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global heating
'Extraordinary' Antarctic Heatwave Puts Temps 50°F Above Normal
The long-lasting heatwave is an "eye-opening sign that climate change is starting to really transform the planet," a climate scientist said.
Aug 01, 2024
Antarctica is experiencing its second extreme heatwave in the last three years, with temperatures more than 50°F higher than normal, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The heatwave is notable not just for its intensity but also its timing and duration: It's hit during Antartica's winter and is expected to last. Temperatures of 36°F to 50°F above average are expected to persist up to 10 days, and July temperatures were already well above average before it began. The spiking temperatures were also spread across a large area, covering much of the continent, scientists said.
The world has faced exceptionally high temperatures in the last year, with 13 straight monthly heat records and counting, and the poles are warming at roughly twice the rate of the global average. Scientists say the changing conditions around Antarctica have increased the likelihood of higher winter temperatures on the continent.
"It is likely that having less sea ice and a warmer Southern Ocean around the Antarctic continent 'loads the dice' for warmer winter weather over Antarctica," Edward Blanchard, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, told the Post.
Scientists warned that this heatwave was a sign of what's to come as the planet heats up thanks primarily to fossil fuel emissions.
"This historic warm spell in East Antarctica is an ominous example of the temperature spikes this polar climate could experience more of in a warming world," the Post reported.
Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist at the University of Michigan, said on social media that the heatwave is an "eye-opening sign that climate change is starting to really transform the planet."
In March 2022, Antarctica experienced the most intense heatwave in the planet's recorded history, with temperatures up to 72°F above normal. On-site scientists at the time wore shorts and removed their shirts to bask in the sun. The heatwave was the subject of intense scientific research in the two years that followed, with a 54-person team trying to decipher the causes, which they described as "head-hurting" in their complexity.
The 2022 heatwave contributed to reduced sea ice levels. Antarctica experienced the lowest summer and winter levels of sea ice ever recorded last year.
High temperatures in Antarctica are relative—this week's heatwave still had temperatures hovering at about minus-4°F. But sustained periods at such temperatures are highly unusual.
"The heatwave on the Antarctic Plateau is extraordinary more for its duration than for its intensity, although some values are notable," Stefano Di Battista, an expert on Antarctic temperatures, told the Post.
The heatwave is likely the result of changes in the stratosphere roughly 20 miles above ground, scientists said. At the South Pole, the stratosphere contains a polar vortex that is normally stable with cold temperatures and low pressure during the Antarctic winter, but a sudden stratospheric warming event occurred due to atmospheric wave activity, Amy Butler, an atmospheric scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Post.
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'Bleak Reality': World on Track to Overshoot 1.5°C Target in at Least 1 of Next 5 Years
"We must urgently do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions, or we will pay an increasingly heavy price," the WMO's deputy secretary-general said.
Jun 06, 2024
There is an 80% chance that the burning of fossil fuels will push global temperatures past 1.5°C of warming during one of the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday.
The WMO Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update [2024-2028] also finds that there is an 86% chance that one of the next five years will surpass 2023 as the hottest year on record.
"Behind these statistics lies the bleak reality that we are way off track to meet the goals set in the Paris agreement," WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett said in a statement. "We must urgently do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions, or we will pay an increasingly heavy price in terms of trillions of dollars in economic costs, millions of lives affected by more extreme weather, and extensive damage to the environment and biodiversity."
"WMO is sounding the alarm that we will be exceeding the 1.5°C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency."
In the Paris agreement, world leaders pledged to limit global heating to "well below" 2°C above preindustrial levels and ideally to 1.5°C. When that agreement was adopted in 2015, there was a near-zero chance that one of the subsequent five years would exceed the 1.5°C limit. That chance rose to 20% between 2017 and 2021 and 66% between 2023 and 2027.
WMO predicts that global mean near-surface temperatures over the next five years will average between 1.1°C and 1.9°C above 1850-1900 levels. There is a 47% chance that the temperature average for the entire period will surpass 1.5°C, according to the report, which was prepared by the U.K.'s Met Office.
"If you do NOT hear or read this climate information repeatedly at the top of your media today, there is something very wrong with your media," journalist and activist Wendy Bacon wrote on social media in response to the report. "Opening new fossil fuels in this situation is a crime with massive likely consequences."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changeconcluded that limiting warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C could stave off some of the more extreme impacts of the climate emergency, protecting hundreds of millions of people from climate risk and poverty by 2050 and preventing nearly four inches of sea-level rise. However, scientists point out that no degree of warming is harmless and every degree avoided makes an important difference.
Global temperatures first temporarily pushed past 1.5°C in December 2015, and again during the winter and spring of 2016 and 2020, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
In June 2023, they shot above the target again. Overall, last year's temperatures averaged 1.45°C above pre-industrial levels, but the period from January 2023 to 2024 marked the first time that the global average surpassed 1.5°C for 12 months in a row.
May 2024 was also the 12th consecutive warmest month of its kind on record, capping what is now the hottest 12-month stretch on record, during which temperatures averaged 1.63°C above preindustrial levels. That 12-month stretch brought record-breaking wildfires in Canada, deadly flooding from Libya to Brazil to Afghanistan, and global coral bleaching.
"WMO is sounding the alarm that we will be exceeding the 1.5°C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency," Barrett said. "We have already temporarily surpassed this level for individual months—and indeed as averaged over the most recent 12-month period."
"However," Barrett continued, "it is important to stress that temporary breaches do not mean that the 1.5°C goal is permanently lost because this refers to long-term warming over decades."
The record-shattering heat in 2023 was partly fueled by an El Niño event. While the Earth is now entering the cooler La Niña phase, human activity such as the burning of oil, gas, and coal and the clearing of forests could still spike temperatures over the next half decade.
"We are living in unprecedented times, but we also have unprecedented skill in monitoring the climate and this can help inform our actions," Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in response to the WMO report. "This string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold, but if we manage to stabilize the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the very near future we might be able to return to these 'cold' temperatures by the end of the century."
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'Climate Arsonists': 8 Major Oil Companies Fail to Align With Paris Agreement
"We cannot trust fossil fuel corporations to do anything but line the pockets of their CEOs and investors at the cost of our climate and communities," one campaigner said.
May 21, 2024
The eight largest U.S. and Europe-based oil and gas producing companies are failing to align their plans with the Paris agreement goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels and avoiding ever more catastrophic climate impacts.
Oil Change International's Big Oil Reality Check report, released Tuesday, concludes that the plans of BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies would actually put the world on track for more than 2.4°C of warming and burn through nearly one-third of the global carbon budget for hitting the 1.5°C target.
"It's clearer than ever that oil and gas companies—the climate arsonists fueling climate chaos—cannot be trusted to put out the fire," David Tong, report author and global industry campaign manager at Oil Change International, said in a statement. "There is no evidence that big oil and gas companies are acting seriously to be part of the energy transition."
"The Big Oil Reality Check report reveals that oil and gas corporations are more interested in looking like they are acting on climate change than actually acting on climate change."
For its fourth annual Big Oil Reality Check, Oil Change International judged the oil companies' climate plans and pledges against a set of minimum standards for alignment with the Paris agreement. The standards were divided into three main categories: ambition, integrity, and people-centered transitions.
Under ambition, the companies were assessed on whether they had plans to stop oil and gas exploration, stop approving new extraction projects, decrease production every year through 2030, and stop extraction on a certain date while outlining a long-term plan to end production.
Under integrity, the companies were assessed on whether their emissions-reduction plans included their entire supply chain, whether they relied on carbon capture or offsets, whether their methane-reduction plans were really in line with climate goals, and whether they lobbied or advertised against climate action.
For people-centered transitions, they were assessed on whether they had just transition plans for employees and members of frontline communities and whether they respected human rights overall and the rights of Indigenous peoples, including to free, prior, or informed consent to any fossil fuel activities.
The companies were then rated from "fully aligned" to "grossly insufficient" for how well their plans complied with the Paris goals within the assessment's framework, but all eight companies scored "insufficient" or "grossly insufficient" for a majority of the criteria.
Only one company—Eni—scored above "insufficient" in any category, earning a ranking of "partially aligned" for having greenhouse gas-reduction plans that included its supply chains. The three U.S.-based companies—Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil—scored "grossly insufficient" for all 10 criteria.
"American fossil fuel corporations are the worst of the worst," Oil Change International's U.S. program manager Allie Rosenbluth said. "Chevron, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips perpetuate harm in frontline communities not only across the U.S. but worldwide."
Oil Change found that six out of the eight companies have official plans to increase oil and gas production. The only two that did not were BP and Shell; however, these companies employ a misleading strategy. They compensate for new oil and gas projects by selling off polluting assets. While the emissions from the sold operations no longer count toward company emissions, they still count toward the planet's total. This practice is out of line with the GHG Protocol on corporate emissions accounting and may violate the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Four of the companies assessed in the report—BP, Shell, Exxon, and Chevron—were also the subject of a recent U.S. House investigation and Senate hearing detailing how the fossil fuel industry playbook has shifted from outright denial of climate science to greenwashing its activities by presenting itself as part of the solution to the climate crisis while its day-to-day operations continue to raise global temperatures.
"The efforts of climate and social movements have forced oil and gas companies to acknowledge that fossil fuels are dirty and dangerous, leading to a variety of climate pledges and 'plans,'" said Oil Change campaigner Myriam Douo. "The Big Oil Reality Check report reveals that oil and gas corporations are more interested in looking like they are acting on climate change than actually acting on climate change."
"They spend billions on smoke and mirrors to try to fool us into believing they have solutions for a livable planet when, in reality, they are perpetuating harm to the climate and local communities while trying to suck every last ounce of profit out of their dirty fossil fuel business," Douo concluded.
All told, Rystand energy data suggests that the combined production of the eight companies will be 17% by 2030 than they were last year.
"Such an increase in production on a global scale would put the world on a path towards global heating well beyond 2°C, locking in destruction of vulnerable communities and ecosystems," the report authors wrote.
The report finds that all of the companies intend to rely on unproven carbon capture technology or offsets schemes to meet their claimed emission-reduction goals and have continued to spend money on lobbying against climate action and greenwashing their own activities since the agreement in Paris.
Further, no company has plans consistent with ensuring a just transition or protecting human rights. In one recent and urgent example, ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Shell, and Eni all continue to provide Israel with crude oil despite "the Israeli military's ongoing assault on Palestinian civilians, ecosystems, and infrastructure in Gaza and mounting evidence of war crimes," a March Oil Change investigation found.
The report comes nearly half a year after world leaders agreed to contribute to "transitioning away from fossil fuels" at the COP28 U.N. climate change conference in Dubai. In light of its conclusions, Oil Change called on governments to take action to further a just transition:
- Stop permitting or approving new fossil fuel projects or infrastructure;
- Set a Paris-aligned date for phasing out fossil fuel production;
- End subsidies and financing for fossil fuels and false solutions like carbon capture;
- Use tax policy to incentivize against investing in fossil fuels;
- Craft a just transition, including by making polluters pay for cleanup and reparations; and
- Passing laws to protect human rights and Indigenous rights and giving communities a legal mechanism to seek redress from corporate polluters.
Oil Change also argued that governments in the Global North should hold companies headquartered within their borders accountable for harm abroad and put money into funds to enable the Global South to transition to renewable energy, adapt to climate change, and pay for inevitable loss and damage.
"This year's Big Oil Reality Check makes it clearer than ever—we cannot trust fossil fuel corporations to do anything but line the pockets of their CEOs and investors at the cost of our climate and communities," Rosenbluth said. "People around the world are rising up to end the era of fossil fuels and build a just energy system that puts climate and communities first."
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'Sad What We Are Doing': Global CO2 Increase Sets New All-Time Record
"I'd make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet," said Bill McKibben. "If we don't understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time."
May 10, 2024
The average monthly concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere jumped by a record 4.7 parts per million between March 2023 and March 2024, according to new data from NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.
The spike, reported by the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography on Wednesday, reveals "the increasing pace of CO2 addition to the atmosphere by human activities," the university said.
"I'd make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet," author and long-time climate activist Bill McKibbenwrote on social media in response to the news. "If we don't understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time."
"Human activity has caused CO2 to rocket upwards. It makes me sad more than anything. It's sad what we are doing."
Scientists have been tracking rising CO2 concentrations from Mauna Loa since 1958, and their upward trajectory has come to be known as the "Keeling Curve," named for Charles Keeling, who began the measurements. The curve has become an important symbol of the climate crisis—making visible how the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of vegetation has released more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, where it traps heat from escaping into space and raises global temperatures.
For most of human history, concentrations have hovered around 280ppm, and the curve's first measurement put them at 313. Sixty-five years later, C02 concentrations averaged 419.3 ppm in 2023, a level not seen since 4.3 million years ago when sea levels were around 75 feet higher and parts of today's Arctic tundra were forests. As of Wednesday, the Keeling Curve reported a daily concentration of 426.72 ppm.
The record jump from March 2023 to March 2024 surpasses the last record jump of 4.1 ppm from June 2015 to June 2016.
"We sadly continue to break records in the CO2 rise rate," Ralph Keeling, Charles' son who now directs the Scripps CO2 Program, said. "The ultimate reason is continued global growth in the consumption of fossil fuels."
The record leaps from both 2015-2016 and 2023-2024 were also influenced by active El Niño events. The El Niño phenomenon increases atmospheric carbon dioxide because it leads to warmer, drier temperatures in the tropics, which decrease vegetation and encourage fires. Atmospheric CO2 levels tend to rise especially quickly toward the end of an El Niño cycle, and last March's CO2 levels were unusually low, leading to a larger gap in the 12-month period.
This year's rate of increase during the current El Niño is significantly larger than the one that took place in 2016. As Scripps explained:
The increase from February 2023 to February of this year was 4.0 ppm, compared to 3.7 for the 2016 El Niño. The increase from January 2023 to January of this year was 3.4 ppm, compared to 2.6 for the 2016 El Niño.
The growth rate from April 2023 to April 2024 dropped to 3.6 ppm, but taking into account the first four months of 2024, the growth rate is well above that for 2016. If this El Niño follows the pattern of the last El Niño, the world might experience a very high growth rate for several more months, Keeling said.
However, any regular climate variations such as El Niño events occur over the longer-term rise in both fossil fuel emissions and greenhouse gas levels.
"The rate of rise will almost certainly come down, but it is still rising and in order to stabilize the climate, you need CO2 level to be falling," Keeling told The Guardian. "Clearly, that isn't happening. Human activity has caused CO2 to rocket upwards. It makes me sad more than anything. It's sad what we are doing."
Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First, wrote in response, "We're riding the Venus Express."
The record jump in CO2 concentrations comes as 2023 was the hottest year both on record and in around 100,000 years. Of the 12 months covered by the March 2023 to March 2024 period, 10 of them (June through March) were the hottest of that month on record.
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77% of Top Climate Scientists Think 2.5°C of Warming Is Coming—And They're Horrified
"I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the Global South," one expert said.
May 08, 2024
Nearly 80% of top-level climate scientists expect that global temperatures will rise by at least 2.5°C by 2100, while only 6% thought the world would succeed in limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, a survey published Wednesday by The Guardian revealed.
Nearly three-quarters blamed world leaders' insufficient action on a lack of political will, while 60% said that corporate interests such as fossil fuel companies were interfering with progress.
"I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the Global South," one South African scientist told The Guardian. "The world's response to date is reprehensible—we live in an age of fools."
"What blew me away was the level of personal anguish among the experts who have dedicated their lives to climate research."
The survey was conducted by The Guardian's Damian Carrington, who reached out to every expert who had served as a senior author on an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report since 2018. Out of 843 scientists whose contact information was available, 383 responded.
He then asked them how high they thought temperatures would rise by 2100: 77% predicted at least 2.5°C and nearly half predicted 3°C or more.
"What blew me away was the level of personal anguish among the experts who have dedicated their lives to climate research," Carrington wrote on social media. "Many used words like hopeless, broken, infuriated, scared, overwhelmed."
The 1.5°C target was agreed to as the most ambitious goal of the Paris agreement of 2015, in which world leaders pledged to keep warming to "well below" 2°C. However, policies currently in place would put the world on track for 3°C, and unconditional commitments under the Paris agreement for 2.9°C.
The survey comes on the heels of the hottest year on record, which already saw a record-breaking Canadian wildfire season as well as extreme, widespread heatwaves and deadly floods. The first four months of 2024 have also been the hottest of their respective months on record, and the year has already seen the fourth global bleaching event for coral reefs.
"They can say they don't care, but they can't say they didn't know."
"I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years," Gretta Pecl of the University of Tasmania told The Guardian. "[Authorities] will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future."
Scientists said that governments and companies that profit from the burning of fossil fuels had prevented action. Many also blamed global inequality and the refusal of the wealthy world to step up, both in terms of reducing their own emissions and helping climate vulnerable nations adapt.
"The tacit calculus of decision-makers, particularly in the Anglosphere—U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia—but also Russia and the major fossil fuel producers in the Middle East, is driving us into a world in which the vulnerable will suffer, while the well-heeled will hope to stay safe above the waterline," Stephen Humphreys at the London School of Economics said.
Despite their grim predictions, many of the scientists remained committed to researching and speaking out.
"We keep doing it because we have to do it, so [the powerful] cannot say that they didn't know," Ruth Cerezo-Mota, who works on climate modeling at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told The Guardian. "We know what we're talking about. They can say they don't care, but they can't say they didn't know."
Others found hope in the climate activism and awareness of younger generations, and in the finding that each extra tenth of a degree of warming avoided protects 140 million people from extreme temperatures.
"I regularly face moments of despair and guilt of not managing to make things change more rapidly, and these feelings have become even stronger since I became a father," said Henri Waisman of France's Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations. "But, in these moments, two things help me: remembering how much progress has happened since I started to work on the topic in 2005 and that every tenth of a degree matters a lot—this means it is still useful to continue the fight."
Peter Cox of the University of Exeter added: "Climate change will not suddenly become dangerous at 1.5°C—it already is. And it will not be 'game over' if we pass 2°C, which we might well do."
"I'm not despairing, I'm not giving up. I'm pissed off and more determined to fight for a better world."
Many of the scientists who still saw a hope of keeping 1.5°C alive pinned it on the speeding rollout and falling prices of climate-friendly technologies like renewable energy and electric vehicles. Also on Wednesday, energy think thank Ember reported that 30% of global electricity came from renewables in 2023 and predicted that the year would be the "pivot" after which power sector emissions would start to fall. Experts also said that abandoning fossil fuels has many side benefits such as cleaner air and better public health. Though even the more optimistic scientists were wary about the unpredictable nature of the climate crisis.
"I am convinced that we have all the solutions needed for a 1.5°C path and that we will implement them in the coming 20 years," Henry Neufeldt of the United Nations' Copenhagen Climate Center told The Guardian. "But I fear that our actions might come too late and we cross one or several tipping points."
Several scientists gave recommendations for things that people could do to move the needle on climate. Humphreys suggested "civil disobedience" while one French scientist said people should "fight for a fairer world."
"All of humanity needs to come together and cooperate—this is a monumental opportunity to put differences aside and work together," Louis Verchot, based at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia, told The Guardian. "Unfortunately climate change has become a political wedge issue… I wonder how deep the crisis needs to become before we all start rowing in the same direction."
The publication of The Guardian's survey prompted other climate scientists to share their thoughts.
"As many of the scientists pointed out, the uncertainty in future temperature change is not a physical science question: It is a question of the decisions people choose to make," Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe wrote on social media. "We are not experts in that; And we have little reason to feel positive about those, since we have been warning of the risks for decades."
Aaron Thierry, a graduate researcher at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, pointed out that The Guardian's results were consistent with other surveys of scientific opinion, such as one published in Nature in the lead-up to COP26, in which 60% of IPCC scientists said they expected 3°C of warming or more by 2100.
James Dyke of the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute argued that there was room for scientists to share more negative thoughts without succumbing to or encouraging defeatism.
"I hear the argument that we must temper these messages because we don't want people to despair and give up. But I'm not despairing, I'm not giving up. I'm pissed off and more determined to fight for a better world," Dyke said on social media.
NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus shared the article with a plea to "please start listening."
"Elected and corporate 'leaders' continue to prioritize their personal power and wealth at the cost of irreversible loss of essentially everything, even as this irreversible loss comes more and more into focus. I see this as literally a form of insanity," Kalmus wrote, adding that "capitalism tends to elevate the worst among us into the seats of power."
However, he took issue with the idea that a future of unchecked climate change would be only "semi-dystopian."
"We're also at risk of losing any gradual bending toward progress, and equity, and compassion, and love," Kalmus said. "All social and cultural struggles must recognize this deep intersection with the climate struggle."
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July Heatwaves in Europe and North America 'Virtually Impossible' Without Burning of Fossil Fuels
If rapid action isn't taken, "It could well be that this is what will be a cool summer in the future," one scientist said.
Jul 25, 2023
The climate crisis—driven by the burning of fossil fuels—has significantly increased the likelihood of the dangerous heatwaves that baked three different continents this July.
Without climate change, the heatwave that broke records in China would have been a one-in-250 year event and the temperatures measured in Mexico and the U.S. and in Southern Europe would have been "virtually impossible," World Weather Attribution (WWA) concluded in a report released Tuesday.
"Unless the world rapidly stops burning fossil fuels, these events will become even more common and the world will experience heatwaves that are even hotter and longer-lasting," the report authors warned.
"The world hasn't stopped burning fossil fuels, the climate continues to warm and heatwaves continue to become more extreme. It is that simple."
The study authors looked at three regional periods of high heat this month:
- The U.S. Southwest and Mexico from July 1-18.
- Southern Europe from July 12-18.
- China from July 5-18.
During this period, Death Valley, California, recorded a temperature of 53.3°C, as Carbon Brief reported, and Phoenix, Arizona, sweltered through at least 110°F highs for a record 20 days in a row.
Southern Europe, meanwhile, endured the back-to-back Cerberus and Charon heatwaves that brought temperatures above 40°C to areas in Spain, Greence, Bosnia, France, and Italy, where Rome broke its high temperature record to reach 41.8°C July 18.
Two days earlier, China recorded its highest temperature ever at 52.2°C in the township of Sanbao. Beijing also broke its record for the number of days above 35°C in a year, with July 18 marking the 27th.
All of this heat took a toll on human health, with several deaths reported in the U.S. and more than 200 in Mexico, WWA said. Heat also killed people in China, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and Algeria and sent many more to the hospital.
And the cause of all this is clear, according to the scientists of the WWA initiative. They used peer-reviewed methods to assess how global heating from the burning of oil, gas, and coal influenced the chance and severity of these extremes. They found that the heatwave in China was made at least 50 times more likely by the postindustrial temperature rise and that the others were made at least 1,000 times more likely but most probably would not have occurred at all.
What's more, without climate change, all three heatwaves would have been significantly less hot: The climate crisis made the European heatwave 2.5°C warmer in Southern Europe, the North American heatwave 2°C warmer, and the Chinese heatwave around 1°C warmer.
While an ongoing El Niño event likely nudged temperatures up slightly in some regions, it was not the primary driver of the heat. In fact, it's "very small compared to the effect of climate change," one study author said at a press conference reported by Carbon Brief.
"The result of this attribution study is not surprising. The world hasn't stopped burning fossil fuels, the climate continues to warm and heatwaves continue to become more extreme. It is that simple," Friederike Otto, a study coauthor and senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, said in a statement reported by CNN.
The research team emphasized the need to act, both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to protect people from more frequent heat extremes.
"Such heatwaves are no longer rare and the most important thing is, these extremes kill people, particularly destroying the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable," Otto said, according to The Guardian.
In the short term, adaptations can include heat action plans and early warning systems, while longer-term strategies include changes to urban planning to cool cities or efforts to make the electric grid more resilient, Julie Arrighi from the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center said at the press conference, as Carbon Brief reported.
" Extreme heat is deadly and rapidly on the rise," she said, according to The Guardian.
But it's also essential to stop emitting greenhouse gasses. Otto endorsed the call for an agreement to phase out fossil fuels at the upcoming COP28 UN climate conference in the United Arab Emirates. The summit has already faced controversy due to the appointment of Sultan al-Jaber—also the CEO of the UAE's state oil company—to preside over it.
If such rapid action isn't taken, "It could well be that this is what will be a cool summer in the future," Otto said, as CNN reported.
The study authors found that heatwaves as extreme as this summer's could occur every two to five years if temperatures are allowed to rise to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
"We still have time to secure a safe and healthy future," Otto said, as The Guardian reported. "If we do not, tens of thousands of people will keep dying from heat-related causes each year."
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Researchers Warn of Climate 'Doom Loop' as Impacts Forestall Green Energy Transition
"It's too late to avoid the climate storm altogether," said a study co-author. "Our ability to steer out of the storm is frustrated by having to manage the impacts of the storm on the ship."
Feb 16, 2023
A new study released Thursday warned that the planet has entered "a new chapter in the climate and ecological crisis," in which communities are forced to direct massive resources to responding to the escalating impacts of the climate emergency, taking focus away from efforts to slash fossil fuel emissions—causing what the report authors called a "doom loop" that will make avoiding the worst effects of planetary heating increasingly difficult.
The report, published by the Institute for Public Policy Research and Chatham House, calls on policymakers to "actively manage" the risk that further global heating poses to a green transition itself.
"It's too late to avoid the climate storm altogether, and the challenge of navigating around a storm is very different to the challenge of navigating through it," said Laurie Laybourn, an associate fellow of IPPR and visiting fellow at Chatham House who co-authored the study. "Our ability to steer out of the storm is frustrated by having to manage the impacts of the storm on the ship."
"This is an analogy for the challenge facing environmentalism as we head closer to 1.5°C of global heating," he added. "The worsening symptoms of the climate and ecological crisis—storms, food price shocks, conflict—will increasingly distract us from realizing action to tackle its root causes."
"It's too late to avoid the climate storm altogether, and the challenge of navigating around a storm is very different to the challenge of navigating through it."
The report notes that the cost of climate disasters—such as catastrophic flooding last year in Pakistan and in 2021 in Europe and prolonged drought in the western United States and parts of Africa—is already expected to reduce global economic output by $23 trillion by 2050, and recovery efforts could cost the U.S. $2 trillion per year by the end of the century.
"Such demands could come at the cost of diverting effort away from the rapid switch now needed to decarbonize the global economy," said the researchers in a statement. "The report argues that this risks creating a vicious circle, or 'doom loop'; the impacts of the climate and nature crises draw focus and resources away from tackling their underlying causes and the urgent steps needed to address them."
The researchers referred to the dynamic that has emerged in the debate over whether limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, the target agreed upon in the Paris climate accords, is still possible and how the global community can meet that goal.
"Some argue that declaring the target to be still in reach remains the most powerful motivator, but others believe that breaching the limit could be the 'wake-up call' that would spur activists and policymakers to step up their efforts," said the authors. "But both stances can be exploited by 'climate delayers' who don't want to see rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and wish to block transformational change."
A failure to move past that debate could lead to policymakers pursuing untested geoengineering methods of limiting planetary heating instead of passing policies to eliminate fossil fuel emissions, as energy experts and climate scientists have clearly stated they must in order to avoid the worst effects of the planetary emergency.
"This is a doom loop: the consequences of the crisis draw focus and resources from tackling its causes, leading to higher temperatures and ecological loss, which then create more severe consequences, diverting even more attention and resources, and so on," reads the report.
The study bolsters the argument made earlier in February by researchers at the University of Hamburg in Germany. As Common Dreams reported, their study said that continued despair over reaching climate "tipping points" such as the melting of sea ice and glaciers risks taking attention away from "the best hope for shaping a positive climate future... the ability of society to make fundamental changes."
Laybourn and his co-author, Chatham House research analyst Henry Throp, likened the "strategic risk" of losing sight of solutions to the danger "facing a ship that sailed too long towards a storm on the horizon without significantly changing course."
"As the storm begins to engulf the ship, making the changes needed to escape it is ever more difficult for the crew, who are distracted by its immediate impacts," they said.
The authors called on policymakers to:
- Develop narratives that motivate even as the climate and nature crises deepen, focusing on the benefits climate action will brig to societies around the world;
- Decisively shift the focus of environmental politics toward realizing economic transformation by moving beyond describing the problem and setting climate targets to focusing more strongly on the economic policies needed to transform societies, such as an approach to public finances that enables the required government-led green investment;
- Better understand the risks to the green transition as the crisis deepens by improving analysis of complex, cascading risks that could feed into the dynamic of the 'doom loop'; and
- Ensure that younger people are better prepared to lead the green transition despite the distractions and chaos of a world where temperature rises are close to or above 1.5°C or even 2°C.
"As global temperatures tick up ever closer to the 1.5°C threshold, collective narratives are needed that can convey the accelerating, cascading dangers and spur rapid transformative change," said Thorp. "These narratives must challenge actors and assumptions that delay action on climate change and should create the basis, direction, and momentum for a climate transition aligned with nature restoration and opportunities for sustainable development."
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UN Report Shows Ozone Layer Recovery Effort 'Sets a Precedent for Climate Action'
"Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done—as a matter of urgency—to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases, and so limit temperature increase," said one expert.
Jan 09, 2023
An assessment released Monday by leading science agencies highlights the effectiveness of an international treaty intended to protect the stratospheric ozone layer as well as the power of taking action now to limit global heating driven by human activity.
The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed in 1987 and entered into force in 1989. The landmark treaty regulates nearly 100 synthetic chemicals known as ozone-depleting substances (ODSs)—including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in air conditioners and refrigerators.
"The impact the Montreal Protocol has had on climate change mitigation cannot be overstressed."
The new analysis of the Montreal Protocol was conducted by experts from the European Commission, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as well as the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The assessment's executive summary states that "actions taken under the Montreal Protocol continue to contribute to ozone recovery" and total column ozone (TCO) "is expected to return to 1980 values around 2066 in the Antarctic, around 2045 in the Arctic, and around 2040 for the near-global average."
The publication also points out how efforts to protect and restore the ozone layer contribute to the 2015 Paris climate agreement's goal of keeping global heating this century "well below" 2°C, relative to preindustrial levels, with an ultimate target of 1.5°C.
"Compliance with the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which requires phasedown of production and consumption of some hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), is estimated to avoid 0.3-0.5°C of warming by 2100," the document notes.
"New studies support previous assessments in that the decline in ODS emissions due to compliance with the Montreal Protocol avoids global warming of approximately 0.5-1°C by mid-century compared to an extreme scenario with an uncontrolled increase in ODSs of 3-3.5% per year," the executive summary adds.
Meg Seki, executive secretary of the UNEP's Ozone Secretariat, said in a statement: "That ozone recovery is on track according to the latest quadrennial report is fantastic news. The impact the Montreal Protocol has had on climate change mitigation cannot be overstressed."
"Over the last 35 years, the protocol has become a true champion for the environment," Seki continued. "The assessments and reviews undertaken by the scientific assessment panel remain a vital component of the work of the protocol that helps inform policy- and decision-makers."
This is the panel's first assessment to examine a proposed geoengineering method to reduce global heating known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which would involve planes releasing sulfur to reflect solar radiation.
The analysis warns that "an unintended consequence of SAI is that it could also affect stratospheric temperatures, circulation, and ozone production and destruction rates and transport."
NOAA's David Fahey, a lead author of the assessment, told The Guardian that "these sort of climate interventions are touchy subjects because they are a tangled ball of ethics and governance, rather than just science... There would indeed, though, be consequences for ozone if you put enough sulfur into the atmosphere. It would be unavoidable."
Released in the wake of COP27—a November U.N. summit that critics called "another terrible failure" because Paris agreement parties failed to collectively call for an end to all planet-heating fossil fuels—the new assessment prompted experts to urge the world to learn from the Montreal Protocol and apply those lessons tackling the climate emergency.
Fahey said that the global response to CFCs means that the Montreal Protocol should be seen as "the most successful environmental treaty in history and offers encouragement that countries of the world can come together and decide an outcome and act on it."
According to
The Guardian:
Fahey said that even with swift global action on CFCs, the chemicals still linger in the atmosphere for about a century. "It's a bit like waiting for paint to dry, you just have to wait for nature to do its thing and flush out these chemicals," he said.
The challenge when it comes to greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide is even greater, he said, as they stay in the atmosphere far longer and, unlike CFCs which were produced by just a handful of companies, the emissions coming from fossil fuels are far more widespread and embedded in almost every activity in societies.
"CO2 is another order of magnitude when it comes to its longevity, which is sobering," he said. "Getting every person on the planet to stop burning fossil fuels is a vastly different challenge."
Still, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas declared that "ozone action sets a precedent for climate action."
"Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals," he said, "shows us what can and must be done—as a matter of urgency—to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases, and so limit temperature increase."
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