According to the UN body, global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius unless the world drastically reduces greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades, which will worsen the climate consequences, which the world is looking to avoid as it prepares to participate in the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28), to be hosted by the United Arab Emirates next November, as the cap ambitions rise to develop binding plans to protect the planet and stop global warming.
Land and forest clearing, as well as energy, industry, agriculture, and waste disposal can release carbon dioxide, and landfills are another source of its emissions. Greenhouse gas concentrations have reached their highest level in two million years and continue to rise. As a result, the temperature rose. Earth’s temperature is about 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in the 19th century, and the past decade has been the hottest on record, so what will happen to the world if warming exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius?
Climate change affects health, the ability to produce food, housing, security and work in various ways Some are already more vulnerable to the effects of climate, such as people living in small island developing states. salt water intrusion have evolved to such an extent that whole communities have had to make the transition, and it is expected that in the future the number of “climate refugees” will increase, and because the planet is a integrated system, and that all issues are related to each other, as changes in one region affect changes in all other regions, according to the official Emirates News Agency, “WAM”. .
And climate reports from the United Nations confirm that every decade since the 1980s has been warmer than the decade before, and nearly every region on Earth is experiencing more hot days and heat waves, and high temperatures are making the job work harder. exterior more difficult, and forest fires start and spread more easily. quickly. Bigger when it’s warmer.
Floods and destructive droughts.
Rising temperatures lead to evaporation of more seawater and hence heavy rains and devastating floods, and the frequency and extent of tropical storms are affected by rising ocean temperatures, as hurricanes, tornadoes and tropical hurricanes intensify with the presence of warm waters on the surface of the ocean, and such storms often destroy residential communities, and cause deaths and massive economic losses.
In turn, global warming exacerbates water shortages in water-scarce regions, increases the risk of drought for agriculture and therefore affects crops.Drought increases the vulnerability of ecosystems and can also trigger sandstorms and destructive dust that can carry billions of tons. From sand across continents, deserts are spreading, reducing the amount of land available to grow food, and many people these days are at risk of not getting enough water on a regular basis.
melting of the glaciers..
Last April, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization confirmed that the past eight years had been the warmest on record, while concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide had peaked.
The organization warned of the rapid melting of glaciers around the world over the past year, without being able to stop the situation in view of indicators of climate change reaching new record levels.
The organization said sea ice in Antarctica had reached its lowest level on record and sea levels had reached an all-time high, rising at a rate of 4.62 millimeters per year between 2013 and 2022, double the rate it had between 1993 and 2002.
The World Meteorological Organization report found that the average global temperature in 2022 was 1.15 degrees Celsius higher than the average for years between 1850 and 1900.
According to the report, the reference glaciers in the world, i.e. those with long-term data, suffered an average thickness loss of more than 1.3 meters between October 2021 and October 2022, this which is a much larger loss than the average for the past decade. , while cumulative losses in ice thickness since 1970 amounted to about 30 meters.
The European Alps have broken glacier melt records due to a combination of factors including a lack of snow during the winter, a desert dust wave in March 2022 and heat waves between May and early September from the same year.
Threat to wildlife and marine life.
The world is losing species at a rate 1,000 times greater than at any time in human history, and one million species are threatened with extinction over the next few decades. forest, extreme weather, and invasive pests and diseases are among the many threats. linked to climate change Some species will be able to migrate and survive, others will not.
The latest estimates from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) warn that more than half of the world’s marine species could be on the brink of extinction by the year 2100, and with a temperature rise of 1.1°C today, an estimated 60% of marine ecosystems The global marine ecosystem is already degraded or used unsustainably, a warming of 1.5°C threatens to destroy 70-90% of coral reefs, and an increase of 2°C would mean the loss of almost 100%.
Rising temperatures are increasing the risk of irreversible loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, and widespread changes are being seen today, including damage to coral reefs and mangroves that support life in the oceans, and the migration of species to higher latitudes and altitudes where the waters would be cooler.
food insecurity.
The oceans absorb around 90 percent of the heat generated by rising emissions, and as the oceans warm like never before, this will have a lasting impact on marine biodiversity and the lives and livelihoods of coastal communities and beyond, including some 680 million About half of the world’s population depends on fish for its protein and about 60 million people work in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors worldwide.
United Nations climate reports confirm that extreme weather events are among the underlying causes of the global increase in hunger and malnutrition.
Fisheries, crops and livestock can be destroyed or become less productive, and as the oceans become more acidic, the marine resources that feed billions of people are threatened, and changes in ice and ice cover in many arctic regions have disrupted the food supply from grazing, hunting and fishing sources. Fish and heat stress can reduce water and grazing grassland, leading to lower crop yields and affecting livestock.
Health risks and social unrest.
Climate change is the greatest threat to human health, through air pollution, disease, extreme weather events, forced displacement and mental health stresses. According to the United Nations, environmental factors claim the lives of around 13 million people each year, and changing weather conditions favor the spread of disease, while extreme weather events increase the number of deaths and complicate the monitoring of systems. health.
Climate change is also causing widespread poverty. Floods can wash away urban slums, destroying homes and livelihoods. From 2010 to 2019, weather-related events displaced an average of 23.1 million people each year, leaving many more vulnerable to poverty. come from countries that are more vulnerable and less prepared to adapt to the effects of climate change.
Solutions to keep global warming below 1.5°C
In a 2018 report, thousands of scientists and government reviewers agreed that limiting global temperature rise to no more than 1.5°C would help the world avoid the worst climate impacts and preserve a livable climate, but the current trajectory of carbon dioxide emissions could increase global temperature by up to 4.4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
The emissions that cause climate change come from all regions of the world and affect everyone, but some countries produce far more than others, as the 100 least emitting countries only generate 3% of total emissions, while the top 10 countries in terms of emissions contribute 68 percent. .
The World Meteorological Organization said switching energy systems from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as solar power will lead to a reduction in emissions that lead to climate change, and said: “Although a coalition growing number of countries committed to net zero emissions by 2050, it is needed About half of the emission reductions by 2030 are implemented to keep warming below 1.5°C.”
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