People globally want their governments to take stronger action to tackle the climate crisis by UNDP, WMO, University of Oxford, agencies 10:30am 19th Jun, 2024   June 2024    People globally want their governments to take stronger action to tackle the climate crisis    The biggest ever public opinion survey on climate change, the Peoples’ Climate Vote 2024, shows 80 percent – or four out of five – people globally want their governments to take stronger action to tackle the climate crisis.    Even more – 86 percent – want to see their countries set aside geopolitical differences and work together on climate change. The scale of consensus is especially striking in the current global context of increased conflict and the rise of nationalism.    Over 73,000 people speaking 87 different languages across 77 countries were asked 15 questions on climate change for the survey, which was conducted for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) with the University of Oxford and GeoPoll. The questions were designed to help understand how people are experiencing the impacts of climate change and how they want world leaders to respond. The 77 countries polled represent 87 percent of the global population.    “The Peoples’ Climate Vote is loud and clear. Global citizens want their leaders to transcend their differences, to act now and to act boldly to fight the climate crisis,” said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner. “The survey results – unprecedented in their coverage – reveal a level of consensus that is truly astonishing. We urge leaders and policymakers to take note, especially as countries develop their next round of climate action pledges – or ‘nationally determined contributions’ under the Paris Agreement. This is an issue that almost everyone, everywhere, can agree on.”    Biggest emitters support stronger climate action    The survey revealed support for stronger climate action in 20 of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, with majorities ranging from 66 percent of people in the United States and Russia, to 67 percent in Germany, 73 percent in China, 77 percent in South Africa and India, 85 percent in Brazil, 88 percent in Iran and up to 93 percent in Italy.    In five big emitters (Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the United States), women were more in favour of strengthening their country’s commitments by 10 to 17 percentage points. This gap was biggest in Germany, where women were 17 percentage points more likely than men to want more climate action (75 percent vs. 58 percent.)    Fossil fuel phaseout    Aside from a broad call for bolder climate action, the survey shows support by a global majority of 72 percent in favour of a quick transition away from fossil fuels. This is true for countries among the top 10 biggest producers of oil, coal, or gas. This includes majorities ranging from 89 percent in Nigeria to 54 percent of people in the United States. Only 7 percent of people globally said their country should not transition at all.    People across the world reported that climate change was on their minds. Globally, 56 percent said they were thinking about it regularly, i.e. daily or weekly, including some 63 percent of those in Least Developed Countries (LDCs).    More than half of people globally said they were more worried than last year about climate change (53 percent). The corresponding figure was higher for those in LDCs (59 percent). On average across the nine Small Island Developing States (SIDS) surveyed, as much as 71 percent said they were more worried than last year about climate change. 69 percent of people globally said their big decisions like where to live or work were being impacted by climate change.    Prof. Stephen Fisher, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, said: “A survey of this size was a huge scientific endeavour. While maintaining rigorous methodology, special efforts were also made to include people from marginalised groups in the poorest parts of the world. This is some of the very highest quality global data on public opinions on climate change available.”    Cassie Flynn, Global Director of Climate Change, UNDP, said: “As country leaders decide on the next round of pledges under the Paris Agreement by 2025, these results are undeniable evidence that people everywhere support bold climate action. The Peoples’ Climate Vote has enlisted the voices of people everywhere – including amongst groups traditionally the most difficult to poll. For example, people in nine of the 77 countries surveyed had never before been polled on climate change. The next two years are crucial for the international community to take actions to ensure that warming stays under 1.5°."    http://peoplesclimate.vote/ http://www.undp.org/publications/peoples-climate-vote-2024    June 2024    The climate crisis is the defining challenge that humanity faces, by Celeste Saulo - Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization.    (Statement to the UN Human Rights Council; 20 June 2024)    The top priority of the World Meteorological Organization is to protect the most fundamental right of all. The right to life.    National meteorological and hydrological services work 24/7 to save lives and livelihoods. We are passionate about our mission. And we are very good at our jobs.    Better weather forecasts and improvement disaster risk management mean that we have slashed the death toll from extreme weather. But climate change threatens to undermine our progress.    The pace of climate change is accelerating quickly, and it affects everyone, everywhere. As the authoritative voice of weather, water and climate, WMO is sounding the Red Alert.    The UN Secretary-General recently said: It’s Climate Crunch Time. We are getting ever closer to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change.    The world celebrated when the UN Human Rights Council passed a landmark resolution in 2021. This confirmed that a healthy environment is a human right. It marked a watershed moment in the fight against the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss and pollution and waste. But the time for celebration has passed.    The climate crisis is the defining challenge that humanity faces. It is closely intertwined with the inequality crisis. It has cascading impacts on food security, population displacement and migration, health, energy, water. Every single one of the Sustainable Development Goals is affected.    Sea-level rise is threatening the very existence of small island developing states. It is displacing communities, contaminating water supplies, disrupting marine ecosystems.    Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones cause untold suffering every year. They undermine multiple human rights.    The recent floods in East Africa and Brazil, the scorching heat in South Asia and North Africa, and the acute drought in southern Africa and Central America are yet another tragic reminder of this. And, as always, vulnerable populations are hit hardest.    The WMO issues annual State of the Climate reports. These highlight the socio-economic impacts of climate change and extreme weather, with input from the International Organization, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, World Food Programme, World Health Organization and more.    2023 was the warmest year on record. That trend continues in 2024.    Displacement: Weather and climate change impacts trigger new, prolonged, and secondary displacement. They increase the vulnerability of people who were already uprooted by conflict and violence.    At the end of 2023, almost 3 in 4 forcibly displaced people were living in countries with high-to-extreme exposure to climate-related hazards, according to UNHCR.    Somalia is just one example: More than 530 000 displacements were recorded related to a prolonged drought in 2023, in addition to more than 650 000 displacements primarily caused by conflict. Subsequent flooding during the October–December rainy season affected more than 2.4 million individuals, displacing over 1 million people, according to UNHCR.    Food insecurity is on the increase. The number of people who are acutely food insecure worldwide has more than doubled, from 149 million people before the COVID-19 pandemic to 333 million and people in 2023, according to WFP. In 2022, 9.2% of the global population, or over 735 million people, were acutely undernourished.    Protracted conflicts, economic downturns, high food prices are at the root of high global food insecurity levels. This is aggravated by naturally occurring phenomena like El Nino and La Nina and long-term climate change the effects of climate and weather extremes.    In southern Africa, for example, the passage of Cyclone Freddy in February 2023 affected Madagascar, Mozambique, southern Malawi, and Zimbabwe. Flooding inflicted severe damage on crops and the economy. The same pattern was repeated in East Africa and Brazil this year.    Climate and health are inextricable linked. Extreme weather like floods and tropical cyclones have a cascading impact. They destroy health facilities, kill or injure people, or accentuate water-borne diseases like cholera and mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. Poor air quality causes millions of premature deaths every year.    Heat is a silent killer taking up to half a million lives a year. Temperatures of nearly 50°C are being recorded more and more frequently. This is not livable, and hundreds of millions of people are suffering both indoors and outdoors. Dangerous heat makes people sick and putting immense strain on hospitals, on communities, and families. It means that schools are closed, denying children the right to education.    Climate change is sabotaging people’s health and setting back public health progress. This is not the future we want for our children. Our children have the right to live and thrive on a sustainable and healthy planet.    The cost of climate action now is so much cheaper than the cost of in-action to our future. There is hope. The transition to renewable energy can offer us a cleaner, healthier future. It can improve basic socio-economic rights – the right to development.    Renewable energy sources are available almost everywhere, making energy access more equitable and allowing countries to develop their economies. Currently, more than half of Africa people lack the access to electricity, but Africa continent possesses some of the world’s greatest potential for solar power generation. Such potential holds the key to alleviate poverty and support socio-economic development.    Every dollar of investment in Renewables creates three times more jobs than the fossil fuel industry. Energy transition could create a total of more than 30 million jobs by 2030.    Ensuring just transition, placing the needs and rights of people at the heat of the energy transition, will be paramount to make sure no one is left behind.    http://wmo.int/media/news/climate-change-undermines-human-rights http://wmo.int/content/climate-change-and-heatwaves    May 2024    World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast well past 1.5C target, by Damian Carrington for Guardian News    Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.    Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met.    Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.    Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.    “I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,” said Gretta Pecl, at the University of Tasmania. “Authorities will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.”    But many scientists said the climate fight must continue, however high global temperature rose, because every fraction of a degree avoided would reduce human suffering.    The climate crisis is already causing profound damage to lives and livelihoods across the world, with only 1.2C (2.16F) of global heating on average over the past four years. Jesse Keenan, at Tulane University in the US, said: “This is just the beginning: buckle up.” Nathalie Hilmi, at the Monaco Scientific Centre, who expects a rise of 3C, agreed: “We cannot stay below 1.5C.”    The experts said massive preparations to protect people from the worst of the coming climate disasters were now critical. Leticia Cotrim da Cunha, at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said: “I am extremely worried about the costs in human lives.”    Sometimes it is almost impossible not to feel hopeless and broken,” says the climate scientist Ruth Cerezo-Mota. “After all the flooding, fires, and droughts of the last three years worldwide, all related to climate change, and after the fury of Hurricane Otis in Mexico, my country, I really thought governments were ready to listen to the science, to act in the people’s best interest.”    Instead, Cerezo-Mota expects the world to heat by a catastrophic 3C this century, soaring past the internationally agreed 1.5C target and delivering enormous suffering to billions of people. This is her optimistic view, she says.    “The breaking point for me was a meeting in Singapore,” says Cerezo-Mota, an expert in climate modelling at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. There, she listened to other experts spell out the connection between rising global temperatures and heatwaves, fires, storms and floods hurting people – not at the end of the century, but today. “That was when everything clicked.    “I got a depression,” she says. “It was a very dark point in my life. I was unable to do anything and was just sort of surviving.” Cerezo-Mota recovered to continue her work: “We keep doing it because we have to do it, so the powerful cannot say that they didn’t know. We know what we’re talking about. They can say they don’t care, but they can’t say they didn’t know.”    In Merida on the Yucatan peninsula, where Cerezo-Mota lives, the heat is ramping up. “Last summer, we had around 47C maximum. The worst part is that, even at night, it’s 38C, which is higher than your body temperature. It doesn’t give a minute of the day for your body to try to recover.”    She says record-breaking heatwaves led to many deaths in Mexico. “It’s very frustrating because many of these things could have been avoided. And it’s just silly to think: ‘Well, I don’t care if Mexico gets destroyed.’ We have seen these extreme events happening everywhere. There is not a safe place for anyone.    “I think 3C is being hopeful and conservative. 1.5C is already bad, but I don’t think there is any way we are going to stick to that. There is not any clear sign from any government that we are actually going to stay under 1.5C.”    Cerezo-Mota is far from alone in her fear. An exclusive Guardian survey of hundreds of the world’s leading climate experts has found that: 77% of respondents believe global temperatures will reach at least 2.5C above pre-industrial levels, a devastating degree of heating; almost half – 42% – think it will be more than 3C; only 6% think the 1.5C limit will be achieved.    The task climate researchers have dedicated themselves to is to paint a picture of the possible worlds ahead. From experts in the atmosphere and oceans, energy and agriculture, economics and politics, the mood of almost all those the Guardian heard from was grim. And the future many painted was harrowing: famines, mass migration, conflict. “I find it infuriating, distressing, overwhelming,” said one expert, who chose not to be named. “I’m relieved that I do not have children, knowing what the future holds,” said another.    The scientists’ responses to the survey provide informed opinions on critical questions for the future of humanity. How hot will the world get, and what will that look like? Why is the world failing to act with anything remotely like the urgency needed? Is it, in fact, game over, or must we fight on? They also provide a rare glimpse into what it is like to live with this knowledge every day.    The climate crisis is already causing profound damage as the average global temperature has reached about 1.2C above the preindustrial average over the last four years. But the scale of future impacts will depend on what happens – or not – in politics, finance, technology and global society, and how the Earth’s climate and ecosystems respond.    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has convened thousands of experts in all these fields to produce the most authoritative reports available, which are approved by all governments. It was founded in 1988 by the United Nations, which was concerned even at that time that global heating could “be disastrous for mankind if timely steps are not taken at all levels”.    The IPCC’s task was to produce a comprehensive review and recommendations, which it has now done six times over 35 years. In terms of scale and significance, it may be the most important scientific endeavour in human history.    The IPCC experts are, in short, the most informed people on the planet on climate. What they think matters. So the Guardian contacted every available lead author or review editor of all IPCC reports since 2018. Almost half replied – 380 out of 843, a very high response rate.    Their expectations for global temperature rise were stark. Lisa Schipper, at the University of Bonn, anticipates a 3C rise: “It looks really bleak, but I think it’s realistic. It’s just the fact that we’re not taking the action that we need to.” Technically, a lower temperature peak was possible, the scientists said, but few had any confidence it would be delivered.    Their overwhelming feelings were fear and frustration. “I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.    So how do the scientists cope with their work being ignored for decades, and living in a world their findings indicate is on a “highway to hell”?    Camille Parmesan, at the CNRS ecology centre in France, was on the point of giving up 15 years ago. “I had devoted my research life to [climate science] and it had not made a damn bit of difference,” she said. “I started feeling, well, I love singing, maybe I’ll become a nightclub singer.”    She was inspired to continue by the dedication she saw in the young activists at the turbulent UN climate summit in Copenhagen 2009. “All these young people were so charged up, so impassioned. So I said I’ll keep doing this, not for the politicians, but for you.    “The big difference [with the most recent IPCC report] was that all of the scientists I worked with were incredibly frustrated. Everyone was at the end of their rope, asking: what the fuck do we have to do to get through to people how bad this really is?”    “Scientists are human: we are also people living on this Earth, who are also experiencing the impacts of climate change, who also have children, and who also have worries about the future,” said Schipper. “We did our science, we put this really good report together and – wow – it really didn’t make a difference on the policy. It’s very difficult to see that, every time.”    Climate change is our “unescapable reality”, said Joeri Rogelj, at Imperial College London. “Running away from it is impossible and will only increase the challenges of dealing with the consequences and implementing solutions.”    Henri Waisman, at the IDDRI policy research institute in France, said: “I regularly face moments of despair and guilt of not managing to make things change more rapidly, and these feelings have become even stronger since I became a father. But, in these moments, two things help me: remembering how much progress has happened since I started to work on the topic in 2005 and that every tenth of a degree matters a lot – this means it is still useful to continue the fight.”    In the climate crisis, even fractions of a degree do matter: every extra tenth means 140 million more people suffering in dangerous heat. The 1.5C target was forced through international negotiations by an alliance of uniquely vulnerable small island states. They saw the previous 2C target as condemning their nations to obliteration under rising oceans and storms.    The 1.5C goal was adopted as a stretch target at the UN climate summit in Paris in 2015 with the deal seen as a triumph, a statement of true multilateral ambition delivered with beaming smiles and euphoric applause. It quickly became the default target for minimising climate damage, with UN summits being conducted to the repeated refrain of: “Keep 1.5 alive!” For the target to be breached requires global temperatures to be above 1.5C across numerous years, not just for a single year.    It remains a vital political target for many climate diplomats, anchoring international climate efforts and driving ambition. But to almost all the IPCC experts the Guardian heard from, it is dead. A scientist from a Pacific Island nation said: “Humanity is heading towards destruction. We’ve got to appreciate, help and love each other.”    Schipper said: “There is an argument that if we say that it is too late for 1.5C, that we are setting ourselves up for defeat and saying there’s nothing we can do, but I don’t agree.”    Jonathan Cullen, at the University of Cambridge, was particularly blunt: “1.5C is a political game – we were never going to reach this target.”    The climate emergency is already here. Even just 1C of heating has supercharged the planet’s extreme weather, delivering searing heatwaves from the US to Europe to China that would have been otherwise impossible. Millions of people have very likely died early as a result already. At just 2C, the brutal heatwave that struck the Pacific north-west of America in 2021 will be 100-200 times more likely.    But a world that is hotter by 2.5C, 3C, or worse, as most of the experts anticipate, takes us into truly uncharted territory. It is hard to fully map this new world. Our intricately connected global society means the impact of climate shocks in one place can cascade around the world, through food price spikes, broken supply chains, and migration.    One relatively simple study examined the impact of a 2.7C rise, the average of the answers in the Guardian survey. It found 2 billion people pushed outside humanity’s “climate niche”, ie the benign conditions in which the whole of human civilisation arose over the last 10,000 years.    The latest IPCC assessment devotes hundreds of pages to climate impacts, with irreversible losses to the Amazon rainforest, quadrupled flood damages and billions more people exposed to dengue fever. With 3C of global heating, cities including Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Miami and The Hague end up below sea level.    “It is the biggest threat humanity has faced, with the potential to wreck our social fabric and way of life. It has the potential to kill millions, if not billions, through starvation, war over resources, displacement,” said James Renwick, at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. “None of us will be unaffected by the devastation.”    “I am scared mightily – I don’t see how we are able to get out of this mess,” said Tim Benton, an expert on food security and food systems at the Chatham House thinktank. He said the cost of protecting people and recovering from climate disasters will be huge, with yet more discord and delay over who pays the bills. Numerous experts were worried over food production: “We’ve barely started to see the impacts,” said one.    Another grave concern was climate tipping points, where a tiny temperature increase tips crucial parts of the climate system into collapse, such as the Greenland ice sheet, the Amazon rainforest and key Atlantic currents. “Most people do not realise how big these risks are,” said Wolfgang Cramer, at the Mediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Ecology.    In the face of such colossal danger, why is the world’s response so slow and inadequate? The IPCC experts overwhelmingly pointed to one barrier: lack of political will. Almost three-quarters of the respondents cited this factor, with 60% also blaming vested corporate interests.    “Climate change is an existential threat to humanity and lack of political will and vested corporate interests are preventing us addressing it. I do worry about the future my children are inheriting,” said Lorraine Whitmarsh, at the University of Bath in the UK.    Lack of money was only a concern for 27% of the scientists, suggesting most believe the finance exists to fund the green transition. Few respondents thought that a lack of green technology or scientific understanding of the issue were a problem – 6% and 4% respectively.    “All of humanity needs to come together and cooperate – this is a monumental opportunity to put differences aside and work together,” said Louis Verchot, at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia. “Unfortunately climate change has become a political wedge issue … I wonder how deep the crisis needs to become before we all start rowing in the same direction.”    Dipak Dasgupta, an economist and former government adviser in India, said short-term thinking by governments and businesses was a major barrier. Climate action needed decade-long planning, in contrast to election cycles of only a few years, said others.    A world of climate chaos would require a much greater focus on protecting people from inevitable impacts, said many scientists, but again politics stands in the way. “Multiple trillions of dollars were liquidated for use during the pandemic, yet it seems there is not enough political will to commit several billion dollars to adaptation funding,” said Shobha Maharaj, from Trinidad and Tobago.    The capture of politicians and the media by vastly wealthy fossil fuel companies and petrostates, whose oil, gas and coal are the root cause of the climate crisis, was frequently cited. “The economic interests of nations often take precedence,” said Lincoln Alves at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.    Stephen Humphreys at the London School of Economics said: “The tacit calculus of decision-makers, particularly in the Anglosphere – US, Canada, UK, Australia – but also Russia and the major fossil fuel producers in the Middle East, is driving us into a world in which the vulnerable will suffer, while the well-heeled will hope to stay safe above the waterline” – even with the cataclysmic 3.5C rise he expects. Asked what individual action would be effective, he said: “Civil disobedience.”    Disinformation was a major concern for scientists from Brazil to Ukraine. This was polarising society, compounding a poor public understanding of climate risk and blinding people to the fact almost all the climate solutions needed were at hand, they said.    “The enormity of the problem is not well understood,” said Ralph Sims, at Massey University in New Zealand. “So there will be environmental refugees by the millions, extreme weather events escalating, food and water shortages, before the majority accept the urgency in reducing emissions – by which time it will be too late.”    “Fight for a fairer world.” That simple message from one French scientist reflected the thoughts of many, who said the huge gap between the world’s rich and poor was a giant barrier to climate action, echoing the chasm between those responsible for the most emissions and those suffering most from the impacts.    Global solidarity could overcome any environmental crisis, according to Esteban Jobbágy, at the University of San Luis in Argentina. “But current growing inequalities are the number one barrier to that.”    Aditi Mukherji, at the CGIAR research group, said: “The rich countries have hogged all the carbon budget, leaving very little for the rest of the world.” The global north has a huge obligation to fix a problem of its own making by slashing its emissions and providing climate funding to the rest of the world, she said.    Overconsumption in rich nations was also cited as a barrier. “I feel resigned to disaster as we cannot separate our love of bigger, better, faster, more, from what will help the greatest number of people survive and thrive,” said one US scientist.    “The good news is the worst-case scenario is avoidable,” said Michael Meredith, at the British Antarctic Survey. “We still have it in our hands to build a future that is much more benign climatically than the one we are currently on track for.” But he also expects “our societies will be forced to change and the suffering and damage to lives and livelihoods will be severe”.    Back in Mexico, Cerezo-Mota remains at a loss: “I really don’t know what needs to happen for the people that have all the power and all the money to make the change. But then I see the younger generations fighting and I get a bit of hope again.”    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair http://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/09/world-is-on-verge-of-climate-abyss-un-warns
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