Post by Andrei Tchentchik on Mar 1, 2020 14:28:09 GMT 2
(.#A.043).- Save the oceans to save humanity, the chilling conclusion of the GIEC.
Save the oceans to save humanity, the chilling conclusion of the GIEC.
AFP, published on Wednesday, Sep 25, 2019
Upset by the warming, the oceans and the frozen areas perish visibly, threatening whole sections of the Humanity which has only one option to protect them and to save itself: to reduce its CO2 emissions, the GIEC warns.
Rising sea levels, islands threatened by submersion, melting glaciers like the Valle d'Aosta in Italy that threatens to collapse in the valley ... Some of the devastating impacts of climate change are already "irreversible", noted the UN climate expert group at the end of a five-day marathon meeting in Monaco.
Two days after the New York climate summit failed to spur the hoped-for momentum, the report points out that reducing greenhouse gas emissions could make a real difference.
The changes in the ocean will not stop suddenly by lowering emissions, but their pace should be slowed down. "It would save time," said climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, who helped draft the 900-page document.
Save time for, for example, preparing for the rising waters and the extreme weather events associated with it (submersion waves, storms): by building d**es around large coastal mega-cities like New York or anticipating the inevitable displacement certain populations, especially those of small island states that could become uninhabitable by the end of the century.
- "Hundreds of Billions of Dollars" -
The ocean level is now increasing 2.5 times faster than in the 20th century when it was 15 cm, and this rise will accelerate further.
"Whatever the scenario, we will have a world with higher seas," insists another author, Bruce Glavovic, from Massey University in New Zealand.
On the shores of the world, building protections could reduce flood risk by 100 to 1,000 times, according to the report. With the proviso of investing "tens to hundreds of billions of dollars a year".
In total, according to the report, more than one billion people will live by mid-century in particularly vulnerable low-lying coastal areas.
And even in a world at + 2 ° C, many megacities and small islands should be hit by 2050 at least once a year by an extreme event that only occurred every hundred years.
The world pledged in 2015 in the Paris agreement to limit warming to + 2 ° C, or + 1.5 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse linked to human activities.
The oceans, which cover more than 70% of the earth's surface, have absorbed about a quarter of these emissions and 90% of the additional heat generated by man-made CO2. The consequences are already palpable (rising sea temperature, acidification, loss of oxygen) but the GIEC predicts that the oceans will aspire 2 to 4 times more heat by 2100, in an optimistic scenario.
"Because of this stored heat, we can not go back, whatever we do with our emissions, climate change is irreversible," asserts Valerie Masson-Delmotte. With cascading effects on the ecosystems on which humans depend, from coral reefs to mountain regions.
- Promises too "weak" -
This report adopted by the 195 member states of Giec is the fourth scientific opus of the UN in one year to sound the alarm on the impacts of climate change and to point to ways to remedy or at least limit them.
But world leaders meeting in New York have not lived up to the necessary commitments, say the defenders of the planet.
"With these weak promises from the states, we are probably more likely to blow the bank at the Monte Carlo casino than to limit warming to + 1.5 ° C," said Stephen Cornelius, WWF.
Current international commitments, if respected, would lead to a world at + 3 ° C.
The ocean can offer solutions against global warming, including the development of marine protected areas.
But "the key to protecting marine life is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible and at a fast pace," said Valérie Masson-Delmotte.
F I N .
Save the oceans to save humanity, the chilling conclusion of the GIEC.
AFP, published on Wednesday, Sep 25, 2019
Upset by the warming, the oceans and the frozen areas perish visibly, threatening whole sections of the Humanity which has only one option to protect them and to save itself: to reduce its CO2 emissions, the GIEC warns.
Rising sea levels, islands threatened by submersion, melting glaciers like the Valle d'Aosta in Italy that threatens to collapse in the valley ... Some of the devastating impacts of climate change are already "irreversible", noted the UN climate expert group at the end of a five-day marathon meeting in Monaco.
Two days after the New York climate summit failed to spur the hoped-for momentum, the report points out that reducing greenhouse gas emissions could make a real difference.
The changes in the ocean will not stop suddenly by lowering emissions, but their pace should be slowed down. "It would save time," said climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, who helped draft the 900-page document.
Save time for, for example, preparing for the rising waters and the extreme weather events associated with it (submersion waves, storms): by building d**es around large coastal mega-cities like New York or anticipating the inevitable displacement certain populations, especially those of small island states that could become uninhabitable by the end of the century.
- "Hundreds of Billions of Dollars" -
The ocean level is now increasing 2.5 times faster than in the 20th century when it was 15 cm, and this rise will accelerate further.
"Whatever the scenario, we will have a world with higher seas," insists another author, Bruce Glavovic, from Massey University in New Zealand.
On the shores of the world, building protections could reduce flood risk by 100 to 1,000 times, according to the report. With the proviso of investing "tens to hundreds of billions of dollars a year".
In total, according to the report, more than one billion people will live by mid-century in particularly vulnerable low-lying coastal areas.
And even in a world at + 2 ° C, many megacities and small islands should be hit by 2050 at least once a year by an extreme event that only occurred every hundred years.
The world pledged in 2015 in the Paris agreement to limit warming to + 2 ° C, or + 1.5 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse linked to human activities.
The oceans, which cover more than 70% of the earth's surface, have absorbed about a quarter of these emissions and 90% of the additional heat generated by man-made CO2. The consequences are already palpable (rising sea temperature, acidification, loss of oxygen) but the GIEC predicts that the oceans will aspire 2 to 4 times more heat by 2100, in an optimistic scenario.
"Because of this stored heat, we can not go back, whatever we do with our emissions, climate change is irreversible," asserts Valerie Masson-Delmotte. With cascading effects on the ecosystems on which humans depend, from coral reefs to mountain regions.
- Promises too "weak" -
This report adopted by the 195 member states of Giec is the fourth scientific opus of the UN in one year to sound the alarm on the impacts of climate change and to point to ways to remedy or at least limit them.
But world leaders meeting in New York have not lived up to the necessary commitments, say the defenders of the planet.
"With these weak promises from the states, we are probably more likely to blow the bank at the Monte Carlo casino than to limit warming to + 1.5 ° C," said Stephen Cornelius, WWF.
Current international commitments, if respected, would lead to a world at + 3 ° C.
The ocean can offer solutions against global warming, including the development of marine protected areas.
But "the key to protecting marine life is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible and at a fast pace," said Valérie Masson-Delmotte.
F I N .
