More alarm bells ring on climate disasters

An international team of scientists has warned the world is on “the brink of an irreversible climate disaster”.

Their annual report – the 2024 State of the Climate Report, published in BioScience, finds more of Earth’s vital signs are in extreme distress.

The team behind the report says that a global carbon price, renewable energy, ecosystem restoration and reductions in overconsumption are among the ways to address the emergency.

“It feels a bit like déjà vu as our report continues to confirm what scientists have been saying for decades, but also somewhat depressing as the trends we are plotting are mostly heading in the wrong direction,” report co-author Dr Thomas Newsome, an ecologist at the University of Sydney, tells Cosmos.

The report is part of an annual series. The first publication, in 2020, declared a “climate emergency” and was co-signed by 11,258 scientists from 153 countries.

“Our reports are intended to educate the public, policymakers, and researchers about the state of the climate crisis. We present the latest information on planetary vital signs, current and projected climate impacts, and policy recommendations,” lead author Professor William Ripple, an ecologist at Oregon State University, USA, tells Cosmos.

“We are motivated to publish these annual reports because Earth’s climate is changing rapidly and there are many new developments every year.”

“The paper is a very welcomed addition to the collection of annual assessments that are published by independent but very well-established groups of scientists,” says Dr Pep Canadell, a chief research scientist at CSIRO Environment and executive director of the Global Carbon Project, who wasn’t involved with the research.

“These rapid assessments are, in part, in response to the very slow cycles of updates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the fact that the key climate indicators are changing very rapidly.

“I praise most in this assessment the very up-to-date data which shows the remarkable times of change we are experiencing.”

This year, the report highlights the 3 hottest days in recorded history, all this July, as well as annual emissions from energy generation exceeding 40 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent for the first time in 2023.

It also points out the UN Environment Programme’s estimate that current emissions policies will warm the world by 2.7°C in 2100, compared to preindustrial levels.

This is despite 195 countries being signatories to the Paris Agreement, which pledges to keep climate change to well below 2°C, aiming for 1.5°C.

“Tragically, we are failing to avoid serious impacts, and we can now only hope to limit the extent of the damage,” write the researchers.

The team has tracked 35 planetary vital signs, including metrics like ocean acidity, fossil fuel subsidies, greenhouse gas emissions, population, and tree cover loss.

Of these, 25 are at record levels.

The report comes as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Professor Jim Skea, said on the weekend that “1.5°C is slipping away from us” in an interview with the UK’s The Telegraph.

Skea emphasised the UN’s estimate of nearly 3°C by 2100, saying that even 2°C of warming was “a big ask”.

“In reviewing the state of Earth’s climate, it has become extremely clear that humanity is far off track with regard to climate action,” Ripple says.

“We are seeing a significant increase in scientific research on the topic of climate-related societal collapse. I am deeply troubled by both current climate-related disasters and such long-term catastrophic risks.”

The researchers say that the rapid phaseout of fossil fuels worldwide should be a top priority for addressing these risks, including: “a sufficiently high global carbon price that could restrain emissions by the wealthy while potentially providing funding for much-needed climate mitigation and adaptation programs”.

They also suggest that rapid cuts to methane emissions can slow heating in the short term, and drastic reductions to overconsumption and waste are necessary particularly among wealthy countries.

“In a world with finite resources, unlimited growth is a perilous illusion,” write the researchers.