In 1992, the Rio Conference resulted in international commitments aimed at sustainable development and the fight against climate change. This historic event was to signal the awakening of humanity in the face of climate peril. However, 31 years after the Earth Summit, as this conference was called, it is clear that despite certain improvements, the world has continued on a disastrous path: the annual global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) are today 50% higher than at that time, which was nevertheless to mark a turning point.
Since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015, in which the signatory countries pledged to aim for the objective of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era, GHG emissions have continued to increase. In 2022, man-made CO2 emissions soared to a peak, 36.8 Gt or 6% more than in 2015. It took a global pandemic of unprecedented magnitude in 2020 for emissions to decline . But their progress resumed thereafter.
In a summary report made public this week and whose The duty reported, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that permanent warming of 1.5°C will become a reality in the medium term, that is to say as early as the next decade, if the urity is not drastically reducing its GHG emissions now. The climate will inexorably warm to exceed +2°C if the current level of emissions is maintained due to the effect of the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere.
The “window of opportunity”, to use the anglicism taken from the report, is closing. If we stick to the policies and measures that the countries have announced, an average increase of around 3°C is expected at the end of the century.
As in all its reports, the IPCC makes a cold and alarming observation of the repercussions of global warming. Each increase of a tenth of a percentage point above the target of +1.5°C has harmful and increasingly serious consequences as the tenths of a point add up. IPCC models, more precise and reliable — climate science has made great progress since the creation of the group of experts in 1988 — reveal more and higher risks than in the past.
Models indicate that the risks to which humanity is exposed are not evenly distributed. Climate change is deeply unjust. It is the poorest, most destitute populations who will suffer the worst effects, even though they are the ones who have contributed the least to GHG emissions.
Melting glaciers, rising sea levels and loss of inhabited coasts, lethal droughts and floods, famines risk causing huge population displacements. If today, the massive arrival of migrants is tearing Europe apart and encouraging the rise of an intolerant right, if the American right makes its bread and butter from illegal immigration, if we are offended by the situation of asylum seekers who enter irregularly via Roxham Road, the rich countries – those which are historically the first responsible for global warming – have not yet seen anything in the event that the mercury continues to rise.
Beyond the gloomy outlook and dire warnings, there is always room for optimism in the IPCC reports. The experts point out that solutions exist, that the growth in annual emissions has decreased thanks to certain measures and the use of green technologies, that it is above all a question of political will. But the more time passes, the more this genuine optimism rings false.
In this global portrait, Quebec, which represents only a tiny fraction of global GHG emissions (less than 0.2%), is very little, while China continues to build coal-fired power plants, The United States and Europe are still exploiting it and that the oil-producing countries, including Canada and Saudi Arabia, are far from having given up their black gold. But even if Quebec does not count in the equation, it has a duty to set an example.
In this context, the CAQ government would do well to provide for costly adaptation to climate change, as recommended by the group of experts Ouranos and as recalled by the Union des municipalités du Québec. Finance Minister Eric Girard announced an extra billion for the environment in his latest budget. A significant part of the Green Economy Plan, which has $9 billion over five years, must be spent preparing for the inevitable.