Climate Change

World on ‘thin ice’ as UN climate report gives stark warning

Published

2 years ago

March 22, 2023

Humanity still has a chance, close to the last, to prevent the worst of climate change’s future harms, a top United Nations panel of scientists said Monday.

But doing so requires quickly slashing nearly two-thirds of carbon pollution by 2035, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. The United Nations chief said it more bluntly, calling for an end to new fossil fuel exploration and for rich countries to quit coal, oil and gas by 2040.

“Humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once.”

Stepping up his pleas for action on fossil fuels, Guterres called for rich countries to accelerate their target for achieving net zero emissions to as early as 2040, and developing nations to aim for 2050 — about a decade earlier than most current targets. He also called for them to stop using coal by 2030 and 2040, respectively, and ensure carbon-free electricity generation in the developed world by 2035, meaning no gas-fired power plants either.

That date is key because nations soon have to come up with goals for pollution reduction by 2035, according to the Paris climate agreement. After contentious debate, the U.N. science report approved Sunday concluded that to stay under the warming limit set in Paris the world needs to cut 60% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, compared with 2019, adding a new target not previously mentioned in six previous reports issued since 2018.

“The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts for thousands of years,” the report said, calling climate change “a threat to human well-being and planetary health.”

“We are not on the right track but it’s not too late,” said report co-author and water scientist Aditi Mukherji. “Our intention is really a message of hope, and not that of doomsday.’’

With the world only a few tenths of a degree away from the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, scientists stressed a sense of urgency. The goal was adopted as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius.

This is likely the last warning the Nobel Peace Prize-winning collection of scientists will be able to make about the 1.5 mark because their next set of reports may well come after Earth has either passed the mark or is locked into exceeding it soon, several scientists, including report authors, told The Associated Press.

After 1.5 degrees “the risks are starting to pile on,” said report co-author Francis X. Johnson, a climate, land and policy scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute. The report mentions “tipping points” around that temperature of species extinction, including coral reefs, irreversible melting of ice sheets and sea level rise of several meters.

“1.5 is a critical critical limit, particularly for small islands and mountain (communities) which depend on glaciers,” said Mukherji.

“The window is closing if emissions are not reduced as quickly as possible,” Johnson said in an interview. “Scientists are rather alarmed.”

Many scientists, including at least three co-authors, said hitting 1.5 degrees is inevitable.

“We are pretty much locked into 1.5,” said report co-author Malte Meinshausen, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia. “There’s very little way we will be able to avoid crossing 1.5 C sometime in the 2030s ” but the big issue is whether the temperature keeps rising from there or stabilizes.

Guterres insisted “the 1.5-degree limit is achievable.” Science panel chief Hoesung Lee said so far the world is far off course.

If current consumption and production patterns continue, Lee said, “the global average 1.5 degrees temperature increase will be seen sometime in this decade.”

Scientists emphasize that the world or humanity won’t end suddenly if Earth passes the 1.5 degree mark. Mukherji said “it’s not as if it’s a cliff that we all fall off.” But an earlier IPCC report detailed how the harms — including even nastier extreme weather — are much worse beyond 1.5 degrees of warming.

“It is certainly prudent to be planning for a future that’s warmer than 1.5 degrees,” said IPCC report review editor Steven Rose, an economist at the Electric Power Research Institute in the United States.

If the world continues to use all the fossil fuel-powered infrastructure either existing now or proposed, Earth will warm at least 2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, the report said.

Because the report is based on data from a few years ago, the calculations about fossil fuel projects already in the pipeline do not include the increase in coal and natural gas use after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It comes a week after the Biden Administration in the United States approved the huge Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska, which could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day.

Climate Change

Pakistan’s Punjab shuts construction and schools, and lockdown looms to fight smog

Published

3 days ago

November 15, 2024

Ariana News

Pakistan's Punjab declared a health emergency due to toxic smog on Friday, banning construction, shutting schools for another week and moving universities online, with a three-day lockdown possible, the province's senior minister said on Friday.

Punjab battles toxic smog every winter as cold air traps dust, emissions, and smoke from illegal stubble burning on fields. Air quality has deteriorated drastically in recent weeks and the province's capital Lahore currently ranks as the world's most polluted city, says IQAir.

"A complete lockdown will be enforced on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (next week) if the situation does not improve by Wednesday," said Punjab Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, addressing a press conference in Lahore.

Citizens were advised to stay indoors. Air Quality Index (AQI) readings in Lahore reached 637 at 3 p.m. (1000 GMT), according to Swiss group IQAir, significantly higher than levels recommended by the World Health Organization.

The government had ordered the closure of construction, brick kilns, and furnace-based plants in Lahore and the city of Multan, the minister said.

Punjab's government had last week ordered schools to close until Nov. 17, and on Friday the shift to online learning was extended for another week. Colleges and universities will also shut down, moving to virtual classes.

The eastern province has already banned entry to parks, zoos, playgrounds and other public spaces.

South Asia faces severe pollution each year due to trapped dust, emissions and stubble burning - the practice of setting fire to fields after the grain harvest.

Punjab has blamed this year's particularly high pollution levels partly on toxic air flowing from neighbouring India, where air quality has also reached hazardous levels.

India's capital of New Delhi, the world's most polluted capital city, banned all non-essential construction, moved younger children to virtual classrooms and asked residents to avoid using coal and wood from Friday to combat increasing air pollution.

New Delhi's air quality level reached 539 on Friday, according to live rankings by IQAir, the worst amongst global capitals.

Climate Change

Deputy FM Stanikzai urges world to help Afghanistan in fight against climate change

Published

6 days ago

November 11, 2024

Ariana News

Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the political deputy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Monday called on industrial countries to help Afghanistan in the fight against climate change.

Stanikzai made the remarks at a conference in Kabul titled “From Isolation to Inclusion – Afghanistan’s Urgent Call for Climate Action,” which was held on the day the UN climate talks kicked off in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.

"Our demand from the United Nations, the great powers, the rich countries and the countries from which gasses come is to help us improve our environment and serve our people," Stanikzai said.

Stefan Rodriguez, the Chief of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), also said that climate change has forced some Afghans to live in tents as natural disasters regularly occur in the country.

Rodriguez, however, said that after three years, Afghanistan has now gained access to financial mechanisms in the environmental sector and some institutions are ready to resume their incomplete projects in Afghanistan.

The organizers of the conference warned that if the international community does not step up to assist Afghanistan in the fight against climate change, there will be dire consequences.

They called on COP29 in Baku to keep the issue of fighting climate change in Afghanistan away from political issues and work with their financial and technical partners to prevent the spread of negative effects of climate change in the country.

Climate Change

Afghanistan to attend UN climate talks, first since IEA takeover

It was not immediately clear in what capacity the delegation would participate at COP29, but sources indicated it would have observer status

Published

1 week ago

November 10, 2024

Ariana News

An Afghan delegation will attend the upcoming UN climate change summit COP29 in Azerbaijan scheduled to take place from Monday, November 11.

According to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) foreign ministry spokesman, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, said “delegation of the Afghan government will be in Baku".

It was not immediately clear in what capacity the delegation would participate at COP29, but sources indicated it would have observer status.

Afghanistan is ranked as the country sixth most vulnerable to climate change and IEA authorities have pushed to participate in COP summits, saying their political isolation shouldn't bar them from international climate talks.

Having tried and failed to attend UN climate change summits in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, this year an invitation from COP29 hosts Azerbaijan came through.

Officials from the country's National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) have repeatedly said climate change should not be politicized and called for environment-related projects put on hold due to the IEA’s takeover to be reinstated.

"Climate change is a humanitarian subject," deputy NEPA head Zainulabedin Abid said in a recent interview with AFP.

"We have called on the international community not to relate climate change matters with politics."

Among the poorest countries in the world after decades of war, Afghanistan is particularly exposed to the effects of climate change, which scientists say is spurring extreme weather.

Drought, floods, land degradation and declining agricultural productivity are key threats, the UN development agency's representative in Afghanistan, Stephen Rodriques, said in 2023.

Flash floods in May killed hundreds and swamped swaths of agricultural land in Afghanistan, where 80 percent of people depend on farming to survive.