Earth in balmy 2080
It's 2080. Global emissions peaked decades ago, too late to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 °C above preindustrial levels. The shift in climate has changed the world. As temperatures climbed by 2 °C, effects were felt first in poor and vulnerable regions like sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. Extreme weather events - droughts, floods and hurricanes - became more common and severe. Vulnerable nations had a stark choice: adapt or face millions of deaths. At huge financial cost, society has adapted.
We cannot say for sure what kind of a home Earth will offer in 2080, but averages made across thousands of model runs help paint a picture of what a 2 °C warmer world would look like.
Warmer world is the challenge of a generation
AS THE latest round of United Nations climate negotiations began in Durban, South Africa, on Monday, expectations could scarcely have been lower. A globally binding deal is further away than ever. That makes considerable warming from climate change inevitable.
In the last few weeks major reports by the International Energy Agency and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have concluded that we can still meet the UN's target of limiting warming to 2 °C above preindustrial levels. But climate scientists are far less optimistic. Many say the chance to avoid a 2 °C rise has been and gone, and we must now prepare for the damage to come.
To have a fair chance of keeping below 2 °C, global emissions would have to peak by 2020 or so before falling. There's no sign of that: they made their biggest-ever leap in 2010. Many countries promised to cut their emissions at the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, but modelling carried out by climate consultancy Ecofys, based in the Netherlands, shows that even if those cuts were implemented in full we would still see 3.5 °C of warming by 2100.
Comments
Post a Comment