Unprecedented Climate Change
In my previous post on Mind Trinity — The Secret to Visionary Thinking, we talked about the three states of mind:
- Am I Safe?
- Am I Respected?
- How can I Impact Others?
Today, let’s delve deeper into the highest state of the mind How can I Impact Others. As we head into the next decade, I wanted to take some time to investigate the global risk landscape for 2019. The top 10 most pressing issues (from rank 10 to rank 1), according to a World Economic Forum survey are:
- Lack of economic opportunity and employment (12.1%)
- Safety / security / wellbeing (14.1%)
- Food and water security (18.2%)
- Government accountability and transparency / corruption (22.7%)
- Religious conflicts (23.9%)
- Poverty (29.2%)
- Inequality (income, discrimination) (30.8%)
- Large scale conflict / wars (38.9%)
- Climate change / destruction of nature (48.8%)
That’s correct, 1 in 2 people cited Climate change as the most pressing issue of our time! Furthermore, the World Economic Forum Global Risks 2019 report cites Failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation as having the highest impact and the highest likelihood simultaneously in the Global Risk Landscape for 2019. In today’s article, we are going to scratch the surface of global climate change.
Climate Change and the Greenhouse Effect
Let’s start with the science behind the greenhouse effect and its role in large-scale climate change. CO₂ is a greenhouse gas that lets sunlight in but does not let it out. Thus, the radiation gets trapped in the lower atmosphere, the troposphere. In addition to CO₂, there are other man-made greenhouse gases including methane and chlorofluorocarbons that also contribute to trapping the sun’s radiation. Over the past few decades, the CO₂ levels have grown significantly and at an alarming rate since pre-industrial times. The figure below plots the Keeling Curve which is a reading of the global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
The spike is pretty clear and alarming. At the time of writing this article (Dec 29, 2019), the real time CO₂ concentration was 412.15 ppm! That’s 50% higher than the levels (~270 ppm) that were maintained for thousands of years before the industrial revolution! In fact, the present CO₂ concentration is higher than paleoclimatic and geologic evidence indicates has occurred at any time in the last 15 million years!
Okay, so we see that the levels are going up at an unnatural pace, and we don’t have to be climate experts to realize that this phenomenon causes a threat to the world equilibrium that is crucial in sustaining the various ecosystems and economic infrastructures across the world. But what tangible outcomes do these high levels of CO₂ lead to? How does it affect us? It brings us back to the most basic state of The Mind Trinity: Am I safe? It is a very unique situation that requires collaboration between our Prefrontal Lobe (How can I impact others?) and the Brain Stem (Am I safe?). What started out as a noble exercise on how we can impact others actually boiled down to a more basic question of our own survival!
The Effects of High CO₂
The effects of unchecked emission of greenhouse gases have been described in the World Bank report 4ºC: Turn Down the Heat. At a later point, we will go deeper into the report but in summary, the outlook is quite grim and cause for serious concern. Let’s look at the key impacts now.
Global Temperature Rise
Without additional commitments to reduce the emission of CO₂, the average global temperature will rise by more than 3ºC (5.4ºF) from pre-industrial times. Even if the current initiatives are deployed successfully, there is a 20% chance of a 4ºC (7.2ºF) increase in temperature by 2100. If the mitigation initiatives (both public and private sector) are unsuccessful, this timeline could get accelerated and we could see a rise of 4ºC (7.2ºF) by 2060. This leads to an average sea level rise of 0.5 to 1m (3+ ft). Additionally, any rise above 2ºC (3.6ºF), triggers unstable non-linearities which could further lead to a 6ºC (9.6ºF) rise in temperature and several meters of sea-level rise post 2100! This is in addition to an accelerated loss of ice from the Antarctic, Arctic, and the Greenland ice sheets.
Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding
To get a better sense of the rise in sea levels, a 3+ ft rise in this century could threaten and displace 300 million people and wipe out parts of the world’s greatest coastal cities by 2050 according to a recent Forbes article (see the backing study in Nature Communications). I highly recommend checking out this interactive tool at Surging Seas to see if how your area is affected by 2050.
Extreme weather events
A rise of 4ºC (7.2ºF) would be catastrophic and would lead to widespread and more frequent heat waves, severe flooding, and major droughts throughout the world. Severe heat waves in the US used to happen once every several centuries but that is clearly not the case in the last few years! There has been a 10-fold increase in the global surface area exposed to heat waves since the 1950s. Similarly, the area affected by droughts has also increased several times in the second half of the 20th century. The 2012 drought in the US affected 80% of agricultural land and is one of the most severe droughts since 1950.
Ocean acidification
Increased concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere dissolves in ocean water and lowers the pH of the water, making it more acidic. This excess acidification of oceans which will severely disrupt aquatic organisms and ecosystems and lead to extinctions. This is already evident from the stunted growth and in some cases dissolving of coral reefs throughout the world. Furthermore, large scale extreme event like floods interfere with agricultural output (driving malnutrition) and contaminate drinking water infrastructure (causing illnesses and epidemics).
Is there any hope? What now?
YES! There is some hope! The UN Panel on Climate Change agrees that there are economically viable pathways to limit the warming to 2ºC but this will only be possible as a result of public sector, private sector, societal decisions, and individual choices. This is in fact the ambitious goal of the historic Paris agreement adopted in December 2015: to limit temperatures well below 2ºC and pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5ºC.
The ambitious goal of limiting the rise to below 2ºC is mostly driven by the imminent possibility of widespread damage at a social, economic, and ecological levels that would result if climate change is not managed effectively. The global scenarios that limit the rise to under 2ºC in a cost effective way play out in 4 parallel transformations of the global economy. See the World Bank report for more details.
- Decarbonizing electricity production. Penetration of renewables into the energy grids powering the world, or through the use of fossil fuels (oil, gas) combined with carbon capture projects.
- Promoting electrification. Switching to zero-carbon or low carbon sources in the transport, housing, and industrial sectors.
- Increasing efficiency. Reducing waste and switching to more efficient energy sources.
- Engineered Landscapes. Create and improve natural carbon sinks, for example through climate-friendly landscapes, forests, vegetation and better agricultural practices.
In future posts, we will explore the energy outlook of US, take a closer look at the penetration of various renewables (including solar and wind) in the last 5 years, and analyze CO₂ emissions at a more granular scale across the globe.
