A couple weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report comparing what might happen to planet earth and humanity this century if we kept global warming to within 1.5° C of pre-industrial global temperature versus what would happen if warming increased to 2° C. The report was met with mass despair. Some sample headlines and excerpts:
What Is Donald Trump’s Response to the U.N.’s Dire Climate Report? Comment by Elizabeth Kolbert October 22, 2018 Issue of The New Yorker
“Even 1.5 degrees’ worth of warming, the I.P.C.C. warned, is likely to be disastrous, with consequences that include, but are not limited to, the loss of most of the world’s coral reefs, the displacement of millions of people by sea-level rise, and a decline in global crop yields.”
The big lie we’re told about climate change is that it’s our own fault: How to deal with despair over climate change by Mary Annaise Heglar/Vox October 11, 2018
“It’s bleak, y’all. The planet has already warmed by 1 degree Celsius. We’d actually passed that threshold right around the time of the Paris climate agreement in 2015. The Paris agreement was meant to keep us from surpassing 2 degrees, and to make best efforts to keep it below 1.5 degrees. Between every single fraction of a degree lies untold levels of death and disease and generalized destruction.”
Monday US briefing: 12 years to prevent environmental catastrophe, IPCC warns The Guardian; October 8, 2018
“A landmark report by the world’s leading climate scientists has concluded there are only a dozen years left to stop global temperatures rising more than 1.5C, beyond which lies a vastly increased risk of extreme weather and crushing poverty for hundreds of millions of people.”
Planet has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn by Brandon Miller and Jay Croft, CNN; October 8, 2018
“Governments around the world must take "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society" to avoid disastrous levels of global warming, says a stark new report from the global scientific authority on climate change…. extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people.”
My comments for this post will remain brief. First, the IPCC report’s full name is Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. So that tells you the report is about what might happen to our climate this century and what can be done to strengthen our response to climate change in conjunction with sustainable development and the eradication of poverty. For the record, neither the IPCC Press Release nor the Executive Summary of the IPCC Report makes any mention of “dire”, “catastrophe”, “hundreds of millions” anything, “shortages”, or “disastrous”. Nor does the IPCC report offer new findings. For instance, the 1° C global temperature rise since pre-industrial times is not new information - back in 2010, NASA reported the average global temperature on Earth had already increased by about .8° C since 1880 and predicted an additional .2° C rise every decade. As for coral reefs, we have already lost around half the coral reefs and scientists had previously predicted that 90% of coral reefs could die by 2050 – due to multiple stressors, including warmer waters.
Again, the IPCC report isn’t telling us anything new. Rather, the report is a somewhat dry compilation of research to date on what might happen in a 1.5° C versus 2° C world and potential “pathways” to mitigating and adapting to climate change. It is very long, as in several hundred pages long. My reaction to the Executive Summary and Chapter drafts was not despair but a kind of roll-up-your-sleeves cautious optimism. Yes, there is cause for alarm. But so much can be done! So much is being done!
Next: Going into the details: the pathways.