Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
A SPECIAL report on global warming has been released today that provides a grim view on the world’s future.
It states that the world stands on the brink of failure when it comes to holding climate change to moderate levels and that there is only a decade to try and cut emissions.
All scenarios for keeping global warming to 1.5C would involve cutting the use of coal-powered electricity to practically nothing by 2050.
Ninety-one authors and review editors from 40 countries prepared the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and their verdict is that every extra bit of warming makes a difference.
The world has already warmed by about 1C above pre-industrial levels and is likely to reach 1.5C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate.
The report is groundbreaking in that it looks at the impacts of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to 2C.
It shows that 1.5C is enough to unleash climate mayhem, and the pathways to avoiding an even hotter world require a swift and complete transformation not just of the global economy, but of society too.
Already there has been deadly heatwaves, wild fires and floods, along with superstorms swollen by rising seas.
“I don’t know how you can possibly read this and find it anything other than wildly alarming,” said Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, referring to the draft summary.
WE NEED DRAMATIC REDUCTIONS
The United Nations panel released its report at midday and it makes clear that global warming of 1.5C would be a very difficult target to reach and cannot be achieved without carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere.
Carbon emissions would need to be cut by 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030. This would allow carbon emissions to reach “net zero” by around 2050.
For Australia’s coal industry, it’s a bleak future.
