The experts have requested a study of the potential outcomes of a rise in the world’s average temperature that is greater than 5 degrees Celsius, “to which we are heading.”
According to this agreement, the temperature increase is capped at 1.5 degrees Celsius at the turn of the century. After the COP21 conference, which took place in Paris in 2015, these are the comments uttered by Francois Hollande, who was serving as President of the French Republic at the time. A limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius has been agreed upon by about two hundred countries as a limit to curb the progression of climate change. This limit is somewhat below the 2 degrees Celsius that scientists speak of in their books. On the other hand, there are already those advocating for a heightened awareness of the potential dangers of climate change in the face of an even steeper rise in temperature. According to Luke Kemp, a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge, “There has been little quantitative change in estimates of the global impacts of warming of 3°C or more.”
To this point, scientific study, warnings from a panel of experts convened by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the effects of climate change have all centered on a maximum temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius. Despite attempts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, “the current trajectory puts the world on track for an increase of between 2.1ºC and 3.9ºC” the scientific community has issued a dire warning.
Because of this, the researcher and counselor for Australia in ratifying the Paris Agreement emphasizes the importance of assessing the dangers associated with catastrophic climate change. He says, “Knowing the worst cases can force action.”
The warnings regarding climate change are ones that we are already acquainted with: increasing temperatures, more extreme heat waves, flooding, more prolonged droughts, and climate refugees. However, a climate scientist, postdoctoral researcher, and professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela named Dominic Royé warns, “We are not aware that there are changes in climate system processes that will be irreversible.”
According to the findings of the researchers, however, “the paths to disaster are not limited to the direct impacts of high temperatures, such as extreme weather events,” The study that these experts under Kemp’s leadership have produced identifies extreme climate change as a contributor to, among other things, new outbreaks of illness and financial crises.
The model that the group worked on suggests that by 2070, there may be two billion people living in regions where the average annual temperature is more than 29 degrees Celsius because of excessive heat. These regions have some of the highest population densities and some of the lowest levels of political stability.
At the moment, thirty million people are affected by these regions. By 2070, they will directly impact two nuclear powers and seven laboratories with the highest containment levels that house the deadliest viruses. Kemp sternly warns that “there is a serious potential for disastrous side effects.”
Calculating the effects of climate change
The scientific community has already begun attributing specific recent weather patterns, such as more severe rainfall or excessive heat, to climate change. Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, has stated on many occasions that the threat posed by climate change is an existential risk. This caution has been recognized in concept but is not followed in reality.
According to the United Nations, in the year 2021, CO2 emissions into the atmosphere rebounded to their levels from before the epidemic, hitting 36.3 billion tons, which was “the highest ever recorded,” According to a researcher from Cambridge University, “If this rate is maintained by the end of the century, the thresholds that triggered previous mass extinctions may be exceeded,”
According to Royé’s observations, “There is a call for exploration from a scientific point of view of possible catastrophic climate change,” The educator from the University of Santiago de Compostela notes that this statement “It doesn’t imply that it will be,” On the other hand, Kemp reasons that “the stakes are too high to refrain from examining high-impact, low-probability scenarios” because “the stakes are too high.” “The pandemic has highlighted the need to consider and prepare for rare, high-impact global risks and the systemic dangers they can trigger,” he says. “The pandemic has underscored the need to consider and prepare for rare, high-impact global risks.”
The dangers highlighted thus far by politicians and scientists are predicated on an increase in the average global temperature of three degrees Celsius by the end of the century. However, several scholarly studies have issued a warning that a rise in temperature of more than 5 degrees Celsius is likely to be “more than catastrophic” and that a rise of more than 6 degrees Celsius would constitute “an indisputable global catastrophe” However, as Kemp points out, “more research is needed to refine these definitions and the thresholds for global catastrophe and annihilation,”
Understanding its dynamics and impacts, monitoring the mortality, and the systemic risk that this rise in temperatures can cause are some of the pillars proposed as part of the research agenda for catastrophic climate change that the group is proposing that Professor Kemp is leading.
The most recent assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) states that by the end of this century, three-quarters of the world’s population “could be exposed to potentially deadly climate conditions due to extreme heat.” According to Lluis Brotons, a CSIC researcher working at CREAF, “The study by Kemp et al. puts the finger on the sore point of realism and a sense of precaution and raises the need to assess the implications of this type of scenario in a much more serious way than we have done so far, for example, through a specific IPCC assessment.” “The study by Kemp et al. puts the finger on the sore point of realism and a sense
Examining the repercussions
The Toronto Conference held in 1988 observed that “the ultimate consequences of climate change could only be exceeded by a global nuclear war” Despite the passage of three decades, “the climate catastrophe has been poorly studied and understood,” according to Luke Kemp.
The most recent findings from a group of experts convened by the United Nations to discuss climate change issued a stark warning: “little change in the impacts associated with a warming of 3°C or higher.”
According to the findings of their investigation, the group of researchers from Cambridge that Kemp is leading says that “climate risks are becoming more complex and difficult to manage.” “We have pushed several boundaries beyond their normal ranges in many aspects of the earth’s system. Due to the chaotic nature of the earth’s system, potential tipping points can lead to cascade effects that have disastrous implications, “Royé warns.
The University of Santiago de Compostela professor adds that the consequences of climate change are already being observed in deaths caused by heat. “35 percent can be attributed to climate change,” he says. Kemp states, “In the United States, this figure is underestimated.”
Temperature increases will bring an increase in the dangers associated with climate change. “There is ample evidence that climate change could become catastrophic, and we could enter such extremes even with modest levels of warming.” the author writes.