Did you read our warnings correctly? This is the question posed in substance by more than 200 climatologists who call on COP26 to act immediately and massively against global warming, at this “historic” moment for the future of humanity.
“We, climatologists, stress the need for immediate, strong, rapid, sustainable and large-scale actions to limit warming to well below + 2 ° C and to continue efforts to limit it to 1.5 ° C”, as provided for in the Paris agreement, write these scientists in an open letter. And “in order to limit future risks and adaptation needs for decades or even centuries”.
“COP26 is a historic moment for the fate of climate, societies and ecosystems, because human activities have already warmed the planet by around + 1.1 ° C and future greenhouse gas emissions will determine the additional warming ”.
After more than ten days of negotiations, COP26 is entering its home stretch, but despite announcements of new commitments since the start of the conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the world is still heading towards a “catastrophic” warming of 2, 7 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, according to the latest UN assessment.
In their open letter, climatologists insist on the clear conclusions of the multiple reports of the UN climate experts (IPCC): the unprecedented warming caused by greenhouse gases generated by human activities, the increase in extreme weather events , the major differences in impact between “2 ° C and” 1.5 ° C, the impacts that are already sometimes “irreversible”.
The last IPCC report in August warned in particular against the risk of already reaching around 2030 the threshold of + 1.5 ° C, ten years earlier than previously estimated. A grim outlook as each tenth of a degree more brings its share of additional disasters.
“Thousands of scientists around the world have worked for several years to publish this evidence-based report,” underlines the letter, signed by many members of the IPCC.
“We now have the most comprehensive and robust assessment of how the climate has changed in the past and may change in the future, based on decisions and actions taken today.”