Grounds for enhanced greenhouse-gas commitments

The national greenhouse-gas mitigation commitments made at the Paris 2015 Conference on Climate Change would collectively fail to deliver the agreed goal of a ceiling of 1.5 degrees (Celsius) to the increase of average temperatures since the pre-industrial period. This goal was agreed at the same conference. The aggregated national commitments have been estimated as leading to an average increase of approximately 3 degrees, an increase that could prove disastrous. Successive IPCC reports indicate that if greenhouse-gas emissions are unchecked there will be serious sea-level rises, and that coastal and island communities will be placed at risk. There will also be increases in the seriousness and the frequency of extreme weather events such as floods, storms, heat-waves, wildfires, and droughts. The impacts of these changes are likely to be massive movements of climate refugees leaving impacted areas and seeking new homes. There will be movements of the vectors of diseases such as malaria and dengue-fever to higher altitudes and latitudes, and migrations of land species, again to higher altitudes and higher latitudes, many becoming extinct, and losses to the biodiversity of coral reefs. These impacts are beginning to be experienced, as wildfires affect Australia, a heat-dome affects west Canada, and torrential storms cause flooding in Europe from Switzerland to the Netherlands. The perceived inadequacy of the 2015 national commitments has led to hopes that at further Climate Change CoP Conferences they would be racheted up. Some have been revised, but much remains to be done, particularly at CoP-26, planned for Glasgow in November 2021.

Author(s): Robin Attfield

Abstract | Full-Text | PDF

Share This Article