World leaders meeting at a United Nations climate conference starting on Sunday have failed to set policies that would keep global warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels — in continuing defiance of promises they made at a summit in Paris six years earlier.
“The time has passed for diplomatic niceties,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a tweet ahead of a meeting of the G20 group of big economies at the weekend.
“If all governments — especially G20 governments — do not stand up and lead efforts against the climate crisis, we are headed for terrible human suffering.”
In recent years, amid increasingly violent weather extremes and mass student protests, climate change has been thrust into the political spotlight. But while the core science has been clear for half a century — burning fossil fuels releases gases that act like a greenhouse around the Earth, trapping heat and warping the climate — politicians have sidelined the problem.
Low-lying islands are particularly at risk of rising sea levels resulting from warming temperatures
Now, after 2 1/2 decades of yearly negotiations, tens of thousands of people are descending on the Scottish city of Glasgow to thrash out agreements on emissions at the 26th Conference of the Parties, or COP26. It has been hailed as a “best last chance” to stop the planet from warming 1.5 C above pre-industrial temperatures.
“When things start to go wrong, they can go wrong at extraordinary speed,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ahead of the weekend G20 summit, drawing a parallel between climate change and the fall of the Roman Empire. “Unless we get this right in tackling climate change, we could see our civilization, our world, also go backwards.”
‘Empty promises’
UN climate summits are a forum for world leaders to agree on plans to burn fewer fossil fuels. Beyond the technical negotiations, like agreeing rules on how countries should report cuts to pollution or finalize previous agreements, delegates will haggle over two core issues: emissions and money.
The UK government, which is hosting the event, is pushing leaders to promise to cut their carbon pollution sooner and faster. It has put “coal, cars, cash and trees” at the top of the agenda. The cash part of that slogan is particularly tricky. Rich countries failed to deliver on a promise made at a previous climate summit to pay poorer ones $100 billion a year (€86.5 billion) in climate finance by 2020 — an amount that covers neither the costs of adapting to changes nor greening economies.
Delegates from poor and vulnerable countries, some of whom are reportedly unable to attend the summit because of coronavirus restrictions and the cost of travel, are also calling for rich polluters to pay for losses and damages from climate change-fueled weather extremes they have done little to cause. This is not included in the $100 billion-a-year pledge, which is only for cutting emissions and adapting to the effects of climate change.
But scientists, activists and delegates from countries on the front line of climate change are skeptical of the idea that climate summits can fix the problem. They have criticized rich countries for not honoring their pledges. They have also dismissed promises to cut long-term emissions that are not backed up by policies today.
Greta Thunberg was among protesters at a Fridays for Future demonstration in London ahead of COP26
“This is all we hear from our so-called leaders — words that sound great but so far have not led to action,” said climate activist Greta Thunberg at a pre-COP event in Italy last month. “Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”
Increasingly extreme weather
Carbon dioxide has continued to clog up the atmosphere despite decades of international treaties.
The concentration of the planet-warming pollutant has risen to 413 parts per million (ppm). It was just 375ppm when Thunberg was born in 2003. Like most student strikers, she has never known what scientists broadly consider a safe level. The world crossed that threshold —350ppm — in 1988.
While those numbers sound abstract, they translate into deadly weather extremes.
Today, with global temperatures already 1.1 C hotter than before the Industrial Revolution, the climate has grown more chaotic than it was for the rest of human history. The heat wave that scorched Northwest America in this summer was made 150 times more likely and 2 C hotter because of climate change, according to a study from climate scientists at the World Weather Attribution research group. The same group of scientists found a similar but weaker connection for the rains that triggered deadly floods across northern Europe in July.
The US was just one of numerous countries that had to battle extreme fires this summer
Still, without efforts to shift policy in recent years, scientists say, the planet could be facing even deadlier levels of warming. Before the Paris Agreement, the world was headed to heat about 4 C. Now policies put it on track for about 3 C. If pledges are met, temperatures by the end of the century could end up between 2 C and 2.5 C.
Such a temperature rise is well above the promised goal during the Paris Agreement of “well below” 2 C and ideally 1.5 C. That would be an effective death sentence for low-lying island nations, as well as vulnerable communities battling weather extremes across the world. That level of warming would be “catastrophic,” said Amos Wemanya, an energy analyst at Kenya-based think tank Power Shift Africa. “Rich countries need to be more ambitious than they are right now, if we are to achieve the 1.5 C target.”
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Rainfall best ally for Spanish firefighters
A wildfire that burned through at least 7,780 hectares (30 square miles) in about a week and devastated forests in southern Spain was brought under control thanks to steady rains. The downpour helped the firefighters, who were backed by some 50 aircrafts. The blaze was one of the most difficult to combat in recent times in Spain. Some 2,600 people were forced to flee their homes.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Fierce flash floods in Europe
Unprecedented flooding — caused by two months’ worth of rainfall in two days — has resulted in devastating damage in central Europe, leaving at least 226 people dead in Germany and Belgium. Narrow valley streams swelled into raging floods in the space of hours, wiping out centuries-old communities. Rebuilding the ruined homes, businesses and infrastructure is expected to cost billions of euros.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Europe on fire
While half of Europe is drowning, elsewhere areas are going up in flames: Large fires raged, particularly in Greece, Italy and Turkey. They have caused unforeseeable monetary damage, while thousands of people in Europe have lost their homes and their belongings.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Record heat in Italy
In addition to deadly wildfires, Italy also battled record heat temperatures, with the Italian Health Ministry issuing the maximum possible heat warning level for many cities. On the island of Sicily, 48.8 degrees Celsius (almost 120 degrees Fahrenheit) was measured on August 11 — a new European heat record. The heat could make existing fires worse, or lead to new ones.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Still out of control
Meanwhile, the Dixie Fire continues smoldering in California. It’s California’s largest fire on record, and among the most destructive in the state’s history — it wiped the town of Greenville off the map. Although it’s about 60% contained, the fire continues to burn two months in. Meanwhile, hot and dry conditions continue in the region, spreading fears of more fire.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Extreme rainy seasons
Earlier this summer, record floods also hit parts of India and central China, overwhelming dams and drains and flooding streets. The downpours have been particularly heavy, even for the rainy season. Scientists have predicted that climate change will lead to more frequent and intense rainfall — warmer air holds more water, creating more rain.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Greece melts down amid heat waves
As nations flood in northern Europe, Mediterranean countries like Greece were in the grip of several heat waves. In the first week of July, temperatures soared to 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit). Tourism hot spots like the Acropolis were forced to shut during the day, while the extreme heat also sparked forest fires outside Thessaloniki, which helicopters tried to douse.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Sardinia scorched by ‘unprecedented’ wildfires
“It is an unprecedented reality in Sardinia’s history,” said Sardinia’s Governor Christian Salinas of the ongoing wildfires that have scorched the historic central western area of Montiferru. “So far, 20,000 hectares of forest that represent centuries of environmental history of our island have gone up in ashes.” Around 1,500 people were evacuated from the island by the end of July.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Heat records in the US, Canada
Intense heat is becoming more common, as seen in late June in the US states of Washington and Oregon and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Scorching temperatures under a “heat dome,” hot air trapped for days by high pressure fronts, caused hundreds of heat-related deaths. The village of Lytton recorded a high of 49.6 Celsius (121 Fahrenheit) — and burned to the ground the next day.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Wildfires sparking thunderstorms
Heat and drought are fueling one of the most intense wildfire seasons in the West Coast and Pacific Northwest regions. Oregon’s Bootleg Fire, which burned an area the size of Los Angeles in just two weeks, was so big it created its own weather and sent smoke all the way to New York City. A recent study said the weather conditions would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
Amazon nearing a ‘tipping point’?
To the south, central Brazil is suffering its worst drought 100 years, increasing the risk of fires and further deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Researchers recently reported that a large swath of the southeastern Amazon has flipped from absorbing to emitting planet-warming CO2 emissions, pushing the rainforest closer to a “tipping point.”
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
‘On the verge of starvation’
After years of unrelenting drought, more than 1.14 million people in Madagascar are food-insecure, with some now forced to eat raw cactus, wild leaves and roots, and locusts in famine-like conditions. With the absence of natural disaster, crop failure or political conflict, the dire situation in the African nation is said to be first famine in modern history caused solely by climate change.
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In pictures: Deadly extreme weather shocks the world
More people fleeing natural disasters
The number of people fleeing conflict and natural disasters hit a 10-year high in 2020, with a record 55 million people relocating within their own country. That’s in addition to some 26 million people who fled across borders. A joint report released by refugee monitors in May found that three-quarters of the internally displaced were victims of extreme weather — and that number is likely to grow.
Author: Martin Kuebler, Stuart Braun, Sarah Klein, Anne-Sophie Brändlin
COP26: World leaders set to meet in bid to avert drastic global warming
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Pinoy Pop News
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