To Prevent Catastrophic Damage by 2100, Climate Experts Warn 'It's Now or Never' (2024)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a new climate change report warning that “rapid and deep” cuts to greenhouse gas emissions are needed to stay at or below the targeted 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming. Without strengthening climate policies, greenhouse gas emissions are projected to lead to a median global warming of about 3.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, per the report.
Climate scientists have previously warned that severe effects could occur if the Earth warms more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This temperature goal was set during the Paris Agreement in 2015, but the new report states we’re still far behind reaching it, reports Popular Science’s Sara Kiley Watson.
“The jury has reached the verdict, and it is damning,” Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres said in a press conference. “This report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a litany of broken climate promises. It is a file of shame, cataloging the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world. We are on a fast-track to climate disaster.”
The 3,000-page report states global greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest, must be reduced by 43 percent by 2030 and reduced by 84 percent by 2050 to reach the goal. Additionally, global use of coal must drop by 95 percent by 2050 compared to 2019, oil by 60 percent and gas by 45 percent.
“It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F),” says IPCC Working Group III co-chair Jim Skea in a statement. “Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.”
Catherine Mitchell, a professor emerita of energy policy at Exeter University, tells theGuardian’s Fiona Harvey that needs of poorer countries should be prioritized.
“Unless we have social justice, there are not going to be more accelerated greenhouse gas reductions,” she says to the publication. “These issues are tied together.”
The release of the report was delayed by several hours because of disagreements on messaging in the “Summary for Policymakers,” the first part of the report that usually garners the most media attention, reports theGuardian’s Amy Westervelt. This summary must be approved by 195 countries, and this year’s approval process was the “longest and most contentious in the history of the IPCC,” per the publication. Language around the fossil fuels industry's contribution was present in the actual scientific report, but critics say it was held back from the 63-page summary, Westervelt writes.
“The scientists clearly did their job and provided ample material on climate obstruction activities in the report,” environmental sociologist Robert Brulle of Brown University tells the publication. “The political process of creating the Summary for Policymakers ended up editing all of this information out.”
Despite the findings of the report, researchers say it’s not too late to cut down on emissions.
“Every fraction of a degree matters,” Ani Dasgupta, World Resources Institute president and CEO, says in a statement. “The tools required to rapidly decarbonize the economy so that people and nature can thrive are at our fingertips—we just need our leaders to wield them.”
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Margaret Osborne is a freelance journalist based in the southwestern U.S. Her work has appeared in theSag Harbor Expressand has aired onWSHU Public Radio.
By 2100, the average U.S. temperature is projected to increase by about 3°F to 12°F, depending on emissions scenario and climate model. An increase in average temperatures worldwide implies more frequent and intense extreme heat events, or heat waves.
Global temperature is projected to warm by about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7° degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050 and 2-4 degrees Celsius (3.6-7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.
We need to implement aggressive energy policies today to eliminate carbon emissions in energy conservation, encourage the evolution of the energy mix to renewable energy, and manage carbon waste. We are already doing a lot of this – we just need to do it faster.
By the year 2100, extreme heat events will make parts of Asia and Africa uninhabitable for up to 600 million people, the United Nations and Red Cross warned in October.
The Census Bureau projects America's population to grow older and more diverse by the end of the 21st century, with immigration and fertility rates driving most changes through 2100. The Census also projects immigration will be the largest driver of population growth through the rest of the century.
Expect them to be the norm by 2100. Due to greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures are on the rise. And with them, sea levels are predicted to increase, possibly by more than a meter.
These and other factors suggest that 2024 could see even more extreme weather and climate impacts than 2023, as humans continue to pour heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
In 100 years, the world's population will probably be around 10 – 12 billion people, the rainforests will be largely cleared and the world would not be or look peaceful. We would have a shortage of resources such as water, food and habitation which would lead to conflicts and wars.
Roughly 1.3 billion years from now, "humans will not be able to physiologically survive, in nature, on Earth" due to sustained hot and humid conditions. In about 2 billion years, the oceans may evaporate when the sun's luminosity is nearly 20% more than it is now, Kopparapu said.
A climate apocalypse is a term used to denote a predicted scenario involving the global collapse of human civilization due to climate change. Such collapse could theoretically arrive through a set of interrelated concurrent factors such as famine, extreme weather, war and conflict, and disease.
Almost certainly not—but unless we act quickly to stop warming the planet, there will be very severe consequences for many, many people. First, the good news: climate scientists, as a whole, are not warning us to prepare for the apocalypse.
The global average temperature rise is predicted to climb permanently above 1.5°C by between 2026 and 2042, with a central estimate of 2032, while business as usual will see the 2°C breached by 2050 or very soon after [6].
The global average temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C (about 3 degrees F) within the next few decades. These changes will affect all regions of Earth. The severity of effects caused by climate change will depend on the path of future human activities.
By 2100, hot days reaching dangerous conditions are expected to be three to ten times more frequent in the U.S. even if current emissions are limited to meet global climate goals set in Paris in 2015.
Across the 247 cities included in the analysis, their 2100 analogues are 437 miles south. The average summer warming by 2100 across all cities is 8 °F. And 16 U.S. cities have no 2100 analogues on the continent—their future summer conditions are more similar to locations in the Middle East and Egypt.
By 2100, the human population is expected to shoot up to 11 billion people. At the same time, the world's landmass will shrink as rising sea levels swallow coastlines, displacing an estimated 2 billion people from their homes, according to a new analysis from Cornell University.
In the year 3000, humans will exist in a world transformed by advanced technologies, AI, and robotics. They will possess enhanced physical and mental capabilities, coexisting and collaborating with intelligent machines.
Introduction: My name is Kerri Lueilwitz, I am a courageous, gentle, quaint, thankful, outstanding, brave, vast person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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