A beginner's guide: Who to trust and the current state of climate change
Climate change is a topic that seems to gain attention daily, in all media sources and casual conversation.
It’s easy to feel pressurized into either repeating or denying mainstream opinion.
There is so much information to digest on so many different subjects. Where to even start? Whom should you trust?
Let’s first define climate change and introduce the most reputable source of information on the issue of global warming. Then, we’ll have all the tools to acknowledge what causes it and how the climate has changed since the beginning of industrialization.
We’ll also talk about some of the present and future impacts, how some societies are currently adjusting, and what has to be accomplished next.
Definition of climate change
To understand climate change, we must settle on a definition of the word climate.
Climate is not equal to weather.
What’s the weather like here? Just look outside.
What’s the climate like here? It’s about the average weather conditions over a long period.
Temperature – Wind velocity – Precipitation
Climate change means the average weather conditions shift over a long period.
The IPCC
The principal source of knowledge on climate change is the IPCC.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
This organization is composed of 195 member countries—thousands of scientists from all over the world work on providing information for governments to act on.
The IPCC is divided into four main working groups that concentrate on the following:
Examining the physical science of climate change, considering past data to create potential future scenarios
Evaluating the impacts of climate change, what are the options as to how to adapt considering the areas in which we are vulnerable
Providing solutions to limit human impact on climate change
Calculating and reporting national greenhouse gas emissions and removals
Their main goal is to enable governments to implement policies for the best interests of current and future human populations and biodiversity.
What causes climate change?
Many factors have been influencing the planet’s overall climate throughout its history, e.g., solar and volcanic activity.
Scientists producing IPCC reports acknowledge that and consider these effects. As of last, though, what has been a concern is linked to the climate change that results from human activities.
We can all imagine how hard it is to assess the actual impact of human activity. Science is intrinsically based on researching the truth, devoid of moral judgment. That’s why the following line from a 2021 IPCC report made many waves.
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land.” (2)
What human influence? Activities contributing to adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Making things like steel, cement, and plastic
Using electricity
Growing plants and animals
Moving stuff and people with cars, planes, and ships
Heating and cooling our homes and factories
Greenhouse gases (GHG)
A lot of the heat coming from the sun on Earth is reflected back into space. We need greenhouse gases to trap some of that heat in the atmosphere. They act as … a greenhouse.
Higher concentration of GHG in the air = More heat stays on Earth
Most human-made global warming comes from burning fossil fuels – Coal, Natural gas, and Oil. Effectively, we take material trapped under the Earth’s surface, burn it for energy, and release gases into the air.
People often refer to carbon dioxide (CO2) when talking about greenhouse gases. There are others, but CO2 is the main one.
There is a “near-linear relationship between the cumulative CO2 emissions and global warming” (2).
Every ton of CO2 added to the atmosphere = Warming of the globe
The current state of climate change
Different places are impacted differently. For example, some places are becoming dryer and others wetter. Here’s a tool the IPCC created to visualize the impacts of climate change regionally.
When we talk about the temperature rising, we usually refer to the global average.
“The likely range of human-caused global surface temperature increase from 1850-1900 to 2010-2019 is 0.8°C to 1.3°C, with a best estimate of 1.07°C.” (1)
It is commonly stated that we have warmed Earth by 1.1°C compared to pre-industrial levels.
To assess the risks of a global climate shift, we pay attention to what’s happening right now.
As time goes by, more and more evidence is gathered pointing in the direction of human-induced heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones. (1)
The next decades are determinant
Nobody knows to what extent the gravity of extreme weather events will affect us. What we know, though, is that we already have weakened the stability of our climate.
The IPCC came up with different scenarios, some more optimistic than others, to try and estimate potential consequences on the environment and living organisms. They all depend on the amount of GHG added to the atmosphere from now on.
No matter how drastic a path we take to limit our impact, global surface temperatures will continue to increase until at least 2050, and unless we enact deep reductions in GHG production in the coming decades, we will see a rise of more than 2°C. (1)
Every increment leads to increasingly extreme weather events (2). That means going from 1.5°C to 2°C is worse than the difference between 1°C and 1.5°C.
That means we’ll see more frequent and intense hot extremes, marine heatwaves, heavy precipitation, agricultural and ecological droughts, and tropical cyclones. Also, we’ll see more reductions in Artic Sea ice and snow cover, accompanied by rising sea levels and ocean acidification.
All those phenomena lead to the mass displacement of climate refugees. The most widely used prediction is that from now to 2050, two hundred million people will have to relocate due to climate change (3).
Remember that those are only scenarios, but they are based on assumptions about known facts and best estimates from those facts.
Regulation and Innovation
We can do plenty to ensure minimal harm is done from now on.
For instance, governments worldwide are already putting a price on carbon emissions to encourage corporations to reduce their environmental footprint, and it’s working!
Among the G7 countries, the world’s most advanced economies, CO2 emissions are coming down from their peaks.
Reference: Our World in data
Contrary to most developed countries, emissions in underdeveloped and developing countries are rising and will stay on that trend for the foreseeable future.
Most of them have a rising population, and eliminating poverty requires industrialization, which makes GHG emissions skyrocket.
The best example is China, which accounted for more than 30% of global CO2 emissions in 2020. In 1980, their contribution was less than 8% (4). The country raised hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty in the same timeframe.
Therefore, it’s arguable that it would be unethical to restrict developing countries’ emissions. To evaluate this issue, we need to compare the dire consequences of environmental policies on current populations vs. future civilizations.
Putting restrictions on countries, corporations, and people may not always be the preferable course of action, but one thing is for sure: we need to invest in innovation.
Finding new ways to produce electricity, make things, grow food, transport, and regulate temperature. That’s what will enable civilizations to grow richer while protecting the environment.
Some would argue that it’s everyone’s task to invest in innovation that will allow us to lose our dependence on processes that add GHG to the atmosphere. However, developed countries are in the best position to do so.
Conclusion
You can also do plenty at a personal level, starting with offsetting your greenhouse gas emissions.
Two hundred million climate refugees by 2050 represent a big chunk of the population, but it means it’s not the end of humanity, contrary to what we can sometimes hear.
I think this apocalyptic way of portraying global warming in most media is not only wrong but also contributes to the problem. I believe this narrative unhealthily divides people and can only push them to have unhelpful views.
Here’s a caricature exemplifying what I mean.
View of a person that adopts the narrative:
Why change anything if it’s not going to matter in the end?
View of one that doesn’t:
Oh, Is it the end of the world? Is it? This is complete bullsh*t.
We need to have more measured conversations for everyone to find a middle ground and open their minds to the reality of the situation.
The truth is that every initiative matters because the way to tackle this problem is incremental. We must do better today than we did yesterday. We must innovate.