🔗How bad is it?

🔗How bad is it?

[Updated Dec 2022]

In the Paris Agreement of 2015 the parties agreed that we should try to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5°C (see Climate recap: key concepts).

To do that we have to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases until the amount we emit is matched by the amount we remove from the atmosphere. (In practice this means primarily lowering our emissions, since we cannot quickly or easily scale up our ability to remove emissions.20) This is when net emissions become zero, and this needs to happen urgently. Key concepts, such as greenhouse gases, can be found when needed in Climate recap: key concepts.

Where is the river?

Over recent years we have seen for ourselves the impacts of global heating, including more intense and frequent wildfires, rainfall and flooding, heatwaves, extreme storms and droughts. There is no corner of the world that is unaffected. Every year that passes these events get worse. In just the first half of 2022 there have been massive floods in Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, severe droughts in Niger, Chad, Ethiopia and Europe, storms in the Philippines and Mozambique and record-breaking heatwaves in India and Pakistan, to name a few.7 Ongoing analysis has shown that many extreme weather events are many times more likely as a result of human-induced climate change.3

Rescuing a few belongings from the floods

The temperatures in the last 7 years to 2021 are the hottest on record,1 and 2022 is on track to make it the last 8 years.8 Around 22 million new and repeated displacements of people were recorded in 2021 as a result of weather-related events; 5.9 million people were still displaced at the start of 2022.2

Animals flee the bushfires

So in the light of these temperatures and destructive forces just how badly are we doing in our efforts to reduce emissions?

The answer is alarming. As we shall see below, the situation is grave.

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🔗State of our efforts

Greenhouse gas concentrations continued to rise in 2021 (see Figure 2 in key Concepts), and early signs are that this trend is continuing in 2022.

So despite the Paris agreement, we are a long, long way from achieving the urgent reductions we need.

According to the Emissions Gap Report produced by the United Nations Environment Programme the total emissions reduction pledged by governments needs to be seven times higher to keep within 1.5 °C. As things stand, pledges are sufficient only to keep us to 2.4°C assuming there are policies to implement them. But existing policies lead us on a pathway to 2.8°C.12

🔗Does it really matter if we delay reducing emissions?

We know we only have a limited carbon budget – that is, the amount of carbon dioxide that we can release before we reach 1.5°C of warming (see Carbon budget in Key concepts). But does it matter if we use it up now rather than later?

Why not use it up as fast as we like and while we gorge on our budget, we could build the odd wind and solar farm, electrify some public transport, research large-scale carbon capture, insulate a few public buildings and plant some trees.11

If, in the meantime, we achieve a reduction in emissions, we can spend more of our budget, and if we fly to another state or country, we can offset it by planting a few more trees. When the budget is exhausted we could offset further CO2 emissions by tree planting or use carbon capture.

As bizarre as this argument seems, this is the mindset that most of us have, not just governments and corporations, but individuals, you and me, as well. The problems with this approach are expanded on below.

🔗Delaying action leaves less time and makes it much harder to keep to 1.5°C

If we delay emission reductions and still want to keep to our 1.5°C heating limit, we have more drastic reductions to make but less time in which to make them.

Substantial reductions are even harder to make in a short time span, even if there is the will. Ultimately this may mean we do not have enough time and we overshoot our budget and, therefore, 1.5°C.

Overshooting 1.5°C risks much worse climate impacts. It also risks uncontrollable warming: this could arise if our capacity to remove carbon at the scale needed doesn’t materialize (see carbon dioxide removal section below), so concentrations continue to rise.

For a graphical illustration and a bit of explanation, expand the sections below to see how different ways of reducing emissions affect the time before we reach 1.5°C, and the scale of the challenge as time passes. Hover over the graphs to see how delaying affects the size of reductions (also click on them to make them larger).

Section 1 shows the effects of delay when reductions are spread out evenly over the years. Section 2 shows the effects of delay when drastic reductions are made in early years.

The final subsection, ‘The flipside cannot be emphasized enough‘, contrasts 2 simple cases: we carry on pumping out emissions as we have been doing, or we reduce emissions from 2022.

The graphs use the remaining carbon budget figure estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2020.

🔗Reducing net emissions takes time to implement

Few of the measures to reduce emissions and stop the temperature rising are quick to implement. It takes time to build the renewable energy power plants that we need; It takes time to build storage for the energy generated; it takes time to electrify our public transport, insulate public buildings and conduct research.

And some things just cannot be hurried: trees take a while to grow enough to be effective at removing CO2 from the air.

So with less time available we may not have enough time to implement the measures needed to get to zero net emissions, and to stop the global temperature rising above 1.5°C. And if governments, corporations and individuals continue to show inertia in cutting emissions, we will not be able to avoid exceeding 1.5°C and maybe 2, 3 or 4°C, and the more severe impacts that go with higher temperatures.

🔗If we delay, we also have less time to adapt to the impacts of warming

With an earlier rise in temperature from 1.2°C, which it is now, to 1.5°C, there is likely to be more flooding earlier, more crop failures, more droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, and cyclones earlier. And they are likely to be more intense than they are now.13

We can no longer avoid the impacts that are coming with a global average temperature of 1.5°C. But getting to 1.5°C earlier leaves us less time to build coastal and riverside defences, adapt homes, and change to drought-tolerant crops. We need time to diversify skills, improve early warning systems, and implement vaccination programmes against the rise in diseases.14

Time is critical for low-lying countries that are more vulnerable to flooding, and drought-prone regions where people are dependent on their crops to survive. Without the time to adapt, many people will lose their homes, livelihoods and maybe their lives. Many more people will be displaced.

🔗Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) should not be relied on

Many governments and corporations, particularly those connected to the fossil fuel industry, argue that even if we do exceed our budget and overshoot the 1.5°C target, we can remove the excess carbon using CDR, including afforestation and carbon capture technologies.

However, this is a much riskier and dangerous strategy than simply not releasing the carbon into the air in the first place: in the Special Report in 2018, the IPCC warned that carbon capture technologies are untested at a scale that we might need if we overshoot 1.5°C.15 And little has changed in the years since.20 Some of the CDR strategies, such as afforestation and BECCS, would also place additional demands on the limited land and water resources if they were deployed at the scale needed. So we risk getting to 1.5°C with no means of stopping the temperature rising out of our control. Likewise capturing emissions that we might continue to emit is also beset with problems.16

🔗In summary

If we do not make serious reductions in CO2 emissions starting now, we risk overshooting 1.5°C with much greater attendant risks of higher temperatures.

The risk is greater still when we consider that an assumption underlying the size of our carbon budget is that substantial reductions will be made in non-CO2 gases, such as methane. But non-CO2 gases have not been decreasing.

Further uncertainties about the carbon budget estimate could mean we have a smaller budget and less time left.

Substantial early reductions are, therefore, needed in CO2 and non-CO2 gases, especially methane, where a reduction would have an immediate cooling effect.

So we need to act now.

🔗Can we still do it?

We have the technology and the ability to achieve our target temperature, but it needs fast and radical change for it to happen.

The lack of a timely and adequate response by governments and corporations has made our situation desperate. Individual action to reduce personal emissions has always been needed to get to net zero. But now it is crucial that we do as much as we can, and as fast as we can. We cannot wait for governments and corporations to act.

Our actions can have immediate effect on emissions, since we are not hampered by bureaucracy or the need to have our actions approved. And together, in sufficient numbers, we have the power to influence the policies of the governments and corporations that continue to fuel the climate crisis: by withdrawing our custom, corporations lose their profits, and political parties can lose our votes and support.

If each of us focuses on starting right now, and doing all that we can to reduce our emissions, several billion of us should be enough to have an impact, especially those of us in industrialized countries.

If we talk about the changes we make, share our actions on social media, and put up posters in our neighbourhoods to publicize earth’s urgent need, we can also motivate many more to increase our numbers so that we can help our world together.

To start now, go to What can I do? to see what actions you can take and how to achieve them, or go straight to the Pledges page, which links to appropriate sections in ‘What can I do?’.

Footnotes