The weather doesn't wait

The Arctic zone shows the drama of climate change.Pedro Armestre / © Pedro Armestre / Greenpeace

The very serious health crisis that the world is facing due to the coronavirus naturally monopolizes all the efforts of governments and citizens.

But the health emergency should not make us forget the other great threat that looms over the entire planet: the climate crisis.

Global warming continues to advance and, as the panel of experts advising the United Nations on climate change warns, the speed of impacts on the climate is greater than the ability of humans and ecosystems to adapt.

Therefore, it is crucial to advance in a fight that depends on the will of all public and private agents.

While prioritizing action against the pandemic, it is urgent to intensify ecological transition policies at the same time, as we cannot afford further delays.

The planet's temperature has already risen by more than one degree on average compared to pre-industrial levels, which means that there are places where the increase is greater.

Spain is one of them, with an average increase of 1.7 degrees.

All this translates into increasingly frequent devastating storms, rising sea levels, regression of beaches, flooding of deltas and marshes, disappearance of glaciers and advance of desertification, among other effects.

Climate models predict a sea level rise of up to 25 centimeters between now and 2045, and if the warming that has made the Arctic winter warmer is not curbed, the sea could rise as much as a meter before the end of the century , the worst threat to the 8,000 kilometers of Spanish coastline.

The fight against climate change has a crucial appointment today in the election of the next president of the United States.

The Paris Agreement has survived the four years of denial by Donald Trump and the consequent rollback in environmental measures in that country, but a second term could have irreparable effects.

The United States is the main historical cause of warming and, with China, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Now that the European Union, China and Japan have committed to achieving carbon neutrality (not emitting more CO2 than nature can absorb) between 2050 and 2060, it is vitally important that the other major emitter of gases join the reduction measures.

Trump announced in June 2017 that the United States was withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, but the signed commitment prevented him from materializing it immediately.

The exit deadline is just tomorrow, one day after the presidential elections.

It is now in the hands of North American citizens to maintain or reverse that path, rejoining the treaty.

In any case, it is clear that you have to act quickly and forcefully.