Climate change is deadlier than coronavirus

In 2019, global warming had consequences on the health, food and home of millions of people in the world. In addition, it put marine life and a large number of ecosystems at risk, says the report on the State of the World Climate published on Tuesday by the World Meteorological Organization.

During the presentation of the report, the UN Secretary-General and the WMO leader stated that although there is currently global concern about the coronavirus, efforts in the fight against climate change should not be reduced.

“The coronavirus is a disease that we hope will be temporary, with temporary impacts, but climate change has been there for many years and will remain for many decades, and requires continued action,” said Antonio Guterres.

The Secretary also referred to the reduction of emissions in China and other countries in the wake of the epidemic and said that these temporary events cannot be overestimated.

“We’re not going to fight climate change with a virus. Although it must be given all the necessary attention, we cannot forget about the fight against climate change, and the other problems facing the world,” he said.

For his part, Petteri Talas, said that it was very unfortunate what is happening with the coronavirus and the deaths it has caused, but that climate change is “much worse”.

“The virus will have a short-term economic impact, but the losses will be massive if we think about global warming. We are talking about a problem of greater magnitude, with consequences on people’s health and in our societies much more serious,” he said.

In the study compiled by WMO, physical warning signs of climate change are highlighted: such as the intense warming of the oceans and the Earth, the record sea level in 2019, the thawing of ice sheets and the continuous meteorological phenomena such as storms, droughts and floods.

The year 2019 ended with a global average temperature 1.1 °C above estimated pre-industrial levels, a value surpassed only by the record of 2016, when a very intense El Niño episode aggravated the increase in global temperature linked to the general warming trend.

“Ocean heat is at a record high, with temperatures rising to the equivalent of five Hiroshima bombs per second. We count the cost in human lives and livelihoods as droughts, wildfires, floods and extreme storms take their deadly toll. We have no time to waste if we want to avoid a climate catastrophe,” the UN Secretary-General added.

The data confirm what experts had already warned: 2019 was the second warmest year for which data are available since instrumental measurements are made. The five-year period 2015-2019 comprises the five warmest years on record, and the period from 2010 to 2019 has been the warmest decade ever recorded. Since the eighties, each new decade has been warmer than all previous ones since 1850.

“As greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, warming will continue. According to a recent forecast, a new annual global temperature record is likely to occur in the next five years. It’s only a matter of time,” said the WMO Secretary-General.

Petteri Talas added that this January was the warmest since data are available: “In many parts of the northern hemisphere there has been an exceptionally benign winter. Smoke and pollutants from Australia’s devastating fires spread around the world and caused a spike in CO2 concentrations. The temperature records in Antarctica were accompanied by episodes of large-scale ice melting and the fracturing of a glacier, events that will affect sea level rise.”

The head of the World Meteorological Organization explained that temperature is only an indicator of ongoing climate change, to which is added the alterations in rainfall patterns that have affected several countries, as well as the increasing rise in sea level, largely due to the thermal expansion of seawater. as well as the melting of the largest glaciers in Groenladia and Antarctica.

“This exposes coastal areas and islands to an increased risk of flooding and can cause their low-lying areas to be submerged by the waters,” Taalas said.

“Without rapid control of emissions, there is not much that can be done to mitigate the impacts,” Maxx Dilley, deputy director of the organization’s services department, told UN News.

“It is very clear that the trend is increasingly going to extremes,” the expert added, based on the climate indicators that the WMO determined in the report.

Climate indicators

Greenhouse gases continue to rise

A preliminary projection of global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels made with data from the first three quarters of 2019 points to an increase in emissions of 0.6%.

In 2018, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide reached record levels, and according to preliminary data, continued to rise over the past year.

“Carbon dioxide reached 408 parts per million in the atmosphere, which is 150% more than the pre-industrial level, and methane reached 260% above the pre-industrial level,” Dilley explains.

Oceans: getting warmer, acidic and oxygen-free

The heat content of the oceans at a depth of two kilometers broke the previous record set in 2018.

“Excessive heat is entering the sea. The oceans absorb more than 90% of the heat that is trapped by greenhouse gases,” explains Dilley.

The warming of these bodies of water has widespread repercussions for the climate system and contributes more than 30% to sea level rise as a result of the thermal expansion of seawater.

It also alters ocean currents and, indirectly, modifies the path of storms and causes the melting of floating ice shelves.

In 2019, the oceans experienced on average nearly two months of unusually warm temperatures, with 84% of ocean waters going through at least one marine heatwave.

Between 2009-2018, the oceans absorbed approximately 23% of annual CO2 emissions, cushioning the effects of climate change, but at the cost of increasing the acidity of their waters. The alteration of the pH undermines the calcification capacity of marine organisms – such as mussels, crustaceans and corals – and this affects the life, growth and reproduction of marine fauna and flora.

In addition, both observations and model results indicate reduced oxygen concentration in coastal waters and in the open sea, as well as in estuaries and semi-enclosed seas. Since the middle of the last century, it is estimated that there has been a decrease of between 1 and 2% in the inventory of ocean oxygen worldwide (between 77,000 and 145,000 million tons).

Deoxygenation, along with the warming of the oceans and the acidification of their waters, is considered one of the greatest threats to ocean ecosystems and the well-being of the people who depend on them. According to forecasts, with a warming of 1.5 ° C coral reefs would be reduced to between 10 and 30% of what they are today, and only 1% would remain if the warming reached 2 ° C.

Sea levels have risen since satellite measurements began in 1993, but the rate of rising waters has accelerated in the past year, mainly due to melting greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. In 2019, global mean sea level reached the highest value for which data are available.

Ice sheets that continue to shrink

The constant and prolonged loss of sea ice in the Arctic was confirmed in 2019. The average monthly extent of September (usually the month of the year in which the ice surface registers its minimum extent) was the third lowest on record. For its part, the minimum daily extension recorded was at the same level as the second lowest value for which data are available.

Until 2016, sea ice extent in Antarctica had shown a slight long-term increase. In late 2016 that trend was interrupted by a sudden reduction in the ice surface to unprecedented lows. Since then it has remained at relatively low levels.

In the last 13 years, Greenland has recorded nine of the ten years with the lowest surface mass balance of its ice sheet, and in 2019 the seventh lowest value for which data are available was recorded. As for the total mass balance, Greenland has lost approximately 260 gigatons of ice each year in the period between 2002 and 2016, and the maximum reduction occurred in 2011/2012, when a maximum of 458 gigatons was lost. In 2019, the reduction of the ice sheet was set at 329gt, a value well above the average.

In addition, preliminary results from the Global Glacier Monitoring Service indicate that, for the 32nd consecutive year, in the 2018-2019 biennium the mass balance of the selected reference glaciers was negative. Since 2010, eight of the ten years with the greatest glacial reduction have been recorded.

Impacts on humans and biodiversity

Health: More deaths and illnesses driven by climate change

People’s health and health systems are paying an increasingly higher price because of extreme heat conditions.

In 2019, the high temperatures that were recorded in Australia, India, Japan and Europe broke all records and negatively affected the health and well-being of the population. In Japan, an intense heat wave resulted in more than 100 fatalities and an additional 18,000 hospital admissions. In France, more than 20,000 emergency room visits were recorded to treat heat-related ailments between June and mid-September, and during two major heat waves there were 1462 deaths in the affected regions.

In addition, changes in climatic conditions that have occurred since 1950 facilitate the transmission of the dengue virus through Aedes mosquitoes, as well as the increased risk of contracting the disease. The global incidence of dengue has multiplied dramatically in recent decades, and the risk of infection affects about half of the world’s population.

2019 saw a large increase in the number of dengue cases worldwide. The Americas identified more than 2,800,000 suspected and confirmed cases of dengue, including about 1250 deaths. In the three months from August to October, 85% of cases were reported in Brazil, the Philippines, Mexico, Nicaragua, Thailand, Malaysia and Colombia.

Food

Climate variability and extreme weather events are among the most important factors that have led to the recent increase in world hunger and are one of the main causes of severe food crises. After a decade of steady decline, hunger is picking up: more than 820 million people suffered from it in 2018.

Of the 33 countries affected by food crises in 2018, in 26 of them climate variability and extreme weather events were, together with economic shocks and conflict situations, aggravating the situation, while in 12 of those 26 countries, the climatic and meteorological aspects identified were the main cause of the crisis.

Food security clearly deteriorated in 2019 in some countries in the Horn of Africa due to extreme weather events, displacement, conflict situations and violence. At the end of 2019, an estimated 22.2 million people (6.7 million in Ethiopia, 3.1 million in Kenya, 2.1 million in Somalia, 4.5 million in South Sudan and 5.8 million in Sudan) suffered from a high level of food shortages, only slightly lower than during the severe and prolonged drought of 2016 and 2017.

March and much of April were months with extraordinarily dry conditions and, subsequently, between October and December, unusually heavy rains and floods occurred. The episode of exceptionally heavy rainfall at the end of 2019 was also a factor that favored the appearance of the severe plague of desert locusts affecting the Horn of Africa region, the worst in more than 25 years, and the most serious in 70 years in Kenya. All indications are that it will spread further by June 2020 and will pose a serious threat to food security.

In 2019, drier-than-normal conditions in the Dry Corridor of Central America and the Caribbean sparked wildfires in northern Guatemala and Honduras, with adverse effects on crop development, and contributed to the desiccation of some rivers in Honduras. After below-normal rains from May to August 2019, about 50,000 families lost about 80% of their maize production in Guatemala. Significant crop losses (up to 70% and 50% for maize and beans, respectively) were also reported in Honduras under similar dry conditions. In September 2019, the government declared an emergency due to the loss of staple crops, with more than 100,000 people at risk of hunger.

In El Salvador, it is estimated that more than 70,000 households are affected by the lack of food and drinking water.

Displacement

Between January and June 2019, there were more than 6.7 million new internal displacements due to disasters, including hydrometeorological phenomena such as Cyclone Idai in south-eastern Africa, Cyclone Fani in South Asia and Hurricane Dorian in the Caribbean, and floods such as those in Iran. Philippines and Ethiopia—.

According to forecasts, that figure will increase from 17.2 million in 2018 to close to 22 million in 2019. Of all the natural hazards, floods and storms led to the most displacement.

Extreme weather events

Floods and droughts

In January, some areas of South America were affected by very rainy conditions. Major floods occurred in northern Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, with estimated losses in the first two countries amounting to $2500 million.

The drought affected many parts of Southeast Asia and Australia, which experienced the driest year on record.

In the southern part of Africa, Central America and parts of South America the accumulated rainfall was abnormally low.

Heat waves

For Australia, the year ended the same as it started: with extreme heat. The summer of 2018-2019 was the warmest for which data are available, and the same can be said for the month of December. The hottest day, averaged by area, of which there is evidence was December 18, when 41.9 ° C was reached. The seven hottest days ever recorded in the country and nine of the ten warmest days for which data are available occurred in 2019.

At the end of June and the end of July there were two major heat waves in Europe. In France, a national record of 46.0 °C (1.9 °C above the previous record) was set in Vérargues on 28 June. National records were also set in Germany (42.6 °C), the Netherlands (40.7 °C), Belgium (41.8 °C), Luxembourg (40.8 °C) and the United Kingdom (38.7 °C), and the heat extended to the Nordic countries, with Helsinki recording the highest temperature on record in that city (33.2 °C on 28 July).

“These heat waves not only cause deaths, but they also affect those who have to be outside working in those temperatures. So it also has an economic impact, not only on health,” says Maxx Dilley, deputy director of WMO’s services department.

Forest fires

The wildfire season was above average in several regions at high latitudes, such as Siberia in the Russian Federation and Alaska in the United States, and fires were declared in some parts of the Arctic where flames were previously extremely rare.

The intense drought that hit Indonesia and neighboring countries triggered the most devastating fire season since 2015. The number of fires declared in the Brazilian Amazon region was only slightly above the ten-year average, but South America recorded the highest total number of fires since 2010. Bolivia and Venezuela were two of the countries whose fire seasons were particularly strong.

In Australia, the fire season was exceptionally long and inclement in the latter part of 2019, with large pockets of flames continuing well into January 2020. Earlier this year, 33 fatalities and the destruction of more than 2 000 homes had been reported, while the total area burned in New South Wales and Victoria had been estimated at approximately 7 million hectares.

Overall, total daily CO2 emissions due to forest fires were close to the 2003-2018 average. The largest increases from the 17-year average recorded in july, August, September and late December corresponded to the height of fire episodes in the Arctic, Siberia, Indonesia and Australia, respectively.

Tropical cyclones

In 2019, tropical cyclone activity was above average worldwide. In the northern hemisphere, 72 tropical cyclones occurred. For its part, the 2018-2019 season in the southern hemisphere also exceeded the average records, with 27 cyclones forming.

Tropical Cyclone Idai made landfall in Mozambique on March 15 as one of the most powerful systems ever seen off the east coast of Africa, causing numerous fatalities and widespread devastation. Idai contributed to the complete destruction of some 780,000 hectares of crops in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, further undermining an already precarious food security situation in the region.

One of the most intense tropical cyclones of the year was Dorian, which made landfall in the Bahamas as a Category 5 hurricane. The destruction it caused was compounded by its exceptionally slow advance, as it remained virtually motionless for about 24 hours.

Typhoon Hagibis made landfall west of Tokyo on October 12, causing severe flooding.

Expert Maxx Dilley says people should be informed about the situation as part of adaptation efforts.

“As early warning systems, or important information from water and other resources, that they can use to manage their susceptibilities, scientific information so that people can adapt to the change that is already happening.”

Dilley clarifies that, although it cannot be said that extreme weather events are a direct consequence of climate change, it is clear that they are aggravated by it due to the increase in land and marine temperatures.

The Secretary-General’s recommendations to countries

“We are currently a long way from meeting the Paris Agreement’s goals of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius,” António Guterres writes in the report’s foreword.

During his presentation in New York, the head of the UN said that it is necessary for all countries to demonstrate that it is possible to reduce emissions to 45% this decade, and that net emissions will be reached by the middle of the century. “This is the only way to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” he said.

He added that this year at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow success will depend on countries, the private sector and civil society demonstrating that they are taking meaningful steps to increase ambition in mitigation, adaptation and finance.

In addition, he set out four priorities in climate change mitigation at this meeting:

1. National climate plans (Nationally Determined Contributions) should show more ambition. “Even if countries fully implement their existing plans under the Paris Agreement, we will still be on track to reach 3 degrees of warming this century,” he said, adding that countries must set clear targets by 2025 or 2030.

2. All nations must adopt strategies to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. So far, 70 nations have announced that they are committed to carbon neutrality by 2050.Many other groups are doing the same, such as cities, banks and businesses. “But this only accounts for less than a quarter of global emissions. The largest emitters must commit, or our efforts will be in vain,” says the Secretary.

3. A robust package of programs, projects and initiatives that will help communities and nations adapt to climate disruption and build resilience. “Let’s have no illusions. Climate change is already causing calamities, and there will be more to come,” he said, highlighting the importance of adaptation plans.

4. By COP26, developed countries must meet their commitment to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020. Investments in renewable energy and green technologies must increase.

Source: UN News