As governments gather next week in Lima, Peru for a critical climate change negotiations leading to a new climate treaty in Paris in 2015, a new scientific report released on Monday revealed that a 1.5 degrees Celsius could already be locked into Earth’s system spurring decline in crop yields, shift in water resources, rising sea level, and the livelihoods of millions of people are put at risk.
In a World Bank report, “Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal”, it says that there is a growing evidence that even with very ambitious mitigation action, warming close to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by mid-century is already locked-in to the Earth’s atmospheric system and that climate change impacts such as extreme heat events may not be unavoidable.
“ If the planet continues warming to 4 degrees Celsius, climatic conditions, heat and other weather extremes considered highly unusual or unprecedented today would become the new climate normal– a world of increased risks and instability,” the reports said.
However, the report with the assistance from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, stressed that with strong, swift, aggressive action on climate change, a rapidly warming world could still be avoided.
Many of the worst projected climate impacts could still be avoided by holding warming to below 2 degrees Celsius. But the time to act is now, it said.
Past emissions have set an unavoidable course to warming over the next decades affecting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said at the release of the report.
“ We’re already seeing record-breaking temperatures occurring more frequently, rainfall increasing in intensity in some places, and drought-prone regions like the Mediterranean becoming drier,” Kim stated.
The World Bank President added: “This will require substantial technological, economic, institutional and behavioral change. It will require leadership at every level of society. Today the scientific evidence is overwhelming, and it’s clear that we cannot continue down the current path of unchecked, growing emissions.”
Kim said that the good news is that “ there is a growing consensus on what it will take to make changes to the unsustainable path we are currently on.”
The latest report looked across Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and parts of Europe and Central Asia on climate impacts. It builds on the 2012 World Bank report, which concluded the world would warm by 4 degrees Celsius by the end of this century with devastating consequences if governments fail to take concerted urgent action.
The new report also complements the 2013 report that looked at the potential risks to development under different warming scenarios in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and South Asia, and which warned that the world could experience a 2 degrees Celsius world in our lifetime.
Alarming findings
The report outlines in painful detail that heat extremes and changing precipitation patterns will have adverse effects on agricultural productivity, hydrological regimes and biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In the Middle East and North Africa, a large increase in heat-waves combined with warmer average temperatures will put intense pressure on already scarce water resources with major consequences for regional food security.
In the Western Balkans and Central Asia, reduced water availability in some places becomes a threat as temperature rise toward 4 degrees Celsius.
Walk the climate talk
Officials from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) hope that Lima climate talks would deliver a draft text for a new climate deal, which would be crucial in 2015 negotiations in Paris.
While a $US 9.3 billion pledge of rich countries to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) raised hopes of a positive outcome, various sectors said progress was still in a slow pace.
Philippine Climate Change Commissioner Naderev Sano said that there is a need for governments to continue striving to find ways in ensuring that the world would not warm up beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“ This will require a global economic transformation and climate revolution that would be at the same scale as the first industrial revolution that strongly entails zero net emissions by the year 2050, the phase out of fossil fuels, stopping massive deforestation and forest degradation in its tracks, and at the same time meeting the global development goals, “ Sano said adding that this ultimately means reducing the human footprint on the planet and addressing incredible over-consumption all over the world.
Sano added that the upcoming climate negotiations in Lima is intended “ to flesh out the elements of the 2015 agreement and is crucial in demonstrating to the whole world that the United Nations can rise to the occasion to confront the most serious problem humanity has ever faced.”
Sano, together with various civil society groups have recently held a 40-days “climate walk” from Manila to Typhoon Haiyan affected area in Tacloban City to spur action on climate change.
“ As for Climate Walk, the journey continues, especially as we continue to attempt to reach the hearts and minds of people all over the world,” Sano said.
On the other hand, Philippine Climate Justice Movement National Coordinator Gerry Arances, said that the Philippine government must now “walk its climate talk” and to have its share of emissions reduction pledge through achieving its original target of 50 percent renewable energy by 2030.
“ This means not pushing through with its coal addiction by junking the construction of the 45 ‘approved’ coal plants with 10,000 MW total capacity and replace it with renewables which is higly abundant in the country,” Arances said. “ It also has to aside from tapping the funds under the GCF, be more ambitious in its domestic climate financing by raising the funds allocated to the Peoples’ Survival Fund, using more funds under the Malampaya fund to renewable energy projects.”
By Imelda V. Abano
photo credit: IVAbano; World Bank
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