Until now, human civilization has operated within a narrow, stable band of temperature. Through the burning of fossil fuels, we have now unmoored ourselves from our past, as if we have transplanted ourselves onto another planet. The last time it was hotter than now was at least 125,000 years ago, while the atmosphere has more heat-trapping carbon dioxide in it than any time in the past two million years, perhaps more. The Guardian.The climate disaster is here
“We have built a civilization based on a world that doesn’t exist anymore,” Says Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, puts it. We are conducting an unprecedented experiment with our planet. The temperature has only moved a few tenths of a degree for us until now, just small wiggles in the road. But now we are hitting a curve we’ve never seen before.”
The Guardian interactive article The climate disaster is here bars no holds in laying the cards on the table with unflinching honesty. In a lengthy expose, the newspaper provides an in-depth analysis of how the world will be impacted from the current time until the end of the century, based upon different temperature thresholds. It explores climate change projected impacts on water, drought, wildfires, and food security.
Across the planet, people are set to be strafed by cascading storms, heatwaves, flooding and drought. Around 216 million people, mostly from developing countries, will be forced to flee these impacts by 2050 unless radical action is taken, the World Bank has estimated. As much as $23tn is on track to be wiped from the global economy, potentially upending many more.
Some of the most dire impacts revolve around water – both the lack of it and inundation by it. Enormous floods, often fueled by abnormally heavy rainfall, have become a regular occurrence recently, not only in Germany and China but also from the US, where the Mississippi River spent most of 2019 in a state of flood, to the UK, which was hit by floods in 2020 after storms delivered the equivalent of one month of rain in 48 hours, to Sudan, where flooding wiped out more than 110,000 homes last year.
WATER (or lack of water) is associated with extreme weather events, drought, wildfires, and crop failures.
- With global warming, more water is held in the atmosphere and released in extreme rainfall events.
- Over the past 20 years, the amount of “terrestrial water” has decreased 1 cm annually. Over five billion people are expected to have an inadequate water supply within the next three decades.
- There will be less rainfall in central America, the Caribbean Islands, and the northwest US.
- North America’s southern regions are expected to be impacted by severe drought by 2100; the north-east US will experience more extreme rainfall events
At 3C of warming, sea level rise from melting glaciers and ocean heat will also provide torrents of unwelcome water to coastal cities, with places such as Miami, Shanghai and Bangladesh in danger of becoming largely marine environments. The frequency of heavy precipitation events, the sort that soaked Germany and China, will start to climb, nearly doubling the historical norm once it heats up by 2C.
As 2021 ends, we have already used 86% of the carbon “budget”, making it highly unlikely we will be able to remain below 1.5C.
The Glasgow COP26 may be the last opportunity to aggressively tackle this crisis
With the Glasgow talks just two weeks away, only ½ of the world’s developed countries have submitted their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which lay out their plans to cut carbon emissions to prevent global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees C. by 2030.
The Climate Action tracker revealed last month the majority of submitted NDCs fall woefully short of meeting this target. They also are not committing to provide sufficient monetary assistance to developing countries to help them pursue clean energy alternatives and deal with loss and damage from climate change. (In 2009’s COP16, developing countries were promised $100 billion a year in donations from public and private sources. In 2019, countries in the “global south” received $80bn.
Biden’s Powers Under a Climate Emergency
Declaring a climate emergency would allow President Biden to access over 100 powers under the National Emergencies Act. Some powers could be:
- using Pentagon funds for clean energy projects
- sanctioning countries that over utilize fossil fuels
- reinstating the ban on the U.S. exports of crude oil.
- using the Stafford Act to send emergency aid packages to states, tribes, and local governments to address extreme weather events
Ask Congress to demand the president declare a National Climate Emergency. Call your Senators now 202-318-1885
COP26 Agenda
After the initial opening ceremony and speeches by heads of state and heads of government from the countries involved in negotiations, each day will focus on a theme linked to climate change.
- Wednesday, November 3 — finance,
- Thursday, November 4 — energy
- Friday, November 5 — youth and public empowerment
- Saturday, November 6 — Nature
Week two will focus on loss and damage, gender, adaptation, transportation, cities, regions, and built environments.
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