Viewed soberly, the climate is not doing well: Despite all the protestations about more climate protection, greenhouse gas emissions are at a record high. More coal is being burned around the world than ever before. The earth has already warmed up by 1.1 degrees Celsius since the beginning of industrialization. If things continue at this pace, it won’t be long before the 1.5 degree mark is cracked. The world wanted to limit global warming to this value in this century.
In view of the drama, it is remarkable what contortions the authors of the latest world climate report undertake to explain how the 1.5 degrees can somehow still be achieved. One would have to stop the expansion of fossil energies immediately, reduce emissions immediately, and fundamentally rebuild industry immediately. one would have to.
Every tenth of a degree avoided warming means less climate damage
Of course, the fact that this will not happen as quickly as necessary is not the fault of the scientists. They only lay out the way to a goal agreed upon by the governments themselves. It is due to their failure that this path has become steeper and steeper and now probably leads to a castle in the air. Ultimately, this type of fixation on a number – hop or top – misses the point anyway. Until emissions reach zero, global warming will continue. Regardless of the threshold at which the heating is stopped – there is no getting around a fundamental restructuring of the global economy.
There is good reason for some optimism at this point. Above all, the costs for renewable energies have fallen so rapidly in recent years that hardly anyone thought possible: photovoltaics by 85 percent since 2010, wind energy by half. This means that wind turbines and solar modules are already cheaper than fossil fuels in many places. In addition, 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries that have so far been dependent on energy imports. For them, the advantages of switching to renewables will increase over the coming decades: Avoided dependencies, lower costs, cleaner air.
So there is already the knowledge and now the technology to stop global warming – you just have to use it, and of course as quickly as possible. A mark like 1.5 degrees, which is rapidly approaching, should not be an excuse, but only a greater incentive. Every tenth of a degree less warming also means fewer heat waves, droughts, floods or other catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis.