The last five years have been the warmest ever recorded

Leading environmental organisations today published a report highlighting the glaring and growing gap between the agreed targets to tackle the problem of global warming and reality. They also stressed the urgency of a global socio-economic transformation.

Published on the occasion of the World Climate Summit that begins tomorrow at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York, the report details the current state of the climate by analyzing the main trends in emissions and concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

A socio-economic transformation, in key sectors such as land use and energy, is paramount to avoid a dangerous rise in global temperature that could have potentially irreversible effects. The report entitled ‘United in Science’ also examines tools that can facilitate the adaptation or mitigation of climate change.

The group of scientists, made up of world-renowned experts, chaired by the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Petteri Taalas and Leena Srivastava of the Escuaela de Estudios Avanzados (TERI), highlighted the urgent need to carry out concrete actions.

Socio-economic impact

The scientists stressed that the warmest period in history is the one recorded between 2015 and 2019 with a temperature of 1.1° above the maximums recorded in the pre-industrial era (1850-1900). Widespread heat waves and other events such as tropical cyclones, floods or drought have had a major socio-economic and environmental impact.

The ice mass of the polar ice caps has suffered a continuous decline and the extent of sea ice has been reduced between 1979 and 2018, by 12%, with the maximum reduction recorded between 2015 and 2019. The study also said that the amount of ice lost annually increased, at least six times, between 1979 and 2017.

On the other hand, sea level rise is accelerating, 3.04 millimeters per year between 1997 and 2006, as a result of the higher rate of warming and melting of ice in Greenland and the Eastern Antarctic. As a result of this phenomenon, seawater is becoming more acidic, 26% more since there are meteorological records.

In addition, the concentration level of greenhouse gases, long-lasting, such as carbon dioxide (C0₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N20) have reached levels of more than 400 parts per million (ppm), 407.8 ppm in 2018, and are expected to exceed 410 ppm by the end of 2019. The last time these levels were recorded was about five million years ago when the planet’s surface temperature was 3° higher than today.

Renewable energy

In 2018, carbon dioxide (_CO2) emissions increased by 2%, reaching a record 37 billion tons. The scientists said that these emissions will reach the same level in 2019 because they are related to global GDP and it is expected that it will increase by 3.2% during this year.

The report said that, despite the extraordinary growth of renewable fuels over the last decade, the global energy system is dominated by fossil fuels and that the increase in this type of energy in the world is greater than that of renewable energy. This increase should cease immediately.

Stabilizing the percentage of emissions and curbing the rise in temperatures requires accelerating the use of non-carbon energy sources and rapidly decreasing the global use of fossil fuels. Also, scientists warn that due to deforestation it will be more difficult for vegetation to eliminate 50% of these emissions.

If immediate action is not taken, the global average temperature of the planet will continue to rise until 2100 to reach between 2.9° and 3.4° more than the levels recorded in pre-industrial times. In the medium term, if climate change policies are not increased, the goal of limiting temperature rise to less than 2° by 2030 will be unattainable.

Although the goal of limiting warming to 1.5° is not impossible for scientists, an unprecedented transition would have to be made in all aspects of society, including sustainable development and poverty. To achieve this, greenhouse gas emissions would have to be reduced in all sectors including land and food.

Source: ABC