‘Unprecedented Wildfires, Storms and Glacier Melt Are the Strongest Indications Yet of How Climate Change Threatens life on Earth’

UNEP: Why is this happening? What is causing the loss of sea ice?

PP: Increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide (CO₂), are to blame.The global trend in the increase in CO₂ concentration is not only rising but accelerating. In 1960 it was +0.9 parts per million (ppm) per year, in 1980 +1.21 ppm; in 2000 +1.83 ppm and in 2020 it is +2.51 ppm/year.

Global heating is real. There is a strong correlation in the long-term trends between CO₂ emissions and atmospheric CO₂ levels and we’re in danger of missing key Paris Climate Agreement goals as the emissions gap widens.

UNEP: What is UNEP doing to highlight the dangers?

PP: UNEP’s annual Emissions Gap Report along with the World Environment Situation Room are painting a worrying picture. Monthly global temperatures for January, February, March and July 2020, were the second warmest since records began in 1880, while in April, May and June 2020 they were the warmest ever on record since 1880.

UNEP: What are the implications?

PP: Reduced Arctic sea ice means increased ocean temperatures. Combined with melting glaciers on land, this contributes to sea-level rise, which is accelerating. Between 1994 and 2010 sea-level rise averaged 3.3 mm per year, but since 2010 it has been rising at an average of 5.7 mm per year.

A warming world threatens the planet’s library of life, including our own existence. We need to change the way we do agriculture, our industry, the way we travel, and how we heat and cool our homes.

We need to ramp up renewable energy and rapidly phase out fossil fuels. We need to implement nature-based solutions and introduce a circular economy. Solutions exist, but their implementation is too slow. We also need more data and science. Governments need to get serious about climate action.

The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021 – 2030) proclaimed in December 2017, will provide a common framework to ensure that ocean science can fully support countries’ actions to sustainably manage the oceans and more particularly to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

*SOURCE: UN Environment. Go to ORIGINAL.