Climate: the world is not preparing for the worst enough, scientists warn
The possibility of a chain of disasters caused by global warming is “dangerously under-explored” by the international community.
In an article published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), the researchers argue that too little work has been done on mechanisms that could lead to “catastrophic” and “irreversible” risks for humanity: for example, if the temperature increases are worse than expected, or if they cause cascades of events not yet anticipated, or both.
“Scenarios that matter the most are the least we know,” writes Luke Kemp of the Center for the Study of Existential Risk in Cambridge. The more research on Earth’s climate tipping points – such as irreversible melting of ice sheets or loss of the Amazon rainforest – the more necessary it becomes to take into account high-risk scenarios in climate modeling, explains Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute on Climate Impacts and co-author. “The paths to disaster are not limited to the direct impacts of high temperatures, such as extreme weather events. Spillover effects such as financial crises, conflicts and new epidemics could trigger further calamities, and hamper recovery from potential disasters such as nuclear war,” adds Kemp.
In response, the team proposes a research program to help governments fight the “Four Horsemen” of the “Climate Apocalypse”: famine and malnutrition, extreme weather, conflict and vector-borne diseases. The authors point out that successive scientific reports by UN climate experts (IPCC) have focused primarily on the predicted effects of warming of 1.5-2°C. But governments’ current actions place the earth on a trajectory of 2.7°C warming by the end of the century, far from the 1.5°C target set by the 2015 Paris agreement.
