TICK TOCK THE CLIMATE CLOCK – PART FORTY-FOUR

The war in Ukraine, like a thermobaric bomb (above), has for the moment sucked all of the air out of the climate crisis room.  The fight to focus on the effects of climate breakdown and the need to ameliorate them has been sidelined, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.  Understandably and rightly, the possibility of imminent nuclear destruction trumps the likelihood of eventual climate destruction.  But we must remember that every day we fail to face this climate reality is a day lost, and time and momentum are rapidly running out.

While rockets were pounding Kyiv and Kharkov yesterday, the Sixth Assessment Report (Part 2) of Working Group II of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also landed.  I know few of my readers want to hear about that report right now, or ever—my readership on climate is the lowest of all my blog subjects--but for those who are determined to stay focused, here is the report.  For those who have only enough psychic energy for the highlights, The Guardian has an excellent summary.

First, what is this Sixth Assessment Report, Part 2?  From The Guardian:

This is the second part of the IPCC’s latest assessment report, an updated, comprehensive review of global knowledge of the climate, which has been seven years in the making and draws on the peer-reviewed work of thousands of scientists. The assessment report is the sixth since the IPCC was first convened by the UN in 1988, and may be the last to be published while there is still some chance of avoiding the worst.

 A first installment, by the IPCC’s working group 1, published last August, on the physical science of climate change, said the climate crisis was “unequivocally” caused by human actions, resulting in changes that were “unprecedented”, with some becoming “irreversible”.

 This second part, by working group 2, deals with the impacts of climate breakdown, sets out areas where the world is most vulnerable, and details how we can try to adapt and protect against some of the impacts.

A third section, due in April, will cover ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and the final part, in October, will summarise these lessons for governments meeting in Egypt for the UN Cop27 climate summit.

Note that part 2 of the report focuses on adaptation to climate change.  The opportunity to avoid climate change has passed.

So, who is doing the adapting and to what?  From The Guardian:

• Everywhere is affected, with no inhabited region escaping dire impacts from rising temperatures and increasingly extreme weather.
• About half the global population – between 3.3 billion and 3.6 billion people – live in areas “highly vulnerable” to climate change.
• Millions of people face food and water shortages owing to climate change, even at current levels of heating.
• Mass die-offs of species, from trees to corals, are already under way.
• 1.5C above pre-industrial levels constitutes a “critical level” beyond which the impacts of the climate crisis accelerate strongly and some become irreversible.
• Coastal areas around the globe, and small, low-lying islands, face inundation at temperature rises of more than 1.5C.
• Key ecosystems are losing their ability to absorb carbon dioxide, turning them from carbon sinks to carbon sources.
• Some countries have agreed to conserve 30% of the Earth’s land, but conserving half may be necessary to restore the ability of natural ecosystems to cope with the damage wreaked on them.

None of this is news, but the fact that the report focuses on only some of the impacts of climate change, and not all, is noteworthy.  What are we to make of that?  The emphasis seems to be limited to damage from rising seas, while omitting damage to inland areas from atmospheric rivers, wildfires, derechos, historic droughts, and heat domes?  Is it too late to do anything about that?  Unclear. 

Putting that question aside, what can be done to protect islands and coasts?  From The Guardian:

Governments in other parts of the world could help their people … by building flood defences, helping farmers to grow different crops, or building more resilient infrastructure.

In other words, restoring wetlands, sustaining mangrove swamps (above), planting trees, and building breakwaters and coastal flood control systems.  That might not sound like much, but it’s something that can be done and it should be.  Yet estimates for the cost of building this natural and man made infrastructure alone is about $4 trillion per year.  Wealthy nations had pledged $100 billion to this end, but as of the end of 2020, the funds had yet to materialize.  Then we endured another year of Covid and now we’re on the precipice of war in Europe.  Our attention to climate has flagged even as the crisis has not. 

Climate doesn’t sleep and you don’t have to be a climate scientist to understand that the impacts of even these targeted sea rise mitigation measures will diminish as temperatures climb, quickly reaching what the report refers to as “the ‘hard’ limits beyond which adaptation would be impossible.”  What in hell are we waiting for?  A Ukrainian moment?

Failure to act decisively now, and failure to act beyond protecting tropical islands and developed coastlines, will precipitate knock-on effects in the future, such as hunger, disease (another pandemic, anyone?), and poverty.  As one of the report’s authors put it:

Like taking a wrecking ball to a set of global dominoes, climate change in the 21st century threatens to destroy the foundations of food and water security, smash onwards through the fragile structures of human and ecosystem health, and ultimately shake the very pillars of human civilisation.

Climate dominoes and political dominoes have something in common:

The current warfare activity in eastern Europe, though not attributable to climate change, is a further caution about how human tensions and international relations and geopolitics could become inflamed as climate change impacts hit nations in ways that they are ill-prepared to handle.

No kidding, but there is more to the story.  While the Ukraine conflict may not be attributable to climate change, it is most definitely exacerbated and complicated by bad energy policies.  And bad energy policies are directly responsible for climate and environmental degradation. 

It’s quite encouraging to see some major oil companies, financial institutions, governments, and investment firms pulling out of Russian oil and gas investments like Rosneft (above), Gazprom, and the Nordstream 2 pipeline, but it’s not enough.  If we’re fortunate enough to avoid destroying ourselves in a nuclear holocaust courtesy of Mr. Putin, let’s turn our attention front and center to avoiding a climate catastrophe, shall we?  Let’s not wait for a Ukrainian moment. 

Keep it real!

Marilyn