“If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe. But, as today’s report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses.”
– UN Secretary General António Guterres, Monday, August 9, 2021.
On October 6, 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, popularly known with its acronym IPCC, issued a special report titled, “Global Warming of 1.5 °C”. Essentially, the report analysed the impacts of a 1.5°Celsius increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels, and detailed what should be done to limit global warming to 1.5°Celsius.
The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation in 1988 to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies. In the same year, the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by the WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC. It has 195 member states, and thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC.
The 2018 report concluded that the adverse impacts associated with a global warming of 1.5°C would be more manageable than the impacts of a 2°C warming, and that the 1.5°C limit is indeed possible — though far from easy. According to the report, human activities were estimated to have caused approximately 1°C of global warming. At that rate of warming, therefore, the global temperature rise should reach the 1.5°C threshold between 2030 and 2052. However, the report also said that the additional 0.5°C increase could be avoided by drastically reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the next 10 years.
But three years down the line, what do we have? Climate change is not slowing, and it is not relenting. In fact, the world is not doing enough to stop it.
The scientists who advised the world in 2018 are back, and this time they have even worse news for us. They are observing changes in the Earth’s climate in every region and across the whole climate system. And, according to the latest IPCC report, released on Monday, many of the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, and some of the changes already set in motion – such as continued sea level rise – are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years.
So, according to the IPCC, “climate change is now widespread, rapid, and intensifying”. In 2018, it was 1°C; now, it is 1.1°C. Earth is at the tipping point, and there is fire on the mountain!
Mother Nature is communicating, loud and clear. Modern society’s continued dependence on fossil fuels is warming the world at a pace that is unprecedented in the past 2,000 years. The alarming effects of this trend now stare us in the face: record droughts, heat waves, wildfires and devastating floods. Our communities are cringing from the perennial pain of these extreme weather events. Sadly, things are likely to get worse if greenhouse-gas emissions continue.
In 2018, the world was admonished to make some rapid changes. The scientists forecast that global anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions would have to be reduced by about 45 per cent by 2030 from the 2010 levels, and all CO2 emissions would have to be balanced by anthropogenic CO2 removals by 2050. As the reports noted, achieving the 1.5°C target required transitions in energy, land, urban, infrastructure and industrial systems of an unprecedented scale. But, in return, the climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth would be significantly reduced. This year, the advisory is the same, but with a more urgent tone.
“Stabilising the climate will require strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and reaching net zero CO2 emissions. Limiting other greenhouse gases and air pollutants, especially methane, could have benefits both for health and the climate,” said the IPCC Working Group 1 Co-Chair Panmao Zhai.
When the “Global Warming of 1.5 °C” report came out three years ago, I, like many observers, thought that it would have profound political and governance implications in the coming years, at both the international and the domestic levels. But politicians and policymakers still dragged their feet. Now, let us hope the present scientific wake-up call will rouse them from their slumber.
Anyway, there are a couple of reasons why the present IPCC report would galvanise political action. Firstly, it arrived less than three months before the next major global climate summit in Glasgow, UK. There, governments will have the opportunity to make pledges to reverse course and decrease their emissions. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 26th Conference of Parties (aka COP 26) did not hold last year. This year, it will. Immediately the IPCC report was released on Monday, the UN Secretary General, Guterres, released an emotional statement, at the end of which he implored, “…I count on government leaders and all stakeholders to ensure COP 26 is a success.”
Secondly, in the last few weeks, the world has been hit by extreme weather events. In Asia, at least, tens of people died in China’s flood-stricken central province of Henan. Chinese meteorological officials described the natural disaster as the heaviest rains for 1,000 years.
In Europe, deadly floods swept through the continent in a fashion that has stunned both politicians and scientists. From July 12, several European countries were swept by catastrophic floods, which caused deaths and widespread damage. The flood affected several river basins, first in the United Kingdom and later across northern and central Europe including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy.
At least 209 people died in the floods, including 170 in Germany, 36 in Belgium, 1 in Italy, 1 in Austria and 1 in Romania. In addition to the confirmed fatalities, the flooding led to widespread power outages, forced evacuations and damage to infrastructure and agriculture in the affected areas (especially Germany).
Instructively, during the aftermath of the floods, scientists, activists and reporters all highlighted the connection to global trends in extreme weather, especially more frequent heavy rainfall caused by climate change. There is no more doubt; climate change is an unequivocal reality.
The stake is high, and world leaders can actually make the decision to turn the tide. If global carbon emissions hit net zero by around 2050 – a target that many countries have committed to over the past year – then the world can achieve the goal laid out in the 2015 Paris Accord and limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.
Like other countries that signed the Paris Climate pact, Nigeria must show commitment, especially in ensuring that her Nationally Determined Contribution is achieved. At the individual level, we have crucial tasks to fulfil in order to stop climate change. We must cultivate green lifestyle as an enduring habit in our everyday activities: Recycle our waste; use renewable energy; consume less energy; plant trees; and teach our young ones how to go green (reduce, reuse, recycle).
