By dint of delaying action to combat the climate crisis, humanity is on the way to annihilating its chances of maintaining a viable future, concludes the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) . Global warming has already caused “irreversible” impacts that are increasingly difficult to manage, while we are simply not ready to face what awaits us over the next few years.
The upheavals in the climate attributable to our dependence on fossil fuels are generating “dangerous and widespread disturbances” which now affect the lives of “billions of human beings”, warns the IPCC in a report published on Monday and which focuses on the impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. The hardest hit populations and ecosystems are also those least able to cope with accelerating climate change.
“This report is a serious warning of the consequences of inaction,” insisted IPCC Chairman Hoesung Lee in a statement that was part of the embargoed documents sent to the media on Sunday. “It demonstrates that climate change is a serious and growing threat that jeopardizes the well-being and health of our planet. Our actions today will determine how we will adapt and how nature will respond to increasing climate risks. »
“Sustainable future”
The terms used in this document written by 270 experts from 67 countries give the measure of the urgency: “The increase in weather and climate extremes has led to irreversible effects, since natural and human systems are pushed beyond their adaptive capacity,” reads the “Summary for Policymakers.
In this context, “any delay in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and in adapting to the impacts of global warming will cause us to miss the brief window of opportunity allowing us to ensure a viable future for all of us that closes quickly,” concludes the IPCC.
The “cascading” impacts are already increasingly difficult to manage, says the scientific group, pointing out that millions of people living in Africa, Asia, Central America, South America and in countries islanders are now directly exposed to food insecurity and a lack of access to drinking water. Globally, “3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change”.
This report also presents regional portraits of climate “impacts” and “risks”. It shows that even if Africa has contributed very little to climate change, the continent is bearing the brunt of the consequences. The IPCC mentions in particular the decline in agricultural productivity, the difficult access to drinking water and the increase in the number of climate migrants. Several Asian countries are also suffering the repercussions of global warming, in particular due to heat waves, problems of malnutrition, floods and the spread of certain diseases.
Citizens of North America are not spared from the impacts of the worsening crisis, with an increase in extreme weather events (such as the fires and floods that hit British Columbia in 2021), attributable mortalities heat and agricultural production problems.
The worse is yet to come
Rising temperatures, heat waves, droughts and floods affect not only more and more human populations, but also a multitude of ecosystems, finds the IPCC. These phenomena are already having major impacts on biodiversity, which will “increase” as the climate deteriorates. Scientists also point out that coral reefs, wetlands, tropical forests, polar areas and mountain ecosystems have already exceeded the limit of adaptation.
If they continue, these degradations risk contributing to the aggravation of the climate crisis and its impacts for humanity, argued Sunday Wolfgang Cramer, one of the authors of the IPCC report, in a video presentation organized for the media. by the National Center for Scientific Research, based in France. For example, the loss of forest environments reduces the capacity to absorb CO2 produced by human activity, while the melting of sea ice contributes to the warming of the Arctic. The virtual disappearance of corals that is expected over the next few years also threatens entire sections of marine life, and therefore fisheries.
However, everything indicates for the moment that global warming will continue. In a report published in August 2021, the IPCC also pointed out that the rise in temperatures should reach 1.5°C by 2030, or 2040. This has already reached 1.1°C compared to the era pre-industrial, while the climate commitments of the States lead us towards a warming of at least 2.7°C. The most ambitious objective of the Paris Climate Agreement, signed in 2015, is however not to exceed 1.5°C.
This limit appears crucial, on reading the new IPCC report. Beyond that, the authors point out, we must expect “an inevitable increase” of several phenomena which will pose “multiple risks for ecosystems and humans”. In the Amazon, “considerable and irreversible losses” of biodiversity and ecosystem services are predicted with a warming of 2°C, which could occur before 2050.
No region of the planet would be spared, but those most powerless in the face of this crisis would be the hardest hit. In Africa, for example, tens of millions of people could thus be forced to migrate, while malnutrition, infectious diseases and heat waves would be more present than ever.
Co-author of the report published on Monday and specialist in the impacts on coastal areas, Gonéri Le Cozannet stressed on Sunday that several regions will suffer from the rise in sea level, specifying that with a warming of more than 2°C, it would become “impossible” to limit this increase. The level of the oceans, which has already gained 20 cm since 1900, could still rise by around 50 cm by 2100, even assuming that warming is limited to 2°C. Such a scenario represents a direct threat for coastal regions such as eastern Quebec, but also for the billion human beings who live along the coasts in the world.
Adaptation
In addition to recalling the significant delays in the fight against climate change, the IPCC notes that humanity is slow to implement the necessary measures to adapt to global warming and its impacts. Most actions are ‘fragmented’, ‘small-scale’ and designed ‘to respond to current impacts’, not future ones.
Even if this lack of preparation “compromises the future”, Gonéri Le Cozannet stressed on Sunday that there are several “barriers to adaptation”, including a weak sense of urgency among citizens, a lack of political will and limited financial and technical resources. He also recalled that several regions are perpetuating situations that will be problematic in the future, such as building in coastal areas vulnerable to sea level rise and extreme weather events.
The IPCC therefore evokes the need for a paradigm shift that involves “development resilient to climate change” in order to adapt to global warming. The report highlights in particular the urgency of preserving or restoring up to 50% of the planet’s terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems. It also evokes the greening of urban areas, the development of sustainable transport, the diversification of crops in the agricultural field and fisheries management that respects the capacity of ecosystems. Unprecedented efforts will also be needed to increase the resilience of health and energy production systems.
Despite the historic scale of the task, the IPCC experts insist on the urgency of acting, since “beyond a warming of 1.5°C”, the impacts will be such that they will make the resilience increasingly difficult and increasingly costly, especially in terms of human lives. And beyond 2°C, it will become downright impossible in some regions.