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INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA (WASHINGTON POST) – This week, representatives from more than 130 countries and about 50 scientists gathered in a large conference center near the South Korean capital, and reviewed all the lines of the conference. An important question with a question in mind: What are the chances of the planet maintaining climate change at a moderate and controllable level?
When they could not agree, they formed "contact groups" outside the room, trying to reach an agreement and move the agenda forward. process. They were trying to reach a consensus on what that would mean and what should be done to limit global warming to only 1.5 ° C, whereas 1 ° C had already occurred and that the gas emissions greenhouse gases remain at record levels.
"This is the largest peer review exercise of any kind," said Jonathan Lynn, Communications Officer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.un.org/english/index.htm). IPCC). "It involves hundreds or even thousands of people watching it."
The IPCC, the world's foremost scientific body on climate change, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize ten years ago and has been entrusted with what might be its most difficult task. accomplish to date.
It must not only tell governments what we know about climate change, but also how close they are to us. And, implicitly, how these governments fail to achieve their goals for the planet, set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is the strictest and most ambitious goal of this agreement, which was originally put in place at the request of small island states and other extremely vulnerable countries. But it is increasingly viewed by all as a critical safety net, as serious impacts of climate change have been felt over the past five years, raising concerns about the impact of further warming.
"A half degree does not seem like much until you put it in the right context," said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. "It's 50% more than what we have now." The idea of letting the warming approach 2 ° C seems more and more disastrous in this context.
Parts of the planet, such as the Arctic, have already warmed by more than 1.5 degrees and are experiencing alarming changes. Antarctica and Greenland, which contain ice caps that represent several meters of sea level rise, oscillate. Major deaths have affected coral reefs around the world, suggesting that an irreplaceable planetary feature may soon be lost.
It is universally recognized that the promises made in Paris would lead to a warming well beyond 1.5 degrees – closer to 2.5 or 3 ° C or more. And it was before the United States, the world's second largest issuer, decided to try to withdraw from the Paris deal.
"The commitments made by countries during the Paris Climate Agreement do not bring us closer to what we need to do," said Professor Drew Shindell, climate expert at Duke University and one of the authors of the IPCC report. "They have not really engaged in actions to reduce their emissions in a way that matches what they claim to aim for."
The new 1.5 ° C temperature report will fuel a process known as the Talanoa Dialogue, in which the parties to the Paris Agreement begin to examine the great divide between what they claim to achieve and what they are trying to achieve. are doing. The dialogue will take place in December at an annual United Nations climate meeting in Katowice, Poland.
But we do not know what concrete commitments can be made.
The challenge is what scientists call the "carbon footprint": as carbon dioxide lives in the atmosphere for a long time, a limited amount can be emitted before it becomes impossible to avoid a given temperature, such as 1, 5 ° C. The world emits about 41 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. If the remaining budget is 410 billion tonnes, for example, scientists can say that we are 10 years old until the budget is up and 1.5 ° C is frozen.
That's unless emissions begin to decline – which gives more time. This is why scenarios to maintain warming at 1.5 ° C require rapid and profound changes in the way we get energy.
The window can now be as narrow as about 15 years of current programming, but as we do not know for sure, it really depends on the margin of error we are willing to concede.
And if we can not reduce other gases – such as methane – or if the Arctic permafrost begins to emit large amounts of additional gas, the budget shrinks further.
"It would be a huge challenge to stay below the 1.5 ° C threshold," said Professor Shindell. "It would be a really huge elevator."
So huge, he said, that would require a monumental shift towards decarbonization. By 2030, in a decade or so, global emissions are expected to drop by about 40%. By mid-century, companies would no longer need to issue net issues.
What can it look like? This includes things such as the lack of gas-powered vehicles, the phasing out of coal-fired power plants and biofuel-powered aircraft, he said.
"It's a radical change," he said. "These are huge, huge changes … that would really be an unprecedented rate and magnitude of change."
And this is only the essential: 1.5 degrees is still possible, but only if the world undergoes a stunning transformation.
A first version (published and published by the Climate Home News website) suggests that future scenarios of a 1.5 ° C warming limit would require massive deployment of technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the air and bury it underground. Such technologies do not exist at a level close to that which would be required.
"There are now a very small number of pathways (up to 1.5 ° C) that do not involve carbon removal," said Professor Jim Skea, chair of the working group. III of the IPCC and Professor at Imperial College London.
It is unclear how scientists can best convey this message to governments around the world – nor to what extent governments are listening to them.
A draft leaked report indicated that there was a "very high risk" that the world would warm up by more than 1.5 degrees. But a subsequent project, also leaked in Climate Home News, seemed to back down, saying that "there is no simple answer to the question of whether it is possible to limit global warming". at 1.5 ° C … the feasibility has multiple dimensions that need to be considered simultaneously and systematically ".
None of these languages are final. This is the subject of this week in Incheon – to prepare the report for an official publication next Monday (October 8) -.
"I think a lot of people would be happy if we were more advanced than us," IPCC's Lynn said this week in Incheon. "But in all the approval sessions I've seen – I've seen five now – this has always been the case, and it ends up getting there."
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