The IPCC climate report is grim – but there is still room for hope
(The Guardian, 28 Feb 2022) There is only a small window in which to mitigate the worst effects. So make a change now, and make it one you can stick to.
If the prospect of nuclear war wasn’t enough, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) picked this week to drop its latest report on the state of the climate crisis.
The key findings are bleak, if familiar. Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly; many of the impacts will be more severe than predicted. Nowhere will be spared. “The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a co-chair of the working group producing this report. These health impacts are physical – increased chance of dengue fever, for example, or cardiovascular disease – but also mental: the suffering of living through storms, famine, heat stress, and the loss of homes and cultures.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, described the report as an “atlas of human suffering”, and it’s vital we remember that this suffering isn’t evenly distributed. In highly vulnerable countries, mortality from climate impacts is already 15 times higher than in some others. Despite being key to political questions of climate justice and climate financing more often than not, those most at risk are those who have the least historical responsibility for causing the problem.
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The Guardian, 28 Feb 2022: The IPCC climate report is grim – but there is still room for hope