The world’s climate change progress

The world’s climate change progress

Subject: Environment

In news: Back in 2019, more than 11,000 scientists declared a global climate emergency. The vital signs that impact or reflect the planet’s health, such as forest loss, fossil fuel subsidies, glacier thickness, ocean acidity and surface temperature have however changed since the original publication, including through the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Climate Change progress since 2019:

• Fossil fuel divestment and fossil fuel subsidies have improved signalling an economic shift to a renewable energy future.
• Climate-related disasters have increased since 2019
  • devastating flash floods in the South Kalimantan province of Indonesia,
  • record heat waves in the south western United States,
  • extraordinary storms in India and,
  • the 2019-2020 megafires in Australia.
• In addition, three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — set records for atmospheric concentrations in 2020 and 2021. carbon dioxide concentration reached 416 parts per million, the highest monthly global average concentration ever recorded in april 2021.
• 2020 was also the second hottest year in recorded history, with the five hottest years on record all occurring since 2015.
• Ruminant livestock — cattle, buffalo, sheep, and goats — now number more than 4 billion, and their total mass is more than that of all humans and wild mammals combined. This is a problem because these animals are responsible for impacting biodiversity, releasing huge amounts of methane emissions, and land continues to be cleared to make room for them.
• Ocean acidification is also near an all-time record.
• There is growing evidence we’re getting close to or have already gone beyond tipping points associated with important parts of the Earth system, including warm-water coral reefs, the Amazon rainforest and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.

Six critical and interrelated steps governments can take to lessen the worst effects of climate change:

1. Prioritise energy efficiency, and replace fossil fuels with low-carbon renewable energy.
2. Reduce emissions of short-lived pollutants such as methane and soot
3. Curb land clearing to protect and restore the Earth’s ecosystems
4. Reduce our meat consumption.
5. Move away from unsustainable ideas of ever-increasing economic and resource consumption.
6. Stabilise and, ideally, gradually reduce human populations while improving human well-being especially by educating girls and women globally.