Humans may have passed ‘point of no return’ in climate crisis, study finds – but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost

Mankind may have passed the ‘point of no return’ in the climate crisis – even though everyone on the planet has stopped emitting all greenhouse gases right now, according to published study Thursday.

The study, published in the UK peer-reviewed publication Scientific journals, alarmingly asserts that “the world is already past the tipping point of global warming” and that the only way to stop the catastrophic damage from greenhouse emissions is to extract “huge amounts of carbon dioxide … from the atmosphere “.

“[The crisis] just won’t stop reducing human-made greenhouse gas emissions.
–Jørgen Randers, co-author of the study

The crisis “just won’t stop reducing man-made greenhouse gases,” said Jørgen Randers, one of the two lead authors of the study. Future human. Humanity, Randers stressed, “should step up its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions … and start developing technologies for the large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. ”

What exactly does a “point of no return” mean to Earth and its inhabitants? The researchers describe “a threshold which, once exceeded, fundamentally modifies the dynamics of the climate system”, in particular “by triggering irreversible processes such as the melting of permafrost, the drying up of tropical forests or the acidification of surface waters”.

The researchers used a computer model called ESCIMO to simulate the results of varying levels of CO2 reduction up to the year 2500. They concluded that even an immediate reduction to zero greenhouse gas emissions would still lead to an increase in CO2 emissions. 3 ° C global temperatures by 2500.

Using a more realistic simulation model in which carbon emissions peak in the 2030s and then decline to zero by the start of the next century, the researchers still found that the planet would warm by the same 3 ° C, while the level from the sea would be 3 meters. higher than in 1850.