Earth Day: we must also flatten the curve of climate change

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the temperature continues to rise, glaciers melting and natural disasters lurk, so the fight against climate change cannot be stopped. It’s been 50 years since the first Earth Day, and scientists are warning about the consequences that global warming has had on health, our food and the future of humanity.

Climate change has accelerated in the last decade and in the next five years there will again be a record global average temperature, say the world meteorological organization’s climate forecasts published on Wednesday, Earth Day.

50 years ago, when the date was first celebrated at a time when environmental protection was not high on the political agenda, scientists were already beginning to worry about rising carbon dioxide concentrations.

And they weren’t wrong. Today, the concentration of CO2 recorded by the main global observation stations is about 26% higher than the value of 1970, while the temperature has risen 0.86 °C since then, and is 1.1 °C higher than in the pre-industrial era.

The future only shows an increase in the trend. According to the UN agency’s predictions, further global temperature increases are likely to occur by 2024, particularly in high-latitude regions and land areas, and slower ocean warming, especially in the North Atlantic and southern ocean.

Not only temperature, but also variations in the heat content in the oceans and their acidification, sea level, the size of glaciers and sea ice cover at the poles, have shown an acceleration of climate change in the last five years.

The fight cannot be stopped by COVID-19

“Biodiversity is in steep decline, and climate disruptions are approaching a point of no return,” the UN Secretary-General warned in his official message for the Day.

For both António Guterres and the leader of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Talas, “we must act decisively to protect the planet from both the coronavirus and the existential threat of climate change.

Although the pandemic has led to a temporary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 6%, it is not a substitute for continued climate action. In addition, the situation makes it more difficult to tackle the risks of natural disasters, the severity of which is only increasing due to climate change.

“While COVID-19 has led to a severe international economic and health crisis, failure to address climate change can jeopardize the well-being of people, ecosystems and economies for centuries. We have to flatten the curve of both the pandemic and climate change,” Talas said.

For the head of the Meteorological Organization it is necessary to show the same determination and unity against climate change as against the coronavirus.

“We need to act together in the interest of humanity’s health and prosperity, not just for the coming weeks and months, but with many future generations in mind,” he said.

Extreme weather events have increased, and will not go away because of the coronavirus.

“And the pandemic only hinders the challenge of evacuating people to protect them from tropical cyclones, as evidenced by Harold, the Category 5 hurricane that hit the South Pacific. And we run the risk that overwhelmed health systems will not be able to cope with an additional burden of patients due, for example, to heat waves,” Talas said.

The leader of the agency called on governments to redouble their efforts to strengthen warning systems so that they can face multiple risks.

A plan for the future of the Earth

For Guterres, it is also essential that post-COVID-19 stimulus packages help the economy grow more green again.

“Previous economic crises have often been followed by periods of ‘recovery’ associated with increases in emissions to levels well above those before the crisis,” the Meteorological Organization warns.

By the end of 2020, global carbon emissions must decline by 7.6% and continue to decline by the same proportion each year for the next decade to keep global warming below 1.5°C by the end of the century, according to the United Nations Environment Programme’s 2019 Emissions Gap Report.

Keeping global warming at that limit will avert catastrophe, as scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have warned.

This year, not only the 50th anniversary of Earth Day is commemorated, but also the fourth anniversary of the signing of the Paris Agreement.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the vulnerability of humans and the planet to threats of global magnitude. Uncontrolled damage to the environment must be addressed.

According to Guterres, “if we had made more progress in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, we could better meet this challenge.”

The UN chief reiterated that the current crisis is an unprecedented wake-up call, and that recovery needs to be turned into a real opportunity to do the right thing in the future.

To this end, it has proposed six measures:

1. Spending money on the recovery from the coronavirus must be accompanied by the creation of new jobs and businesses through a clean and green transition

2. If taxpayers’ money is used to bail out businesses, it needs to be linked to the achievement of green jobs and sustainable growth.

3. Fiscal artillery must drive the shift from the grey to the green economy, and increase the resilience of societies and individuals

4. Public funds should be used to invest in the future, not the past, and flow into sustainable sectors and projects that help the environment and climate

5. Climate risks and opportunities need to be mainstreamed into the financial system, as well as into all aspects of public policymaking and infrastructure

6. Working together as an international community

For the Secretary-General, these six principles constitute an important guide to recovery.

“Greenhouse gases, like viruses, do not respect national borders. On this Earth Day, add your voices to mine to demand a healthy and resilient future for people and the planet,” said the UN chief.

Key data on climate change in the past five years

• 2015–2019 was the warmest five-year period for which data are available. The global average temperature has increased by 1.1 °C since the pre-industrial era, and by 0.2 °C compared to the five-year period 2011–2015. Since the eighties, each new decade has been warmer than the last.

• CO2 concentration was 18% higher in the period 2015–2019 than in the previous 5 years. All indications are that the global average concentration of CO2 will reach, or even exceed, 410 parts per million (ppm) by the end of 2019.

• In 2019, the highest values of calorific content were recorded in the upper 700 meters of the ocean of which there is evidence. Rising sea surface temperatures endanger marine life and ecosystems

• Heat waves were the deadliest meteorological risk in the period 2015–2019, affecting all continents, causing temperature records in many countries and were accompanied by unprecedented forest fires, particularly in Europe, North America, Australia, the Amazon rainforest and Arctic regions

• The overall risk of heat illness or death has risen steadily since 1980, and currently about 30% of the world’s population lives in areas whose climatic conditions generate life-threatening temperatures at least 20 days a year

• Risks associated with climate change and climate variability exacerbated food insecurity in many places, particularly in Africa, where drought increased the global risk of getting sick or dying from the climate

• Heavy rains and the floods associated with them create favorable conditions for the appearance of various types of epidemic outbreaks. In those countries where cholera is endemic, an estimated 1300 million people are at risk of contracting the disease, while in Africa alone approximately 40 million people live in cholera “hot spots” of the disease.

• During the period 2015–2019, tropical cyclones were linked to the largest economic losses

• Rising temperatures threaten to undermine development as a result of adverse effects on the gross domestic product (GDP) of developing countries

• The International Monetary Fund found that for low- and middle-income developing countries whose average annual temperature is 25 °C, a temperature rise of 1 °C leads to a reduction in growth of 1.2%.

Source : UN News