Irish Examiner view: Amoc collapse would be climate catastrophe
Picture: Sebastien Salom-Gomis/AFP/Getty
As we endure the biggest global energy crisis in nearly 60 years, news has come that the world could be facing into the catastrophic collapse of the critical Atlantic current system sooner than previously thought.
The consequences of such a collapse in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) are, according to scientists studying it, “very concerning” and will have cataclysmic consequences for Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
Amoc, a critical part of the global climate system, was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years because the earth is experiencing a climate crisis. Warning signs were detected in 2021 by the scientific community, who know it has collapsed in the past.
Computer modelling of the system produces results which vary wildly: Some indicate no further slowdown by 2100, while others suggest a huge deceleration of up to 65% even if carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are cut to net zero.
However, the latest research, using real-world observations in tandem with computer modelling to try and produce the most reliable answers, indicates a slowdown in Amoc by 2100 of between 42% and 58% — a level almost certain to end in collapse.
Amoc brings warm tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. Were it to fail, there would be a shift in the tropical rainfall belt upon which millions of people rely to cultivate food, Europe would experience extreme winters and prolonged summer droughts, and add 50cm to 100cm to already-rising sea levels around the Atlantic.
Scientists are now increasingly worried that the earth may well pass the tipping Amoc shutdown point — where it becomes inevitable — in the middle of this century. That’s not far away, and the consequences are terrifying.
The research has been published in the journal and has been lauded by scientists as “very credible”. It is ironic that it has landed just as the crisis cause by war in the Middle East has concentrated minds on the global dependence on fossil fuels and the effect that burning them has on carbon emissions.
That the scientific community now reckons the reality will almost certainly be worse than research suggests, indicates that global warming naysayers — including the current US administration — are heading the globe into even more dangerous waters than we may have believed.
US president Donald Trump is good at picking fights but only, it seems, when he has been convinced he will emerge as a clear winner.
That strategy might well have reached its nadir when he chose to start a war with Iran and promised it would be over “within days”.
Six weeks — and counting — later, the conflict has turned out to be a costly PR disaster and almost certainly unwinnable. And now he is embroiled in another war — this time, thankfully, of words only — in which he is also unlikely to come out on top.
His unholy spat with Pope Leo XIV, along with his infamous depiction of himself as a Christ-like figure, suggesting the Pope would not have been elected were it not for him, and his claiming God’s support in the Iran war, has inflamed Republican party tensions and tested the willingness of his supporters on the Christian right to shrug off his apostacies.
Pope Leo has been one of the most vocal critics of Trump’s war in Iran, and has faced stinging attacks from the Oval Office for speaking his mind. Trump’s media mouthpieces have returned fire, including Fox New presenter Sean Hannity, who accused the pontiff of being “seemingly more interested in spreading left-wing politics than the actual teachings of Jesus Christ”.
These attacks on Pope Leo have, in reality, been damaging for Mr Trump and US Republican Party’s prospects in November’s mid-term elections. Both have been fielding attacks from the Democrats about huge fuel price increases caused by the Iran war.
Now they are also fighting a backlash from Catholics in the US who had, until recently, backed both party and president. The Pope’s huge popularity among Catholics has badly damaged their support politically.
Saudi Arabia’s eye-watering $1tn sovereign wealth fund seems tired of financing the upstart LIV Golf project it launched four years ago to compete with the American PGA Tour.
Having doled out an estimated $1bn to sign some of the world’s biggest golfing stars into its ranks with contracts which substantially exceeded — by tens of millions of dollars — their career earnings, it appears that it’s about to be shut down.
Throughout the past week there has been a drip-feed of information coming from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), suggesting it is re-evaluating its priorities and seeking to “increase the efficiency of investments”.
Surprisingly, it would appear, the previously bottomless pit of cash it was playing with is drying up, and expensive investments such as LIV Golf and the purchase of Newcastle United are set to be canned.
Although the LIV Golf administration issued an ‘onwards and upwards’ rallying call last week, their optimism has not been widely shared, particularly in the light of massive Saudi investment in the likes of the World Expo in 2030 and the 2034 football World Cup.
PIF governor Yasir al-Rumayyan has overseen the investment path of the fund over the past decades and supervised investment in the likes of Japanese conglomerate Softbank and various sports franchises such as Newcastle United.
Aside from investing $2bn in an investment fund headed by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the US president, it also funded LIV Golf.
Beset by a lack of media exposure, especially on television, poor crowds, and general public antipathy, LIV Golf has struggled to find any sort of commercial footing and its only real achievement was to alienate the sport’s fans rather than engage them.
As costly as it was, it proved to be little else other than divisive and futile. If and when the plug is finally pulled, it will not be missed.
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