Climate Change Mitigation: How’s It Going?
It’s the tenth anniversary of the Time Magazine article “Global Warming: Be Worried. Be Very Worried.” Writing for Time, journalist Jeffrey Kluger began his 2006 report: Polar ice caps are melting faster than ever, more and more land is being devastated by drought, and rising waters are drowning low-lying communities.
OK, so where are we a full decade later? Joe Romm notes in this article:
The main differences in climate science between now and 10 years ago are:
- Until the last year or two, emissions were tracking at the very highest end of what scientists had projected they would
- Many of the most worrisome impacts have happened at a faster pace than climate scientists had expected
- Most of the worst fears of climate scientists in 2006 are now part of the published peer-reviewed literature — and the worst fears of climate scientists today are beyond alarming
So people should be even more worried today — and they are! That’s why more and more leading climate scientists have become uncharacteristically blunt and why dozens of them told the world’s governments last year that we have to stay as far below 2°C as possible — preferably 1.5°C. And it’s why the world’s leading governments unanimously pledged to do just that in Paris in December.
Of course, the reality is that we’re a million miles from making the types of changes, e.g., drastic reduction in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel consumption, that are necessary to avoid unprecedented and irreversible damage to Earth’s environment.
Why so glum a judgement? My country, the U.S., refuses even to consider allowing the emission-reduction pledges made in Paris last December to come to fruition. Now, yes, I know that the U.S. isn’t the whole world, but, for better or for worse, it’s a super-power that sets the standards for a great number of social, economic, and political goings on.
As in so many affairs, America needs to be a beacon of wisdom and inspiration to the world around us; I only wish we were living up to that.
