Gut-Wrenching Climate Report Leaves Even More Fingers Pointing At Political Inaction
The latest report from climate scientists is a “final warning” about the shift in the global environment — and people are once again calling on governments to do something, anything.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the final part of six assessments into the state of the world’s climate on Monday, after hundreds of
The latest report from climate scientists is a “final warning” about the shift in the global environment — and people are once again calling on governments to do something, anything.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the final part of six assessments into the state of the world’s climate on Monday, after hundreds of specialists spent eight years bringing it all together.
The IPCC — which has been releasing warnings about the climate for 30 years — noted yet again that rising greenhouse gas emissions were about to pull the world past of the point of no return, with extreme weather leading to worldwide deaths just on the horizon.
But the scientists noted there was a chance of stopping the climate from increasing beyond the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in temperature compared to the pre-industrial age. Past this point, the damage to the environment would be irreversible.
ELVIS BARUKCIC via Getty Images
Stopping the climate crisis in its tracks needs urgent action though — and more than 3 billion people are already highly vulnerable to the climate breakdown particularly in the global south.
This new report is essentially a guide for governments to implement change ahead of the next IPCC report arriving in 2030, although it seemed to criticize political reluctance in its assessment of the state of our climate right now.
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on governments around the world to act and reduce emissions by investing in renewable technology.
This report from the IPCC, which advises the UN on rising temperatures, was agreed on by all governments involved.
But, Guterres still pleaded for wealthy nations to reach net zero “as close as possible to 2040” instead of waiting for 2050, as previously stated under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has just approved the opening of a new decades-long oil drilling site in Alaska, and the U.K. gave a new coal mine in Cumbria (expected to release 17,500 tonnes of methane annually) the go-ahead.
So, yeah — Twitter is naturally looking to world leaders to actually step up.
When will our governments listen?
I’m ashamed to have lived through the ultimate ignorance of humanity…
Will the natural world ever forgive us?https://t.co/4MS35xy53z— Paul Harfleet (@ThePansyProject) March 20, 2023
This image from today’s IPCC synthesis report is brutal. The existing policy trajectory represents a profound failure of our governments, and of our international political system. We need much more aggressive mitigation and much stronger international cooperation. pic.twitter.com/vQiSLzlI3g
— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) March 20, 2023
Of course, we’ve known all this for decades. All it needs is for governments to take climate seriously and act fast. https://t.co/7CQ68xBY5h
— Green Grandad (@greengrandad) March 20, 2023
The irony that it was an Intergovernmental Panel calling for governments to switch national policies was not lost on some users.
Great point for #IPCC leadership from a German reporter: In this report, “basically governments are talking to themselves here as a dire warning.” https://t.co/hM1Yn61TLC LIVE
— Andrew Revkin 🌎 ✍🏼 🪕 ☮️ (@Revkin) March 20, 2023
Others called for greater media interventions to put pressure on the government, too.
Every single journalist should be constantly asking the UK government what they are doing to respond to impending ecological breakdown. https://t.co/o7wqBIGZQG
— John Lubbock (@jwsal) March 20, 2023
BBC News’ Annita McVeigh also said that she was told by Climate Action Network International: “If climate change were a bank it would have been bailed out by now.”
And the ongoing international focus on fossil fuels was torn apart, too.
governments and companies spend more money making fossil fuels cheaper than stopping climate change or adapting to a hotter and less hospitable planet 8/ pic.twitter.com/8QwtpUdej6
— Ajit Niranjan (@NiranjanAjit) March 20, 2023
Of course, it’s not solely down to government policy, as several reporters and other Twitter users noted.
It stuns me that so many high profile people passionately continually tweet about Brexit, Suella, Blair, Johnson, Sunak, Iraq etc etc. but express no alarm about the climate crisis. These are often people with kids. It’s clear they just do not understand what this means pic.twitter.com/hJg4Wg43x7
— Matthew Todd 🌏🔥 (@MrMatthewTodd) March 20, 2023
And many noted that the scientists did not think it was a lost cause — simply that we need to do much, much more to have a substantial impact.
Policies so far have resulted in an actual, noticeable, analyse-able change in the trajectory of emissions. They’re still growing – but not as much as if we’d done nothing.
We know that our actions have meaning. We just need much, much more of them. pic.twitter.com/B3enjhP65y
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) March 20, 2023
0 comments