I remind you, is the result of the consensus of all the governments involved. Everyone knows, and it is increasingly clear, that by 2100 there will be one flood per year in 50% of the planet's coastal areas. It used to happen once every hundred years.
CO concentrations2 in the atmosphere they are at the highest levels of the last 2 million years. Our planet is now warmer than it has been in the past 125.000 years and is expected to continue warming over the next decade. If it still needed to be said: even by significantly lowering emissions, the increase in global warming is likely to reach 1,5°C. If nothing else, even getting to 1,6° is better than being condemned without even trying.
We will make it? More and more difficult, and less and less credible. If you want to ruin your liver, find the full report here. Indeed, “the survival guide”. Enjoy the reading.
