Climate Change Caution: Hope For The Best, Prepare For The Worst! A Narrow Window Of Opportunity!

Climate change? Does it need an introduction when it's on the verge of Climax?

I’ll save some definitions for you to look at, but we all can see the evidence all around the world to see how Climate Change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses in terrestrial, freshwater, Cryospheric and coastal, and in open ocean Ecosystems. (IPCC 2023). 

Not all have understood how continued GHG emissions will affect all major climate system components, and in time we will have to face some irreversible changes on centennial to millennial time scales! It is a concern for the Multidimensional field that adversely impacts human systems and ecosystems at the global level.

From the water availability and food production, Health and well-being; Cities, settlements, and infrastructure to Biodiversity and ecosystem all of these are attributed to “Medium to High Confidence” on average for their related losses and damages caused by Climate change, and by full confidence the future experiences depends on how we address Climate change now as with every increment of global warming, regional changes in mean climate and extremes will become more widespread and pronounced.

If we address the IPCC 2023 report, one would find the term “emission gap” which states the difference between where global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are heading under the current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and where science indicates emissions should be in 2030 to be on a least-cost path towards limiting warming to below 2°C or further to 1.5°C which estimated that if we only follow the current commitments, we’re likely to see global warming exceeds 1.5°C  by the end of this century, and without stronger actions, we might expect the Earth’s temperature to rise by around 3.2 to 3.5°C by the year 2100.

The question is why this emission gap still exists. The answer “implementation gap” is equally proportional to the question itself. 

Emission gap ∝ Implementation gap

There lies “implementation gap” in high confidence because policy coverage is uneven across sectors and the target of “zero emission” is highly unlikely to achieve as many developing countries, especially the least developed ones, are struggling with limited finances, technology development, and capacity, and money flows for fossil fuels (like coal, oil, and gas) are still more than what’s going towards climate adaptation and clean energy projects. To put it simply, we are not doing enough to stop global warming, especially in terms of the promises we’ve made under international agreements. 

G20 members are responsible for 75% of the global GHG (Greenhouse Gas Emission) emissions. The top 7 emitters in the 13th edition of the UNEP Emissions Gap report are China, the EU27, India, Indonesia, Brazil, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America but the frontliners of the Climate crisis are the world’s most vulnerable population, despite having contributed little to its cause. Collectively, according to IRC’s 2023 (International Rescue Committee) watchlist report these top 10 countries (Somalia, Syria, The democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Yemen, Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Ethiopia) contribute just 0.28% of global CO2 emissions. 

If we don't reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) we release each year from 2020 to 2030, we could face a serious problem. To put it simply, we might use up almost all the CO2 "allowance" we have left for keeping the Earth's temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius. This allowance is like a limited amount of CO2 we can emit before things get really bad.

Well, we could also use up over one-third of this allowance if we aim for a 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise, which is still safer than going even higher and interestingly, even if we don't make factories and machines that emit CO2 (fossil fuel infrastructure) cleaner, they could release more CO2 than what's allowed for the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal. Notably, the collective CO2 emissions estimated from these existing factories and machines could be almost equivalent to what remains if we aspire to stay within the 2 degrees Celsius increase and this scenario carries an 83% probability.

In a nutshell, if we don't cut down on CO2 emissions, we could use up our CO2 "budget" for a safe climate. This shows how crucial it is to make changes now to protect our planet's future because there is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.

What can be done?

Deep, rapid, and sustained mitigation and mostly accelerated implementation of adaptation actions in this decade would reduce projected losses and damages for humans and ecosystems and deliver many co-benefits, but delayed mitigation action would lock in high-emissions infrastructure, raise risks of stranded assets and cost-escalation, reduce feasibility and increase losses and damages, and will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations with adverse impacts in Africa, LDSc, SIDs, Central and South America, Asia and the Arctic.

And so, now we need to confront this shared global risk together and break the cycle of crisis with a global agenda to take mini steps that will be a part of the macro system. A change from mini to macro is the sustainable way, because we can hope for the best but we need to prepare ourselves for the worst!