Contents

Emergency on Planet Earth 3

Part 1. How do we know that the Earth is warming? 51.1 Temperature records 51.2 But it feels colder where I live! 51.3 Hasn’t it been hotter than this in the past? 6

Part 2: Why is the Earth getting warmer? 62.1 What is the greenhouse effect? 72.2 What about the Earth’s natural cycles? 72.3 So is the recent jump in carbon dioxide levels our fault? 82.4 Can we be sure that human-caused increases in greenhouse gas emissions have brought about global warming? 92.5 Do climate scientists now agree that global warming is due to human action? 10

Part 3: What is happening to our planet as a result of global warming? 113.1 Extreme weather 11

3.1.1 Heatwaves 123.1.2 Wildfires 143.1.3 Reduced rainfall and droughts 163.1.4 Extreme cold 173.1.5 Heavy rainfall 173.1.6 Storms, monsoons and floods 183.1.7 Hurricanes 203.1.8 Costs of extreme weather events 21

3.2 Melting ice and rising seas 223.2.1 Melting ice 223.2.2 Ocean warming and rising sea levels 243.2.3 Coastal flooding 26

3.3 Impacts of climate change on marine life 283.3.1 Ocean warming 283.3.2 Increased ocean acidity 29

Part 4: What else are we doing to our land, our air and our water? 304.1 Damage to our land 30

4.1.1 Deforestation and loss of wetlands 314.1.2 Damage to soil 324.1.3 Loss of natural resources 33

4.2 Pollution of our air and our water 334.2.1 Air pollution 334.2.2 Water pollution 34

Part 5: What are we doing to our wildlife? 355.1 Species loss 355.2 Vertebrate loss 36

5.3 Insect loss 375.4 Bird loss 385.5 Fish loss 385.6 We’re entering the Sixth Mass Extinction 39

Part 6: Where are we heading? 396.1 How do we know how much warmer we will get? 406.2 How much warmer will we get? 40

6.2.1 What temperature rise are we heading to by 2050? 406.2.2 What temperature rise can we expect by the end of the century under current policies? 416.2.3 What about if global governments honour their planned policies too? 426.2.4 What about if governments carry out all their additional pledges and targets? 42

6.3 What would a 1.5C, 2C or 3C world look like? 436.3.1 What will a 1.5C warmer world look like? 436.3.2 How much worse would a 2C warmer world be? 456.3.3 What would happen if we reach 3C warming? 476.3.4 What about if we hit 4C warming? 48

6.4 Feedback loops and tipping points 486.5 We are in a climate and ecological emergency! 49

Part 7: What’s going to happen if we don’t act now? 507.1 Threat to our food supplies 517.2 Threat to our water supplies 577.3 Threat to our health 587.4 Threat to our infrastructure, trade and transport 607.5 Threat to our economy 617.6 Threat to our homes - mass displacement 627.7 Threat to our global security - conflict and political instability 637.8 Threat to our civilisation 64

Part 8. What do we need to do to address the climate and ecological emergency? 648.1 Aren’t governments working to bring greenhouse gas emissions down to net zero by 2050? 658.2 Carbon emissions are falling in the UK, surely we are doing enough? 668.3 Why bother targeting UK governments when the UK only produces 1.5% of the world’s carbon emissions? 688.4 So what do we need to do? 70

Part 9: What the experts say - some quotes 719.1 We are in a climate and ecological emergency 719.2 We have to act now 73

Emergency on Planet Earth Humanity is facing a crisis unprecedented in its history. A crisis that, unless immediately addressed, threatens to catapult us further into the destruction of all we

hold dear: this planet, its peoples, our ecosystems and the future of generations to come. This crisis has been caused by us, and we have to stop making it worse, or we will face catastrophe that we cannot think our way out of, invent our way out of or buy our way out of. It will affect every one of us and everything we love.

The science is clear: the world is warming and the breakdown of our climate has begun. There will be more wildfires, unpredictable super storms, scorching heat waves, rising sea levels and droughts. Vast tracts of land could be rendered uninhabitable through flooding and desertification. Our food supplies and fresh water are at risk of being cut off. Mass migration and famine could take us towards civil unrest, societal collapse, and ultimately war. But that’s not all. Around the world, biodiversity is being annihilated at a terrifying rate. We are entering the ‘sixth mass extinction’ event - with one million species at threat of extinction over the next few decades due to human intervention - and the consequences could be catastrophic if we do not act swiftly. Millions of trees are being felled to make room for our ever-increasing demands for palm oil, clothes and meat. We are running out of raw materials and using up our resources. Our rivers are being poisoned and our seas are acidifying and full of plastic. The air is so toxic that the UK is breaking the law: harming the unborn whilst causing tens of thousands to die prematurely.

“We are facing a man-made disaster of a global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years.” Sir David Attenborough

These climate and ecological crises can no longer be ignored or denied. In spite of promises from governments, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise steeply and biodiversity loss shows no sign of slowing. The time has come to take radical action. The future of our children, and our grandchildren, is at stake. We cannot afford to wait another second.

But how do we know for sure that this horrifying narrative is true?

In today’s world of fake news, misinformation and conflicting opinions, it can be hard to know what to believe. So we asked a selection of top climate scientists and ecologists to review the most robust and up-to-date scientific evidence surrounding the climate and ecological emergency, in order to reveal the truth.

Over the following sections, the experts present clear and unequivocal evidence - backed up by original studies - that we are indeed in a state of planetary emergency, that humans are to blame for this crisis, and why the arguments often used by skeptics or deniers are simply not true. They also provide evidence that our

governments are not doing nearly enough to address the crisis and explain why, without bold and radical action in the next few years, the impacts of this emergency will be catastrophic and irreversible, leading to incalculable suffering and loss of life.

Part 1. How do we know that the Earth is warming?

1.1 Temperature records

Temperature records (independently verified by the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change in Exeter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration US Climate Centre, The Japanese Met Office, NASA and Berkeley Earth in California) confirm that there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the Earth is warming. Since 1850, when records began, there have been small variations in the average annual temperatures - with some years being warmer than the previous year and some colder - but since the 1980s temperatures have begun to rise more consistently. Indeed, each of the last three decades has been successively warmer than the one before, and 19 of the top 20 warmest years have occurred in the last 19 years. The past four years have been the hottest on record. Overall, the average global surface temperature has now risen by 1.1°C since pre-industrial times - confirmed by satellite measurements and by the analysis of hundreds of thousands of independent weather station observations from across the globe. This temperature rise might not sound like a lot, but even tiny changes in the Earth’s temperature can have huge impacts, as we shall see below.

It should be noted that graphs are sometimes circulated by climate change deniers that supposedly show that the Earth was warmer than it is now in the recent past, or that the Earth is actually cooling. These graphs are misleading as they are based on false or misinterpreted data, or refer to regional as opposed to global changes. A good discussion of one of these misleading graphs can be found here.

1.2 But it feels colder where I live! Whilst the past 19 years have been successively warmer globally, there is enormous regional variation - along with short-term changes. This might make it seem, at times, like it’s actually getting colder where you live. For example it could be colder than usual in parts of Northern America, but at the same time hotter than usual in Canada. An extreme example of this is the Arctic, which has warmed at twice the rate of the global average due to a process called Arctic amplification. The key point is that overall the Earth is getting warmer.

1.3 Hasn’t it been hotter than this in the past?

Scientists are able to estimate the temperatures of the Earth going back hundreds of thousands of years by analysing air bubbles trapped deep within layers of ice. It’s certainly true that if we go back far enough the Earth might have been warmer before, but not since around 3 million years ago - long before human civilisation began.

Whilst it might indeed have been warmer in the past, changes in global temperature have certainly not been this rapid for over 65 million years - when the dinosaurs went extinct - and possibly not for 252 million years. Even these prehistoric increases in global temperatures, classified as ‘rapid’ in geological time-scales, took place over tens of thousands of years. Crucially, would have given many creatures on Earth time to adapt to the changes. The temperature rise that the Earth has sustained over the past 150 years has taken place at rates around ten times faster than any found in the past 65 million years of paleoclimate records.

To make matters worse, we have fundamentally undermined the innate ability of life on our planet to be able to adapt to changes in climate. In warming events of the past, some species would have been able to survive because they would have been able to move - towards the cooler poles or to higher altitudes. Today, we have destroyed so many of our natural ecosystems - and splintered many of those that remain into isolated patches, separated by roads and farmland - that forest species simply have nowhere else to go. Not to mention those Arctic and mountain ecosystems that are already living in the coolest regions of our planet. Modern humans are also poorly able to adapt to rising temperatures by relocating, as our global civilisation is dependent on agricultural systems that developed under the stable climate system.

In terms of what civilised societies are used to being able to deal with, recent studies show that since before the earliest days of the Roman Empire, global temperatures have never been this consistently high. A recent report in Nature that used 700 climate records concluded: “the near-global extent of ongoing warming is unparalleled over the past 2,000 years.”

The bottom line is that temperatures have never risen as consistently across the globe or as quickly as they have done in the past few decades. And never before, at least on this scale, due to human action.

Part 2: Why is the Earth getting warmer?

2.1 What is the greenhouse effect? The temperature at the Earth’s surface is controlled primarily by the levels of certain gases in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide and methane. Due to their molecular structure, these gases absorb heat that is emitted from the Earth’s surface (in the form of infra-red radiation) as a result of it having being warmed by the Sun, preventing the heat energy from escaping back out into Space. It can be said that the gases provide an insulating ‘blanket’ around the Earth, which traps heat in our atmosphere, keeping us warm.

This heating effect has been compared to how the glass roof of a greenhouse traps heat energy from the Sun, preventing it from escaping from the greenhouse and therefore keeping the inside of the greenhouse warmer than its surroundings. Hence this phenomenon has become known as the greenhouse effect and the gases known as greenhouse gases. The greenhouse effect is essential for life here on Earth; without greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, the temperature at the Earth’s surface would be around -18°C - far too cold for us to survive. Carbon dioxide is often thought of as one of the most important greenhouse gases as any excess can stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, being roughly 100 times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, however it has a much shorter lifespan in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. When averaged out over 100 years, methane has a global warming potential approximately 34 times greater than carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is constantly being absorbed into the oceans, as well as being locked into carbon compounds in trees and plants by a process called photosynthesis. Other living creatures feed off these trees and plants, taking the carbon compounds into their own bodies. These carbon compounds are then turned back into carbon dioxide through a process called respiration, which is released back into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is also released when dead matter decays and rots, or is burnt. This process of the removal and replacement of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is called the carbon cycle, and it is what has ensured that the levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere have remained pretty stable over long periods of time. That is, until now...

2.2 What about the Earth’s natural cycles? Analysis of air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice sheets reveals that over the past 400,000 years there have been periods in the Earth’s history where the carbon dioxide levels have risen and fallen, although extremely gradually. This is thought to be in response to natural variations in the way in which the Earth travels around the

sun, leading to changes in the absorption of sunlight which then impact the carbon cycle - a process known as orbital forcing. Such oscillations in the Earth’s orbit and carbon dioxide levels resulted in gradual changes in the Earth’s temperature, driving the transition into Ice Ages (glacial periods) and back out of them (interglacial periods).

Around 12,000 years ago our planet came out of its last period of glaciation. As carbon dioxide levels naturally rose, we warmed. Then, after about 2,000 years of gradual warming, global temperatures reached a plateau and we entered a period of climatic stability known as the Holocene. It is this stability that allowed humans to settle and farm. The, around 5,000 years ago, greenhouse gas levels started to fall again and temperatures began a slow decline, which would eventually have sent us towards a new period of glaciation.

However, a few thousand years ago, human action began to disrupt the Earth’s natural cycles. We began cutting down trees - reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that could be removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. At the same time, paddy fields were planted to grow rice, releasing methane into the atmosphere from bacteria growing in waterlogged soils. For a long period of time the levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere rose slowly and steadily and instead of continuing to fall, global temperatures stayed relatively constant. That is, until the last couple of centuries, when the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels resulted in carbon dioxide levels beginning to shoot up astronomically.

Today, carbon dioxide concentrations are at a record high of 412 parts per million (ppm), an increase of over 45% on pre-industrial levels. These are the highest levels seen in at least the last 3 million years. What’s crucial here is that whilst previous fluctuations in carbon dioxide levels due to the Earth’s natural cycles during those periods may have been significant, not only did they take place over enormous timescales, but they also never resulted in anything close to the levels of carbon dioxide that we see in our atmosphere today.

2.3 So is the recent jump in carbon dioxide levels our fault? Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been pumping enormous additional quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - especially in the UK - due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. Fossil fuels are naturally occurring substances that were formed millions of years ago from the remains of dead plants and sea-creatures. When these fuels are burnt, the carbon compounds that have remained trapped underground for millions of years are converted into carbon dioxide and released, adding extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that shouldn’t be there. In addition, deforestation on massive scales to clear land for

agriculture and livestock has released huge amounts of carbon dioxide, and has meant that there are increasingly fewer trees to absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

As a result, since 1850, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have been rising exponentially, and they continue to do so. Today, carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere faster than at any time in at least the last 66 million years. It has been calculated that, since the Industrial Revolution, we have released around 2.5 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide, raising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from about 280 parts per million (ppm) to 412 ppm. We are currently pumping a whopping great 110 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every 24 hours, trapping as much extra heat energy in the Earth’s system as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class bombs.

At the same time as humans have been burning fossil fuels and clearing forests, there has also been a huge increase in the number of paddy fields and in the breeding of cattle for the meat and dairy industries. Bacteria in the waterlogged soils of flooded rice fields release large quantities of methane - an extremely potent greenhouse gas - as do cows and sheep when they burp and fart, due to the presence of similar kinds of bacteria in their stomachs that help them to digest grass.

Today, global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities continue to shoot up at an alarming rate - despite all the policies and pledges from the government. Indeed, between 1987 and 2019 the rate of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere was four and a half times faster than it was between 1955 to 1986.

Anthropologists say that we have now exited the Holocene and entered a period dubbed the Anthropocene: an era in which humans are now the dominant influence on the planet. As Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University, recently put it:

“In just 100 years, fossil fuel use has more than undone 5,000 years of natural cooling. It's hotter now than any time in the history of human civilisation. We are catapulting ourselves out of the Holocene into uncharted territory. Current life on Earth is not adapted to this.”

2.4 Can we be sure that human-caused increases in greenhouse gas emissions have brought about global warming? In a word, yes.

Many skeptics still try to claim that the Earth is getting warmer due to natural cycles, volcanic activity, galactic cosmic rays or increased solar activity due to sunspots or

solar flares. However, a vast body of peer-reviewed scientific evidence now confirms that all of these factors have had a negligible effect on our current temperature rise.

The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that it is an increase in greenhouse gases, namely carbon dioxide, that is playing a major role in global warming.

Indeed, scientists have been able to show that there is a “human fingerprint” on climate change. Firstly, the Earth’s atmosphere is reacting exactly as we would expect it to if it were being exposed to an increase in carbon dioxide (as opposed to, for example, if it were experiencing increased solar activity). Secondly, the carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere has been shown to be the same carbon dioxide as is being released by the burning of fossil fuels. Thirdly, measurements taken by satellites show that it is this carbon dioxide that is trapping infra-red radiation from the Earth, causing the atmosphere to heat up. Like detectives gathering evidence for a murder, scientists are able to “fingerprint” increased carbon dioxide as the prime culpret causing global warming following multiple lines of evidence. As the IPCC Report says: “evidence for climate change is ‘unequivocal”.

2.5 Do climate scientists now agree that global warming is due to human action?

A study that looked at 12,000 academic papers on the subject of global warming or climate change published from 1991 to 2011 found that 97% of climate scientists agree that human factors (car exhausts, factory chimneys, forest clearance and other sources of greenhouse gases) are responsible for the exceptional levels of global warming that we are seeing today. To be clear, this doesn't mean that the other 3% disagree; it just means that their work didn't meet the threshold to show that it did.

In July 2019, Professor Stefan Brönnimann, Unit Leader of Climatology at the University of Bern and lead author of a key paper on the causes of climate change, confirmed that this number “is likely to have now exceeded 99%” and could rise further after separate research that clears up some of the remaining doubts. Brönnimann told a national newspaper: “There is no doubt left – as has been shown extensively in many other studies addressing many different aspects of the climate system using different methods and data sets”. According to Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London, “this paper should finally stop climate change deniers claiming that the recent observed coherent global warming is part of a natural climate cycle.”

Indeed, a few months later it was announced that the consensus has now reached 100%. Researchers analysed 11,602 peer-reviewed articles on “climate change” and “global warming” published in the first 7 months of 2019 and found that 100% agreed that global warming has been caused by human action.

Part 3: What is happening to our planet as a result of global warming?

3.1 Extreme weather overview As global temperatures rise, heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more intense and wildfires are becoming more likely. Increased evaporation of water from the oceans is causing rainfall to become both heavier and more frequent in some areas - resulting in bigger storms, flash floods and more intense hurricanes - whilst drier areas are becoming drier, increasing the risk of droughts.

Indeed, the number of extreme climate-related disasters, including extreme heat, droughts, floods and storms, has doubled since the early 1990s, with an average of 213 of these events occurring every year during the period of 1990–2016. Analysis suggests that 68% of all extreme weather events studied to date were made more likely, or more severe, by human-caused climate change. Indeed, the Bureau of Meteorology's State of the Climate 2018 report confirmed that climate change has led to an increase in extreme heat events and increased the severity of other natural disasters, such as drought.

There is also growing concern that global warming might be causing further disruption to our weather by weakening the jet stream - an air current that carries air around the globe, contributing to worldwide weather patterns. The jet stream is driven by the temperature difference between the equator and the poles. However, global warming is causing up to twice as much warming at the poles compared to the equator, so the temperature gradient between the poles and the equator is now decreasing. Whilst the evidence isn’t yet clear, scientists are currently investigating the worrying possibility that this reduced temperature gradient could be causing the jet stream to slow down, resulting in the air flow taking a more meandering, ‘wavier’ course - rather than a straight one. This could lead to natural weather systems progressing more slowly, increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events such as storms, floods and heatwaves lasting for longer periods of time.

Extreme weather events of the past few years have had devastating impacts on agriculture, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and leaving millions of people in need of humanitarian aid.

The UK is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of heatwaves, storms and flooding, and this will only get worse as our planet warms. The Met Office warns that summers are going to keep getting hotter and winters will get wetter.

“World leaders should be listening not just to scientists but also to the people who are being affected by extreme weather events right now. They are seeing it with their own eyes and suffering from it. Humanity just won’t be able to cope with the world we are heading for.” Professor Peter Stott, the Met Office.

3.1.1 Heatwaves An increase in global temperatures means that not only is the average day in many locations now hotter, but the chance of extremely hot days is now greater too. Indeed, human-induced warming has been found to make scorching heatwaves significantly more likely - and more intense when they hit. In fact there have now been more than 230 attribution studies around the world and these have found that 95% of heatwaves were made more likely or worse by climate change.

Increases in heatwave intensity are further exacerbated by the fact that warmer air also leads to drier soils. Dry soils can't absorb as much heat, thus excess heat is radiated back into the atmosphere, leading to positive feedback loops that cause even more heating and can trigger so-called ‘mega-heatwave’ events. Indeed, today’s heatwaves are around 4°C hotter than a century ago and inevitably lead not only to economic losses and widespread travel chaos but also premature deaths.

In 2003 the mega-heatwave that struck Europe - made at least twice as likely due to climate change - caused over $15 billion in losses. Approximately 70,000 more people died than usually die in an average year, and it is likely that the vast majority of these deaths were directly attributable to the extreme temperatures.

In 2010, the mega-heatwave that hit Russia was made three times more likely by man-made climate change, with temperatures soaring to around 10C higher than usual in the central region of the country, the highest temperatures in 130 years. The combination of extreme heat and air pollution led to an estimated 55,000 more people dying than in an average year, due to respiratory illnesses and heat stress. In the same year, a heatwave in India was estimated to have caused 1,344 excess deaths, a 43.1% increase over the average.

In 2013-2014, a heatwave in Australia, made up to three times more likely due to climate change, resulted in an approximately $6 billion loss in productivity, whilst in 2015 over 1,200 people died in a heatwave in Pakistan. In 2017 a record-breaking heat wave in Central Eastern China, made nearly five times more likely due to climate change, affected nearly half of the national population and caused severe impacts on public health, agriculture and infrastructure. In the same year, Pakistan saw an all-time countrywide record temperature of 54C.

In 2018, unprecedented heat and wildfires that “could not have occurred without human-induced climate change” swept across the northern hemisphere, killing more than 1,000 people in Japan. At least 224 locations around the world experienced all-time record-breaking heat. The sweltering heat in the UK that summer was made 30 times more likely by climate change. Hundreds more early deaths than usual occurred, while tarmac on the roads melted, farmers struggled for water and hay and thousands of houses suffered subsidence.

The situation is only getting worse. The searing mega-heatwaves of the summer of 2019, that would have been “extremely unlikely” without climate change, broke nearly 400 temperature records across 29 countries and caused widespread disruption - with wildfires breaking out in Spain and Germany and more than 1,500 premature deaths in France. Indeed, July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded, with all-time high temperature records being broken in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, England and Scotland. The extreme heat in France and the Netherlands was made up to “100 times more likely” due to climate change, whilst the record-breaking temperatures in the UK were around “20 times more likely” to have occurred. Usually around 2% of weather stations record new high temperatures in any given year, however in 2019 this number went up to 5% or more.

What is of particular concern is that the heatwaves hitting Europe have been more frequent and more severe than climate models have predicted.

“These records will be broken in a few years. What we see with European heat waves is that all the climate models are underestimating the change that we see.” Friederike Otto, Associate Professor Climate Research Programme, University of Oxford

If we continue to burn fossil fuels, it is predicted that by 2040 extreme heat waves will become an average European summer, and almost all summers will be hotter than that by 2060. Indeed, by 2050, under even a relatively optimistic carbon emissions scenario, it is predicted that 22% of major cities will be heated to the point that their climate is unlike any currently existing city. The climate of Leeds is predicted to become more similar to that of Melbourne, with scorching summer heat waves like in 2018 every other year. Globally, 350 million more people will be at risk

of heat stress. The UK will see a trebling of heat-related deaths - with 7,000 dying due to excess heat each year. By 2070 it is predicted that there will be around four heatwaves a year in the UK, with temperatures peaking at over 41°C.

The prospect of longer hotter summers may sound nice for some, but will cause misery for city dwellers who are unable to afford air conditioning, and for those whose workplaces will become unbearably hot. Not to mention those who work outdoors. The result in all areas will be loss of economic productivity and consequent loss of business and jobs. Indeed, heat reduces the productivity of those who work outdoors as they must work less to avoid overexertion and must take breaks to avoid heatstroke. In addition, in many countries we are simply not adapted to such periods of intense and prolonged heat and our transport systems will not be able to cope.

As global temperatures continue to rise, urban areas in parts of India and Pakistan could be the first places in the world to experience lethal heat waves - those that exceed the threshold for survival of a healthy human being resting in the shade. By the end of the century, up to three quarters of the world’s population could be at risk from such deadly heat extremes, with billions facing a ‘deadly threshold’. Indeed, a climate-modelling study of Northern China concluded that continued carbon dioxide emissions are likely to limit habitability and to lead to heat extremes that “exceed the threshold defining what Chinese farmers may tolerate while working outdoors.”

Under a high emissions scenario, the combined increase in temperature and humidity could become so high in some parts of the world that towards the end of the century there could be days when humans will not be able to tolerate being outdoors for more than a few hours at a time, especially in parts of the Middle East, India and China. Such extreme heatwaves “beyond the limit of human survival” are predicted to become normal in the Middle East if carbon emissions are not significantly reduced.

“The analysis clearly shows climate change has already changed our weather patterns and is having adverse effects on people’s lives. It is beholden on all governments to take heed of these warnings and start cutting carbon emissions as quick as possible.” Professor Mark Maslin, University College London

3.1.2 Wildfires To make matters worse, the hot, dry conditions produced during heatwaves not only increase the risk of wildfires but are also extremely conducive to the spreading of such fires. Indeed, hotter years have been shown to have more fires and the 2019 Lancet Countdown report found that human exposure to wildfires has doubled since 2000.

Wildfires not only cause deaths and damage to health, but also have significant economic and social impacts.

Recent years have seen record-breaking wildfires take hold across the globe, including in parts of Europe such as Portugal, Spain and Germany. We've seen a tripling in the extent of wildfires in the western United States.

In 2016, the Fort McMurray Fire in Canada, estimated to have been made up to six times more likely by climate change, burnt through 1.5million acres of forest and caused $10 billion in damage.

The fires that swept through California in 2018 - the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season ever recorded in California - caused more than $3.5 billion worth of damage and killed at least 80 people. The Camp fire, the most deadly and destructive wildfire in the state's history, killed 86 people and burned over 14,000 homes and businesses. It started during what is typically the rainy season. Experts say that as the climate warms, California's wildfire season is getting longer because the snowpack melts sooner. In the same year, Sweden experienced over 60 wildfires, including at least 8 above the Arctic circle, and wildfires ravaged Saddleworth Moor near Stalybridge in the UK. In 2019 we saw devastating fires blazing across the Amazon and at least 600 forest fires in Chile after record temperatures in January, whilst Catalonia experienced its largest wildfire in 20 years. Wildfires also scorched more than 13.4 million hectares (52,000 square miles) of Arctic forest in Siberia, with 11,000 square miles destroyed in just 3 months, making it the largest wildfire disaster in the history of Russia. Other parts of the Arctic caught fire too, from eastern Siberia to Greenland to Alaska, with more than 4,000 square miles of forest burned in Alaska. Thomas Smith, an Assistant Professor in Environmental Geography at the London School of Economics, told USA Today: “These are some of the biggest fires on the planet, with a few appearing to be larger than 100,000 hectares (380 square miles).”

To make matters worse, these Arctic fires are having huge knock-on effects on global warming. Smith said: “The fires are burning through long-term carbon stores (peat soil) emitting greenhouse gases, which will further exacerbate greenhouse warming, leading to more fires."

The devastating bushfires in Australia this year are now estimated to have destroyed more than 1,500 homes and killed over 1 billion animals. Experts had been warning for years that a hotter, drier climate would contribute to bushfires becoming more frequent and more intense. Dr Imran Ahmed, climate scientist as the Australian National University, explained: "What climate change does is exacerbate the conditions in which the bushfires happen.”

According to Dr Richard Thornton, chief executive of the Bushfires & Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre: “We will start to see the extreme end of the fire behaviour scale occur more frequently because of the increase of temperatures. Everything we normally see as variability between a good fire season and a bad season is sitting on top of that extra 1C - and that means that the severe events will occur more frequently."

3.1.3 Extreme cold

A warming planet might lead to more extreme cold weather too. Rising temperatures in the Arctic are thought to be increasing the frequency at which areas of the Northern Hemisphere experience polar vortex events, which occur when an area of low-pressure cold air that usually circulates over the North Pole destabilises, sending surges of freezing Arctic air southwards.

In the United States, a polar vortex event in 2019 resulted in the coldest January on record, with about 84 million Americans experiencing subzero temperatures. Canada also had record snowfall.

One theory is that a possible weakening of the jet stream (brought about by greater warming at the poles than at the equator), might be disrupting the natural flow of the polar vortex - bringing more episodes of extreme wintry weather to areas outside of the poles. Indeed, a study found that the frequency of polar-vortex events has increased by as much as 140% over the past four decades - possibly due to climate change - whilst another confirmed a connection between rising Arctic temperatures and severe winter weather in the eastern United States. The World Resources Institute has also reported a link between increasing sea ice melt and colder winters and more cold snaps in Siberia.

3.1.4 Heavy rainfall

As global temperatures rise, warm air and warming seas cause more water to evaporate from the oceans. In addition, warmer air is able to hold more water vapour - its capacity increasing by 7% for each additional 1C of warming. The resulting excess of water vapour in the air results not only in more frequent rainfall but also in a greater chance of extreme downpours.

Indeed, in the United States, 2019 was the wettest year ever recorded, whilst South West France saw its heaviest rainfall for 50 years. Denmark had its wettest March on record, Argentina and Brazil saw record rainfall in January, and part of Iran received 70% of its annual rainfall in a single day.

Over the coming years, the likelihood of extreme rainfall events is expected to grow more than fourfold in some regions, including parts of China, Central Africa, and the east coast of North America. The Met Office reports that climate change is already causing heavy rainfall events to be getting more frequent in the UK.

By the end of the century, Europe and the UK are “very likely” to see more heavy rainfall events, with the UK seeing around a 10% increase in yearly rainfall as a result of global warming.

One of the biggest problems posed by heavier rainfall is the increased risk of flooding (see section xxx).

3.1.5 Storms, monsoons and floods Increasing temperatures result not only in heavier rainfall but also in more extreme storms, which might be exacerbated by disruptions to our weather systems. As Michael Mann, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Pennsylvania State University, puts it: “When there's more moisture in the air, you're going to get more rainfall. You're going to get super storms and force flooding events. We are seeing the impacts of climate change now play out in real time. They're no longer subtle.”

There’s no doubt that climate change is having a huge impact on the frequency and intensity of storms and flooding events across the globe. A recent report found that climate change has increased the extent and frequency of flooding in the UK and other parts of northern Europe - particularly in parts of northern and western Britain. Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency said: "Climate change means the threat of flooding and rate of coastal change will increase significantly.”

Indeed, 2017 saw one third of Bangladesh being flooded, with over 700,000 homes being damaged or destroyed, while flooding in China - made twice as likely due to climate change - led to direct economic losses of around $3.55 billion, including severe infrastructure damage.

In 2019, massive monsoons and devastating floods swept across the globe: India had its heaviest monsoon in 25 years, leading to severe flooding and more than 1600 deaths, whilst in Syria, floods displaced more than 40,000 people. In Paraguay and Bolivia, floods and landslides affected more than 100,000 people and left at least 58 dead, and in Guadalajara in Mexico, 1.5m of hail fell overnight. In the Papua province of Indonesia, flash floods killed more than 50 people, whilst a state of emergency was declared in Russia due to flooding.

In East Africa, the strongest Dipole on record (the Indian Ocean’s version of “El Nino”) caused violent rain and flooding that displaced hundreds of thousands in Somalia and South Sudan, killing dozens in Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania. In North Egypt, heavy rains (reminiscent of those that caused terrible flooding in Alexandria in 2015, killing at least six people) paralysed Cairo and Alexandria, causing buildings to collapse and killing at least nine people: most of the victims, including children, died from electrocution by power cables that were submerged by floodwaters.

In the same year, Venice was hit by a storm causing the worst floods in 50 years and leaving Saint Mark's Square submerged under more than one metre of water. Saint Mark's Basilica has only flooded six times in the past in 1,200 years - four of these floods were in the last 20 years, with the last one only one year ago.

The severe storms that battered the south of the UK in the winter of 2013-2014 were found to have been made more likely by human-induced climate change, whilst in December 2015, storm Desmond caused very heavy rainfall in Northern England and Southern Scotland, leading to widespread flooding. An attribution study found that climate change had made an extreme rainfall event like this about 40% more likely. In 2018, brutal Atlantic storms led to the collapse of a stretch of sea wall at Dawlish in Devon, leaving the main train line connecting the region to London out of action for months, whilst in 2019, Yorkshire experienced soaring temperatures followed by thunderstorms and terrible floods, destroying homes and businesses. More than 500 homes were flooded near Doncaster and more than 1,000 properties were evacuated. Several areas were struck by a month's worth of rain in a single day, with some villages hit by their third “once-in-a-lifetime” deluge in the past 20 years. Trains were suspended; drystone walls collapsed and communities faced extreme disruption. Floods in this area are becoming more and more common. Dr John Marsham, a climate change researcher at the University of Leeds and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, told the Yorkshire Evening Post that the extreme weather is proof of a climate emergency. He said: "It is exactly what we expect from our climate change research, the UK is getting hotter and you can see that in the Met Office report. We're headed towards catastrophic damage. It's going to get worse and we have to adapt quickly. What we do in the next 10 years is critical to avoid catastrophic climate change."

Over the next decade, much of the world, including Europe and the UK, are very likely to feel the catastrophic impacts of more frequent severe storms. In areas that have been affected in the past by storms, this is almost certainly going to get worse.

The increased risk of flooding due to heavy rainfall and storms is exacerbated by rising sea levels, which makes storm surges bigger, increasing the risk that coastal waters will breach defences. Heading towards 2050, there are large parts of the

world, including the UK, that will be flooded on a yearly basis - the type of floods that previously might have only happened once a century.

As well as direct risks, flooding can cause chemicals from old mines to be swept up and dumped into rivers and onto farmland. After the millennium floods in 2000, levels of lead were much higher in rivers and were sufficient to kill farm animals grazing on the land. This will be a big issue with flooding in the future.

Dr Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment, told the BBC recently: “Join the dots. It's happening. It's happening in your world, it's happening in my world. And let's be very clear about this - it is going to get much worse.”

3.1.6 Reduced rainfall and droughts Whilst increased temperatures lead to more water vapour in the air, increasing the chance of heavy downpours in some areas, in dry conditions the excess water vapour actually makes it harder for clouds to form. This can result in reduced rainfall in areas that are already dry, increasing the chance of droughts.

To make matters worse, increased heat in the atmosphere causes moisture to evaporate more quickly from the soil, exacerbating the impacts of reduced rainfall in dry areas and leading to longer and deeper droughts - with major impacts on food production and water availability.

In 2015 a drought in Southern Africa - made up to three times more likely by climate change - reduced agricultural outputs by 15%, whilst in 2017 an East African drought, made up to twice as likely by climate change, displaced around 800,000 people in Somalia. In 2018 an intense drought in Cape Town led to severe water restrictions being put in place. The city came to within days of turning off its water supply – dubbed ‘Day Zero’. It has been calculated that climate change made the chance of a drought this severe go from a “once in 300 years” event to a “once in 100 years” event. If we reach 2°C warming, a drought of this severity will happen roughly once every 33 years.

2019 saw a harsh drought in India following a searing heatwave. Australia suffered its worst ever drought for the Murray-Darling basin, Tasmania had the driest January in 120 years, whilst parts of Zimbabwe had the lowest rainfall since 1981, pushing more than 5.5 million into extreme food insecurity.

Chennai in India is nearly out of water as its reservoirs have run dry. Lake Chad, a water source for between 20 million and 30 million people and a source of food and income through fishing - has shrunk by 90% since the 1960s. The UN says 10.7

million people in the Lake Chad basin now need humanitarian relief to survive. The situation has also been linked to the rise of terror groups in Nigeria.

According to a 2018 UN report an estimated 3.6 billion people (nearly half the global population) already live in areas that are potentially water-scarce at least one month per year. If we reach 1.5C warming, it is thought that 350 million people in urban settlements will be regularly exposed to severe drought by 2100. At 2C that number jumps to 410 million.

3.1.7 Hurricanes

While the overall number of hurricanes has remained roughly the same in recent decades, human‐caused climate change is supercharging them and exacerbating the risk of major damage. Indeed, the proportion of tropical storms that rapidly strengthen into powerful hurricanes has tripled over the past 30 years.

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy - made three times more likely due to climate change - killed more than 230 people and caused $62 billion in damage. In 2017 the largest-ever recorded hurricanes, Harvey and Irma, battered the Atlantic, causing more than 200 deaths and more than $125 billion in damage. Harvey was estimated to have been made 8-20% more intense due to climate change. Having crossed waters in the Gulf of Mexico that were up to 4C warmer than usual, Harvey intensified from a tropical depression to a Category 4 hurricane in just two days, dropping 33 trillion gallons of water onto the United States - an event that was described as “unprecedented” with “all impacts unknown and beyond anything previously experienced.” Hurricane Irma broke global records by remaining a Category 5 hurricane for three days straight. Also in 2017, Hurricane Maria left 2,975 dead in Puerto Rico.

“Unrestrained climate change means we will see many more Harveys in the future.” Michael Mann, director of the Pennsylvania State Earth System Science Centre

In 2019, the United States was hit with more than 200 tornadoes in a single fortnight, whilst in The Bahamas, the Category 5 Hurricane Dorian was the most intense on record, killing more than 60 people and leaving 70,000 homeless - causing the evacuation of entire communities. Typhoon Hagibis in Japan was one of the strongest in six decades, killing at least 83 people and leaving 6 missing, whilst in Mozambique in South West Africa, Cyclone Idai has been deemed one of the worst weather-related disasters to hit the Southern Hemisphere, resulting in 1300 deaths and many more missing, leading to hundreds of thousands of people being displaced.

According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the maximum intensity of hurricanes will increase by a further 5% this century, and experts predict that by 2070 it is likely that super powerful hurricanes will be hitting the UK on a yearly basis.

3.1.8 Costs of extreme weather events

Even though extreme weather events are getting more frequent and more severe, with millions of people displaced from their homes or requiring humanitarian aid, the number of deaths from natural disasters have actually dropped. This can be attributed to the fact that we are getting better at predicting disasters so many areas are now better prepared and can respond faster and more effectively. In addition, improvements in transport systems and infrastructure make it easier to evacuate people in time.

However, the economic costs due to the damage caused by natural disasters are skyrocketing. Less than half the losses from the 2017 extreme weather disasters were covered by insurance, and insurance companies are already warning that they will soon stop insuring basements in London, New York and Mumbai. More than 84,000 buildings in New York City, worth over $129 billion, now lie in flood zones, although new data suggest that these numbers are now likely to be much higher. In a recent address to the Japan Climate Initiative, Christiana Figueres, former United Nations’ Climate Chief, said that we are moving towards “a world that the insurance industry calls systemically uninsurable because the degree of destruction will be such that the insurance companies cannot deal with the level of risk that would be brought upon us.” She told Reuters: “The expense of a constant construct, reconstruct, reconstruct, frankly, no country can afford. Because we know we will be getting more of these effects, we cannot let ourselves get to a scenario where we are systemically uninsurable.”

Annual coastal flood damages are projected to increase 100 to 1,000 times by 2100 The authors of the study claim that the total annual bill from flood damage – which they estimate to already stand at $100 billion worldwide – is likely to increase Research cited in the new IPCC report suggests flooding costs are likely to escalate with the rising risk of flooding. The report says:“Climate change could increase the annual cost of flooding in the UK almost 15-fold by the 2080s under high emission scenarios.”

This increase is primarily due to population growth and changes in the value of buildings and infrastructure – but climate change is also partly responsible, the report points out. The UK government’s Foresight Programme, which the IPCC report also cites, estimated global warming of three to four degrees above pre-industrial levels could increase flood damage costs from 0.1 to 0.4 per cent of GDP. Another study projects the average amount insurers pay out annually for flood damage in the UK to go up eight per cent for two degrees warming and 14 per cent for four degrees, which the IPCC thinks looks likely by around 2060 and the end of the century, respectively, if emissions stay high. PriceWaterhouseCoopers estimates theprice tag of the current flooding, in terms of lost income, repairing damage and extensive clean-up efforts, is already in the region of £600 million– and expected to rise as the bad weather continues into late February. PWC said:“Our expectations are that the insurance industry will have up to £500m of costs from the January and December weather and the economic damage will be £630m.” Richard Holt of Capital Economics told the Independent thearea at risk represented around 13 per cent of the UK’s gross domestic product, and the loss of output in those areas would reduce GDP by over 1 per cent within a month, totalling £13.8bn. This is economists’ best estimate, but experts warn it’s hard to know the full extent while a lot of the country still remains flooded. Lord Stern, the Chair of the Grantham, who has publicly stated that the economic predicative models for a 4 degree rise in temperature was completely underestimated to the point he feels that he has failed.https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3081791/biggest-risks-omitted-from-economic-warnings-on-climate

3.2 Melting ice and rising seas

3.2.1 Melting ice Even really small changes in air and ocean temperatures can melt an awful lot of ice, causing sea levels to rise. This is exacerbated by the fact that the poles are warming, on average, around twice as fast as the rest of the planet, due to energy in the atmosphere that is carried to the poles through large weather systems. On 25th

February 2018, the temperature at the North Pole was a whopping 28C higher than normal.

Calculations show that over the past 40 years, the amount of ice we have lost from our planet averages out to 300 double-decker sized chunks of ice every second. The land ice sheets in both Antarctica and Greenland have been losing mass at increasing rates. Greenland’s ice sheet has now lost more than four trillion tonnes of ice, losing an average of 254 billion tonnes of ice per year over the past decade. In July 2019, 60% of the surface of the ice sheet experienced melting, losing a whopping 197 billion tons of ice in a single month. On 1st August 2019, the sheet lost more than 12.5 billion tons of ice in a single day.

To make matters worse, things are happening a lot faster than scientists have predicted. The most comprehensive survey of the Greenland ice sheet to date - based on real observations, rather than computer modelling - showed the sheet to be losing ice seven times faster than in the 1990s. The scale and speed of this loss is far faster than models have predicted, and is following what was considered to be an “unlikely and pessimistic projection” - threatening inundation for hundreds of millions of people. The rate of melting of the Greenland ice sheets recorded last summer were not predicted to have been happening until 2070.

“This finding should be of huge concern for all those who will be affected by sea level rise. If this very high rate of ice loss continues, it is possible that new tipping points may be breached sooner than we previously thought.” Louise Sime, Climate Scientist at the British Antarctic Survey

A similar situation is unfolding in Antarctica, parts of which are now warming five times faster than the rest of the world. The icy continent has lost three trillion tonnes of ice in the past 25 years, and is now losing 252 billion tonnes a year - that’s six times more than it was 30 years ago. The melting ice in Antarctica is causing three times more sea level rise today than it was in 2012. In 2014 a team from NASA found that parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet seem to have begun what they described as an “unstoppable” collapse. If they are correct, this would lock in around a metre of sea level rise. If we continue warming, we risk triggering the collapse of more sectors of the ice-sheets.

It seems they may be right. In January 2020, scientists revealed that a massive sheet of ice in the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, known as the "doomsday glacier", is melting far faster than experts had previously thought, with “huge implications” for global sea level rise.

"That is really, really bad. That's not a sustainable situation for that glacier." Professor David Holland, Professor of Atmosphere and Ocean Science at NYU

If the Thwaites Glacier melts, worldwide sea levels will increase by about half a metre. But this problem is exacerbated by the fact that Thwaites sits in the middle of the Antarctic ice sheet, where there's another potential three metres of sea level rise locked up.

Feng He, associate scientist in the Center for Climatic Research at The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, explained: “Essentially, we just don’t know how fast they are going to melt, whether the marine-based Antarctic ice sheet will collapse, or how quickly it will happen. By 2200, there is a possibility of 7.5-meter sea level rise when accounting for the instability of the western and eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet. This is really scary because, on paper at least, it shows that six to nine meters of sea level rise can occur with the same amount of global warming happening right now.”

The situation is just as terrifying in the Arctic, where sea ice is now declining at a rate of 12.8 percent per decade. In recent years, during a time when the sea ice should have been expanding, an area the size of Montana has melted. A 30-year record low Arctic sea ice recorded in 2012 was estimated to have been 70% to 95% attributable to human-induced climate change. Further thinning and retreat of Arctic sea ice is predicted to get so bad that it is likely that the Arctic will be nearly ice-free in the summer by the middle of the century.

“Sea level is rising much faster and Arctic sea ice cover shrinking more rapidly than we previously expected. Unfortunately, the data now show us that we have underestimated the climate crisis in the past.” Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor of Physics of the Oceans.

Arctic sea ice is what polar bears use to hunt seals on, so they are now being forced to forage on land where they have difficulty in finding prey. Dr Steve Amstrup, chief scientist at conservation organisation Polar Bears International, said: “If we allow the sea ice loss to continue, all the polar bears will soon be gone.” We are losing our glaciers too, and it has been estimated that approximately 70% of global glacier mass lost in the past 20 years is due to human-induced climate change. Switzerland saw record glacier melt rates during the 2019 summer heatwave, and that July scientists memorialized the demise of Okjökull, the first Icelandic glacier lost to climate change. Glaciologists predict that "all of Iceland's glacial mass will disappear in the next 200 years, with a massive impact to cultural heritage, tourism, hydroelectric power and fisheries."

A study has warned that Himalayan glaciers are melting at a dramatic rate too - losing almost half a metre of ice each year since the start of this century. Rising

temperatures will melt at least one-third of the Himalayan glaciers by the end of the century even if we limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

The IPCC warned that, by the end of the century, glaciers in Central Europe, Caucasus, North Asia, Scandinavia, the Andes, eastern Africa and Indonesia are expected to lose 80% of their mass. Indeed, a report published in April found that, under current ice loss rates, most glaciers in Central Europe, Western Canada and the United States could completely vanish by the second half of this century.

More than 16% of the global population rely on glacial water for drinking and irrigation. Melting glaciers in both the Andes and the Himalayas threatens the water supplies of hundreds of millions of people living downstream. In the Himalayas alone, this is a potential reduction in water supply for more than 240 million people.

3.2.2 Ocean warming and rising sea levels Whilst melting ice is depositing huge volumes of extra water into our oceans, it is not the only thing that causes rises in sea levels. As atmospheric conditions get warmer, the water in the world's oceans warms too, causing it to expand and take up more space. In fact, over 90% of the increased heat trapped in our atmosphere due to increased greenhouse gas emissions is being stored in the oceans. This makes the ocean temperature the clearest measure of the impact of human activities on our planet.

Indeed, the past five years have been the top five warmest years recorded in the ocean, and the past ten years were also the hottest ten years on ocean record. In 2019, the heat in the world’s oceans reached a new record level, confirming “irrefutable and accelerating” heating of the planet. It has been calculated that the heat energy being absorbed by the oceans is the equivalent of between 3 to 6 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs every second. All this heat energy causes expansion of the oceans and the melting of sea ice, resulting in rises in sea levels. The World Meteorological Organisation has reported that between 2016-2019 sea levels rose by 5mm per year compared to the average 3.2mm per year since 1993. This may not sound like much, but rising seas are already displacing hundreds of thousands of people from already vulnerable coastal areas in the South Pacific, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Over the last six decades much of the Isle de Jean Charles - once home to 400 people - has disappeared due to subsidence caused by oil and gas extraction and now rising sea levels. In November 2019 it was reported that five whole Pacific Islands - part of the Solomon Islands - have now been entirely lost to rising sea levels, with a further six having large parts of their coastline eroded, destroying entire villages.

The most recent report from the IPCC warned that if carbon emissions continue to increase in line with current projections, we could be experiencing a sea level rise of up to one metre by 2100 – with sea levels rising ten times faster than in the 20th century. Given that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is responding to climate change even more quickly than scientists first thought, some projections (that include rapid breakup of this ice sheet) suggest that we could even be headed towards a rise of two metres by 2100. Even if greenhouse gases are rapidly cut and global warming is kept to well below 2C, ocean temperatures will go on rising and ice will continue melting until greenhouse gas levels are well below current levels - meaning sea levels could still rise by around 30cm to 60cm by the end of the century. Indeed, the IPCC report warned that many serious impacts of climate change are already inevitable, whether greenhouse gas emissions are curbed or not. Professor Jonathan Bamber, director of the Bristol Glaciology Centre at the University of Bristol, told The Independent “The result is that ice is going to disappear faster than ever: some mountain regions such as the Alps could be almost completely deglaciated by 2100. Sea level rise is projected to continue whatever the emission scenario and for something like business-as-usual the future for low-lying coastal communities looks extremely bleak. The consequences will be felt by all of us.”

Andrew Shepherd, Professor of earth observation at the University of Leeds, told The Guardian: “[These impacts] are happening and will be devastating for coastal communities.”

According to Colette Pichon Battle, Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy: “The impact on families is going to be something that I don't think we could ever prepare for.”

3.2.3 Coastal flooding

Flooding of coastal cities due to storms exacerbated by rising sea levels is already having a huge impact across the globe. In 2019, Venice saw its highest tide in 50 years, with storms resulting in terrible flooding, whilst massive floods are already being experienced in Lagos in Nigeria and Alexandria in Egypt, which both lie low along coastlines. In Miami, ‘king tides’ are causing unprecedented flooding.

A recent article in Nature reported that, by 2050, climate change will put three times more people at risk of coastal flooding due to rising sea levels than was previously thought. Huge swathes of Asia and cities in North America and Europe will be

vulnerable to such rising seas, including large areas of the Netherlands, London, New York, Miami, Tokyo and other parts of the industrialised world.

The IPCC warns that by 2050, due to a combination of rising seas and more intense storms, the sort of extreme flooding events previously occurring only once a century could be happening every year.

Even if governments manage to make sharp cuts in emissions, by 2050 land currently inhabited by more than 300 million people is likely to flood at least once a year - including large areas of China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. Cities most at risk from sea level rise include Kolkata, Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, Bangkok and Miami. In Vietnam, almost 25% of the population - that’s more than 20 million people - live on land that is likely to be underwater at least once a year by 2050. That’s the same for 10% of people in Thailand. Southern Vietnam could practically disappear, as could Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, triggering local conflicts.

In the UK, large parts of the English coastline and areas around its rivers, such as Sussex, Kent and Cambridgeshire, are also predicted to regularly fall below sea level by 2050. The Environment Agency estimates that 800 coastal homes will be lost in the next 15 years and that rising seas are likely to eventually force many people to have to relocate. The residents of sea-threatened Fairbourne in Wales could be the first such community. Sea defences in this area will stop being maintained in the 2050s, but the local council says it may begin “decommissioning” the village before then and start moving residents out.

Without major investment, flooding in cities across the globe is forecast to cost over US$1 trillion per year by 2050. Even with investment in protection, this damage would still cost around US$60 billion per year - 10 times higher than it does today.

By 2080, it is predicted that huge areas of land across the globe could become uninhabitable, leading to unprecedented mass displacement.

If emissions continue on their current path, by the end of the century the Earth’s temperature is forecast to reach around 3C warming, leading to an average sea level rise of around 1 metre. This will cause land currently inhabited by 250 million people to be below the waterline at high tide - resulting in daily flooding - with some island nations “likely to become uninhabitable”. Rising seas are predicted to displace 680 million people in low-lying coastal zones, along with 65 million citizens of small island states. Low-lying cities such as Lagos in Nigeria and Alexandria in Egypt are likely to entirely disappear, threatening the business environment and human existence. In Europe, by the end of the century an additional 250,000 to 400,000 people would be exposed to river flooding each year, and up to 5.5 million per year to coastal

flooding - although newer studies suggest that it is now likely that these numbers will actually be significantly higher.

The UK is likely to be one of the worst affected locations. The Environment Agency estimates that 7,000 properties around England and Wales, worth more than £1 billion, will be lost to rising seas over the next century as coastlines erode. They say that the cost of protecting these properties is considered to be too high. The Committee on Climate Change had previously warned that 1.2 million homes in England will be at significant risk from coastal flooding by 2080, though this number is likely to now be far higher. They warned that a third of the coastline cannot be affordably protected, with current governmental plans ‘not fit for purpose’. The report also stated that 1,600km of major roads, 650km of railway line, 92 railway stations and 55 historic landfill sites are at risk of coastal flooding or erosion by 2100.

By 2300, it is predicted that there will be several metres of sea level rise, causing billions of people to be displaced.

It is important to consider that even in coastal areas across the globe that are not low-lying enough to be at risk of annual flooding by 2050, rising sea levels add to the risk that fierce storms - made more likely by global warming - will cause storm surges. Against a baseline of rising sea levels, such extreme surges are far more likely to break flood defences, with devastating impacts on hundreds of millions of coastal communities around the world.

To make matters worse, nearly half of the world’s coastal wetlands, which usually provide natural protection from flooding (as well as being important stores of carbon), have been lost over the last 100 years – due to sea level rises, global warming, human activity, and extreme weather events. In the United States alone, wetlands are estimated to provide about $23 billion worth of storm protection every year.

3.3 Impacts of climate change on marine life

3.3.1 Ocean warming

Excess heat in our oceans is having devastating impacts on marine life. Scientists have warned that marine heatwaves are sweeping oceans “like wildfires”, with extreme temperatures killing swathes of sea-life and destroying crucial species that provide shelter and food to many others - such as seagrass, kelp and corals. Such ocean heatwaves are becoming more frequent, prolonged and severe, with the number of heatwave days tripling in the last couple of years.

Repeated heat stress has now caused nearly half of the world's corals to bleach and then die. 30% of the coral cover on The Great Barrier Reef has been lost since just 2016.

According to the 2018 IPCC special report, 70-90% of all coral reefs are expected to die with just 1.5°C of warming above pre industrial levels, and more than 99% at 2°C - the “safe” level of warming in international negotiations. That is near total destruction of some of the most important and diverse ecosystems on the planet, which support up to one million other species and provide food, protection from storms and livelihoods for nearly one billion people. Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, said - “20 years from now, every summer will be too hot for corals: they will disappear as dominant members of tropical reef systems by 2040-2050. It’s hard to argue it any other way.” Or as Michael Mann, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Pennsylvania State University, put it -“Our generation is going to be responsible for the loss of one of the most majestic ecosystems on the face of the Earth. We're literally watching the death of this natural wonder.” In addition, ocean warming causes the oxygen that is usually dissolved in seawater to become less soluble. This leads to areas of water with depleted levels of oxygen, which can lead to suffocation of the sea creatures living within it. Whilst ‘low-oxygen zones’ do sometimes occur naturally, in the last 70 years they have grown by more than 4.5 million square kilometers - an area roughly as large as the entire European Union.

Sites where oxygen levels are exceedingly low are known as ocean ‘dead zones’. Since 1950, the number of these dead zones has increased by a factor of 10, with scientists now able to identify 500 such sites along the coasts. Rising temperatures and pollution are believed to be at least partly to blame.

An additional concern is that areas with extremely low oxygen seem to produce their own greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide. This leads to the potential for the setting up of dangerous positive feedback loops - whereby warming increases low-oxygen areas, which produce greenhouse gases, which then bring about more warming.

Loss of creatures such as coral, seagrass and kelp is already having devastating knock-on effects on the rest of the ocean ecosystems. Ocean warming has already reduced sustainable fish catches by 15-35% in five regions, including the North Sea and the East China Sea, and by 4% globally, and there’s been up to 35% decline in North Atlantic fish yields.

A recent report found that staying below 2C warming would protect almost 10 million tonnes of fish every year, worth tens of billions of dollars, whilst another recent study

warned that loss of krill due to ocean warming is currently threatening to reverse the rejuvenation of whale populations in the Southern Ocean - with models predicting alarming declines in numbers, and even local extinctions by 2100.

Dr Éva Plagányi at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia told The Guardian: “unless we take evasive action, our future oceans will have fewer fish, fewer whales and frequent dramatic shifts in ecological structure will occur, with concerning implications for humans who depend on the ocean.”

3.3.2 Increased ocean acidity

It is not only the warming of the oceans that is causing problems to the creatures living in our seas. More than one third of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is absorbed by seawater, altering its chemistry and making it more acidic. Increases in acidity affect marine life, from shellfish like clams and oysters to whole coral reef communities, by removing minerals that they require in order to grow their shells. We are already seeing coral bleaching as a result, and off the west coast of the United States increases in acidity is dissolving the shells of tiny free-swimming marine snails that provide food for pink salmon, mackerel and herring.

Present ocean acidification is occurring approximately ten times faster than anything experienced during the last 300 million years, jeopardising the ability of ocean systems to adapt. The oceans are already 30% more acidic relative to the beginning of the industrial era and, at our current emissions trajectory, it is predicted that this will rise to 150% by the end of the century. These oceanic conditions would be unlike anything marine ecosystems have experienced for the last 14 million years.

Under such conditions, many shell-secreting sea creatures would simply not survive. Given that most of these creatures are at the bottom of the food chain, their loss would lead to catastrophic knock-on effects in entire ecosystems that depend on them.

An additional concern is that acidification has been found to make some fish more sensitive to low oxygen, exacerbating the impacts of oxygen depletion brought about by ocean warming.

Part 4: What else are we doing to our land, our air and our water?

As well as pumping out increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with devastating impacts on our climate systems, we are also damaging our land, using up its resources, polluting our waters and poisoning the very air we breathe.

4.1 Damage to our land A recent government report revealed that 75% of the Earth’s land has been “severely altered” by human actions such as industry and farming. A staggering 77% of rivers longer than 1000km no longer flow freely from source to sea and 66% of the ocean surface is experiencing cumulative impacts of human action.

4.1.1 Deforestation and loss of wetlands Rainforests across the globe are being cleared at ever-increasing rates, to provide land for growing soybeans and rubber, and pasture for cattle. Since humans began to walk to Earth, half of the world’s vegetation has been lost, with forest cover now only at 68% of what it was in preindustrial times. It is estimated that around 3 trillion trees have now been cut down. Between 1990 and 2015, 180 million more hectares of native forest were lost than were planted.

Intensive agriculture is by far the biggest driver of global deforestation, with one third of the world’s crops being grown to feed to livestock. Today more than 50% of the surface of the UK is used for grazing livestock and growing grass.

Another big cause of global deforestation is our ever-increasing demand for palm oil, which is found in a myriad of products such as soaps, shampoo, chocolate, bread and even crisps.

According to the latest government data, deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon is now occurring faster than three football fields a minute, pushing the world’s biggest rainforest closer to a tipping point beyond which it cannot recover. In the first 9 months of 2019, almost 3000 square miles of Brazilian rainforest were felled - 85% more than was felled in 2018. In July alone, Brazil lost an area of forest bigger than the size of Greater London.

Deforestation (mostly for extensive cattle ranching and agriculture), combined with illegal logging and fires, has led to nearly 20% of the Amazon rainforest vanishing in the past 50 years. This is bringing the Amazon close to a dangerous tipping point (see section on Tipping Points). “It’s very important to keep repeating these concerns. There are a number of tipping points, which are not far away. We can’t see exactly where they are,

but we know they are very close. It means we have to do things right away. Unfortunately that is not what is happening. There are people denying we even have a problem.” Philip Fearnside, Professor at Brazil’s National Institute of Amazonian Research Not only does deforestation lead to the loss of habitats of millions of living creatures - not to mention the homes of indigenous people - but it also increases the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. When forests that are centuries old are cleared and burned, not only can the trees no longer remove carbon dioxide from the air, but also their burning releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Trees are now being cut down and burnt at such a rate that nearly a third of our carbon dioxide emissions are caused by deforestation. Whilst deforestation is occurring at a devastating rate, the destruction of our wetlands, in percentage terms, is occurring three times faster. More than 85% of the wetlands that were present in the 1700s have now been lost, with 50% being lost in the last 100 years. It is believed that warmer climates and more severe weather are primarily to blame. In the United States alone, wetlands are estimated to provide about $23 billion worth of storm protection every year.

In the UK, vulnerable river and wetland ecosystems unique to this country are being over exploited to provide water to our homes.

4.1.2 Damage to soil More than 95% of what we eat is dependent on the presence of healthy soil. Increased deforestation, overgrazing and the use of chemicals in recent years have caused a dramatic increase in the rates of soil erosion and degradation – a problem that is greatly exacerbated by the increase of extreme weather events associated with climate change. In addition, current farming practices in many places treat the soil so carelessly that it’s losing its capacity to support us.

50% of the planet’s topsoil has been lost in the last 150 years, leading to increased pollution, flooding and desertification. Desertification currently affects more than 2.7 billion people across the globe. Once topsoil has been lost it is extremely hard to replace it. Not only does it take about 500 years to form 2.5cm of topsoil, but earthworms - creatures that usually play a key role in the restoration of degraded soils - cannot compensate for this loss as they too are being depleted by 80% or more by the chemicals used in intensive farming.

Our soil is being damaged so quickly, that according to a senior UN official we have just 60 years of harvests left.

As the soil degrades and does not hold water efficiently, agriculture relies more on fertilisers and irrigation to maintain high yield, causing more pollution to our rivers.

Current agricultural practices have also led our soils to become more acidic, whilst groundwater irrigation is leading to increased salinity with recent projections warning that 50% of all arable land will become impacted by salinity by 2050. In Bangladesh, flooding from sea level rises, storm surges and tidal surges are all leading to increased soil salinity.

Here in the UK, nearly 85% of fertile peat topsoil in East Anglia has been lost since 1850, with the remainder at risk of being lost over the next 30–60 years.

“The UK is 30 to 40 years away from the fundamental eradication of soil fertility.” Michael Gove

4.1.3 Loss of natural resources

We are running out of a huge number of our natural resources. Approximately 60 billion tonnes of renewable and nonrenewable resources are extracted globally each year, up nearly 100% since 1980.

4.2 Pollution of our air and our water Pollution is the world’s largest environmental cause of disease and premature death. A study found that, in 2015, pollution was responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths – that’s 16% of all deaths worldwide.

4.2.1 Air pollution By far the largest proportion of premature deaths from pollution is due to air pollution, mostly from small particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs. Globally, a staggering 9 out of 10 people breathe polluted air.

Exposure to air pollutants has been linked to a huge range of diseases, from lung cancer and respiratory infections to stroke, dementia and even diabetes. Young children, and those with pre-existing health conditions such as asthma and old people are particularly vulnerable.

Globally, ambient air pollution is responsible for 4.2 million deaths per year, whilst household air pollution accounts for an additional 2.8 million deaths. Most of these deaths occur in low- to middle-income countries and are largely preventable by using

modern technologies, such as by using cleaner fuels or electricity to replace inefficient solid-fuel burning cook stoves, or using solar powered lights instead of kerosene lamps.

In 2017 roughly 1.24 million people in India died from air pollution - that’s 13% of all deaths in the country. Across Europe, toxic air results in more than 400,000 early deaths each year. Here in the UK, air pollution is the biggest environmental threat to health, with between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths a year attributed to long-term exposure. Over 60% of people in England are living in areas which exceed the World Health Organisation's legal limits for air pollution, with more than 40 towns and cities in the UK (including London, Manchester and Swansea) being at, or exceeding, these limits. In London alone, two million people are living with illegal toxic air - of which more than 400,000 are children - and 32 out of 33 boroughs exceed legal air quality limits. Air pollution in London has been estimated to cause the deaths of 24 people every single day. As the planet warms, rising temperatures are likely to push up levels of urban air pollution, increasing incidences of respiratory illnesses, especially in children and elderly people.

In 2010, the UK’s Environment Audit Committee found that the cost of health impacts of air pollution was likely to exceed estimates of £8 to 20 billion.

As global temperatures rise, levels of urban air pollution are likely to increase, further increasing incidences of respiratory illnesses, especially in children and elderly people.

4.2.2 Water pollution According to a government report, 66% of our marine environments have been significantly altered by industry, farming, and overfishing. Since 1980, there has been a ten-fold increase in plastic pollution, with now an estimated 300kg of plastic entering the ocean every second. This adds up to a staggering 4.8-12.7 million metric tonnes of consumer plastics ending up in the world’s oceans each year. Plastic pollution has resulted in the presence of more than 100 million particles of macroplastics in only 12 regional seas worldwide, and 51 trillion particles of microplastic floating on the ocean surface globally. Whilst plastics pollute the seas, nitrates from the use of agricultural fertilisers are now the most common chemical contaminant in our groundwater. These nitrates can find their way into lakes and coastal waters, dramatically affecting the plants and animals growing within. In addition, 300-400 million tonnes of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge, and other wastes from industrial facilities are dumped annually into the world’s waters.

More than 80% of global wastewater is discharged untreated into the environment and 40% of the global population lacks access to clean and safe drinking water. It’s not just human waste that ends up in rivers: animal waste from intensive farming is flowing continuously into rivers across the globe. In America, factory farms produce 13 times more sewage than all the humans put together. In England and Wales only 14% of rivers are in good ecological health.

Part 5: What are we doing to our wildlife?

We rely on other living creatures, not just to provide us with oxygen, food, medicine and raw materials, but also to help us control floods, to regulate our climate, clean our water and our air, form fertile soil and pollinate our crops. Not to mention the cultural impacts of nature, for education, recreation and spiritual growth.

But since the 1970s we’ve lost 40-50% of the world’s wildlife, due to a combination of climate change, habitat destruction, overconsumption and pollution.

In 2019, a Global Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the most comprehensive assessment of its kind, revealed that the current biodiversity crisis is on a par with the threat posed by climate change. The report stated: “Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history - and the rate of species extinction is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely.”

“The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” Sir Robert Watson, Chair of the IPBES

The authors of a review of the findings of the largest assessment of the state of nature, write: “Human actions are causing the fabric of life to unravel, posing serious risks for the quality of life of people. Only immediate transformation of global business-as-usual economies and operations will sustain nature as we know it, and us, into the future.”

5.1 Species loss The IPBES report estimated that a million species of animal and plant are already threatened with extinction because of human action, many within decades. It gave the main direct causes of biodiversity loss as habitat change, direct exploitation (e.g. fishing, hunting and logging), invasive alien species, pollution, and climate change.

Of the approximately 100,000 species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, more than a quarter were found to be threatened with extinction. That included 40% of all amphibians, 25% of all mammals, 34% of all conifers, 14% of all birds, 33% of reef-building corals, 31% of sharks and rays.

Local extinctions related to climate change are already widespread. A study found that in nearly half of the 976 species surveyed, climate-related local extinctions had already occurred. The 2016 State of Nature report found that the UK was “amongst the most nature-depleted countries in the world'' with populations of hedgehogs and water voles declining by almost 70% in just the past 20 years and a staggering 1 in 5 British mammals at risk of extinction. Their most recent report, published in October 2019, revealed that the “UK's wildlife loss continues unabated” and that the proportion at risk has now risen to 1 in 4. The report also found that 41% of the species studied have fallen since 1970, 15% of species are under threat of extinction and 2% have already gone for good. Butterflies and moths are down by 17% and 25% respectively, whilst numbers of high brown fritillary and grayling butterflies have fallen by more than three quarters. The average number of mammals has fallen by 26% and the wild cat and greater mouse-eared bat are almost extinct.

According to the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, a government advisory body, the UK is set to miss 14 out of 19 of its biodiversity targets for 2020, which were agreed under the UN convention on biological diversity.

5.2 Vertebrate loss Large land mammals have been eradicated from 75% of their natural ranges, while marine mammals have shown marked declines, with many species now close to extinction.

The latest Living Planet Index estimates an average decline of 60% in the population size of thousands of vertebrate species around the world between 1970 and 2014 - with even faster declines in freshwater populations. (It should be noted that this does not mean that the actual number of all vertebrates has gone down by 60%).

A study published in April found that across Europe, North Africa and Asia, populations of great freshwater species, from catfish to stingrays, have plunged by 97% since 1970. Of particular concern is the recent discovery that forest elephants in Central Africa are rapidly declining and facing extinction. Forest elephants, like other large fruit

eaters, play an important role as forest ‘gardeners’. In their absence, slow-growing plant species do not survive so well, so they are not able to remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Forest elephants have been said to represent a carbon storage service of $43 billion.

5.3 Insect loss

Insects pollinate many of our crops, help fertilise the soil they grow in, and help control outbreaks of crop pests and of organisms that cause disease in people and livestock. They also provide food for birds that further protect our crops from pests. In the last meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of London, the Earthwatch Institute concluded that bees are the most important living beings on this planet.

However, over 40% of insect species are now threatened with extinction, from a wide range of pressures including habitat loss, agro-chemical pollutants, invasive species and climate change. A report from The Wildlife Trusts found that 400,000 insect species face extinction due to heavy use of pesticides, and that insects are dying out up to 8 times faster than larger animals. The authors warn of an ‘insect apocalypse’ that poses risk to all life on Earth, saying: “we are witnessing the largest extinction event on earth since the dinosaurs.”

Professor Dave Goulson, at the University of Sussex, who wrote the report, said: “We can’t be sure, but in terms of numbers, we may have lost 50% or more of our insects since 1970 – it could be much more. We just don’t know, which is scary. If we don’t stop the decline of our insects there will be profound consequences for all life on earth [and] for human wellbeing.”

A 27-year long population monitoring study across Germany revealed a dramatic 76% decline in flying insect biomass. Worryingly, the study took place inside nature reserves, which should be the best protected places. Another study revealed "frightening" declines of insects and spiders in German grasslands and forests. Dutch scientists have found that butterfly numbers have fallen by an average of over 80% in the last 130 years, with the authors concluding, “industrial agriculture is simply leaving hardly any room for nature.” Even in protected protected Puerto Rican rainforests, insect populations have fallen as much as 60-fold.

Here in the UK, we have lost a devastating amount of our insect population. Three times as many pollinator species are declining as are increasing, and pesticides are driving some bee populations extinct. Catastrophic reductions in global insect populations, along with earthworms required for healthy soil, will have profound consequences for ecological food chains and crop

production, increasing the risk of famine and disease worldwide. 70 out of the top 100 human food crops - which supply about 90% of the world’s nutrition - are pollinated by bees. Indeed loss of pollinators affects more than 75% of global food crop types, risking US$235-577 billion of global crop output annually. In the words of Professor Dave Goulson, Professor of Biology at The University of Sussex: “Insect decline should be of huge concern to all of us, for insects are at the heart of every food web, they pollinate the large majority of plant species, keep the soil healthy, recycle nutrients, control pests, and much more. Love them or loathe them, we humans cannot survive without insects.”

5.4 Bird loss

Many birds feed on insects, so insect decline has already led to dramatically fewer birds in gardens and in the countryside. Across Europe the average population size of farmland bird species has fallen by 55% in just the past three decades.

Here in the UK we are already seeing a catastrophic decline and impending extinction of much-loved residents of the English countryside such as nightingales, cuckoos and sparrows. The most recent report by the British Trust for Ornithology found that more than a quarter of British bird species are threatened, including the puffin, the nightingale, and curlew.

A hot climate might sound lovely to British people sick of the cold and wet, but it means we lose our wildlife and the green fertile countryside we have always enjoyed.

5.5 Fish loss

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, a third of commercial fish stocks are being harvested at biologically unsustainable levels and 90% are fully exploited. The population of Pacific bluefin tuna, one of the ocean’s most ecologically and economically and ecologically valuable predators, has plunged 97% from historic levels due to rampant overfishing.

5.6 We’re entering the Sixth Mass Extinction It’s not just how many species we are losing; it’s how fast we are losing them. Globally, species are going extinct at rates up to 1,000 times faster than the background rates typical of Earth’s past, before human intervention, with up to 200

species going extinct every day. And the rate is accelerating. The loss of vertebrates, in particular, is up to 100 times higher than the background rate. It has been calculated that the total number of vertebrate species that went extinct in the last century should have taken about 800 to 10,000 years to disappear, with a total of 705 vertebrate species being driven extinct since the 1500s. In terms of domestic mammals, around 560 (10%) breeds had gone extinct by 2016, and at least 1000 more are now threatened. A series of studies have suggested that things are so bad that we are entering the Sixth Mass Extinction in Earth’s history. Mass extinctions are defined as times when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short interval, as has happened only five times in the past 540 million years or so. The report warned that a “biological annihilation” of wildlife was eroding the foundations of economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.

And this Mass Extinction may be even worse than others. Amphibians, to make just one example, have survived the past five mass extinctions but are now disappearing at a rate between 1,000 and 45,000 thousand times faster than natural background rates. An international panel of scientists backed by the UN have argued that climate change is now the third biggest driver of biodiversity loss, after changes in land and sea use and overexploitation of resources. The IPBES reported that the government response to biodiversity loss has been insufficient, and that “transformative changes” were now needed to restore and protect nature.

In the words of Sir David Attenborough: “This isn't just about losing wonders of nature. With the loss of even the smallest organisms, we destabilise and ultimately risk collapsing the world's ecosystems - the networks that support the whole of life on Earth.”

Part 6: Where are we heading?

6.1 How do we know how much warmer we will get?

In order to predict the impact that our ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions will have on the planet over the next few decades and more, scientists generate “projected emissions pathways” - models for what our emission levels will do over the coming decades. Because we don't know what the future holds for us, these

pathways are like different stories, each presenting different but plausible scenarios for how human society may develop over the coming years.

Starting from our current emission levels, each pathway predicts different trends in many factors such as population, economic growth, energy usage, transport and manufacturing industries, and the development of renewable versus fossil fuel technologies. The scenarios are designed to cover a wide range of potential futures: from those where we pull together to tackle climate change using renewable energy to its fullest potential; to those where we exploit fossil fuels at ever increasing rates, fracturing and competing for the Earth's remaining resources.

Scientists across the world will then run climate models to predict how the climate will respond to each of these different projected emission pathways, and therefore how much warming we can expect to experience as a result. The results are combined and analysed independently by reviewers, who give the results to the IPCC to make their reports.

However, predicting how the climate will respond to a given emissions pathway is a very difficult thing to do - partly because we can’t be certain what proportion of the emissions will stay in the atmosphere, but also because we can’t be sure how much the climate system might react to any given increase in greenhouse gas levels. Therefore the IPCC predictions give a range in the warming that we could expect to see under each emissions pathway, based on the range of results provided by the different modelling groups.

6.2 How much warmer will we get?

6.2.1 What temperature rise are we heading to by 2050?

Using the best possible climate modelling techniques, the most recent report from the IPCC predicted that, on our current rate of warming, we are likely to pass 1.5°C warming somewhere between 2030 and 2052, probably around 2040. However, in a more recent comment piece in Nature, the authors present three lines of evidence to suggest that global warming will probably happen faster than this. They argue that recent emissions data reveals that we are now on a higher emissions pathway than the one used by the IPCC model, that unexpectedly rapid reductions in air pollution are reducing the cooling effect of aerosols and that the Earth might be entering a natural warm phase that could last for a couple of decades. They conclude that it’s most likely that we will reach 1.5°C by 2030 and 2C by around 2045. That’s when children born today will be looking to start families.

6.2.2 What temperature rise can we expect by the end of the century under current policies?

Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis that tracks government climate action and policies, reported in December 2019 that under a “current policies” model, we are heading towards an average global temperature rise of 3C by the end of the century. Indeed, according to the latest UN Emissions Gap Report, the government policies in place right now are so woefully inadequate that they do not leave us in a much better position than if we had no policies in place at all.

The Climate Action Tracker report gave a range of 2.8C to 3.2C warming by 2100, dependent on the exact impact that current government policies across the globe might have on future emissions. This suggests there’s a good chance we could reach 3.2C warming by the end of the century.

However, whilst Climate Action Tracker are very good at making emissions projections based on current policies, they don’t, in themselves, deal in modelling what the climate will actually DO under such scenarios. For this, the climate models presented by the IPCC (which take into account the range in warming we could expect to see under exactly the same emissions) are much better. However, the IPCC are not as up-to-date as Climate Action Tracker in terms of producing projected emissions pathways according to exactly where we are at with current government policies.

So what if we combine the policy-informed emissions pathways from Climate Action Tracker, with the IPCC modelling of the range of ways in which the climate is likely to respond to such pathways? What warming predictions do we see for the end of the century?

Using the latest Climate Action Tracker data for “current policies”, and comparing that to the IPCC projected emissions pathways, it can be seen that we are today on a pathway that is almost exactly halfway between the IPCC’s so-called “RCP6” and “RCP8.5” pathways. According to the IPCC climate models, this will result in an average warming of 3C by the end of the century, with a range of 2C to 4C.

3C is the same average warming that was predicted by Climate Action Tracker for 2100. However, there’s a crucial difference that gets revealed by using this combined approach. The range of possible warming by the end of the century is now much larger than it was using the Climate Action Tracker projections alone: 2C to 4C, rather than 2.8C to 3.2C. Using this more comprehensive method for predicting warming, we now see that, whilst we may be extremely lucky and stay towards the lower end of the range (which is still enough warming to have an absolutely devastating impact on our planet), there is a significant chance that we could be

heading for even higher temperatures than those predicted by Climate Action Tracker, with a roughly 1 in 20 chance of hitting 4C by 2100.

6.2.3 What about if global governments honour their planned policies too?

If global governments not only stick to their current policies, but also honour their additional planned, but not as yet implemented, policies - and continue their recent developments - where would this so-called “optimistic policies” model get us to by 2100?

It should first be acknowledged that this is not necessarily going to happen. As the Climate Action Tracker report notes, “there remains a substantial gap between what governments have promised to do and the total level of actions they have undertaken to date”.

But even if our emissions did eventually follow this “optimistic policies” scenario, according to the Climate Action Tracker report, projections show that we are still heading towards warming of an average of 2.8C by the end of the century.

6.2.4 What about if governments carry out all their additional pledges and targets?

If governments honour all the additional pledges and targets they have made towards meeting the Paris Agreement, then, according to the Climate Action Tracker report, under this “pledges and targets” scenario we are still heading towards a warming of 2.5 to 2.8C by 2100.

Comparing the IPCC emissions pathways to this pathway reveals that, even if this scenario occurred, we would still be on a pathway that’s nearly one third of the way between the IPCC’s “RCP6” and “RCP8.5” pathways. Whilst this is certainly far better than the “current policies” model (which leaves us halfway between the same two IPCC pathways), combining the IPCC and Climate Action Tracker models reveal that this would still result in warming with a range of around 2.2C to 3.6C by the end of the century.

The important point is, none of these scenarios - even the one where the government does everything they’ve pledged to do and meets all of its targets and promises (a situation that has proven time and again not to happen, see section xxx) - follow the promise made under the Paris Agreement to prevent warming of more than 2C.

Unless something drastic now happens, we are still heading towards a temperature rise of more than 2.5C by the end of the century, with a pretty good chance of more

than 3C. This is a situation that climate scientists have warned time and again will be catastrophic and irreversible, leading to unimaginable human suffering and loss of life.

It’s not quite too late to prevent this, but we have to act radically and we have to act NOW. (see section xxx)

6.3 What would a 1.5C, 2C or 3C world look like?

The recent IPCC Interim Report showed that even a global average warming of 1.5 will ℃have serious consequences, but is much preferable to any further warming - every fraction of a degree counts.

6.3.1 What will a 1.5C warmer world look like?

The IPCC predict that we will reach 1.5C by around 2040, but some scientists think that due to it’s more likely we will get there by 2030.

The IPCC warn that at 1.5C warming, extreme heatwaves will be more widespread, with about 14% of Earth’s population being exposed to severe heatwaves at least once every five years. In Southern Africa, there will be high risks of increased mortality from heatwaves.

There will be an increase in extreme rainfall events, storms and cyclones. 350 million people in urban settlements will be regularly exposed to severe drought by the end of the century. Even in the Mediterranean, there will be in increase in probability of extreme drought, and increased risk of water deficit.

The poles will warm twice to three times as much as the global average, with a high chance they will reach up to 4.5°C warming. Ice will continue to melt at ever-increasing rates. We’ll see major habitat losses for organisms such as polar bears, whales, seals, and sea birds. Permafrost deterioration is likely, releasing methane into the atmosphere and triggering more warming.

Sea levels will continue to rise due to the melting ice and also expansion due heat already stored in the oceans from human-produced warming - causing increased risks of flooding. The latest research has shown that by 2050...

Increases in ocean acidity and decreases in oxygen levels will pose significant risks to marine biodiversity, fisheries and marine ecosystems. The geographic ranges of

many marine species will shift to higher latitudes, with mostly negative impacts on humans. There will be an increased risk of loss of valuable coastal ecosystems such as mangrove trees, which act as natural barriers protecting coastal areas from waves, storms and rising seas.

Severe shifts in ecosystems and biodiversity across the globe are likely. Out of 105,000 species of insects, plants and vertebrates studied, changes in climate will see the geographic range of 6% of insects, 8% of plants and 4% of vertebrates reduced by more than half. Coral reefs will decline by 70-90%.

Climate-related risks to human health, livelihoods, food security, human security, water supply and economic growth will all increase. In West Africa and the Sahel, reduced maize and sorghum production is likely, with areas suitable for maize production reduced by as much as 40%, leading to increased risks of undernutrition. In Southern Africa there will be high risk of undernutrition in communities dependent on dryland agriculture and livestock.

Increasing temperatures will mean that more people across the globe will die from diseases like malaria and dengue fever. We are likely to see an increase in displacement and climate refugees. Overall, small islands, coastal and low-lying areas will be the worst hit, suffering from multiple climate-related risks.

These catastrophic impacts of a 1.5C warmer world are already being realised in parts of the globe. More than one-fifth of all humans live in regions that have already seen warming greater than 1.5C in at least one season. It is important to remember that we are all connected: major droughts or storms in one part of the world can affect food prices on the other side of the world. We need to pull together as a global community to support those on the frontline of the climate crisis.

6.3.2 How much worse would a 2C warmer world be?

We have been warned time and again that we must do whatever it takes to stay below 1.5C warming. However, the IPCC predict that under current policies, unless radical action is taken we will be hitting 2C by around 2070. Some experts predict that we may actually get there by 2045.

At 2C warming, the IPCC report that 37% of the Earth’s population will be exposed to severe heatwaves at least once every five years. An increase in warming from 1.5C to 2C will result in an additional 420 million people frequently exposed to extreme heatwaves, and an additional 65 million people exposed to exceptional heatwaves. Twice as many megacities are likely to become heat stressed, potentially impacting 350 million additional people by 2050. The deadly heatwaves that India and Pakistan

saw in 2015 may occur annually. The area most impacted by the extreme heat will be the tropics.

With increasing temperatures, the risks of heat-related illness and mortality will increase, with the worst impacts of heatwaves being felt in cities and by the elderly, children and women - as well as those with chronic diseases and people taking certain medications.

There will be more extreme rainfall events, storms and floods. An extra half a degree will leave an additional 61 million people in urban settlements regularly exposed to severe drought by 2100, bringing the total number at risk to 410 million. There will also be a significantly higher probability of droughts - and risks related to water availability - in some regions, particularly in the Mediterranean and in Southern Africa, South America and Australia. 50% more people may see increased climate-induced water stress and 184-270 million more people will be exposed to increases in water scarcity.

The poles will warm by as much as 8C and the ice will continue to melt, with large losses in permafrost being likely. The Arctic is predicted to be totally ice-free every other summer, leading to critical habitat losses for organisms from phytoplankton and sea birds to marine mammals like whales, seals and polar bears.

Sea levels will rise by an additional 10cm compared to 1.5C warming, with more than 70% of the Earth’s coastlines seeing a rise of more than 20cm - resulting in increased coastal flooding and beach erosion causing salinization of water supplies and various other impacts on humans and living systems. By 2100, with just that extra half a degree of warming, 10.4 million more people will be exposed to these risks. These changes would take place so fast that it is unlikely that adaptation would be possible. Due to instabilities in the Antarctic ice sheet and the possibility of the irreversible loss of the Greenland ice sheet, 2C could even bring a sea level rise of several metres - albeit over a time scale of hundreds to thousands of years.

We’ll see even greater increases in ocean warming and oxygen depletion which will pose significant risks to marine biodiversity, fisheries and ecosystems. In addition, increases in ocean acidity will negatively impact a broad range of species, from fish to algae, whilst oxygen depletion will lead to the appearance of more ocean “dead zones” - areas that can support virtually no aquatic life. At 2C warming, coral reefs will be as good as wiped out, directly impacting about half a billion people across the globe who depend on them for coastal protection, food, livelihoods or tourism. The loss of coral reefs will have an enormous effect on the ecosystems in the surrounding areas, sharply decreasing biodiversity.

It is highly likely there will be severe shifts in ecosystems and biodiversity across the globe. 18% of insects, 16% of plants and 8% of vertebrates will see their geographic range drop by half. That’s twice to three times as many as at 1.5C warming. Climate-related risks to human health, livelihoods, food security, human security, water supply and economic growth will all increase further. Those at highest risk will be populations who are already disadvantaged and vulnerable - living in the least developed countries or in dryland areas - as well as some indigenous peoples. Communities whose livelihoods depend on agriculture or coastal resources will also be most at risk, as well as small-island developing states. A rise in just half a degree will leave an additional several hundred million people susceptible to the risks of climate-related poverty. There will be greater risk of deaths from diseases like malaria and dengue fever.

The risk of food insecurity will increase, especially in the African Sahel, the Mediterranean, Central Europe, the Amazon, and Western and Southern Africa. Yields of crops such as maize, rice, wheat and sorghum will decrease, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Central and South America, with global maize crop yields dropping by about 5%. Rice and wheat will become less nutritious, and there will be a higher risk of malnutrition, especially for those dependent on dryland agriculture and livestock. The risks to tropical crop yields in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America could be extensive. In South East Asia, there will be a one-third reduction in crop production per person. Globally, up to 10% of rangeland livestock will be lost. Risks to global economic growth will increase, especially in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere subtropics. In the United States, it is predicted that each degree of warming will lead to a loss of 2.3% of the GDP. Based on the GDP in 2017, 2C warming would amount to losses of more than $446 billion per year.

Overall, small islands and coastal or low-lying areas will continue to be the most at risk, due to the threat of multiple climate-related impacts. Tens of thousands of people will be displaced due to flooding of small island developing states, where there will be high risks for coastal flooding, increased frequency of extreme water-level events, freshwater stress from lack of water and persistent heat stress in cattle.

6.3.3 What would happen if we reach 3C warming?

On our current trajectory, we are heading for around 3C warming by the end of the century - even if global governments carry through with all the policies that they have committed to.

At 3C warming, the increase in extreme weather events will be devastating. There will be drastic increases in heatwave duration and frequency, especially in parts of Africa, the Mediterranean and the tropics, leading to substantial impacts on human health, mortality and productivity. Oppressive temperatures will lead to...

Large reductions in rainfall and water availability will lead to large increases in extreme drought and very high risks of water deficit, especially in areas such as Southern Africa and the Mediterranean, again with substantial impacts on human health and mortality. There will also be substantial increases in extreme rainfall events, leading to increased flooding, especially in South East Asia.

At 3C warming it is very likely that we will see drastic warming at the poles, with the Arctic very likely to be ice-free in summer - leading to critical habitat losses for organisms such as polar bears, whales, seals, and sea birds. A collapse in permafrost may occur. A sea level rise of around 1 metre is expected, with substantial increases in risks related to coastal flooding, again especially in South East Asia. We are likely to see a huge increase in mass displacement and climate refugees. There is a risk of a much greater sea level rise of several metres, due to instability of the ice sheets.

Alpine and arctic habitats are likely to suffer critical losses. It is possible that we will see a dramatic change from Arctic tundra to boreal forest.

There will be substantial reductions in agriculture and crop yield, resulting in major regional food insecurities and very high risks of undernutrition, especially in South East Asia, parts of Africa and in communities dependent on dryland agriculture and livestock. Major droughts and crop losses in one part of the world will affect food prices on the other side of the world.

Small islands, coastal and low-lying areas will be the worst impacted, due to the combined risks of extreme weather events, coastal flooding, lack of fresh water, persistent heat stress, and the loss of most coral reefs.

There is still time to stop this. But we have to act NOW.

6.3.4 What about if we hit 4C warming?

Currently we have a 1 in 20 risk of reaching 4C by the end of the century. This is a very real possibility. 4C would be utterly devastating, many scientists think incompatible with globally organised society, completely outside the range of climate variation in past xxx millions of years. Certainly much warmer than anything humans have experienced.

The consequences of a 4C world would be devastating (see section xxx). In May 2019, Professor Johan Rockström, director of The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, warned that in a 4°C-warmer world: “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate 8 billion people or even half of that. There will be a rich minority of people who survive with modern lifestyles, no doubt, but it will be a turbulent, conflict-ridden world.” By 2100 we are heading for a population of around 11.2 billion.

See rest of Rockstrom quote

6.4 Feedback loops and tipping points

Content coming soon

dry soils intensify heat waves: under dry conditions, the land can't absorb as much heat, so the heat is radiated back into the atmosphere which leads to more sustained heating (yet another scary positive feedback). Such events have been called mega-heatwaves, and examples would be the 2003 and 2019 European heatwaves and the 2010 Russian heatwave [7].

There is a danger that feedback loops may exacerbate climate change, altering weather patterns and driving runaway heating. A range of feedback loops have the potential to drive runaway climate change, eg melting white sea ice causes reduced albedo, permafrost melting causes methane release – see PNAS Steffen paper (hot house earth?) Permafrost in the Arctic has warmed an average of 6C over the last 30 years.

On why the Earth cannot undergo runaway warming...https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2020/02/01/feebacks-runaway-and-tipping-points/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

“We may be close to passing a tipping point for at least some of the large outlet glaciers draining the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and this would commit us to significant sea level rise, whatever we decide in terms of reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Professor Stephan Harrison, Head of the Climate Expert Committee (which advises the UK government on climate risks)

6.5 We are in a climate and ecological emergency!

The IPPR, a Progressive Policy Think Tank, warned in 2019 that “we are entering an age of unprecedented environmental breakdown” and according to Ban Ki-Moon, Former UN Secretary General: “This is an emergency and for emergency situations we need emergency action.”

Scientists are now so concerned about what’s going on on our planet, that more and more are stepping outside of the traditional role of the scientist - to quietly and impartially report the facts and to trust that they will be acted on appropriately - and speaking out. After more than 40 years of their warnings being ignored or downplayed, they are being forced to take bolder steps to try to ensure that their voices are heard.

In November 2019 a global group of around 11,000 scientists from 153 countries declared “clearly and unequivocally that the Earth is facing a climate emergency” and that without deep and lasting changes, the world’s people face "untold human suffering". The report warned said: “The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.”

Lead author Dr Thomas Newsome, from the University of Sydney, told the BBC "An emergency means that if we do not act or respond to the impacts of climate change by reducing our carbon emissions, reducing our livestock production, reducing our land clearing and fossil fuel consumption, the impacts will likely be more severe than we've experienced to date. That could mean there are areas on Earth that are not inhabitable by people."

Professor Schellnhuber, Founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says: “Based on sober scientific analysis, we are deeply within a climate emergency state but people are not aware of it.”

What about the “500 scientists” who signed a letter to the UN in late 2019 saying there is “no climate emergency”? Not only does this letter rely on inaccurate claims about climate science, only a small number of these so-called “scientists” actually have any science credentials (many of those who do are now retired), and almost none have expertise in climate science. Even more pertinent, a large number of the signatories have either current or former interests in the fossil fuel industry.

If you ask the real experts, they are unanimous in their grave concern. According to Professor Lonnie Thompson, director of the Byrd Polar Research Centre: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.”

Some scientists are now even feeling the need to take more radical action. Over 1600 scientists from across the globe recently signed a declaration in support of mass civil disobedience against government inaction over the climate and ecological emergency. Those taking to the streets say that they believe they have a “moral duty to act now.”

Dr Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment, told the BBC: “You have to understand, this is also a crisis for the world. The fact is that if the poor are suffering today, then the rich will also suffer tomorrow.”

Part 7: What’s going to happen if we don’t act now?

According to the US Department of Defense’s 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap, climate change “will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.”

Sadly the catastrophic consequences of climate change are being felt first, and usually worst, by those least responsible and those least able to afford to adapt.

“…the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest” Pope Francis

7.1 Threat to our food supplies

“Climate change will lead to battles for food.” Jim Yong Kim, President of The World Bank

More frequent and severe weather extremes and climate-related disasters, including droughts and floods, will severely impact agricultural production, contributing to shortfalls in food availability - with knock-on effects causing food price hikes and income losses that reduce people’s access to food.

Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, leading to enormous implications for food security.

Just five regional “breadbasket” areas account for about 60% of global grain production.

Increasing global temperatures and more frequent climate extremes mean that our increasingly inter-connected global food system is becoming more vulnerable to production shocks. The growing conditions for fruit, vegetables, cereals and livestock are greatly affected by increasing temperature and more frequent extreme weather events. rainfall, extreme weather events, soil fertility and the presence of pests and diseases. A recent major study by The Lancet found that rising temperatures over the past 30 years have led to a decline in the capability of many cereal crops to deliver full yields. In fact, the crop-yield potential of all major crops tracked have fallen as temperatures have risen.

Increases in temperature could lead to more crop issues such as Turnip yellows virus in oilseed rape, whilst rapidly declining numbers of insect pollinators such as bees will also have a hugely negative impact on crop yields. In addition, increasingly poorer quality soils will cause not only lower crop yields but also reduced nutritional value of those crops that do grow. “The UK is 30 to 40 years away from “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility”, Michael Gove Whilst it could be argued that crop growth in some regions, such as northern parts of the UK, will actually be improved by an increase in temperature and higher CO2 levels, this effect will probably be minimal. Indeed, here in the UK, our current agricultural system relies heavily on food imported from countries that are moderately or highly vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change. 40-50% of our food is imported from abroad, and around 70-80% of our fruit and vegetables, with 20% of our fruit and vegetables being imported from moderately or highly vulnerable countries. This makes it likely that we will be soon looking at years when food in the UK will be less available, or more expensive. Increases in extreme weather events also mean an increase in the chance of being hit by multiple crop failures in a single year. If the global temperature rise hits 1.5C, which it is on track to do in the next ten years or so, the risk of multiple breadbasket failure of maize increases the most, from 6% to 40%, which represents an enormous threat to global food security. A few bad harvests in a row would have devastating impacts on our global economy and our ability to feed ourselves.

It is estimated that by 2030 there will be 1.6 billion climate refugees due to agricultural failure.

In the UK, recent heavy rainfall and floods in the north of England has caused widespread damage to winter vegetables such as potatoes, cauliflowers and cabbages.Whilst the full extent of the damage is yet to be determined, the affected area is known to produce more than 60% of our domestic cauliflowers and cabbages, and it is estimated that around 2-3% of the potato crops may have been completely written off. Some wholesalers have said that the supply of some domestically grown vegetables, such as the Savoy cabbage, is already tightening, whilst the price for potatoes in the UK was already about 8% higher in the first week of November than in the previous month. It is predicted that the price of potatoes could double in the new year. Flooding affected the yield of potato crops in 2018 too, with 1.1million fewer tonnes being harvested than the year before - the smallest potato yield for six years. The reduction in supply put pressure on crisp prices, with KP-owned brands such as Hula Hoops, McCoy’s and Tyrrells seeing 9-22% increases. This year’s wet conditions have also prevented some farmers from planting next year’s crops, with estimations that only 30% of potato seeding has taken place, and that only 30% to 40% of winter wheat has been planted. Farmers are warning that, as a result, next year the UK might have to import oil-seed rape and milling wheat.

Coastal flooding will also have devastating impacts on food production. Vietnam is the world’s third largest rice exporter, and its rice paddies are predicted to be underwater within the next 30 years.

In 2010, a heatwave in Russia substantially impacted that year's wheat harvest, leading to economic losses of more than $15bn.

In 2015 a drought in Southern Africa - made up to three times more likely by climate change - reduced agricultural outputs by 15%.

There’s been up to 35% decline in North Atlantic fish yields due to ocean warming

How climate change affects food supply:Floods, drought, heat, fires, water availability, disease, pests, nutrition, toxins

For 1C of warming, projected yield declines are:Corn 7.4%Wheat 6%Rice 3.2%Soy 3.1%

Chuang Zhao et al – reduces global yields of major food crops, PNAS 2017

In Japan, rice yields have declined in 80% of Japan’s prefectures due to rising temperatures.

“I think there’s been an under-recognition of just how sensitive crops are to heat, and how fast heat exposure is rising” David Lobell, Stanford University

5.4 million people in Somalia are facing severe food shortages due to ongoing drought.

Report in Science:“As many as five billion people, particularly in Africa and South Asia, are likely to face shortages of food and clean water in the coming decades as nature declines. Hundreds of millions more could be vulnerable to increased risks of severe coastal storms, according to the first-ever model examining how nature and humans can survive together.”

Lifted:The world population is expected to grow to almost 10 billion by 2050. With 3.4 billion more mouths to feed, and the growing desire of the middle class for meat and dairy in developing countries, global demand for food could increase by between 59 and 98 percent

Eighty percent of the world’s crops are rainfed, so most farmers depend on the predictable weather agriculture has adapted to in order to produce their crops.

Flooding resulting from the growing intensity of tropical storms and sea level rise is also likely to increase with climate change, and can drown crops. Because floodwaters can transport sewage, manure or pollutants from roads, farms and lawns, more pathogens and toxins could find their way into our food.

Droughts also affect crops

A recent study of global vegetable and legume production concluded that if greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, yields could fall by 35 percent by 2100 due to water scarcity and increased salinity and ozone.

Another new study found that U.S. production of corn (a.k.a. maize), much of which is used to feed livestock and make biofuel, could be cut in half by a 4˚C increase in

global temperatures—which could happen by 2100 if we don’t reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. If we limit warming to under 2˚ C, the goal of the Paris climate accord, U.S. corn production could still decrease by about 18 percent. Researchers also found that the risk of the world’s top four corn exporters (U.S., Brazil, Argentina and the Ukraine) suffering simultaneous crop failures of 10 percent or more is about 7 percent with a 2˚C increase in temperature. If temperatures rise 4˚C, the odds shoot up to a staggering 86 percent.

climate change will not only affect crops—it will also impact meat production, fisheries and other fundamental aspects of our food supply.

It has been calculated that the risk of extreme weather hitting several major food producing regions of the world at the same time could triple by 2040. By 2050, land degradation and climate change together are predicted to reduce crop yields by an average of 10 per cent globally and up to 50 per cent in certain regions.

A recent study looking at the impact of climate change on food production for the top four maize-exporting countries (which currently account for over 85% of global maize exports), found that “the probability that they have simultaneous production losses greater than 10% in any given year is presently virtually zero, but it increases to 7% under 2°C warming and 86% under 4°C warming.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X18307674Risks of simultaneous crop failure, however, do increase disproportionately between 1.5 and 2 °C, so surpassing the 1.5 °C threshold will represent a threat to global food security. For maize, risks of multiple breadbasket failures increase the most, from 6% to 40% at 1.5 to 54% at 2 °C warming. In relative terms, the highest simultaneous climate risk increase between the two warming scenarios was found for wheat (40%), followed by maize (35%) and soybean (23%). Looking at the impacts on agricultural production, we show that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C would avoid production losses of up to 2753 million (161,000, 265,000) tonnes maize (wheat, soybean) in the global breadbaskets and would reduce the risk of simultaneous crop failure by 26%, 28% and 19% respectively

Intensive agriculture methods and loss of biodiversity, leading to huge reductions in healthy topsoil (see section xx) will also continue to contribute to crop losses. Given that more than 800 million people across 51 countries and territories are already facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity, a further reduction in crop yields would be devastating.

Indeed, the Russian heatwave of 2010 which saw the highest temperatures recorded in 130 years in Russia led to a global wheat shortage, as well as 90% increase in international grain prices. Meanwhile In 2019, months of rain in the U.S. corn belt

resulted in delayed planting of corn (maize) and soy, and the harvest was also impacted by snow in October - both of which have been attributed to climate change. The U.S. normally exports 10-20% of its corn, but this year it imported 60,000 tonnes from Brazil. Across the globe, many of our favorite foods such as chocolate, coffee and avocados are already threatened to the point of extinction.

Between 2006 and 2010, a severe drought in Syria turned 60% of the country’s fertile land into desert.

Professor Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London, stated: “We know that with increased storms, increased floods, droughts and heat waves, production of food will be more problematic. Ensuring people have access to clean, safe drinking water will become much more difficult.”

Dr Peter Stott, Head of the Climate Monitoring and Attribution Team at the Met Office, said: “It really becomes difficult to see at such levels of warming how we're going to maintain our agriculture, such that the population of the world can actually feed itself.”

Experts predict that climate change could force between three and 16 million people into extreme poverty because of rising food prices and crop failures.

It’s not just crop failures that will impact our food security. 33% of marine fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels.

If warming reaches 2C we will see a fall in livestock production by between 7% and 10%. (IPCC 1.5). Also parasites and diseases that target livestock thrive in warm, moist conditions. Heat waves, which are expected to become more frequent, make livestock less fertile and more vulnerable to disease. Dairy cows are especially sensitive to heat, so milk production could decline.

Climate change will also enable weeds, pests and fungi to expand their range and numbers. In addition, earlier springs and milder winters will allow more of these pests and weeds to survive for a longer time.

Extreme weather, including heavy storms and drought, can also disrupt food transport. Unless food is stored properly, this could increase the risk of spoilage and contamination and result in more food-borne illness.

According to a 2016 report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, climate change will cause global food prices to rise 20%.

According to a 2011 National Academy of Sciences report, for every degree Celsius that the global thermostat rises, there will be a 5 to 15 percent decrease in overall crop production.

Here in the UK we’re dependent on a complex global industrial consumer economy. Around 50% of all our food comes from foreign imports (70-80% of our fruit and vegetables), mainly from mainland Europe where crops are susceptible to damaging heatwaves. When harvests fail, countries ban their food exports, leading to a ‘domino effect’ of price raises. Massive price hikes could see families struggling to put food on the table. Indeed, the past few years' heatwaves have seen 5-20% reductions in crop yields in the UK and western Europe. Without a radical change of course we could see an unprecedented epidemic of food riots. A hungry country is an ungovernable one.

Michael Gove warned that the UK is 30 to 40 years away from “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility.”

7.2 Threat to our water supplies

As factors such as rainfall patterns, evaporation, and snowmelt timing change, our freshwater supplies will be affected.

More than 16% of the global population rely on glacial water for drinking and irrigation

Over one billion people across the globe lack access to drinking water. Another 2.7 billion find it scarce for at least one month of the year. In fact, it is estimated that one in four of the world’s 500 largest cities are already in a situation of "water stress". Due to a potent combination of climate change, human action and population growth, it is predicted that by 2030, global demand for fresh water will exceed supply by a whopping 40%.

In many areas of the world the situation is already critical. For example Lake Chad in Nigeria - a water source for between 20 million and 30 million people and a source of food and income through fishing - has shrunk by 90% since the 1960s. The UN says 10.7 million people in the Lake Chad basin now need humanitarian relief to survive. The situation has also been linked to the rise of terror groups in Nigeria.

Melting glaciers in both the Andes and the Himalayas threatens the water supplies of hundreds of millions of people living downstream, leading to a potential reduction in water supply for more than 240 million people in the Himalayan region alone.

Shockingly, London is listed in the top 10 most likely cities in the world to hit Day Zero – the name given to the day when a city completely runs out of fresh water. According to the Greater London Authority, London is already pushing close to capacity in terms of how much fresh water it can draw from its rivers. The city is likely to have supply problems by 2025 and "serious shortages" by 2040. Sir James Bevan, chief executive of the UK’s Environment Agency, said recently at a conference on water use: “On the present projections, many parts of our country will face significant water deficits by 2050, particularly in the southeast, where much of the UK population lives.” He explained that in about 20-25 years, demand for water could close in on supply, in what he described as “the jaws of death - the point at which, unless we take action to change things, we will not have enough water to supply our needs.” If we reach 1.5 degrees warming, it is thought that 350 million people in urban settlements will be regularly exposed to severe drought by 2100. At 2 degrees that number jumps to 410 million.

Today, there are around 700 million people in 43 countries who suffer from water scarcity - due to pollution, waste or unsustainable management. The UN warns that by 2025 there will be 1.8 billion people living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and that two-thirds of the world's population could be living under water stressed conditions.

If global heating continues on its current track, by 2030 almost half the world's population will be living in areas of high water stress - including between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa. In addition, water scarcity will displace between 24 to 700 million people.

According to a UN report, by 2050 between 4.8 billion and 5.7 billion people will live in areas that are water-scarce for at least one month each year, due to a combination of climate change, increased demand and polluted supplies.

Audrey Azoulay, the director-general of Unesco, which commissioned the report, said: “We all know that water scarcity can lead to civil unrest, mass migration and even to conflict within and between countries. Ensuring the sustainable use of the planet’s resources is vital for ensuring long-term peace and prosperity.”

In the UK, the Parliament’s Committee on Climate Change highlights water shortages as a key area of vulnerability to climate change in the future. According to the Greater London Authority, London is already pushing close to capacity in terms of fresh water availability. The city is likely to have supply problems by 2025 and “serious shortages” by 2040 - an effect that will be exacerbated by climate change. The Environment Agency have said that the whole of south-east England could run out of water in 25 years.

“On the present projections, many parts of our country will face significant water deficits by 2050, particularly in the southeast, where much of the UK population lives.” Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the UK’s Environment Agency

7.3 Threat to our health

“Climate change is a medical emergency … It thus demands an emergency response…” Professor Hugh Montgomery, director of the University College London Institute for Human Health and Performance

A major review carried out by one of the world’s leading medical journals, The Lancet, concluded that climate change poses “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century” - because of both the direct impacts of extreme weather events and the indirect disruption to the social and ecological systems that sustain us. A 2019 report from the same journal warned that rising temperatures will have a huge impact on human health, especially for those most vulnerable such as children and the elderly.

It has been estimated that if all countries met the Paris Agreement to stay below 2C, we could avoid 138,000 premature deaths a year across the entire European region of the World Health Organisation.

Not only can heatwaves and wildfires trigger asthma, respiratory infections and heatstroke, they can also lead to malnutrition due to poorer crop yields. In addition, higher temperatures allow the bacteria that cause deadly diarrhoea to thrive, leading to increased spread of infectious diseases.

“Climate change is disrupting natural ecosystems in a way that is making life better for infectious diseases.” Andrew Dobson, department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University Dengue fever, for example, is the most rapidly expanding infection around the world: nine of the ten most suitable years for the ability of mosquitoes to transmit this deadly disease have happened since 2000, with 2017 having the second highest

level recorded since 1950. Similarly, the second most suitable year on record for the spread of the cholera bacteria, which cause many diarrhoeal diseases and wound infections around the globe, was in 2018. Rising temperatures can also create conditions for tropical diseases to spread to parts of the world where they are not usually seen. In the UK, the first native cases of tick-borne encephalitis, a rare disease that can harm the brain, were recorded in October. It is thought the ticks may have been brought to the UK by migratory birds. Similarly, cases of the Zika virus, which causes horrific birth defects, have recently occurred via local transmission in France - enabled by increased temperatures - and there are fears it could spread to the UK soon. There is also potential spread of the Asian tiger mosquito - carrier of dengue fever, chikungunya fever, Zika, encephalitis and canine heartworm - which has already been found at isolated spots in Southern England and threatens to become established. Malaria is slowly coming back in Europe too.

It’s not just known diseases that might spread to new areas with increasing temperatures. Ancient viruses - never before observed by humans - have recently been discovered inside a Tibetan glacier. The scientists warn that if the ice melts, it’s possible that these 15,000 year-old pathogens could be released into the environment.

Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change. Nick Watts, executive director of the Lancet Countdown, told The Guardian:

“Children’s bodies and immune systems are still developing, leaving them more susceptible to disease and environmental pollutants. The damage done in early childhood lasts a lifetime. Without immediate action from all countries climate change will come to define the health of an entire generation.” Older people are also more vulnerable to heatwaves, as they are less able to regulate their temperature and fluid balance. Last year 220 million more people over the age of 65 were exposed to heatwaves than in the year 2000. This is a particular concern in Europe, due to the high number of older citizens living in large, hot, cities.

It’s not just heatwaves and malnutrition that will impact public health. There are also huge health impacts of increasing levels of air pollution, especially in cities (see section on air pollution), whilst allergies are also predicted to be much worse by 2040 - with about 2.5 times as many grains of pollen per cubic metre of air as there is today.

There are other less-obvious threats to health. A report from the Royal College of Physicians found that 7% of hospitals in England are built on a flood plain.

“The path that the world chooses today will irreversibly mark our children’s futures. We must listen to the millions of young people who have led the wave of school strikes for urgent action.” Stella Hartinger, Lancet Countdown author

7.4 Threat to our infrastructure, communications, trade and transport

According to the Ministry of Defence, more intense storms, sea level rises and longer periods of heavy rain will disrupt global shipping with an impact on international trade and food supplies. Air transport will be affected by a strengthened polar front jet stream, with high turbulence becoming up to 170% more frequent.

In some countries, inland waterways and roads are also likely to become impassable during certain parts of the year as water levels in rivers drop and roads become eroded by flash floods and asphalt melts. Under very hot conditions, power systems are likely to become less productive, whilst cell phone towers could fail in storms and high winds.

Extreme weather events such as heat waves, storms and flooding have already caused enormous damage to the railway infrastructure in the UK - not to mention disruption to thousands of services across the country. Alex Hynes, Managing Director of Scotland’s railway, warned the Guardian that “Britain’s railways can no longer cope with the effects of the climate crisis.” This will only get worse. Heat waves, droughts and forest fires similar to those currently seen in Australia and California will mean that electricity power cuts in the UK could become a regular occurrence by 2070.

7.5 Threat to our economy

"The climate emergency is our third world war. Our lives and civilization as we know it are at stake, just as they were in the second world war." Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Economist

According to a survey of 750 experts conducted by the World Economic Forum, in 2016 a catastrophe caused by climate change was seen as the biggest potential threat to the global economy.

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, said: “Once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.” In a recent interview with the BBC, he said "I would say we're in a climate crisis... action

needs to be taken". He reported that the financial sector had begun to curb investment in fossil fuels – but far too slowly, and that leading pension fund analysis "is that if you add up the policies of all companies out there, they are consistent with warming of 3.7-3.8C… far above the 1.5 degrees that the people say they want and governments are demanding”. Carney warned that the world will face irreversible heating unless firms shift their priorities soon: “The concern is whether we will spend another decade doing worthy things but not enough... and we will blow through the 1.5C mark very quickly. As a consequence, the climate will stabilise at the much higher level.”

“Greater awareness of climate risk could make long-duration borrowing more expensive or unavailable, impact insurance cost and availability, and reduce terminal values. This could trigger capital reallocation and asset repricing. This recognition could happen quickly, with the possibility of cascading consequences.” McKinsey Global Institute Climate Risk and Response Report, 2020 According to Lord Nicholas Stern, Professor of Economics and Government: "Climate change is the result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century. What we are talking about is extended world war. People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would have to move.”

Indeed, a recent survey from the World Economic Forum published in January 2020 found that climate and ecological issues are by far the biggest risks facing the world over the next ten years, posing a significant threat to social and economic stability. The report found that extreme weather and biodiversity loss could disrupt the global economy in the next 10 years if no action is taken.

The 750 global experts and decision-makers interviewed in the survey - comprising some of the world’s most influential people and companies - cited “extreme weather events”, “failure to adapt to climate change”, “human-made environmental damage”, “biodiversity and ecosystem loss”, and “natural disasters” as the five most likely risks that could affect the global economy in 2020. It is the first time in history that environmental catastrophes make up the top five risks.

The President of the World Economic Forum, Borge Brende, said: "The good news is that the window for action is still open, if not for much longer."

Whilst economies across the globe will will no doubt feel the impact of climate change, it is likely that poorer countries will be disproportionately affected. Often such countries have climates that are already close to physical thresholds of survivability or productivity, and they rely more on outdoor work and natural capital. They also tend to have less financial means to be able to adapt quickly to changes.

7.6 Threat to our homes - mass displacement

Mass displacement is widely regarded to be one of the most potentially destabilising impacts of the climate and ecological crisis, with impacts on political instability.

In the first six months of 2019, extreme weather events displaced a record seven million people from their homes. It is estimated that by 2030 there will be 1.6 billion climate refugees due to agricultural failure ??

Climate change is directly responsible for 24,000 migrants from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam each year, whilst droughts affecting huge areas of the Central American ‘dry corridor’ are causing climate migrants to be forced to make their way north to the United States.

Between 2006 and 2010, a severe drought in Syria drove 1.5 million people into the already crowded cities, adding to destabilisation.

in 2017 an East African drought, made up to twice as likely by climate change, displaced around 800,000 people in Somalia. According to the Lancet Countdown Report 2018, the world could see up to 1 billion environmental migrants.

Currently, forecasts vary from 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis, with 200 million being the most widely cited estimate, according to a 2015 study carried out by the Institute for Environment and Human Security of the United Nations University.

For its part, the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) also forecasts 200 million environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis. Many of them would be coastal population.

The World Bank has estimated that by 2050 there could be 140 million people forced to move within their countries due to climate change - because of high temperatures, crop failures and flooding.

Rising sea levels are predicted to overwhelm the ability to build adequate coastal defences, forcing many millions of people to leave their homes by 2050. Indeed, climate displacement is already well underway in places such as Vietnam.

By 2080, huge areas of land across the globe could become uninhabitable, leading to unprecedented mass displacement. By 2300, it is predicted that there will be several metres of sea level rise, causing billions of people to be displaced.

Even in the UK, rising seas are likely to force many people to have to relocate. The residents of sea-threatened Fairbourne in Wales could be the first such community. Sea defences in this area will stop being maintained in the 2050s, but the local council says it may begin “decommissioning” the village before then and start moving residents out.

7.7 Threat to our global security - conflict and political instability

In 2018 The Ministry of Defence published a Global Strategic Trends report that identified climate change and resource use as among the highest risks to global defence and security - with a potential impact (and certainty of occuring) far higher than weapons of mass destruction. Of the 16 future threats identified, climate change was reported to have the least uncertainty and the third biggest impact, after artificial intelligence and competitive space programmes - both of which were reported as far less likely to happen than climate change. The report placed increasing environmental stress as one of six “key trends that require action.''

There are concerns that mass migration caused by rising seas or agricultural failure could trigger or exacerbate regional conflicts, especially in some countries such as Iraq, driving political instability and increasing the chances of armed conflict and terrorism. General Castellaw, a member of the advisory board of the Center for Climate and Security, told the New York Times: “So [rising sea levels] is far more than an environmental problem. It’s a humanitarian, security and possibly military problem too.”

Michelle Bachelet, United Nations Rights Chief, has deemed that “Climate crisis is the greatest ever threat to human rights. The economies of all nations, the institutional, political, social and cultural fabric of every state, and the rights of all your people, and future generations, will be impacted.”

“Climate change is the greatest threat to human rights in the 21st century”- Mary Robinson Former UN High Commissioner For Human Rights

“Climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century,”Maj Gen Munir Muniruzzaman, chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council on climate change

7.8 Threat to our civilisation

Whilst they can't all be attributed to climate change, 2018’s extreme weather events meant that millions of people needed humanitarian aid.

Losing the diversity of our ecosystems, combined with climate breakdown, will place huge strains upon our social systems. It is feared that this could result in the collapse of our globally interconnected network of civilizations, resulting in great suffering and the deaths of many hundreds of millions, and perhaps even billions, of people.

Professor Kevin Anderson, deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, warns: “There is a widespread view that a 4°C future is incompatible with any reasonable characterisation of an organised, equitable and civilised global community.”

Even if carbon emissions were reduced to zero tomorrow, according to scientists we'll still be watching human-driven climate change play out for centuries.

Part 8. What do we need to do to address the climate and ecological emergency?

In 2016 the Paris Agreement was drawn up, whose aim was “to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 ̊C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 ̊C.” It has now been signed by 196 states, as well as the European Union. The 2018 IPCC special report laid out why it is so important that we limit warming to 1.5C, and it is now widely understood that if we go above 1.5 ̊C warming we risk setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control, which are predicted to have catastrophic impacts on our planet. Every fraction of a degree leads to greater risks to humans and ecosystems across the world.

In order to remain within the warming limits set by the Paris Agreement, there is a finite amount of carbon dioxide that can still be emitted into our atmosphere, known as the global carbon budget. Due to previous inaction, this budget is already very tight, and every year we delay action the smaller it gets. If we delay action another decade, it will become impossible to limit warming to 1.5C, even if we were to reduce emissions to net zero overnight.

The IPCC 2018 special report states that in order to have a 50% chance of remaining below 1.5 ̊C warming, global carbon dioxide emissions must now “decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030... reaching net zero around 2050”. The latest

UN Emissions Gap Report says in order to achieve this, we need to reduce annual global carbon emissions by approximately 8% per year.

It is important to realise though that these proposed targets do not take into account the effects of tipping points, some feedback loops, and additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution - which may cause temperatures to rise much faster than expected. They also do not incorporate aspects of carbon equity and climate justice. The targets also rely on the use of geo-engineering and “negative emissions technologies” (such as carbon capture and storage) on a grand scale, to suck hundreds of billions of tons of carbon back out of the air. At present these futuristic technologies barely exist, and we certainly do not know if it will be possible to deploy such technologies at the massive scale that would be needed.

Even if we do manage to reach net zero by 2050, this still only give us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 ̊C. If we want a 66% chance of staying below 1.5 ̊C, as of January 2018 we only had 420 gigatons of global carbon budget left to emit. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons. At today’s rates of emissions, we will have entirely exhausted that remaining carbon budget in less than eight years from now.

8.1 Aren’t governments working to bring greenhouse gas emissions down to net zero by 2050?

In a word, no.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to rise exponentially. Despite repeated pledges to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, governments from the seven largest advanced economies in the world continue to provide at least US$100 billion each year to support the production and consumption of oil, gas and coal. Globally, these energy sources get more than $370bn (£305bn) a year in support, compared with $100bn for renewable energy sources.

A report released in September 2019 revealed that, over the past year, globally oil and gas companies have approved $50 billion of investment in major projects that undermine the climate targets of the Paris Agreement. The study found that “no major oil company is investing to support its goals of keeping global warming “well below” 2 ̊C and to “pursue efforts” to limit it to a maximum of 1.5 ̊C.”

The UN Secretary General, António Guterres has attacked fossil fuels subsidies, saying: “What we are doing is using taxpayers’ money - which means our money - to boost hurricanes, to spread droughts, to melt glaciers, to bleach corals. In one word: to destroy the world.”

In a recent address to the Japan Climate Initiative, Christiana Figueres, former United Nations’ Climate Chief, said “Should we continue as a planet to increase greenhouse gases as we have done for the past two years and as we have done for the past 150 years, we would way exceed the 2 ̊C maximum temperature rise and certainly the 1.5 ̊C. What that means is that future generations will have to live in a world that is so unstable that it will be very difficult for them to have any predictability about their life whatsoever.”

Professor Stephan Harrison, Professor of Climate and Environmental Change, University of Exeter, said in a recent lecture: "We have all the resources we need to deal with this. There is nothing magical about reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There is nothing magical about the greenhouse effect. We know exactly how to deal with it. We just don’t have the political or economic will to do this.”

8.2 Carbon emissions are falling in the UK, surely we are doing enough?

Firstly, it should be clarified that the main reason that emissions have been falling in the UK is because over the past few decades we have been switching over from burning coal to burning oil and natural gas. Oil and gas do indeed release slightly less carbon dioxide than coal when they burn, but this doesn’t mean emissions will continue to fall - more likely they will start to rise again as the burning of oil and gas increases.

More importantly though, even if emissions are falling slightly, it’s nowhere near fast enough. In May 2019 the UK Committee on Climate Change, the government's own official climate change advisers, gave recommendations that in order to reach the Paris Agreement and global net zero by 2050, the UK also must get to net zero emissions by 2050.

However, in spite of Parliament declaring a climate emergency, a damning report from the Committee in July 2019 warned that the government is failing to cut emissions fast enough. It found that, over the past year, the government had delivered just 1 of 25 critical policies needed to get emissions reductions back on track. The Committee also found that only 7 out of 24 indicators showing underlying progress were on track. Outside the power and industry sectors, only two indicators were on track.

Not only are emissions not being cut fast enough, but the government has recently approved exploitation of new oil fields in The North Sea, and the opening of four new gas-fired turbines at Drax power station - in spite of a ruling from its Planning Inspectorate that they should be blocked due to their impact on climate change. The

government has also recently approved the opening of the Woodhouse Colliery, a new coal mine in Cumbria that will produce up to 8.5 million tons of carbon dioxide a year for 50 years. That’s the equivalent of all the electricity emissions from up to 11.5 million homes in the UK - nearly half of all UK households.

The Committee’s report also warned that the government is failing to put in place measures needed to adapt to rising temperatures - to prepare our homes, businesses and natural environment for a warming world. Of 33 key sectors assessed by the Committee, not a single one showed good progress when it came to managing climate change risk. The report warned that, at the current rates of global emissions cuts, the world may be heading for a temperature rise of more than 3 ̊C by the end of this century, but that England appears unprepared for even a 2 ̊C rise.

Committee chairman Lord Deben, the former agriculture minister John Gummer, told the BBC: "The whole thing is really run by the government like a Dad's Army. We can't go on with this ramshackle system." The Committee, as well as other departments such as the Ministry of Defence, warned that action must be taken across all branches and levels of government.

What’s even more worrying is that a recent survey carried out by the Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA) revealed that, despite their climate pledges, many English councils do not even know how much energy they use and therefore how much carbon they produce. ECA energy adviser Luke Osborne said the findings were “highly concerning” and that without immediate changes, “it is inconceivable that councils are going to become carbon neutral in less than 30 years.”

Even if we were on track to meet the government’s commitment to get to net zero by 2050, which we’re clearly not, it’s important to realise that this would still give the UK a much larger share of the global carbon budget than other countries. If other developed nations such as the EU, US, China and India were also to aim for net zero by 2050, together we would use up so much of the remaining budget that the rest of the world would not be able to produce any carbon dioxide at all after around 2030.

In order to give global carbon net zero 2050 a good chance of actually being achieved, many climate scientists now agree that the UK should really be getting to net zero much sooner than 2050, a concept known as “carbon equity”. Indeed, a recent report concluded that if we assume a "fair" split of total global carbon emissions, acknowledging also the historical responsibility of the UK, we would need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025 to stay within our allocated budget.

8.3 Why bother targeting UK governments when the UK only produces 1.5% of the world’s carbon emissions?

Firstly, 1.5% of carbon emissions is still around twice as much as we should be producing per person in the UK, as we have approximately 0.8% of the global population. Secondly, the UK’s official carbon accounting figures do not include carbon emissions due to shipping or aviation, which each have a huge impact on global warming.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, this 1.5% only represents our terrestrial emissions - those produced here in the UK. However it’s vital that we realise that the impact the UK is having on global emissions is not primarily due to these emissions, but to the huge quantity of emissions that are produced elsewhere in the globe in order to manufacture the food and materials we import from overseas - so-called embedded emissions.

For example, 50% of our food is imported, and 70% of our fruit and vegetables. Not to mention fast fashion and electrical goods. Not only do these imported goods produce huge amounts of fossil fuel emissions when they are being made or harvested, they also produce even more emissions when they are transported to the UK, often by air. In October 2019 the Office for National Statistics said the UK had become the biggest net importer of carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the G7 group of wealthy nations – outstripping the US and Japan – as a result of buying goods manufactured abroad.

In addition, a whopping 15% of global carbon emissions come from investments made through the City of London - one of the world’s largest financial centres for fossil fuel corporations. Nine of the world’s top fossil fuel investors of the last three years have global or national headquarters in the City of London. Bank financing for fossil fuels has actually INCREASED every year since the Paris Agreement. In 2018 alone, $654 billion was spent funding fossil fuels, with the three worst UK banks investing $110 billion (£85 billion) between them. A report by NGO Global Witness in April 2019 revealed that a staggering $5 trillion is now planned for investing in new fossil fuel projects across the world over the next decade - with UK banks, coal and oil corporations contributing around 15% of this amount.

The UK also spends a huge amount of money in fossil fuel subsidies - measures put in place to keep fossil fuel prices for consumers below market levels, or for producers above market levels, or to reduce such costs for consumers and producers. According to a report from the European Commission in 2019, the UK has the biggest fossil fuel subsidies of the whole of the EU - whereas subsidies and incentives have been reduced for renewable energy technologies. The report found that the UK spends £10.5 billion a year supporting fossil fuel companies in the UK,

significantly more than the £7.3 billion a year it spends supporting renewable energy. It should be noted that the government argues that this ‘financial support’ is not technically a ‘subsidy’. In October 2019, official government records (released through a freedom of information request) revealed that the UK government plans to spend £1 billion supporting a fracking company in Argentina - money that the government had previously committed to spending on green energy.

Another government report published in June 2109 found that over the past five years, the UK has also spent £2.5 billion on fossil fuel projects - the vast majority being in low- and middle-income countries. Analysis by the investigative environmental journalism outlet DeSmog UK found that in 2018 alone, Britain increased its support for fossil fuel projects overseas to almost £2 billion - an elevenfold increase over the previous year - whilst support for renewable energy fell to £700,000. Last year, China invested more in renewable energy than the whole of the EU put together.

Uk spends £5 billion a year in overseas subsidies of fossil fuel exploration through the DIT.

In October 2019, the UK government was accused of “utter hypocrisy” after it rejected calls from MPs to stop spending billions on overseas fossil fuel projects while claiming to be a leader in the fight against global warming. Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee warned the UK government that it is sabotaging its climate credentials by paying out “unacceptably high” oil and gas subsidies in developing nations. Whichever way you look at it, our emissions, subsidies and investments are making a huge contribution to global carbon dioxide levels and are not falling anywhere close to fast enough in order for the world to reach net zero by 2050. To compound the problem, even if we were to stop emitting greenhouse gases today, evidence shows that the climate will keep slowly warming for around 10 years due to thermal inertia.

We have to act now.

8.4 So what do we need to do?

“While adaptation is now urgent and there are many adaptation opportunities, climate science tells us that further warming and risk increasecan only be stopped by achieving zero net greenhouse gas emissions.” McKinsey Global Institute Climate Risk and Response Report, 2020

According to the best scientific understanding, it is likely that it is still physically possible to stabilise global temperatures below 1.5C (there is a greater than 66% chance of this being possible). However, this would take unprecedented transformation of global economies, the likes of which we have never seen, that go way beyond the "optimistic policies" laid out by governments so far.

According to the latest UN Emissions Gap Report, the government policies in place right now are so woefully inadequate that they do not leave us in a much better position than if we had no policies in place at all. The report warns that if we want to keep within 1.5C, this means that emissions must reach a peak in 2020 at the latest and then there must be unprecedented, rapid emissions reductions of at least 7.5% per year. Even if governments honour everything they’ve promised to do, the optimistic “targets and pledges” model, this is still nowhere near enough even to prevent 2C of warming (see section xxx).

If we want to stay below 1.5C, most of the work needs to be done by richer countries, because they have more resources, historical responsibility and higher emissions per person. To make this possible, the UK would need to get to net zero long before 2050.

So how can we make this happen?

The Paris Agreement works by a "ratchet mechanism" whereby governments are expected to increase the ambition of their policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions every 5 years. The last time was when the Paris agreement was signed (late 2015 / early 2016). We know that the policies that were in place are woefully insufficient to prevent climate crisis.

Governments are due to submit their next set of pledges this year at COP26 in Glasgow in November 2020. A concerted effort from governments across the world is now needed to take us off the current path. If governments don’t seriously up their policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for COP26, they won’t be obliged to do so again within the Paris Agreement for another 5 years. By then it will be far too late to prevent 1.5C of warming if we stay on our current pathway.

We therefore have a limited timeframe to act. But we also have a golden opportunity to organise ourselves for the Glasgow COP26, to make sure global governments take the climate crisis seriously - before it is too late.

Part 9: What the experts say - some quotes

9.1 We are in a climate and ecological emergency

“We are facing a man-made disaster on a global scale.” - Sir David Attenborough

“Scientists say that evidence for climate change is ‘unequivocal’” - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report

“We are in a planetary emergency.” - Professor James Hansen, former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

“Based on sober scientific analysis, we are deeply within a climate emergency state but people are not aware of it.” - Professor Schellnhuber, Founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

“Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history - and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely” - Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Report

“The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” - Sir Robert Watson, Chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

“This isn't just about losing wonders of nature. With the loss of even the smallest organisms, we destabilise and ultimately risk collapsing the world's ecosystems - the networks that support the whole of life on Earth.” - Sir David Attenborough

“Our generation is going to be responsible for the loss of one of the most majestic ecosystems on the face of the Earth. We're literally watching the death of this natural wonder.” Professor Michael Mann, Professor of Atmospheric Science at Pennsylvania State University, speaking about coral reefs.

“Insect decline should be of huge concern to all of us, for insects are at the heart of every food web, they pollinate the large majority of plant species, keep the soil healthy, recycle nutrients, control pests, and much more. Love them or loathe them, we humans cannot survive without insects.” - Professor Dave Goulson, Professor of Biology, The University of Sussex

“Join the dots. It's happening. It's happening in your world, it's happening in my world. And let's be very clear about this - it is going to get much worse.” - Dr Sunita Narain, Director General of The Centre for Science and Environment

“Climate change is moving faster than we are - and its speed has provoked a sonic boom SOS across our world. We face a direct existential threat.” - António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General

“Sea level is rising much faster and Arctic sea ice cover shrinking more rapidly than we previously expected. Unfortunately, the data now show us that we have underestimated the climate crisis in the past.” - Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor of Physics of the Oceans, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

“The impact on families is going to be something that I don't think we could ever prepare for.” - Colette Pichon Battle, Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, speaking about rising sea levels.

“We know that with increased storms, increased floods, droughts and heat waves, production of food will be more problematic. Ensuring people have access to clean, safe drinking water will become much more difficult” - Professor Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London

“It really becomes difficult to see at such levels of warming how we're going to maintain our agriculture, such that the population of the world can actually feed itself.” - Dr Peter Stott, Head of the Climate Monitoring and Attribution Team at the Met Office

“Climate change will lead to battles for food” - Jim Yong Kim, President of The World Bank

“You have to understand, this is also a crisis for the world. The fact is that if the poor are suffering today, then the rich will also suffer tomorrow.” - Dr Sunita Narain, Director General of The Centre for Science and Environment

“Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.” - Professor Lonnie Thompson, director of the Byrd Polar Research Centre

“There is a widespread view that a 4°C future is incompatible with any reasonable characterisation of an organised, equitable and civilised global community.” - Professor Kevin Anderson, deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

“There is a growing sense of panic in those who really understand what a 4°C world might be like.” - Professor Will Steffan, Director of the Australian National University Climate Change Institute.

“…there is also no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible. A 4°C world is likely to be one in which communities, cities and countries would experience severe disruptions, damage, and dislocation, with many of these risks spread unequally. It is likely that the poor will suffer most and the global community could become more fractured, and unequal than today. The projected 4°C warming simply must not be allowed to occur” - World Bank report, 2012

“The political and economic map of the world simply cannot cope with these stresses, without real change in the way nations plan, govern and commit resources. Disaster relief

will likely be inadequate, insurance funds will probably fail, and vast dislocations of supplies and services are to be expected. Having a capable army and rescue services will not be enough. The threat of mass casualties, political upheaval, and conflict within and between states will certainly increase” - General Wesley K Clark (Ret.), Former NATO supreme allied commander for Europe.

“We have reasons to believe that if the world doesn’t do anything about mitigating the emissions of greenhouses gases and the extent of climate change continues to increase, then the very social stability of human systems could be at stake” – Professor Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC.

“Losing the diversity of our ecosystems, combined with climate breakdown, will place huge strains upon our social systems and it is feared that this could result in the collapse of our globally interconnected network of civilizations resulting in great suffering and the deaths of many hundreds of millions and perhaps even billions of people.” ??

9.2 We have to act now

"It is generally foolish to bet against the judgments of science, and in this case, where the planet is at stake, it is insane.” - Professor Steven Weinberg, Nobel-Prize winning Theoretical Physicist, 2018

“The future of the human race is now at stake.” - Rowan Williams, Former Archbishop of Canterbury

“Climate change is a medical emergency … It thus demands an emergency response…”- Professor Hugh Montgomery, director of the University College London Institute for Human Health and Performance, Lancet Commission Co-Chair “This is an emergency and for emergency situations we need emergency action.” - Ban Ki-Moon, Former UN Secretary General

“Climate crisis is greatest ever threat to human rights. The economies of all nations, the institutional, political, social and cultural fabric of every state, and the rights of all your people, and future generations, will be impacted.” - Michelle Bachelet, United Nations Rights Chief

"Climate change is the result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century. What we are talking about is extended world war. People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would have to move.” - Lord Nicholas Stern, Professor of Economics and Government and Author of The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change

"The climate emergency is our third world war. Our lives and civilization as we know it are at stake, just as they were in the second world war." - Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Economist

"We have all the resources we need to deal with this. There is nothing magical about reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There is nothing magical about the greenhouse effect. We know exactly how to deal with it. We just don’t have the political or economic will to do this.” - Professor Stephan Harrison, Professor of Climate and Environmental Change, University of Exeter, 2019

“The urgent need for interventions can no longer be postponed.” - Pope Francis

“To ignore the challenge of climate change is to betray Jewish values.” - Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg

"It's not enough to simply pray for a better environment, you have to stand up and take action." - Fazlun Khalid, Founder of Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Science

“Once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.” - Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England

"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by obvious realities. We need men and women who can dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy

"It doesn't matter how strong your opinions are. If you don't use your power for positive change, you are, indeed, part of the problem." - Coretta Scott King, American Author, Activist, and Civil Rights Leader

"It is not enough to be compassionate - you must act.” - The Dalai Lama"Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - St. Francis of Assisi