The UN climate report is not a sinister art. The heat has killed tens of thousands of people. This is not all

Up to 20,000 Experts, politicians and journalists from around the world will travel to Katowice next week. They will participate in the climate summit of COP24, during which they will discuss the Paris Climate Accord – and thus the future of the world.

On Tuesday, just days before the conference, the UN released the latest report on climate change. This is supposedly a report about the problem. It is presented each year and describes the difference in level of the greenhouse gas emissions reduction mission between what it is and will be in 2030 and what it needs to be to achieve its goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. climate change.

How is it different from other reports? Joyce Msuya of the United Nations Environment Program explains in a press release:

If we assume that the recent IPCC report was a fire alarm, then this document is an arson investigation.

In September, the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prepared a landmark report on how to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040. Scientists pointed out that it was necessary to stop climate change at this level, and not – put in 2015 in Paris – 2 degrees Celsius. Currently, the average temperature is 1 degree higher than that of the pre – industrial era.

The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees is huge. This higher ceiling means, among other things, that climate change will affect an additional 420 million people. At the moment, the effects of climate change are being felt, and if the 1.5-degree threshold is exceeded, it would be disastrous. To do this, it is necessary to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 55%. until 2030 and up to the "zero net" level around 2050.

Are we on the right track? The UN report presented attempts to answer this question. And the conclusions are far from optimistic.

More efforts are needed

The report contains three basic conclusions:

• It is still possible to maintain the average increase in temperature below 2 degrees CelsiusHowever, the technical (not to say political) possibility of ending the 1.5 degree warming is even disappearing.
• After three years of stabilization in 2017, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have increased, greenhouse gas and have reached record levels.
• If the gap between the objectives and the actual emission level is not eliminated by 2030, even reaching a goal of 2 degrees will be extremely unlikely.

The report states that CO2 emissions are rising and that nothing indicates that they are approaching the peak point after which they will begin to fall. Only 57 countries in the world are on track to reach this point before 2030. The United Nations Environment Program states:

The analysis shows that the current rate of emission reductions is too low to achieve the target set by the Paris Agreement. The increase in emissions and the lack of action have meant that the gap between the target and the forecasts is greater than ever. In the world, to achieve the goal of 2 degrees, the States must redouble efforts and achieve their goals three times, and maintain the level of 1.5 degrees – five times.

If emission targets are currently set for each country, then at the end of the 21st century, the temperature will increase by 3 degrees Celsius. The authors write that drastic actions on a large scale are needed. These are missing for the moment.

The heat has swept tens of thousands of people in Europe. And this is only one of the factors

Subsequent scientific work is showing more and more what the effects on the world, and what they will already have, on climate change. A week ago, the National Climate Report, a report prepared by a dozen US institutions and government agencies, was released. According to their findings, climate change is already having negative effects in the United States and will affect the economy in the future.

The report says that while it is not possible to stop global warming, the United States is waiting for more extreme weather and cataclysms, such as fires (including California), hurricanes and tornadoes. or floods in coastal areas. Climate change is already contributing to it. In the future, water supply will be limited, agricultural production will decline and the likelihood of an epidemic will increase. The economy will be seriously affected. US GDP could fall by 10% by the end of the century and the costs of climate change will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Climate change can be felt by most people living in already very hot regions. Some places on the earth will become uninhabitable. However, even in Europe, the impact of climate change will have tragic consequences. In the November report of the European Commission, we read that among the effects will be, among others:

• 3.4% productivity reduction. (and Southern Europe 17%)
• changes in seasons, flowering and soil moisture affecting agriculture
• reduce energy demand for heating, but a strong increase in energy demand for building air conditioning
• reduce the availability of water, which can adversely affect energy production, mainly in southern Europe
• increase the risk of extreme weather conditions: floods, coastal floods, forest fires and hazardous heat.

The authors of the EC report believe that even if we achieve the goal of 2 degrees Celsius, every year in Europe 58,000 people. people will die in heat waves. If the level of 2 degrees is exceeded, the mortality caused by heat will increase 50 times compared to the current situation and the loss will be 132 000 per year.

What can we do?

In the paper, Jian Liu, chief scientist for the United Nations Environment Program, spoke about measures that can be taken to combat climate change.

– The lines can include taxing fossil fuels, boosting investment in the energy sector and severely limiting carbon dioxide emissions – he said. He said that Only the removal of fossil fuel subsidies could reduce emissions by 10%. until 2030.

The authors of the paper indicate that states must not only accelerate the achievement of the emission reduction targets set previously, but also set new, more ambitious targets by 2020.

The report also states that in addition to states, there is also a private sector and technological innovation that can contribute to reducing CO2 emissions.