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Tag: Paris Climate Accord
Report: We can avoid the worst effects of climate change, but we’re still in for a fight
Popular Science: We can avoid the worst effects of climate change, but we’re still in for a fight. We may still be able to reverse some of the major effects if we cross the crucial threshold.
It’s easy to get disheartened about climate change. To keep global warming within the safe threshold of 1.5ºC adopted by the Paris Agreement, we need to have declines in carbon emissions on par with those of 2020, a year in which a global pandemic forced transportation and industry to slow down. As economies rev back up, it’s understandable to be anxious that things will return back to “normal,” a planet-wrecking status quo.
But even if the odds of global leaders shifting gears to focus on mitigating climate change are low, it’s not cause for climate doomerism. Every bit of warming we ward off helps. A new review in the journal Nature illustrates that even if we overshoot a global warming threshold, it won’t necessarily destabilize crucial Earth systems—including ice sheets, ocean currents, and tropical forests—right away. “If you change [the course of emissions] fast enough, you can avoid certain consequences that might be otherwise irreversible,” says Valerio Lucarini, a physicist at the University of Reading who was not involved in the study. “I think the paper does a good job in making this clear.”
Global warming targets like 1.5ºC are based on what researchers think is needed to avoid setting off powerful and irreversible changes to the biosphere that could devastate humans and ecosystems. But Paul Ritchie, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter who led the study, says that a common misconception is that once we cross a climate threshold, all is lost—that processes like ice melt will spin out of control until the Earth equilibrates at a new, hotter normal. “You often hear that we are very close to the threshold now [for ice sheet collapse]—some say we’ve already crossed it—and that means, apparently, that we’re committed to suffering a large [amount of] ice melt,” he says. “That’s not necessarily the case.”
Study: Climate Tipping Point – 2 articles
Phys.org: ‘Doomsday’ climate tipping points have wiggle room: Study. Global warming thresholds that could tip massive ice sheets into irreversible melting or see the Amazon rainforest shrivel into savannah have “grace periods”, giving humanity more time to draw down planet-warming carbon emissions, researchers have calculated. More than a dozen tipping points triggered mainly by rising temperatures could unleash catastrophic changes in Earth’s climate system. As the Paris Agreement goal of a 1.5 degree Celsius cap above pre-industrial levels slips out of reach, this is potentially very good news—although no reason to relax—scientists said. Ice sheets atop Greenland and West Antarctic hold enough frozen water to lift oceans a dozen meters (40 feet), drowning cities and redrawing the planet’s coastlines. But new research led by Paul Ritchie and Peter Cox from the School of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences at Exeter University asks a different question. “Our analysis shows that it is possible to overshoot tipping point thresholds without leading to an abrupt and permanent climate change—as long as the overshoot is for a short period of time,” Cox, senior author of a study published Wednesday in Nature, told AFP. [No study link provided.]
Vice: The Climate Tipping Point Nobody’s Talking About. Efforts to mitigate climate change can worsen “relational tipping points” with Indigenous peoples that were crossed long ago, says one expert. Rapid deforestation. Permafrost melt. Ice sheet decline. These are just a few of the “tipping points” in Earth’s climate system that could trigger runaway changes if crossed. As global temperatures continue to rise due to human activity, scientists warn that tripping these ecological wires will exacerbate the climate crisis in dramatic and irreversible ways. In a 2019 article published in WIREs Climate Change, Whyte introduces the idea of “relational tipping points,” which are not measured by sea ice extent or global forest cover, but by qualities central to Indigenous kin relationships: consent, trust, accountability, and reciprocity, among others.
A third of Antarctic ice shelf risks collapse as our planet warms
CNN: A third of Antarctic ice shelf risks collapse as our planet warms.
More than a third of the Antarctic ice shelf risks collapsing into the sea if global temperatures reach 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels as climate change warms the world, a new study from the UK’s University of Reading has warned.
In a forecasting study, scientists found that 34% of the area of all Antarctic ice shelves, measuring some half a million square kilometers, could destabilize if world temperatures were to rise by 4 degrees. Some 67% of the ice shelf area on the Antarctic Peninsula would be at risk of destabilization under this scenario, researchers said.
Ice shelves are permanent floating platforms of ice attached to areas of the coastline, formed where glaciers flowing off the land meet the sea. They can help limit the rise in global sea levels by acting like a dam, slowing the flow of melting ice and water into the oceans.
The study was published Thursday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. [No study link is provided.]
Study: Earth’s most beloved creatures headed toward extinction under current emissions
CBS News: Earth’s most beloved creatures headed toward extinction under current emissions, study shows.
Snow leopards in the Himalayas, lemurs in Madagascar and elephants in central Africa: Some of Earth’s most beloved creatures are on a path to extinction, a new study shows, thanks to current greenhouse gas emissions. Unless humans stop pumping carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, researchers say the planet’s biodiversity will suffer devastating consequences.
n a study published Friday in the journal Biological Conservation, scientists warn that some of the richest concentrations of plants and animals on Earth will be “irreversibly ravaged” by global warming unless countries make a real effort toward their goals made under the 2015 Paris climate treaty. They report a high danger for extinction in almost 300 biodiversity “hot spots” if temperatures rise three degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Under the Paris agreement, nations promised to keep warming “well below” two degrees Celsius. Even if these commitments are honored, temperatures are still expected to exceed three degrees Celsius before the end of the century.
Report: Australian scientists sound alarm over Paris climate goals
Axios: Australian scientists sound alarm over Paris climate goals.
The Australian Academy of Science quietly released a report on March 31 that underlines the stakes of President Biden’s April 22 climate summit and the next U.N. climate confab in Glasgow.
The big picture: The report, produced by Australia’s equivalent to the Royal Society of London, heaps doubt upon the feasibility of the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting global warming to “well below” 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared to preindustrial levels by 2100.
It calls the goal “virtually impossible” based on how significantly temperatures have already shifted, and the lack of emissions reduction commitments that would meet the challenge.
DeSmogBlog, April 3, 2021
Articles include: Understanding the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Legacy of White Supremacy; Feds Move Forward with New Mexico Drilling Plan Despite Community Outcry; British Airways Nearly as Polluting as All Vans on UK Roads Combined, Data Shows; UK Court Urged to Respect 1.5C Climate Limit; Climate Disinformation Database: FTI Consulting
DeSmogBlog, February 27, 2021
Articles include: Racial Equity & Louisiana’s Cancer Alley Community; Exxon & Its Bad Fossil Fuel Investments; Texas Catastrophe Shows How Natural Gas Systems Can Fail; Aquaculture in the US; Texas Refineries’ Release Pollutants During Storm; Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord Matters; Climate Disinformation Database: Mark Steyn.
NY Times Climate Fwd, February 24, 2021
NY Times Climate Fwd: nationwide crises waiting to happen. Biden’s pick to lead DOI; Insurance costs going up; Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord; Arctic drilling; community wood banks.
Is It Time for an Emergency Rollout of Carbon-Eating Machines?
Wired: Is It Time for an Emergency Rollout of Carbon-Eating Machines? Facilities that suck carbon dioxide out of the air could be powerful weapons for fighting climate change. But their deployment requires a huge wartime-style investment.
THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY demands that we dramatically and rapidly cut emissions. There’s no substitute for that, full stop. But it also demands a technological revolution to reverse years of out-of-control emissions: The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes that if we want to meet the Paris climate agreement’s most optimistic goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, we have to deploy some sort of negative emissions technologies.