For over 30 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been summarising the state of scientific knowledge on climate change – an updated summary of the situation was published this week.
"Unequivocally", humans alone are responsible for climate changes, which have already reached an average of 1.1°C compared to pre-industrial times.
This leads to extreme weather events that are dangerous primarily to humans, such as heatwaves, storms, or heavy rainfall events.
The ongoing extinction of species is immensely amplified by climate change – it is becoming the primary driver, ahead of overfishing or intensive agriculture.
The limit of 1.5°C agreed upon in the 2015 Paris Agreement is by no means arbitrary: above such a level of warming, some regions of the world will become uninhabitable because it becomes acutely too hot, or because sea levels rise.
Although the Bundestag has also ratified this target (and thus accepted it as legally binding), we are currently observing that the efforts, particularly of policymakers, are insufficient to keep us below 1.5°C. Meanwhile, time is running out – critical paths must be set by the end of the decade, within the next seven years.
What needs to be done to still achieve this? Here, too, the IPCC is clear and unambiguous: a rapid end to the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, gas, or oil. This requires an accelerated transition in energy and mobility, as well as changes in the dietary and construction sectors.
Currently, the world is trending in the opposite direction, emitting more CO2 from year to year instead of less. A slow, moderate transition is no longer sufficient – for that, current measures are several decades too late. Today, profound transformations are necessary and indispensable.
It must be taken into account that calls to "adapt" are short-sighted: even if humans install higher dykes, drainage channels, and widespread air conditioning, this will help neither corals nor other animals or plants.
"Business as usual" cannot work – and in reality, everyone knows this. Even those blocking forces who claim, for economic reasons, not to seek changes are lying to themselves and their audience. The transformations will indeed cost a great deal of money. However, a world with warming of 2°C and more compared to pre-industrial times will consume a multiple of these costs, making it economically clearly the poorer "investment".
The closing words of the IPCC, however, offer hope:
"Urgent climate action can secure a liveable future for all."
We know enough.
Now is the time to act.
Source:
Sixth Assessment Report IPCC, https://www.ipcc.ch/ar6-syr/
