Scientists have warned the planet will warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next 19 years

The future has arrived and it’s not very encouraging: climate crisis, caused by humans, which generates great instability in large areas of the Earth, will cause the global average temperature to rise by 1.5 ° C in the 2030s, several years earlier than expected so far. This is being warned by the world’s top scientists, according to a recently released landmark report.

The document, prepared by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is the most severe warning yet about the rate and magnitude of global warming.

The IPCC projects that global warming of 1.5 ° C will be exceeded in the near future (between 2021 and 2040) and will remain above this temperature until the end of the century, in all scenarios except the one with the lowest emissions. In the latter, the planet will remain below 1.5 ° C, after a temporary overshoot of less than 0.1 ° C, before the carbon is removed from the atmosphere and temperatures drop again.

What does it mean? It depends on the scenario that is analyzed in terms of thermal rise. If the impacts are taken into account, The Earth where our children and grandchildren will live in the years to come will experience greater droughts, more frequent extreme events, sea level rise with risks to coastal cities and severe economic effects for activities such as as agriculture and animal husbandry. And fragile ecosystems, like corals, could disappear.

“The IPCC report underlines the importance of combating greenhouse gases, such as methane. Ruminants and flooded rice fields are the main agricultural sources of these emissions. Mitigation efforts should focus on demand management, including a shift to diets containing more grains, pulses and vegetables. Animal production should take place through integrated grazing systems, such as silvopastoral systems, which help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by capturing carbon dioxide in trees and soil. ” Miguel taboada, soil scientist and climatologist at the University of Buenos Aires.

the Paris Agreement It sets itself the objective that the increase in temperature by the end of the century does not exceed 2 ° C and preferably does not exceed 1.5 ° C. But in this, the IPCC report is blunt: both 1.5 ° C and 2 ° C will be exceeded in the 21st century unless carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are drastically reduced, as well as other greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs, climate causes). change), until it reaches a net level of zero around 2050 or later.

It must be understood: we are in an unprecedented situation in the history of the human species. The last time the Earth’s surface temperature exceeded 2.5 ° C (compared to pre-industrial levels) was over 3 million years ago.

According to the report of Working Group I, called AR6, the rate of warming is accelerating: temperatures on the planet’s surface have risen faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period for at least 2,000 years.

In 2019, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were higher than at any time for at least 2 million years. In turn, the concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide, two important GHGs, were higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years.

Policymakers have already seen the results, which culminated on Saturday night, which have been the subject of intense online debate for two weeks by experts around the world, and which represent eight years of work by leading scientists. .

Diann Black-Layne, head of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) said: “Short-term action is essential to mitigate the worst human-caused climate impacts. The main obstacle is not money, it is not technology, it is not political will: it is the result of the fear of a male-dominated industry of losing its power. It is a problem that must be recognized and addressed. La industria de los combustibles fósiles is the embodiment of the desigualdad de Género y de ingresos, there is a sector dominado por los hombres recibe cada año easy subvenciones por valor de más de 600,000 millones de dólares para destruir nuestro planeta, mientras that, in comparison , The United Nations Climate Fund they get $ 2.4 billion a year to save it. “

In fact, the oil industry has suffered several attacks this year: the International Energy Agency itself recommended to stop investing in new oil wells, whether traditional or using fracking. hydraulic, the United States have just announced a boost to electric motorization in the coming years and the main culprit pointed out by another international report is methane, another of the GHGs.

This carbon-rich gas, produced from livestock, shale gas wells and poorly managed conventional oil and gas extraction, warms the world much more efficiently than carbon dioxide – it has a ” heating potential ‘more than 80 times greater than CO2, but has a shorter lifespan in the atmosphere, persisting for about a decade before degrading to CO2.

What this new report also highlights is the urgency to act: the more we go beyond 1.5 ° C, the greater the unforeseeable and serious risks that will accumulate in our world. These tipping points could occur on a global and regional scale, even for global warming in the highly probable range of the emission scenarios considered. Abrupt responses and tipping points in the climate system, such as a sharp increase in the thaw in Antarctica and total loss of forests, cannot be ruled out.

Have we already reached the point of no return? For scientists, not yet. However, there is not much time left. With proactive climate change policies, CO2 will continue to rise and stabilize by mid-century, and then begin to decline, with the sharpest drop just before the end of the century. Both methane and sulfur dioxide will continue to rise and begin to decline by mid-century. Nitrous oxide shows an increasing trend and does not decrease until much of the second half of the century. With current plans, the best estimate is 2.7 ° C in 2100.

“The new IPCC report shows the options we can do today to make tomorrow safer for all. All over the world, the challenge is to change the energy matrix. In Brazil, where much of the energy is already clean, the challenge is to eliminate all deforestation, the main reason why the country is the sixth emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. The best science on the planet shows us that President Jair Bolsonaro has chosen the path of catastrophe and that is what we cannot accept: electoral and sectoral interests cannot prevail over the common good of the Nation “, opinion Maurice Voivodeship, Executive Director of WWF-Brazil.

At the end of November, the postponed climate change summit (COP26) will take place in Glasgow, Scotland. There, the exchange mechanisms proposed by the Paris Agreement should be finalized. There is no doubt that action must be taken quickly. So says science, clearly.

Some effects of the climate crisis noted in the report:

– Most of the planet is already experiencing extreme temperatures (including heat waves), from North America, Europe and Australia to much of Latin America, East and West South Africa, Siberia, Russia and all of Asia. Some of the recent hot extremes would have been extremely unlikely without human influence.

– While less is known about droughts, there is enough evidence to show that northeastern South Africa, the Mediterranean, southern Australia and the west coast of North America North, in particular, are facing an increase in this phenomenon.

– Northern Europe, parts of North America and southern Africa are experiencing increased precipitation, but more data is needed to understand the situation elsewhere.

– The global proportion of category 3 to 5 tropical cyclones has probably increased over the past 40 years. There is a high degree of confidence that human-induced climate change means tropical cyclones bring with them more and more intense precipitation.

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