Enlarge image
According to the world climate report, flooding due to heavy rain could increase in the future
Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
In the climate crisis there are only superlatives: record heat, floods of the century and monster storms are now the order of the day.
In Germany, too, people lose their homes due to flooding or die from heat stress.
At least after the last three summers of disaster, it is clear: people are suffering in the climate crisis.
Science can now also quantify this suffering: up to 3.6 billion people are particularly vulnerable.
In addition, according to the world climate report published on Monday morning, they live in regions that are particularly affected by the consequences of climate change - that is almost half of the world's population.
"Across the world, climate change is leading to increasing vulnerabilities, diseases, malnutrition, threats to physical and mental health, well-being and even death," the report's summary reads.
»There is no continent that is spared«
Affected are so-called warming hotspots such as West and Central Africa, Latin America, Asian countries including India, conflict areas such as Afghanistan and Syria, but also Europe and the USA.
"There is no continent that is spared," says Hans-Otto Pörtner, one of the lead authors of the new world climate report and climate researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), the SPIEGEL.
Researchers and government representatives already approved this second part of the current world climate report on Sunday morning.
This is published every six years and hundreds of scientists from 67 countries are working on it.
The researchers evaluated hundreds of studies and data sets for four years.
The government representatives from almost 200 countries still had to approve the final version of the "summary for political decision-makers" at the weekend because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is working on behalf of the UN.
This time it wasn't just a formality, because the report is politically explosive.
According to the scientists, the discussions at the – non-public – closing session were particularly passionate.
Some countries had long speeches, in between there were rallies of solidarity for Ukraine - even Russian representatives spoke out against the war and the actions of their government, participants report.
Things got really busy for another reason: the first part of the world climate report dealt with the scientific basis of climate change and the question of why the world is in the middle of the climate crisis.
Now everything revolves around the consequences for people, ecosystems and what politics would have to do to protect them.
It contains political explosives.
It's about how much money countries have to invest in coastal protection, how houses are converted to withstand storms and extreme temperature fluctuations, how old people are saved from dying from heat, or how safe residents of rivers still are.
Adaptation is expensive - according to the authors of the world climate report.
But doing nothing is much more expensive and painful.
The report consists of 18 chapters and three focal points:
The first group of topics summarizes the observed consequences of global warming and risk forecasts up to the end of the century: the scientists describe how droughts, floods and other extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and what damage they mean for people and ecosystems.
Billions of people are already suffering from water shortages, poor air quality, food shortages and heat stress.
In addition, the authors forecast the risks if global warming rises above 1.5 degrees and even by up to four degrees in many scenarios.
The second group of issues is adaptation to climate change: the researchers are evaluating which measures are already in place to protect people from the consequences, for example in extreme weather.
They note that most governments have not yet provided adequate protection - and that the funds for adaptation are distributed very unequally.
Thirdly, it is about "climate-resilient development", i.e. how climate protection and adaptation to the consequences fit together and how cities would have to be rebuilt to this end.
The time window is closing
There is no getting around climate change – that is also the message of the authors.
Because even if humanity abruptly shuts down all fossil power plants tomorrow and drastically reduces CO2 emissions, the climate crisis will continue.
Rapid action and limiting average global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees (currently around 1.2 degrees) could contain the losses and damage, "but not eliminate them completely," they say.
"We only have a small time window for climate protection and adaptation," says climate researcher Hans-Otto Pörtner.
“There are limits beyond which we can no longer do anything.” For example, some ecosystems would simply collapse above a certain temperature level, even if attempts were made to protect them regionally.
And technological adaptations – such as dykes or air conditioning systems – also reach their limits when extreme weather conditions are constant.
A graphic in the report shows how threatened the ecosystems are by further warming: bar charts with color gradients show when things get tricky.
They go from yellow (moderate) to red (risky) to purple (very high risk).
When it comes to forest dieback, for example, the world is currently still in the yellow zone - although in Germany large areas of spruce have already died and two thirds of the trees are permanently ill.
If the average temperatures continue to rise – and reach more than 1.5 degrees globally – the bar will quickly turn red.
In other ecosystems such as corals, we are already in the red at around 1.2 degrees of warming.
These are much more sensitive to global warming.
After that, it quickly turns dark purple—this color is synonymous with the extinction of a species.
With the eco-collapse, our protection is also reduced.
Without the cooling effect of forests, fish in the sea, or mangroves and corals to buffer waves on coasts, humanity is riding itself deeper and deeper into climate disaster, the scientists warn.
With global warming of two degrees, up to 18 percent of all species on land could become extinct, with four degrees every second plant or animal species would be threatened.
The pressure on the governments is great
"The new report is about what politicians should do about all these abuses and to protect people and species," says author Lisa Schipper from the University of Oxford.
She coordinated the chapter on thinking about climate protection and adaptation together.
"In the discussions with the government representatives, we noticed how politically sensitive these questions about adaptation are." The report criticizes the unequal distribution of protective measures, for example.
The possibilities of poor countries to adapt are limited.
They need support from industrialized countries.
"By officially accepting the report, the governments are recognizing this and of course financial demands follow from this," says Schipper.
This in turn plays a role in UN climate negotiations.
In addition, the countries have taken note that they have to take care of more nature reserves or convert their power plants and electricity systems to suit the climate.
This also increases the pressure on governments.
"We must redouble our efforts to adapt and make the homes, bridges, roads, health systems and food systems that we depend on climate resilient," said US President Biden's special adviser on climate change, John Kerry, in a statement.
The high price of doing nothing
The traffic light coalition has already called for more efforts to adapt in the coalition agreement.
A climate damage register is to be set up soon.
This is intended to map risk areas in Germany and record the costs to be expected.
Some programs for local authorities are also already running.
However, Germany is still lagging behind the developments - as the floods in the Ahr Valley painfully illustrated last summer, comments Daniela Jacob, climate researcher and head of the Climate Service Center Germany in Hamburg.
Without more effort to adapt, there could be even more victims of extreme weather in the future—and the losses and damage cost taxpayers, homeowners, and communities dearly.
"I was very pleased with the clarity of the World Climate Report," says Jacob.
"It has finally been made clear that climate change, ecosystems and our human survival are connected." Those who do not protect nature also harm people.
»In Germany we live in a society that has an infrastructure that was planned and created in the middle of the 20th century.
That made sense then, but is no longer up-to-date today,” says Jacob.
It is high time to think about the climate risks in all areas in this country as well - regardless of whether it is cooling old people's homes during heat waves or flood protection for settlements and factories on rivers.
"It's actually an opportunity for a better quality of life, but also for innovation and jobs," says the adaptation expert.
“In Germany we are poorly prepared for extreme weather”
This is also confirmed by long-standing experts from German civil protection.
"The frequency of such extreme events is increasing and we are poorly prepared for them," says Albrecht Broemme, Honorary President of the Technical Relief Agency THW and former State Fire Director of Berlin.
"In Germany we have not yet understood that we are now living in a new era - just as we have not understood how fragile peace in Europe is, we also underestimate the climate crisis."
The German civil protection must deal seriously with the consequences of the climate crisis and run through the "worst case" scenarios.
About a heat wave with a permanent 40 degrees that lasts three months.
"Then there is a chain reaction of failures that we would hardly be able to manage at the moment," believes Broemme.
Such a heat wave would have a domino effect: first the river levels drop, then the power plants have to shut down due to a lack of cooling water, and finally electricity has to be rationed.
“What happens when we can no longer cool rooms or old people die of thirst in their homes?” asks the catastrophe expert.
According to Broemme - and the report published today - all this is by no means pessimistic.
It is rather a question of time before such a scenario will also occur in Germany.
In the USA, such an awareness has been there for a long time.
There, forest fires and extreme heat waves in recent years have ensured that there is more precaution.
There have long been cooling centers there.
Such "cooling centers" are air-conditioned rooms in the town hall or local authorities that are open to those in need of protection during a heat wave.
In Germany, there is a lack of pretty much everything: firefighters, for example, need further training.
"The fires in the climate crisis are much stronger and longer lasting," says Broemme.
It is not just about helicopters, but also about firefighting drones or airplanes.
But there is also a lack of coordination.
If the worst came to the worst, the Red Cross, civil protection and neighborhood assistance would not work together.
People would also have to learn to take care of their neighbors in such extreme situations: »The state cannot take care of everything in such an extreme situation«.
But for that, the reality of the climate crisis must first reach everyone.
"These problems can be solved - but we urgently need to address them," says the retired firefighter.
