5 Key Questions About Climate Change In The 2020s

CBS News - Jeff Berardelli*

Climate change and its impact on lives and livelihoods worldwide will no doubt be one of the biggest issues confronting us in the decade ahead. Here are five key questions and answers about the problem and what can be done about it.


Climate Change Brings Opportunities And Risk

Can we stop climate change and how will innovation help?
In short, yes, there are things we can do to help stop climate change, but it won't happen overnight. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that we need to reduce our emissions 45% by 2030 if we want to keep global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. There is very little chance of that happening. However, there is no cliff at 1.5 degrees Celsius — meaning the closer we keep warming to 1.5 degrees, even if we overshoot, the better off we'll be. The bottom line is we can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Here is the good news: Unlike many other big problems in life, we know how to fix this — by reducing our use of fossil fuels. And by aggressively combating this problem we can make an even better life for ourselves and future generations. Instead of focusing on denial or avoidance, we can embrace this as an opportunity. Combating climate change will inevitably create vast new industries — it already has — and millions of jobs, a rebirth of American ingenuity and a jolt to the U.S. and world economies.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fastest growing occupations in this upcoming decade are solar and wind technician. With median salaries of $42,000 to $55,000 per year, these are good paying jobs, already being created right now all over the nation. Per unit of energy, for every one job in fossil fuels you need several jobs in solar — so this is a net creator of opportunity. Even with larger employment, because solar and wind are technologies and not commodities like oil, the prices keep falling. In many cases sustainable energy is already cheaper, and certainly cleaner, than fossil fuels.

Where could we see rapid change over the next decade?
One big concern is tipping points. There are three primary areas climate experts are watching:

1. The Amazon rain forest is close to a tipping point because of the way land is being abused, combined with climate change. The forest is drying out. That is because rain forests create their own rainfall. The more they are fragmented and burned, the more they dry out and lose the ability to create their own source of rainfall. This means the Amazon is in danger of turning into a savanna — an ecosystem with far less tree-cover. If that happens, the capacity of the forest to absorb heat-trapping carbon dioxide is lost. We really need the Amazon to help lessen the impact of climate change worldwide.
2. Permafrost, the frozen ground in the Arctic, is thawing fast and releasing carbon that has been locked up for thousands of years. Just this year it seems to have crossed a threshold from being a sink, storing carbon, to being a net emitter of carbon, acting as a feedback to warm the Earth even faster. This feedback will be critical to monitor this decade to see how fast permafrost melts.
3. Loss of ice — both sea ice in the Arctic and land ice in Greenland and South Pole — is accelerating. Ice helps cool the Earth. The more we lose the faster the climate heats up which is another feedback loop. In addition, monitoring ice shelves on glaciers for instability will be a big telltale sign of how fast sea level will rise in the coming decade.

Arctic Report Card Reveals Alarming Effects Of Climate Change

What does this mean for the economy and homeowners?
This is where climate change hits us in the wallet. As CBS News correspondent Carter Evans reported in November, homeowners are already seeing situations in California where insurance companies will not insure homes in the fire zone, or they are charging exponentially higher, unaffordable rates. As the impacts of extreme weather and sea level rise get worse, it is going to become more difficult for people who are exposed to risk to obtain 30-year mortgages to buy homes.
This pertains not only to fire-prone areas, but also to homes near sea level and along river basins at risk of flooding. When sellers or buyers can no longer obtain a reasonable mortgage or insurance, home values will plummet.


Wildfire Evacuations

Can the younger generation turn their ambition into policy?
This is what gives me hope. The younger generation is energized and engaged by this issue. They realize they will have to deal with what we adults helped cause. And they are not likely to give up until they get what they want. In one year, youth activists organized tens of millions of people all over the world in protest. They accomplished in one year what adults were not able to do in 30 years. Imagine what they can do in a decade!


Time Person Of The Year

What impacts are people most concerned about?
I asked people on Twitter about their climate-related concerns. The No. 1 answer was migration and refugees. I agree. Climate change is going to continue to cause more extreme heat waves and droughts. Farms in vulnerable areas will turn from crop producing into deserts. Later this century, parts of the Earth near the equator will become so hot as to be uninhabitable, or at the very least not supportive for people to make a living. Millions will be forced to move to survive. Some scientists say we are already witnessing this happen. The concern is that even more widespread migration will create a massive international humanitarian and security issue.

*Meteorologist Jeff Berardelli is a CBS News Climate & Weather Contributor.

Links

• Nine Things You Love That Are Being Wrecked By Climate Change
• Climate change will make fire storms more likely in southeastern Australia
• Ignoring young people's climate change fears is a recipe for anxiety
• 3 ways cities can prepare for climate emergencies
• What is a 'mass extinction' and are we in one now?
• Court rules in landmark climate change case
• Australia just had its hottest day on record, and it's getting hotter
• U.N. climate change talks end with main issues unresolved
• The 2020s: What the next decade will bring for technology, climate and more

The 2010s Were Another Lost Decade On Climate Change

MIT Technology Review

The only measurement that matters is greenhouse-gas emissions—and they continued to rise.

Pixabay

We’ve lost another decade on climate change.
Even as greenhouse gases in the atmosphere race toward levels that could lock in catastrophic warming, the world continued to pump out more. Our collective failure to begin cutting emissions over the last 10 years almost certainly shatters the dream of halting rising temperatures at 1.5 ˚C. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine achieving the pace and scale of change now required even to prevent 2 ˚C.
Among other sharply escalating dangers, that half-degree difference could doom the world’s coral reefs and regularly expose nearly 40% of world’s population to staggering heat waves.
There were faint signs of progress. Renewables and electric vehicles finally took off, and nearly 200 countries committed to cutting their emissions under the landmark Paris climate agreement in 2016.
But nations are already falling behind on their pledges, and the US is in the process of pulling out of the deal entirely, at a point when much deeper cuts are required. And for all the momentum behind clean energy technologies, they’ve done very little so far to displace the power plants, cars, factories, and buildings polluting the atmosphere with more emissions each year.
The charts that follow reveal how much ground we lost on climate change during the last 10 years.

Rising CO₂ concentrations
The measurement that ultimately matters on climate change is global emissions. And they continued to rise.
There was a brief hope that greenhouse-gas pollution had finally plateaued. Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, which makes up about 90% of total emissions from human activities, was relatively flat from 2013 through 2016.
Improving energy efficiency, rising use of renewables, and the shift from coal to natural gas likely drove much of this, particularly in wealthy economies like the US and European Union. But emissions have surged in the years since, driven largely by economic growth and increasing energy demands in emerging nations, led by China and India.
Fossil-fuel emissions rose an estimated 0.6% to a record 37 billion metric tons in 2019, capping three straight years of growth, the Global Carbon Project reported in early December.
These trends, plus additional emissions from land-use changes and other human activities, added up to steadily rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere throughout the 2010s.



Reaching the peak
When we reach peak emissions matters. The longer we take, the deeper we'll need to cut carbon pollution in the coming years if we hope to avoid dangerous warming thresholds, as the charts below show.
To get a sense of how much harder we've made the job of halting warming at 1.5 ˚C by frittering away the last decade, click on the chart and compare the steepness of the slope shown if we had plateaued in 2010 with what is projected should we reach the peak in 2020.



These charts were produced by Zeke Hausfather for Carbon Brief, using data and the original figure from Robbie Andrew at the Center for International Climate Research.

We’ll have to radically accelerate emissions reductions to have any hope of limiting warming to 2 ˚C as well.


In addition to aggressive emissions cuts, most models now find we'll also need to use trees, plants and other methods to remove and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to stay below these temperature targets. But achieving these so called "negative emissions" on a large-enough scale will be incredibly costly, and compete directly with other crucial land-uses, most notably the farming needed to feed a growing global population.

Environmental impacts
Decades of rising emissions continued to do what scientists have long warned they would: make the world hotter.
In early December, the World Meteorological Organization announced that 2019 is likely to be the second or third warmest on record, capping a “decade of exceptional global heat.” Average temperatures for the preceding five- and 10-year periods will almost certainly be the highest on record.



This chart, using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, clearly highlights the rise in global land temperatures above the 20th-century average. Note the particularly pronounced increase in the last 10 years.



Ocean temperatures rose as well, and warmer water expands. That plus the accelerating loss of ice sheets and glaciers pushed up ocean levels further, as this chart from NASA satellite data highlights.
Indeed, the 2010s mark the decade when the impacts from climate change became unmistakable, at least for any objective-minded observer. As temperatures rose, Arctic sea ice melted far faster than models had predicted. The world’s coral reefs suffered widespread and devastating bleaching events. And regions around the world grappled with some of the costliest, deadliest, and most extreme droughts, hurricanes, heat waves, and wildfires in recorded history.
Since carbon dioxide takes years to reach its full warming effect, and we have yet to even begin cutting emissions, we’ll face even starker dangers in the coming decade.

Links

• Our pathetically slow shift to clean energy, in five charts
• Meet the scientists trying to understand the world’s worst wildfires
• We need to halve emissions by 2030. They rose again in 2019.
• A 3C World Is Now “Business as Usual”
• Half a Degree and a World Apart: The Difference in Climate Impacts Between 1.5˚C and 2˚C of Warming
• We need to halve emissions by 2030. They rose again in 2019.
• Maybe we can afford to suck CO2 out of the sky after all
• Explainer: 10 ways ‘negative emissions’ could slow climate change
• Technologies That Remove Carbon Dioxide From Air and Sequester It Need to Play a Large Role in Mitigating Climate Change, Says New Report
• 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat and high-impact weather

Nine Things You Love That Are Being Wrecked By Climate Change

The Conversation - Rod Lamberts

If coffee and wine are things you love, then you need to pay attention to climate change. Shutterstock/Ekaterina Pokrovsky

There are so many stories flying around about the horrors already being wrought by climate change, you’re probably struggling to keep up.
The warnings have been there for decades but still there are those who deny it. So perhaps it’s timely to look at how climate change is affecting you, by wrecking some of the things you love.

1. Not the holiday you hoped for
We often choose holiday destinations with weather in mind. Sadly, climate change may see your usual destinations become less inviting, and maybe even disappear entirely.

Lizard Island, in Queensland, is a popular tourist destination but it’s coral has been affected by bleaching. AAP Image/XL Catlin Seaview Survey

But there’s more to think about than your favourite beach retreat being drowned, or the Great Barrier Reef decaying before you see it.
Now we have to worry that “extreme weather events pose significant risks to travellers”. The warnings here range from travel disruption, such as delayed flights due to storms, through to severe danger from getting caught in cyclones, floods or snowstorms.
Simply getting where you need to go could become an adventure holiday itself, but not a fun one.

2. Last chance to see some wildlife
There are more and more examples of animals falling victim to climate-change induced extreme weather events, such as the horror of mass “cremations” of koalas in the path of recent Australian bush fires or bats dropping dead during heatwaves.

Hundreds of bats dropped dead during a heatwave in Campbelltown, NSW, after temperatures reached 45C in 2018. AAP Image/Supplied/Help Save the Wildlife and Bushlands

On top of that, news of the latest climate-related animal extinctions are becoming as common as reports of politicians doing nothing about it.

3. History and heritage at risk
The Italian city of Venice recently experienced its worst flooding since the mid 1960s, and the local mayor clearly connected this with climate change.
Aside from the human calamity unfolding there, we are seeing one of Europe’s most amazing and unique cities and a World Heritage site devastated before our eyes.

Tourists and residents wade through a flooded Venice, Italy, in November 2019. EPA/Andrea Merola

Climate change threatens more than 13,000 archaeological sites in North America alone if sea levels rise by 1m. That goes up to more than 30,000 sites if sea levels rise by 5m.

UNESCO is worried that climate change also threatens underwater heritage sites, such as ruins and shipwrecks. For example, rising salinity and warming waters increases ship-worm populations that consume wooden shipwrecks in the Baltic sea.

4. Taking the piste
Warming temperatures have already had negative impacts on the US snow sports industry since at least 2001.

Enjoy the skiing while the snow lasts. Yun Huang Yong, CC BY

In Australia, ski resorts are expected to see significant drops in snow fall by 2040 and, as temperatures warm, they will be unable to compensate for this by snow-making, because it doesn’t work if ambient temperatures are too high.

Perhaps recent efforts to make artificial snow will give us a few more years on the slopes, but I’m not holding my breath.

5. Too hot for sport and exercise
It’s not just snow sports that will be affected. As temperatures warm, simply being outside in some parts of the world will not only be less pleasant, but more harmful, causing greater risk of heat stress doing any sport or exercise.

The summer heat already causes problems for fans and players during the Australian Open in Melbourne each January. AAP Image/Julian Smith

That also means lower incentives for – and greater difficult in undertaking - incidental exercise, such as walking to the bus stop.

6. Pay more for your coffee
As the climate changes, your coffee hits will probably become rarer and more expensive, too.

Start saving up for your next coffee. Flickr/Marco Verch, CC BY

A report by the Climate Institute in 2016 suggested coffee production could drop by 50% by 2050. Given how rapidly negative climate predictions have been updated in the three years since, this might now be considered optimistic. Yikes.

7. You and your family’s health
As the climate changes, the health of your children, your parents and your grandparents will be at greater risk through increases in air pollution, heatwaves and other factors.



It can be heartening to see the strong, intelligent and positive action being taken by the world’s youth in response to the lack of climate action by many governments.
But the fact this is a result of literal, existential crises becoming a normal part of every day life for young people is utterly horrifying.

8. Home, sweet home
The recent bush fires in Australia and the United States reveal how dramatic and destructive the effects climate change can be to where you live. Hundreds of houses have already burned down in Australia this fire season.

The ruins of a house destroyed by bushfire near Taree, NSW, November 9, 2019. AAP Image/Darren Pateman

Fires are getting more frequent and more ferocious. The seasonal windows where we safely used controlled burning to clear bushfire fuel are shrinking. It’s not only harder to fight fires when they happen, it’s becoming harder to prevent them as well.
Fires aren’t the only threat to homes. All around the planet, more and more houses are being destroyed by rising seas and increasingly wild storms, all thanks to climate change.

9. Not the wine, please!
Still not convinced climate change is wrecking things you love? What if I told you it’s even coming for your wine.
Less water, soil degradation and higher temperatures earlier in the season all lead to dramatic negative effects on grapes and wine-making.

The grape harvest is getting earlier each year, which experts attribute partly to climate change. AAP Image/Lukas Coch

One small upside is that disruption to traditional wine growing regions is creating opportunities to develop new wine growing areas. But there is no reason to believe these areas will maintain stable grape growing conditions as climate change progresses.

So, what now?
It’s easy to be sad. But to change our trajectory, it’s better to be mad. In the words of that great English singer songwriter John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten), “anger is an energy”.
So maybe use this list as motivation to think, talk and act. Use it as fuel to make small, large or a combination of changes.
Share your concerns, share your solutions, and do this relentlessly.
What’s happening right now is huge, overwhelming, and also inevitable without concerted action. There’s no sugar-coating it: climate change is wrecking the things we love. Time to step it up a notch.

Links

• Climate change will make fire storms more likely in southeastern Australia
• Ignoring young people's climate change fears is a recipe for anxiety
• 3 ways cities can prepare for climate emergencies
• What is a 'mass extinction' and are we in one now?
• Court rules in landmark climate change case 
• Australia just had its hottest day on record, and it's getting hotter 
• U.N. climate change talks end with main issues unresolved 
• The 2020s: What the next decade will bring for technology, climate and more