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posted by chromas on Monday October 08 2018, @10:40AM   Printer-friendly

Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040

A landmark report from the United Nations' scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has "no documented historic precedent."

The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population.

The report "is quite a shock, and quite concerning," said Bill Hare, an author of previous I.P.C.C. reports and a physicist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit organization. "We were not aware of this just a few years ago." The report was the first to be commissioned by world leaders under the Paris agreement, the 2015 pact by nations to fight global warming.

The authors found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty. Previous work had focused on estimating the damage if average temperatures were to rise by a larger number, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), because that was the threshold scientists previously considered for the most severe effects of climate change. The new report, however, shows that many of those effects will come much sooner, at the 2.7-degree mark.

Scientists Call for $2.4 Trillion (per year) Shift From Coal to Renewables

The world must invest $2.4 trillion in clean energy every year through 2035 and cut the use of coal-fired power to almost nothing by 2050 to slow the quickest pace of climate change since the end of the last ice age, according to scientists convened by the United Nations.

[...] To limit warming to 1.5 degrees [Celsius] would require a roughly fivefold increase in average annual investment in low-carbon energy technologies by 2050, compared with 2015. The $2.4 trillion needed annually through 2035 is also an almost sevenfold increase from the $333.5 billion Bloomberg NEF estimated was invested in renewable energy last year.

Also at Reuters and CBS.

See also: IPCC climate change report calls for urgent action to phase out fossil fuels - live


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  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday October 08 2018, @02:32PM (5 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Monday October 08 2018, @02:32PM (#745965)
    Or, alternatively, if science and industry hadn't been held in check by religion until the Renaissance we might have gotten to the industrial revolution a few hundred years earlier, the wars of the 17th-18th century would have been fought with nukes, and any survivors would now be living in the remaining inhabitable areas in sub-polar regions in conditions akin to the dark ages. What, you were thinking we'd have The Federation rather than "Canticle for Leibowitz" or something?
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  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday October 08 2018, @04:06PM (1 child)

    by Gaaark (41) on Monday October 08 2018, @04:06PM (#746003) Journal

    Oh man, 'Canticle' is my favourite book! :)

    But how many of those wars were fought for religious reasons?
    All?

    Just saying.

    Mrs. Grales says "Hi." :)

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    • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:20AM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday October 09 2018, @01:20AM (#746233)

      In the 16th and 17th century almost all of the wars were fought for religious reasons, unless Catholic France was fighting Catholic Spain.

      Fun fact: The 30 years war (1618 - 1638) killed something like 25% of the German population, and as many as half of all German men in some places.

      Yeah, OK it's not that much fun.

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 08 2018, @06:42PM (2 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday October 08 2018, @06:42PM (#746064)

    I'm not convinced that tweaking the clock and getting to tech earlier would result in a different outcome. The XXVII-century man is quite capable of understanding the concept of leveling entire cities.

    • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday October 08 2018, @08:50PM (1 child)

      by zocalo (302) on Monday October 08 2018, @08:50PM (#746124)
      I don't think it would significantly change the outcome either. The timeline would almost certainly be very different, but the basic progression to some kind of industrial revolution and nuclear age seems quite likely. Nor do you need nukes to raze a city, as history can attest many times over probably going back before Troy, so the US definitely understood the concept in 1945 and that didn't stop them dropping a couple of nukes on Japan, did it?

      Anyway, the point was more that mankind in general seems to inherently favour short term individual benefit over the longer term greater good, so bringing the Renaissance, industrial age and, quite likely, the nuclear age forwards, regardless of the exact sequence of events, would likely just result in starting to pollute the planet sooner. Likewise, once nukes get developed they'd get used at least once or twice (as we did) before any kind of WMD treaty could be produced, and once the genie is out of the bottle it isn't going back in, so a longer period of opportunity for a mistake to happen, some hothead with their back against the wall to push the button, or dirty bombs to get used by a terrorist group.

      So yes, same shit, different day, and that day would probably have just come a good deal sooner that it did for us.
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      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 09 2018, @09:24AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 09 2018, @09:24AM (#746346) Journal

        or dirty bombs to get used by a terrorist group

        Which is almost a negligible risk. After all, they don't actually do that much and take enormous effort to prepare anything more effective than regular explosives.

        Anyway, the point was more that mankind in general seems to inherently favour short term individual benefit over the longer term greater good

        Especially when the greater good just isn't that good. That excuse has been used for millennia to favor short term individual benefit. I believe much of the climate change argument is of that flavor.