Prof Johan Rockström one of the world’s leading climate scientists has said that the climate crisis has reached a “really bleak moment”.
This is coming after several reports have shown how close the planet is to catastrophe.
Rockström said that collective action is needed by the world’s nations now more than ever before to avoid climate tipping points, adding that geopolitical tensions are at a high.
He said that the world was coming “very, very close to irreversible changes … time is really running out very, very fast” and that emissions must fall by about half by 2030 to meet the internationally agreed target of 1.5C of heating.
Reports on Thursday showed how both Shell and TotalEnergies doubled their quarterly profits to about $10bn. The two companies and others have enjoyed soaring profits as post-Covid demand jumps and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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It is estimated that the sector will amass $4tn in 2022, strengthening calls for heavy windfall taxes to address the cost-of-living crisis and fund the clean energy transition.
A report by the UN environment agency has also found that there was “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” and that “woefully inadequate” progress on cutting carbon emissions means the only way to limit the worst impacts of the climate crisis is a “rapid transformation of societies”.
Current pledges for action by 2030 would mean a rise in global heating of about 2.5C, a level that would condemn the world to catastrophic climate breakdown, even if delivered in full. This Is according to the UN’s climate agency.
There are only a few countries who have ramped up their plans in the last year, despite having promised to do so at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last November.
In his reaction, Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said that It is a bleak moment, “not only because of the reports showing that emissions are still rising, so we’re not delivering on either the Paris or Glasgow climate agreements, but we also have so much scientific evidence that we are very, very close to irreversible changes – we’re coming closer to tipping points.”
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
