“We are heading in the wrong direction”
That was the message from a new multi-agency report that focuses on greenhouse gases, global temperatures, climate predictions and tipping points, urban climate change, extreme weather impacts and early warnings.
The report, United in Science, was coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) with input from the WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch and World Weather Research Programmes; the UN Environment Programme, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the World Climate Research Programme, Global Carbon Project; the UK Met Office, and the Urban Climate Change Research Network.
It warns that without much more ambitious action, the physical and socio-economic impacts of climate change will be increasingly devastating. Our ambition to reduce harmful emissions for 2030 “needs to be seven times higher" than it currently is to keep the global temperature at a level at which our activities do not do irreparable and irreversible harm to the planet and ourselves.
Losses from the number of weather, climate and water-related disasters in the last number of years have totalled more than €200 million per day - and have increased by a factor of five - over the last 50 years. These are disasters which UN secretary general António Guterres describes as “the price of humanity’s fossil fuel addiction,” and despite which "each year we double-down on this fossil fuel addiction, even as symptoms get rapidly worse".
The report also points to a glaring lack of climate resilience, meaning that countries are ill-prepared for chaos to come. Fewer than half of all countries in the world have reported the existence of early warning systems, which the report states should be provided in every country within five years.
"Cities – home to 55% of the global population, or 4.2 billion people – are responsible for up to 70% of human-caused emissions while also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change such as increased heavy precipitation, accelerated sea-level rise, acute and chronic coastal flooding and extreme heat, among other key risks. These impacts exacerbate socioeconomic challenges and inequalities."
"Now is the time to integrate adaptation and mitigation, coupled with sustainable development, into the ever-dynamic urban environment."
For information on national climate adaption plans click Ireland and Northern Ireland.