MICHELLE CHAN: In 2015, at the Paris climate talks, countries agreed to a couple of goals and the first one was to limit the increase in global average temperature to 2° below pre-industrial levels and then the second goal is to try to stay under 1.5°C and so this report, which was prepared by hundreds of scientists under the auspices of the IPCC or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – this report was done in order to describe how the impacts on earth and to people would be different between these two different scenarios: 2° temperature warming versus 1.5° of warming. And so that was what the report set out to do.
And one of the things that the report says is that, you know, even if the world doesn’t emit one additional ton of greenhouse gases, even if we were to stop today that we’re already on a path to increasing global average temperatures by 1°. And this level – we have to remind ourselves at this level – people are already suffering and dying because of climate impacts. And then the report goes on to describe what would happen. The difference between 1.5° of warming and 2° of warming, and I can get into a couple of examples if you’d like.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Could you cover for us some of the most dire warnings here that were the consensus of scientists across the world?
MICHELLE CHAN: Right. Well, they go through a number of different projected impacts between the 1.5 versus 2° scenarios. And for example, if we only warm, by 1.5°C, then it means that sea level rises won’t be as high and that would mean we could avoid displacing like a million people. So if we went up to 2°, that would be 10 million people already, you know, would be essentially forced to move. At 1.5°, the science says that will lose maybe 70 percent of our coral reefs instead of 99 percent of them. So I mean 1.5, even though that’s the goal the world is shooting for, still is eye-poppingly devastating for the state of our coral reefs and our oceans. But at 1.5° of warming instead of that 2, we can help prevent what scientists call feedback loops.
These feedback loops create runaway climate change. So one example here is that Arctic snow, being white has the ability to bounce back the sun’s rays into space and the more Arctic snow we lose, then the more the earth absorbs that heat and then the more melting is caused and then there’s less snow and less sunlight reflected back. And so that just creates a vicious cycle or a feedback loop. And so, that report goes into the chronicles – all of these different scenarios, likely scenarios, likely impacts between 1.5 and 2°. And it’s very, very sobering to say the least. It says that technologically, if we go over 1.5°, then we will need to increasingly rely on technologies that suck carbon out of the air. And a lot of these technologies are just completely unproven and they could be hugely risky.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Well, Michelle, when you look at the advisory here to the world in terms of the dramatic action that will be necessary to stay under that 1.5°C rise in temperature across the world, how realistic is it that that could actually happen in terms of political will, a technology, alternative fuel systems in the like?
MICHELLE CHAN: Yeah, it’s a great question, Scott, because ultimately Friends of the Earth believes that we need political and not just technological solutions to tackle climate change. This report that the IPCC put out was pretty technological. It didn’t seek to really answer the big hairy questions about whether or not, for example, we can get corporations and big oil companies out of our government as they are blocking us from making these radical transformations in our energy, food and economic systems that we all need and that the science says we need. Right? So, it’s a really good question about how to tackle this from a political perspective.
And that’s why, you know, for example, Friends of the Earth has, is working against voter suppression in North Carolina and in other states because it’s the fact that the most marginalized people – people in this country as well as abroad that have the most to lose that have the most at risk, that have the most on the line from the impacts of climate change – are also being politically dispossessed.
I mean, that is part of the climate change problem and it’s hard sometimes to make that fast connection. But I think that all of your listeners know that we need to look at climate change from a political lens and not just a technological one.
