Global warming is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today, according to a report issued by the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at a recent meeting in Incheon, South Korea. There’s a general consent that the industries that have given us unprecedented wealth and well-being have come at enormous cost to the planet. We are on the brink of disaster, and German biologist Hans-Otto Portner warned, “If action is not taken, global warming will take the planet into an unprecedented climate future.”
In a 728-page document, written by 90 scientists based on more than 6,000 peer reviews, the UN organization detailed how Earth’s weather, health and ecosystems would be in better shape if the world’s leaders could somehow limit future human-caused warming to just 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (a half degree Celsius) from now, instead of the globally agreed-upon goal of 1.8°F (1°C).
The scientists said limiting warming to 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit from now allows the world to keep a semblance of the ecosystems we currently have. Such effort, they said, would have other positive results: Half as many people would suffer from lack of water; there would be fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases; seas would rise nearly 4 inches less; there would be substantially fewer heat waves, downpours and droughts; the West Antarctic ice sheet might not kick into irreversible melting; and it just may be enough to save most of the world’s coral reefs from dying.
“For some people, this is a life-or-death situation without a doubt,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a lead author on the report. But meeting the more ambitious goal of slightly less warming would require immediate, draconian cuts in emissions of heat-trapping gases and dramatic changes in the energy field. While the UN panel said technically that’s possible, it saw little chance of the needed adjustments happening.
The pledges nations made in the Paris agreement in 2015 are “clearly insufficient to limit warming to 1.5 degrees in any way,” said one of the study’s lead authors, Joerj Roeglj of the Imperial College in London.
Yet, report authors said they remain optimistic. Limiting warming to the lower goal is “not impossible but will require unprecedented changes,” UN panel chief Hoesung Lee said in a news conference in which scientists repeatedly declined to spell out just how feasible that goal is. They said it is up to governments to decide whether those unprecedented changes are acted upon.
With or without government action, as citizens of the world, we have a monumental task at hand. We can decide the kind of world we’d like to have in the future. No one person can change the world, but together, we can change many things. The planet needs immediate help, and our little acts matter—like conserving energy and reducing the unwanted use of paper. Let’s make it a habit to practice the three “Rs”—reduce, reuse and recycle. We can help mitigate global warming by becoming conscious global citizens.