Preventing any climate change was never really an option. The climate is going to change, it already has. The goal has always been to limit the change as much as possible to keep it within the most stable and least harmful range possible. It was decided that limiting warming to 1.5C was our optimum target. We will not meet that target.
So, the best case scenario is no longer on the table, but we can still limit warming, and the harm caused by rapid, anthropogenic climate change as much as possible. Every degree, every tenth of a degree of warming that we are able to prevent will reduce harm. Therefore, we should still be working diligently to reduce human GHG emissions to net zero as quickly as possible, even if we will not be able to meet the Paris climate goals.
Make no mistake, however, it’s going to be bad. Even at 1.5C it was going to be bad, it would have just been the most manageable level of bad that we felt was achievable. I’m all for hope and optimism but we need to understand that bad things are coming so that we can adequately prepare and try to mitigate the impacts as much as possible. Just how bad things get depends on what we do, and by “we” I mean all of humanity.
But while there is a floor for how bad things will be, there’s also a ceiling. I think the chances of near term human extinction or the total, permanent collapse of human civilization are essentially zero. Climate change isn’t going to bring on the apocalypse.
Preventing any climate change was never really an option. The climate is going to change, it already has. The goal has always been to limit the change as much as possible to keep it within the most stable and least harmful range possible. It was decided that limiting warming to 1.5C was our optimum target. We will not meet that target.
So, the best case scenario is no longer on the table, but we can still limit warming, and the harm caused by rapid, anthropogenic climate change as much as possible. Every degree, every tenth of a degree of warming that we are able to prevent will reduce harm. Therefore, we should still be working diligently to reduce human GHG emissions to net zero as quickly as possible, even if we will not be able to meet the Paris climate goals.
Make no mistake, however, it’s going to be bad. Even at 1.5C it was going to be bad, it would have just been the most manageable level of bad that we felt was achievable. I’m all for hope and optimism but we need to understand that bad things are coming so that we can adequately prepare and try to mitigate the impacts as much as possible. Just how bad things get depends on what we do, and by “we” I mean all of humanity.
But while there is a floor for how bad things will be, there’s also a ceiling. I think the chances of near term human extinction or the total, permanent collapse of human civilization are essentially zero. Climate change isn’t going to bring on the apocalypse.