Spinning out of control

It is no more about how to check climate change. No more about 2 and 3 and 4 degrees. The scenario has shifted to how we plan for a warmer world. A much warmer world! This is because it is inevitable. We have crossed the tipping point.

Going by a latest study, it will now be almost impossible to keep the increase in global average temperatures up to 2100 within the 2C target that scientists believe might avert dangerous and unpredictable climate change.

The study by the accountancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) sees the world as destined for dangerous climate change this century – with global temperatures possibly rising by as much as 6C – because of the failure of governments to find alternatives to fossil fuels!

An analysis of how fast the major world economies are reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels suggests that it may already be too late to stay within the 2C target of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it found. To keep within the 2C target, the global economy would have to reach a “decarbonisation” rate of at least 5.1 per cent a year for the next 39 years. This has not happened since records began at the end of the Second World War, according to Leo Johnson, a PwC partner in sustainability and climate change.

Even doubling our current rate of decarbonisation would still lead to emissions consistent with 6C of warming by the end of the century.

This could well end up as another reason why not to do anything at all!