1.5 degrees is the magic number
Remember this number: 1.5 degrees. That’s the upper limit for global warming that our governments will try to stay under, as agreed at the global climate negotiations in Paris last year. Everything all of us do from this point on will be measured against it.
Getting this agreement was a big achievement in a longer struggle. Now, countries need to make sure the Agreement becomes a reality, first by signing it and then by taking steps nationally to turn it into laws, regulations and policies. Signing is important, because the Agreement can’t enter into force until at least 55 per cent of member countries have signed and ratified it, with these countries representing at least 55 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. So while countries have a year to sign the Agreement, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is putting all his efforts into ensuring that more than 192 countries sign the Agreement at a high-level UN meeting next month.
At WWF, we hope to see all countries make history by signing the Agreement today. This would be a powerful political statement. More, however, it is needed. As they did in Paris, governments must take this opportunity to go further than their suggested climate plans, by announcing new scaled-up actions to get out of fossil fuels and into renewables, to protect forests or to change investments from dirty to clean.
5 reasons why we need Goverments to step up their climate plans
1. Scientists tell us 1.5 C is a critical upper limit.
Each degree of warming will determine the course of sea level rise and the fate of low-lying countries, coral reefs, tropical forests and Arctic ecosystems. Governments are listening and that is why we saw 1.5 degrees enshrined in the Paris Agreement.
2. We are currently on track for 3 degrees warming
If countries do not do more than promised in their national climate plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, we will be on track for more than 3 degrees warming. The world has already warmed 1 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times, so staying below 1.5 C is an enormous challenge
3. Hot is becoming our new normal
January and February this year have broken the “hottest month” records, with meteorologists calling the February record “shattering,” “unprecedented,” and “a bombshell”. February 2016 also marks the 10th consecutive month a monthly global temperature record has been broken. Overall, the six highest monthly temperature records have all occurred in the past six months. The Arctic experienced unusually warm conditions in January and February, driving another record – the lowest sea-ice extent ever.
4. The impacts of a warmer world are already being felt
According to the February 2016 Catastrophe Report from insurance broker Aon Benfield, “three nations – Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Fiji – suffered extreme weather disasters in February 2016 that cost at least 4 per cent of their GDP.” They noted that according to the International Disaster Database, “these disasters set records for the all-time most expensive weather-related disaster in their nations’ history. By comparison, nine nations had their most expensive weather-related natural disasters in history in all of 2015.”
5. More CO2 than ever before
The levels of CO2 in the atmosphere had the largest year-to-year increase in 56 years (since these records began being kept by the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii). And 2015 was the fourth consecutive year that CO2 emissions grew by more than 2 parts per million. Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference network calls these records “explosive compared to natural processes” and noted that “CO2 levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years”.
The way forward
Let us be clear: We are seeing a rapidly warming world, with a destabilizing climate. Decisive action can get us off this path, but there is no time to lose. Countries must increase the pledges they made in Paris and turn them into concrete, rapid actions back home that produce less climate pollution and a just transition for people and communities. This starts with signing the Paris Agreement but it does not end there.
People around the world are more concerned about climate change than ever. They should be. But the good news is that our political leaders are concerned too. We saw this in Paris and we hope we will see it again. Let’s make history by signing the Agreement and showing how governments will turn their great ambitions into action.
Adapted from a blog by Samantha J Smith, Leader of the WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative.
