Forget the optimism of political leaders who repeat that global warming can still be limited to a viable threshold. Climate inaction and the influence of the fossil fuel lobby have placed us irremediably on the trajectory of catastrophic disruption for the future of humanity.
This observation, which is worrying to say the least, emerges from an unprecedented investigation by the renowned British daily The Guardianwhich surveyed 380 authors and collaborators from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who contributed to reports produced since 2018. These reports provide the scientific basis for global climate negotiations.
The results obtained from climate specialists indicate that 77% of them estimate that warming during the present century will exceed 2.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era.
This warming is significantly higher than the target agreed under the Paris Agreement. Under this agreement adopted by the entire international community in 2015, the threshold not to be exceeded would be a warming of 1.5°C. But barely 6% of the scientists who collaborated with the IPCC and who responded to the survey Guardian believe that this objective is still achievable.
“Sharp warning”
The disruption caused mainly by our dependence on fossil fuels has already reached 1.2°C and over the last year, it has even temporarily exceeded 1.5°C, a threshold described as a “stark warning of the urgency of measures to take to limit climate change” by the Grantham Institute on Climate Change at Imperial College London. According to the European Copernicus Observatory, the 1.5°C limit could be out of reach in just over ten years.
But this rise in global temperatures, which is two to three times greater in Canada, is nothing compared to what awaits us. Nearly half of the IPCC collaborators questioned by The Guardian affirm that warming will exceed 3°C and a total of 58 scientists envisage warming which would be between 3.5°C (33 respondents) and a threshold exceeding 4°C, or even 4.5°C (21 respondents) .
Some 52% of the youngest scientists who responded, those under 50, foresee global warming of more than 3°C.
“We must mourn 1.5°C,” says François Delorme, professor in the department of economics at the University of Sherbrooke and former collaborator of the IPCC. “To hope to achieve this, we would have to implement radical measures by 2030, which we will not do. » According to him, we must therefore quickly prepare for “adaptation and resilience”, even assuming that we step up policies to reduce our carbon footprint.
How can we explain such a scenario of major climate disruption? The scientists cited by The Guardian mainly evoke the slowness of States in taking the necessary measures to drastically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, but also the strength of the fossil fuel lobby.
For the moment, the commitments made by States are leading the world towards warming that would go beyond 2.5°C, assuming that these commitments are scrupulously respected. But at the most recent global climate conference (COP28), they barely managed to agree on a possible “transition” away from fossil fuels.
Nearly 2,500 lobbyists linked to the fossil fuel industry were present at COP28, chaired by the head of the United Arab Emirates’ main oil company. And during COP27, representatives of the tar sands industry were invited by the Canadian government to events held at the country’s pavilion.
“Unrecognizable” world
The scenarios of a warming of 2.5°C, or even 3°C predicted by the experts surveyed by The Guardian would make the world simply “unrecognizable”, according to findings already published by the IPCC.
This would mean that humanity would face a “decrease in life expectancy” and “a decline in quality of life” in several regions of the planet. “The state of health and well-being” of the population would thus be “substantially reduced”, and this state would continue to deteriorate over the following decades.”
The IPCC also warns of a “major” increase in food prices, conflicts and climate migrations.
Under this scenario, the loss of ecosystems would be very difficult to curb. The world’s coral reefs, for example, would be “wiped out,” while rainforests would be “severely damaged.” The overall rate of species extinction would also increase significantly. “With further warming, climate change will become increasingly complex and difficult to manage,” the group of scientists warned in its most recent summary report, emphasizing the possibility of cascading effects appearing.
The scientists cited by The Guardian therefore call on States to redouble their efforts to respond to the findings of climate science. To hope to limit deregulation to a viable threshold, global greenhouse gas emissions would need to fall by at least 45% by the end of the decade, compared to the 2019 level. The current trajectory leads us rather towards an increase over the coming years.
A report published just before COP28 by the International Energy Agency also warned that in addition to eliminating the still widely used coal (nine billion tonnes consumed in 2022), it would be necessary to reduce by at least 75%. the use of oil and gas within 25 years to hope to limit warming to the viable threshold of 1.5°C.