World Climate Report: Experts sound the alarm - "90 to 100 percent" bad consequences

The first climate report in eight years finds clear words.

If world politics does not change, the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement will be missed.

The consequences could be fatal.

Geneva - The climate protection measures planned so far will not be enough to save the world from a catastrophe.

In its recently presented report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlines the drastic consequences of the global warming that is currently expected.

The paper makes it clear: the world is heading for great dangers if nothing or too little changes in global climate policy.

The last report so far on the physical basis of climate change was from 2013. Much has changed since then, too much has remained the same - and some consequences have become more or less inevitable.

Co-author of the climate report: Ice-free Arctic Ocean probably no longer preventable

According to the Climate Council, "episodes with heavy precipitation will become more intense and frequent in most regions with further global warming," according to the report, which was written by more than 230 researchers from 66 countries. The further rise in sea level and the further melting of the ice are also predicted. The authors put the probability of all these processes at 90 to 100 percent. Even if the world population succeeds in achieving climate neutrality by 2050 - i.e. a balance between the production of carbon emissions and the absorption of carbon from the atmosphere in carbon sinks - some developments are unavoidable.

"We will probably no longer be able to prevent the Arctic Ocean from being largely ice-free in summer, at least in individual years," said co-author Dirk Notz from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology at dpa.

According to the report, it has also been proven beyond doubt that the climate has been heated up by human influence more than it has been for at least 2000 years.

In 2019, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was even higher than at any other point in time for at least two million years.

The consequences: rising sea levels, melting ice, heat waves, droughts and heavy rain.

Paris Climate Agreement: So far, there is a risk of missing the target

Five scenarios are listed in the report.

In two of them, the world will be climate neutral by 2050 and then store more CO2 than it emits.

These are the only scenarios in which the mean temperature rise could be 1.8 degrees or less by the end of this century.

Two other scenarios consider an increase of up to 5.7 degrees to be possible if CO2 emissions double.

With regard to the current climate protection policy of the governments, according to co-author Notz, a medium scenario is currently most likely: If emissions remained the same until 2050, the temperature would rise by 2.1 to 3.5 degrees at the end of the century - and thus the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement, Limiting warming to less than two degrees above pre-industrial levels would be a failure.

Furthermore, two developments are mentioned that are improbable but possible and would have fatal effects on life as we know it. On the one hand, this is the rise in sea level by two meters by the end of the century - this scenario depends on the further melting course of the Antarctic ice sheet. The second scenario deals with the collapse of the Atlantic overturning current (AMOC), which has already lost its force. It is responsible for the cold and hot water distribution in ancient times and influences the monsoons in Africa and Asia, which are important for billions of people. A collapse would also have an impact on Europe and thus also on Germany via the Gulf Stream. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are considered to be groundbreaking for global climate policy.

Baerbock, Schulze, Karliczek: Reactions to the climate report

Alarmed reactions also came from Germany on Monday.

Even before the official presentation of the report, Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock * called for

more international engagement

in the

world

against global warming.

Germany must also advance the expansion of renewable energies more quickly, bring about a mobility transition and claim to be the first industrial nation to become climate-neutral.

Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD *) reacted with clear words to the report: “The planet is in mortal danger and with it its inhabitants.” Schulze called for a quick move away from coal, oil and gas and an expansion of solar and wind power. Federal Research Minister Anja Karliczek (CDU *) also spoke of a warning signal that could no longer be ignored: “Thanks to improved observations, measurements and climate models, there is no longer the slightest doubt that we humans are changing the climate worldwide. “The next UN climate conference is to take place in Glasgow in November, the two-day meeting in Naples * at the end of July did not bring any groundbreaking results.

UN Secretary General António Guterres called the politicians to account.

"The alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable," he said.

The greenhouse gases are suffocating the planet and putting billions of people at risk. 

(leb / dpa / AFP) * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA

List of rubric lists: © Angelos Tzortzinis / dpa