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Climate Change Risk Assessment: 3

Climate Change Risk Assessment: 3: 2021: Preparing for +4º world.

[5 minute read]

Reaction and summery of an extraordinary, perplexingly brief BBC Radio 4 The Today Programme news item heard Wednesday 16th June 2021, that to my mind is more significant than anything else I could possibly currently imagine. Though coughed, and you would have missed it!

To me the brief item was arguably deserving of being exclusively devoted to the whole programme! If not to being devoted to the rest of the day / week, on all channels and all platforms.

Thinly sandwiched between: 'Confirmation that carers must be vaccinated'. And: 'A 9yr old boy campaigning for reasonably affordable medical cannabis for his epileptic younger brother'. [Both extraordinary stories in themselves, in that barriers to such blindingly obvious necessities exist at all!], was the announcement of the publication of the latest Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3), [the third report since the 2008 Climate Change Act], by the Climate Change Committee (CCC), who produce a detailed report for the UK government every 5yrs.

Though impossible to adequately summarise the CCRA3’s 1500 page report here. In brief: Newly emphasised was the immeasurably sobering assertion that, not only is the UK woefully underprepared for the previously estimated +1.5º / +2º rise in global climate temperatures this century. The 450 independent experts from 130 organisations collectively state that,

"the UK must prepare for a world where global temperatures are undeniably now expected to rise up to +4º!"

That is worth quoting twice: "The UK must prepare for a world where global temperatures are undeniably now expected to rise up to +4º!"

Previously, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special report 2018* had already vividly communicated the magnitude and context of impacts of up to +2º, powerfully illustrated by the World Resources Institute (WRI), [graphics shown here].

The WRI's infographics vividly describe how all known research, modelling and data clearly and unsettlingly show that every 0.5º rise in global climate temperatures absolutely will result in an exponential order of magnitude increase, effecting literally everything! From increased temperatures, increased rain fall and sea level rising; to habitat erosion and species and plant life extinction!

A +1.5º rise won’t just be ‘a bit worse’ than +1º. It will be twice as intense!

While at +4º, actually, we just can not say with any reasonable scientific certainty what that might mean. Simply because we can not yet model to be able to predict the unknowable complexity of feedback relationships in and between such dynamic systems. Except to say that, it will be several orders of magnitude more impactful than +1º.

Now, I, here, and I'm sure the BBC, The Guardian et al, and the 450 experts from 130 organisations of the CCC are not aiming to over embellish 'for the story', just to scare us all and bring a downer to our day / our week / our summer / our future / and our children’s and grandchildren’s futures! No. What is being said here, [and extremely cautiously really], ...is well, is like this: We must, collectively face in to that which challenges us most! To continue not to do so simply can no longer be an option!

Coughed, and you would have missed it! Though, look out of any window, we can all see that ‘it’ is happening. And 'it' is not going away any time soon. And, we can not and should not rely on science, industry and how we already operate to swoop in at the last minute to save us.

No. Instead, like we have all seen possible with Covid19 responsiveness at local, national and global scales. Collectively, we all actually can, and we all actually must choose to face in to that which challenges us most. And fully commit to taking TOTAL responsibility for properly preparing to design and build for the external and internal environments we will need to give us a best change at being able to survive in a +4º world.

To continue not to do so simply can no longer be an option.