IPCC report forecasts a future of severe weather
The IPCC (in its first part of its Sixth Assessment Report) has issued arguably its strongest warning yet on impending catastrophe from unmitigated global warming caused by human activity, lending scientific credence to the argument that rising wildfires, heatwaves, extreme rainfall and floods witnessed in recent times are all strongly influenced by a changing climate.
Report findings:
- The authors say that since 1970, global surface temperatures have risen faster than in any other 50-year period over the past 2,000 years.
- Key points:
- Global surface temperature was 1.09C higher in the decade between 2011-2020 than between 1850-1900.
- The past five years have been the hottest on record since 1850
- The recent rate of sea level rise has nearly tripled compared with 1901-1971
- Human influence is “very likely” (90%) the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s and the decrease in Arctic sea-ice
- It is “virtually certain” that hot extremes including heatwaves have become more frequent and more intense since the 1950s, while cold events have become less frequent and less severe
- The Indian Ocean is warming at a higher rate than other oceans, said the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
- The most dangerous risk factor is rising sea level that threatens to submerge 12 coastal cities in the country by the end of the century.
- The cities could be nearly three feet underwater by the century’s end, the climate change report has warned. The cities include Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi, and Visakhapatnam, among others.
- India will witness increased heatwaves and flooding, which will be the irreversible effects of climate change.
- The current overall global warming trends are likely to lead to an increase in annual mean precipitation over India, with more severe rain expected over southern India in the coming decades.
- It said that the warming of the ocean would lead to a rise in sea levels, leading to frequent and severe coastal flooding in low-level areas.
- With a 7,517 km coastline, India would face significant threats from the rising seas. Across the port cities of Chennai, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Surat and Visakhapatnam, 28.6 million people would be exposed to coastal flooding if sea levels rise by 50 cm.
- Monsoon extremes are likely to increase over India and South Asia, while the frequency of short intense rainy days are expected to rise.
- Models also indicate a lengthening of the monsoon over India by the end of the 21st century, with the South Asian monsoon precipitation projected to increase.
- Glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region will keep shrinking and the snow cover will retreat to higher altitudes.
- Rising temperatures and precipitation can increase the occurrence of glacial lake outburst floods and landslides over moraine dammed lakes.
- Stating that human activities are causing climate change, the report said the planet was irrevocably headed towards warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times in the next two decades.
- India is currently the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter, but per capita emissions are much lower. The U.S. emitted nearly nine times more greenhouse gases per capita than India in 2018.
- India has not yet committed to a net zero timeline.
- Keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels by the turn of century and endeavouring to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius was at the heart of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Unless extremely deep emission cuts are undertaken by all countries immediately, these goals are unlikely to be met.
- The report recommended that countries strive to achieve net zero emissions — no additional greenhouse gases are emitted — by 2050.
- In the most ambitious emissions pathway, the projection is that the globe would reach the 1.5 degrees Celsius scenario in the 2030s, overshoot to 1.6 degrees Celsius, with temperatures dropping back down to 1.4 degrees Celsius at the end of the century.
- Based on existing commitments by countries to curb their emission, the world is on track for global temperature warming by at least 2.7°C by 2100, predicts the report, calling it ‘Code red for humanity’.
- The new report attributes catastrophic events to sustained global warming, particularly the frequency and intensity of hot extremes, marine heatwaves, heavy precipitation, agricultural and ecological droughts, proportion of intense tropical cyclones, reductions in Arctic Sea ice, snow cover and permafrost. Further, the disruptions to the global water cycle pose a more unpredictable threat.
- A phenomenon such as heavy rainfall over land, for instance, could be 10.5% wetter in a world warmer by 1.5°C, and occur 1.5 times more often, compared to the 1850-1900 period.
- The report said warming is already accelerating sea level rise and worsening extremes such as heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms.
- Tropical cyclones are getting stronger and wetter, while Arctic Sea ice is dwindling in the summer and permafrost is thawing. All these trends will get worse, the report said
- IPCC’s analysis presents scenarios of large scale collapse of climate systems that future leaders would find virtually impossible to manage.
Climate change is described by many as a far greater threat to humanity than COVID-19, because of its irreversible impacts. More than five years after the Paris Agreement was concluded, there is no consensus on raising ambition to reduce emissions, making access to low carbon technologies easier, and adequately funding mitigation and adaptation.
The new report sets the stage for the CoP-26 conference in November. The only one course to adopt there is for developed countries with legacy emissions to effect deep cuts, transfer technology without strings to emerging economies and heavily fund mitigation and adaptation. Developing nations should then have no hesitation in committing themselves to steeper emissions cuts.
Developed Countries have usurped far more than their fair share of the global carbon budget. Reaching net zero alone is not enough, as it is the cumulative emissions up to net zero that determine the temperature that is reached. This has been amply borne out in the IPCC report. It vindicates India’s position that historical cumulative emissions are the source of the climate crisis that the World faces today.
The Indian government is sanguine about doing more than other countries in terms of comparable action to reduce CO2 emissions. But we have no measurable targets to reduce emissions. Our nationally determined contribution is to reduce not absolute emissions but the emission intensity of our economy.
The next decade is decisive, we must follow the science and embrace your responsibility to keep the goal of 1.5C alive. We can do this together, by coming forward with ambitious 2030 emission reduction targets and long term strategies with a pathway to net zero.
The UN chief has rightly stated that the report “is a code red for humanity“. ©crackingcivilservices.com
