'Quantum leap in climate action' needed to slow global warming

'Quantum leap in climate action' needed to slow global warming

A Palestinian man rides a paddle board on a flooded street following heavy rain at the Al-Shati refugee camp in the Gaza strip on March 20, 2023. Almost half of the world’s population lives in regions highly vulnerable to climate change, where in the last decade, deaths from floods, droughts, and storms were 15 times higher.
Picture: Mohamed Abed/AFP/Getty 

Choices made on reducing emissions this decade “will reverberate for thousands of years”, as the UN described a new report on climate change as a “survival guide for humanity”.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN-backed body of global climate scientists, including Maynooth University professor Peter Thorne, said there are multiple options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but progress has been marred by the sluggish pace of action in the past five years.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said staving off a 1.5C global warming rise — a tipping point that will bring extreme heatwaves and ocean rising — will take a "quantum leap in climate action”. He said: "The climate timebomb is ticking. But the IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate timebomb. It is a survival guide for humanity. As it shows, the 1.5C limit is achievable."

The report said:

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB

  • More than a century of burning fossil fuels has led to global warming of 1.1C above pre-industrial levels, resulting in more frequent and more intense extreme weather events in every region of the world.
  • Every increment of warming results in rapidly escalating hazards, such as more intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall, and other weather extremes.
  • Almost half of the world’s population lives in regions highly vulnerable to climate change, where in the last decade, deaths from floods, droughts, and storms were 15 times higher.

Prof Thorne said what can be done now is critical to planetary health for centuries ahead.

“The report makes absolutely clear that it is not a problem for future politicians to worry about, it is a problem that we have to grapple with now, as politicians, society, communities, and industry.

If we fail to act in this decade, the consequences of that failure will reverberate for centuries, thousands of years into the future. It really is a case of not being able to kick the can down the road anymore.

It is a societal as well as governmental responsibility, he added.

Individual choices 

“The number of 2023 cars that I see on the road that are big SUVs that are using petrol or diesel is alarming.

“It shows a complete lack of understanding by many citizens as to the consequences of their personal decisions. It’s not just the Government, it is communities, and it is individual choice. If we continue to make these choices that are climate negative, we just double down on the problem,” he said.

The time for the world to start acting on climate change was 40 years ago, he said, but taking action now can still be significant.

“The best time to start taking action would have been in the 1980s or 1990s when we knew there was a problem. If we took meaningful action then, we would have had far more options open to us now. The longer we delay, the fewer options we have and the harder it will be.”

Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) chairwoman Marie Donnelly, said Ireland is not sufficiently prepared to adapt to the levels of climate change currently being experienced.

“Much of our infrastructure was built to cope with the climate of the mid-20th century, and therefore significant efforts are required to ensure resilience to the changed climate of the 21st century. Failure to urgently address these issues will magnify future costs and risks to society,” she warned.

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