In the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s latest report on climate change, there is another escalation of an increasingly familiar threat. The report, titled Limiting Overshoot and released last week, says global temperature rise can no longer be contained within the threshold of 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, laid down by the Paris Agreement. Even the most favourable projections see the warming to reach 1.8° C in the coming years. Other climate models have projected worse scenarios. The Paris red line has been breached multiple times in the past five years. Even if all nations implement their stated climate policies, the 1.8°C mark will be touched. If they continue with their current policies, warming could peak at 2.6°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has asked the world to make the overshoot above 1.5° C “as small and short as possible”. The report notes that climate adaptation has limits, and lost climate conditions cannot be recaptured. Every additional fraction of a degree and the time spent above the threshold make it increasingly difficult to fight an increase in the temperature. The report says offsetting the heating effect of even a tenth of a degree is much more difficult than preventing that rise. This reiterates the urgency of implementing mitigation strategies with greater focus. No climate plan adopted, promised or envisaged until now can clear the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere in the foreseeable future. Limiting Overshoot also calls for efforts that address threats beyond carbon dioxide.
The UN has identified cutting methane emissions as a quick and cost-effective measure to slow warming in the near term and called for targeted priority actions. While the Global Methane Pledge has provided a head start, its implementation has yet to gather the required pace. India is not a member of the programme. Climate change is manifesting in diverse forms in different parts of the world. Unprecedented heat waves are sweeping through Europe and America, the polar ice is melting, and the seas are rising. Floods, cyclones, and other disasters are frequent in Asia.
A flash flood in the Bhotekoshi River in Nepal, reportedly caused by a glacial collapse in the higher Himalayas, killed more than a thousand people. Many more are missing. The UNEP report is the latest warning that the time for action is slipping away. It is about events inexorably moving to a tragedy, predicted and chronicled. (Source: DH)
