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Global Warming Speech: 1, 2, 3-5 Minute Speech

Updated on
Feb 3, 2024

Global warming refers to the long-term rise in Earth’s average surface temperature. Since the 18th-century Industrial Revolution in European Countries, global annual temperature has increased in total by a little more than 1 degree Celsius. Global Warming is one of the most concerning issues facing us, as it threatens the existence of life on Earth. Greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, industrial processes, waste management, etc are all reasons for global warming.

Did you know: Antarctica is losing ice mass at an average rate of about 150 billion tons per year, and Greenland is losing about 270 billion tons per year, adding to sea level rise?

Today, weather prediction has been becoming more complex with every passing year, with seasons more indistinguishable, and the general temperatures hotter. The number of natural disasters like hurricanes, cyclones, droughts, floods, etc., has risen steadily since the onset of the 21st century. The supervillain behind all these changes is Global Warming. The name is quite self-explanatory; it means the rise in the temperature of the Earth. Since childhood, we all have heard about it, but just as a formality, let us first understand what global warming is!

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Short global warming speech 100-150 words (1 minute), global warming speech 250 words (2 minutes), global warming speech 500- 700 words (3- 5 minutes), 10-line global warming speech, causes of global warming, ways to tackle global warming.

It means a rise in global temperature due to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities and inventions. In scientific words, Global Warming is when the earth heats (the temperature rises). It occurs when the earth’s atmosphere warms up as a result of the sun’s heat and light being trapped by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapour, nitrous oxide, and methane. Many people, animals, and plants are harmed by this. Many people die because they can’t handle the shift.

Good morning to everyone present here today I am going to present a speech on global warming. Global Warming is caused by the increase of carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere and is a result of human activities that have been causing harm to our environment for the past few centuries now. Global Warming is something that can’t be ignored and steps have to be taken to tackle the situation globally. The average temperature is constantly rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius for the last few years. The best method to prevent future damage to the earth, cutting down more forests should be banned and Afforestation should be encouraged. Start by planting trees near your homes and offices, participate in events, and teach the importance of planting trees. It is impossible to undo the damage but it is possible to stop further harm.

Good morning everyone and topic of my speech today is global warming. Over a long period, it is observed that the Earth’s temperature is rising rapidly. This affected the wildlife, animals, humans, and every living organism on earth. Glaciers have been melting, and many countries have started water shortages, flooding, erosion and all this is because of global warming. No one can be blamed for global warming except for humans. Human activities such as gases released from power plants, transportation, and deforestation have resulted in the increase of gases such as carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants in the earth’s atmosphere. The main question is how can we control the current situation and build a better world for future generations. It starts with little steps by every individual. Start using cloth bags made from sustainable materials for all shopping purposes, instead of using the high-watt lights use the energy-efficient bulbs, switch off the electricity, don’t waste water, abolish deforestation and encourage planting more trees. Shift the use of energy from petroleum or other fossil fuels to wind and solar energy. Instead of throwing out the old clothes donate them to someone so that it is recycled. Donate old books, don’t waste paper. Above all, spread awareness about global warming. Every little thing a person does towards saving the earth will contribute in big or small amounts. We must learn that 1% effort is better than no effort. Pledge to take care of Mother Nature and speak up about global warming.

Also Read: How To Become an Environmentalist?

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What evidence exists that Earth is warming and that humans are the main cause?

We know the world is warming because people have been recording daily high and low temperatures at thousands of weather stations worldwide, over land and ocean, for many decades and, in some locations, for more than a century. When different teams of climate scientists in different agencies (e.g., NOAA and NASA) and in other countries (e.g., the U.K.’s Hadley Centre) average these data together, they all find essentially the same result: Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by about 1.8°F (1.0°C) since 1880.

Bar graph of global temperature anomalies with an overlay of a line graph of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 1850-2023

( bar chart ) Yearly temperature compared to the twentieth-century average from 1850–2023. Red bars mean warmer-than-average years; blue bars mean colder-than-average years. (line graph) Atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts: 1850-1958 from IAC , 1959-2023 from NOAA Global Monitoring Lab . NOAA Climate.gov graph, adapted from original by Dr. Howard Diamond (NOAA ARL).

In addition to our surface station data, we have many different lines of evidence that Earth is warming ( learn more ). Birds are migrating earlier, and their migration patterns are changing. Lobsters and other marine species are moving north. Plants are blooming earlier in the spring. Mountain glaciers are melting worldwide, and snow cover is declining in the Northern Hemisphere (Learn more here and here ). Greenland’s ice sheet—which holds about 8 percent of Earth’s fresh water—is melting at an accelerating rate ( learn more ). Mean global sea level is rising ( learn more ). Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly in both thickness and extent ( learn more ).

Aerial photo of glacier front with a graph overlay of Greenland ice mass over time

The Greenland Ice Sheet lost mass again in 2020, but not as much as it did 2019. Adapted from the 2020 Arctic Report Card, this graph tracks Greenland mass loss measured by NASA's GRACE satellite missions since 2002. The background photo shows a glacier calving front in western Greenland, captured from an airplane during a NASA Operation IceBridge field campaign. Full story.

We know this warming is largely caused by human activities because the key role that carbon dioxide plays in maintaining Earth’s natural greenhouse effect has been understood since the mid-1800s. Unless it is offset by some equally large cooling influence, more atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to warmer surface temperatures. Since 1800, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from about 280 parts per million to 410 ppm in 2019. We know from both its rapid increase and its isotopic “fingerprint” that the source of this new carbon dioxide is fossil fuels, and not natural sources like forest fires, volcanoes, or outgassing from the ocean.

DIgital image of a painting of a fire burning in a coal pile in a small village

Philip James de Loutherbourg's 1801 painting, Coalbrookdale by Night , came to symbolize the start of the Industrial Revolution, when humans began to harness the power of fossil fuels—and to contribute significantly to Earth's atmospheric greenhouse gas composition. Image from Wikipedia .

Finally, no other known climate influences have changed enough to account for the observed warming trend. Taken together, these and other lines of evidence point squarely to human activities as the cause of recent global warming.

USGCRP (2017). Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume 1 [Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, 470 pp, doi: 10.7930/J0J964J6 .

National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Partnership (2012): National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy . Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Council on Environmental Quality, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Washington, D.C. DOI: 10.3996/082012-FWSReport-1

IPCC (2019). Summary for Policymakers. In: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, M. Tignor, E. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Nicolai, A. Okem, J. Petzold, B. Rama, N.M. Weyer (eds.)]. In press.

NASA JPL: "Consensus: 97% of climate scientists agree." Global Climate Change . A website at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus). (Accessed July 2013.)

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WATCH: Obama speaks at COP26 climate talks

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Barack Obama expressed confidence at U.N. climate talks Monday that the Biden administration will ultimately get its $555 billion climate package through Congress, and faulted U.S. rivals China and Russia for what he called a “dangerous lack of urgency” in cutting their own climate-wrecking emissions.

Watch Obama’s remarks live in the player above.

“When it comes to climate, time really is running out,” Obama told climate advocates. Though there has been progress since the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement “we are nowhere near where we need to be.”

His comments came as conference leaders acknowledged Monday that many key sticking points exist after a week of talks. A trust gap between rich and poor nations on climate change issues emerged when the negotiations went through a check of what’s been accomplished and what’s left to be done. Developing countries used versions of the word “disappointing” five times when leaders talked Monday about the progress to date.

The U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, is the former American president’s first since he helped deliver the triumph of the 2015 Paris climate accord, when nations committed to cutting fossil fuel and agricultural emissions fast enough to keep the Earth’s warming below catastrophic levels of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

That celebration has faded and been replaced by worry. Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris accord. President Joe Biden put America back in as soon as he took office this year but U.S. efforts at fighting climate change were set back years by the Trump move.

“1.5 C is on life support now, it’s in ICU,” said Alden Meyer, a long-time observer of climate talks with E3G, an environmental think tank.

Obama’s appearance on the sidelines of the talks sought to remind governments of the elation that surrounded the Paris accord, and urge them to announce more immediate, concrete steps to put the 2015 deal into action.

“The U.S. is back and in moving more boldly. The U.S. is not alone,” Obama said.

Obama noted efforts by the United States — the world’s second-worst climate polluter now after China — stalled when Trump pulled out of the climate accord.

“I wasn’t real happy about that,” he admitted, but added that optimism is required to save the planet.

“There are times where I feel discouraged. There are times where the future seems somewhat bleak. There are times where I am doubtful that humanity can get its act together before it’s too late,” Obama said. “We can’t afford hopelessness.”

READ MORE: The magic 1.5: What’s behind climate talks’ key elusive goal

Despite opposition within Biden’s own Democratic party that has blocked the climate-fighting legislation, Obama said he was confident that some version of Biden’s ambitious climate bill will pass in Congress in the next few weeks.

“It will set the United States on course to meet its new climate targets,” he said.

And while in 2015, rapport between Obama administration negotiators and their Chinese counterparts was seen as paving the way to the global Paris accord, Obama on Monday criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin for not joining other global leaders at the climate talks in Glasgow.

“It was particularly discouraging to see the leaders of two of the world’s largest emitters, China and Russia, decline to even attend the proceedings, and their national plans reflect what appears to be a dangerous lack of urgency,” Obama said.

Obama spoke earlier Monday to a session on Pacific Island nations, including ones whose existence is threatened by rising oceans under climate change.

“All of us have a part to play. All of us have work to do. All of us have sacrifices to make” on climate, he said. “But those of us who live in wealthy nations, those of us who helped to precipitate the problem … we have an added burden.”

When he was briefing the U.N. climate conference (COP26) on the first week’s progress, COP26 President Alok Sharma had to correct himself about the number of issues settled, changing “many” into “some.”

No deals have been made yet on three main goals of the U.N. conference. Those are pledges to cut emissions in half by 2030 to keep the Paris climate deal’s 1.5 degree Celsius temperature limit goal alive; the need for $100 billion annually in financial help from rich countries to poor ones; and the idea that half of that money goes to adapting to global warming’s worst effects. Several other issues, including trading carbon and transparency, also weren’t solved yet.

Numerous developing nations were pessimistic. They called progress “disappointing” and not near enough, saying announcements on fighting climate change were high in quantity but worried that they were low in quantity.

Representatives of 77 developing nations, along with China, said until this climate conference fixes the financial pledge problem to help poor nations cope with climate change these talks cannot be successful.

Ahmadou Sebory Touré of Guinea, speaking on behalf of poor nations, said rich countries not fulfilling their $100 billion pledge shows those countries are just making “an empty commitment.”

“There is a history of broken promises and unfulfilled commitments by developed countries,” Diego Pacheco Balanza of Bolivia told the conference.

Scientists say the urgency of global warming is as great as the dire speeches at Glasgow have conveyed, with the planet only a few years away from the point where meeting the goals set in the Paris accord becomes impossible, due to mounting damage from coal, petroleum, agriculture and other pollution sources.

The last few days have seen huge protests in Glasgow and around Europe for faster action in fighting global warming.

Obama told young people “you are right to be frustrated,” but then relayed the advice his mother gave him when he was young.

“Don’t sulk. Get busy, get to work and change what needs to be changed,” he said. “Vote like your life depends on it — because it does.”

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the silhouette of people can be seen as a giant glowing earth floats on a lake

ENVIRONMENT

How global warming is disrupting life on Earth

The signs of global warming are everywhere, and are more complex than just climbing temperatures.

Our planet is getting hotter. Since the Industrial Revolution—an event that spurred the use of fossil fuels in everything from power plants to transportation—Earth has warmed by 1 degree Celsius, about 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

That may sound insignificant, but 2023 was the hottest year on record , and all 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the past decade.

Global warming and climate change are often used interchangeably as synonyms, but scientists prefer to use “climate change” when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems.

Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also natural disasters, shifting wildlife habitats, rising seas , and a range of other impacts. All of these changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases , like carbon dioxide and methane, to the atmosphere.

What causes global warming?

When fossil fuel emissions are pumped into the atmosphere, they change the chemistry of our atmosphere, allowing sunlight to reach the Earth but preventing heat from being released into space. This keeps Earth warm, like a greenhouse, and this warming is known as the greenhouse effect .

Carbon dioxide is the most commonly found greenhouse gas and about 75 percent of all the climate warming pollution in the atmosphere. This gas is a product of producing and burning oil, gas, and coal. About a quarter of Carbon dioxide also results from land cleared for timber or agriculture.

Methane is another common greenhouse gas. Although it makes up only about 16 percent of emissions, it's roughly 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide and dissipates more quickly. That means methane can cause a large spark in warming, but ending methane pollution can also quickly limit the amount of atmospheric warming. Sources of this gas include agriculture (mostly livestock), leaks from oil and gas production, and waste from landfills.

What are the effects of global warming?

One of the most concerning impacts of global warming is the effect warmer temperatures will have on Earth's polar regions and mountain glaciers. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet. This warming reduces critical ice habitat and it disrupts the flow of the jet stream, creating more unpredictable weather patterns around the globe.

( Learn more about the jet stream. )

A warmer planet doesn't just raise temperatures. Precipitation is becoming more extreme as the planet heats. For every degree your thermometer rises, the air holds about seven percent more moisture. This increase in moisture in the atmosphere can produce flash floods, more destructive hurricanes, and even paradoxically, stronger snow storms.

The world's leading scientists regularly gather to review the latest research on how the planet is changing. The results of this review is synthesized in regularly published reports known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

A recent report outlines how disruptive a global rise in temperature can be:

Coral reefs are now a highly endangered ecosystem. When corals face environmental stress, such as high heat, they expel their colorful algae and turn a ghostly white, an effect known as coral bleaching . In this weakened state, they more easily die.
Trees are increasingly dying from drought , and this mass mortality is reshaping forest ecosystems.
Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are making wildfires more common and more widespread. Research shows they're even moving into the eastern U.S. where fires have historically been less common.
Hurricanes are growing more destructive and dumping more rain, an effect that will result in more damage. Some scientists say we even need to be preparing for Cat 6 storms . (The current ranking system ends at Cat 5.)

How can we limit global warming?

Limiting the rising in global warming is theoretically achievable, but politically, socially, and economically difficult.

Those same sources of greenhouse gas emissions must be limited to reduce warming. For example, oil and gas used to generate electricity or power industrial manufacturing will need to be replaced by net zero emission technology like wind and solar power. Transportation, another major source of emissions, will need to integrate more electric vehicles, public transportation, and innovative urban design, such as safe bike lanes and walkable cities.

( Learn more about solutions to limit global warming. )

One global warming solution that was once considered far fetched is now being taken more seriously: geoengineering. This type of technology relies on manipulating the Earth's atmosphere to physically block the warming rays of the sun or by sucking carbon dioxide straight out of the sky.

Restoring nature may also help limit warming. Trees, oceans, wetlands, and other ecosystems help absorb excess carbon—but when they're lost, so too is their potential to fight climate change.

Ultimately, we'll need to adapt to warming temperatures, building homes to withstand sea level rise for example, or more efficiently cooling homes during heat waves.

Why all life on Earth depends on trees

Life probably exists beyond Earth. So how do we find it?

Pizzlies, grolars, and narlugas: Why we may soon see more Arctic hybrids

For Antarctica’s emperor penguins, ‘there is no time left’

Listen to 30 years of climate change transformed into haunting music

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Debunking eight common myths about climate change

The world is warming at a record pace , with unseasonable heat baking nearly every continent on Earth. April, the last month for which statistics are available, marked the 11th consecutive month the planet has set a new temperature high.

Experts say that is a clear sign the Earth’s climate is rapidly changing. But many believe – or at least say they believe – that climate change is not real, relying on a series of well-trodden myths to make their point.

“Most of the world rightly acknowledges that climate change is real,” says Dechen Tsering, Acting Director of the Climate Change Division at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “But in many places, misinformation is delaying the action that is so vital to countering what is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity.”

This month, delegates will be meeting in Bonn, Germany for a key conference on climate change. Ahead of that gathering, here is a closer look at eight common climate-related myths and why they are simply not true.

Myth #1: Climate change has always happened, so we should not worry about it.

It is true that the planet’s temperature has long fluctuated, with periods of warming and cooling. But since the last ice age 10,000 years ago, the climate has been relatively stable, which scientists say has been crucial to the development of human civilization.

That stability is now faltering. The Earth is heating up at its fastest rate in at least 2,000 years and is about 1.2°C hotter than it was in pre-industrial times. The last 10 years have been the warmest on record, with 2023 smashing global temperature records.

Other key climate-related indicators are also spiking. Ocean temperatures , sea levels and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses are rising at record rates while sea ice and glaciers are retreating at alarming speeds.

Myth #2: Climate change is a natural process. It has nothing to do with people.

While climate change is a natural process human activity is pushing it into overdrive. A landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which draws on the research of hundreds of leading climate scientists, found that humans are responsible for almost all the global warming over the past 200 years.

The vast majority of warming has come from the burning of coal, oil and gas. The combustion of these fossil fuels is flooding the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, which act like a blanket around the planet, trapping heat.

By measuring everything from ice cores to tree rings, scientists have been able to track concentrations of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide levels are at their highest in 2 million years , while two other greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, are at their highest in 800,000 years .

Myth #3: A couple of degrees of warming is not that big of a deal.

Actually, small temperature rises can throw the world’s delicate ecosystems into disarray, with dire implications for humans and other living things. The Paris Agreement on climate change aims to limit average global temperature rise to “well below” 2°C, and preferably to 1.5°C, since pre-industrial times.

Even that half-a-degree swing could make a massive difference. The IPCC found that at 2°C of warming, more than 2 billion people would regularly be exposed to extreme heat than they would at 1.5°C. The world would also lose twice as many plants and vertebrate species and three times as many insects. In some areas, crop yields would decrease by more than half, threatening food security.

At 1.5°C of warming, 70 per cent to 90 per cent of corals, the pillars of many undersea ecosystems, would die. At 2°C of warming, some 99 per cent would perish. Their disappearance would likely lead to the loss of other marine species, many of which are a critical source of protein for coastal communities.

“Every fraction of a degree of warming matters,” says Tsering.

Myth #4: An increase in cold snaps shows climate change is not real.

This statement confuses weather and climate, which are two different things. Weather is the day-to-day atmospheric conditions in a location and climate is the long-term weather conditions in a region. So, there could still be a cold snap while the general trend for the planet is warming.

Some experts also believe climate change could lead to longer and more intense cold in some places due to changes in wind patterns and other atmospheric factors. One much-publicized paper found the rapid warming of the Arctic may have disrupted the swirling mass of cold air above the North Pole in 2021. This unleashed sub-zero temperatures as far south as Texas in the United States, causing billions of dollars in damages.

Myth #5: Scientists disagree on the cause of climate change.

A 2021 study revealed that 99 per cent of peer-reviewed scientific literature found that climate change was human-induced. That was in line with a widely read study from 2013 , which found 97 per cent of peer-reviewed papers that examined the causes of climate change said it was human-caused.

“The idea that there is no consensus is used by climate deniers to muddy the waters and sow the seeds of doubt,” says Tsering. “But the scientific community agrees: the global warming we are facing is not natural. It is caused by humans.”

Myth #6: It is too late to avert a climate catastrophe, so we might as well keep burning fossil fuels.

While the situation is dire, there is still a narrow window for humanity to avoid the worst of climate change.

UNEP’s latest Emissions Gap Report found that cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent by 2030, the world could limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C compared with pre-industrial levels.

A little math reveals that to reach that target, the world must reduce its annual emissions by 22 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent in less than seven years. That might seem like a lot. But by ramping up financing and focusing on low-carbon development in key transport , agriculture and forestry, the world can get there.

“There is no question the task ahead of us is massive,” Tsering says. “But we have the solutions we need to reduce emissions today and there is an opportunity to raise ambition in the new round of national climate action plans.”

Myth #7: Climate models are unreliable.

Climate skeptics have long argued that the computer models used to project climate change are unreliable at best and completely inaccurate at worst.

But the IPCC, the world’s leading scientific authority on climate change, says that over decades of development, these models have consistently provided “a robust and unambiguous picture” of planetary warming.

Meanwhile, a 2020 study by the University of California showed that global warming models were largely accurate. The study looked at 17 models that were generated between 1970 and 2007 and found 14 of them closely matched observations.

Myth #8: We do not need to worry about lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Humanity is inventive; we can just adapt to climate change.

Some countries and communities can adapt to rising temperatures, lower precipitation and the other impacts of climate change. But many cannot.

The world’s developing countries collectively need between US$215 billion and US$387 billion per year to adapt to climate change, yet only have access to a fraction of that total, found UNEP’s latest Adaptation Gap Report . Even wealthy nations will struggle to afford the cost of adaptation, which in some cases will require radical measures, such as displacing vulnerable communities, relocating vital infrastructure or changing staple foods.

In many places, people are already facing hard limits on how much they can adapt. Small island developing states , for example, can only do so much to hold back the rising seas that threaten their existence.

Without significant action to lower greenhouse gas emissions, communities will reach these hard limits faster and begin to suffer irreparable damage from climate change, say experts.

The Sectoral Solution to the climate crisis

UNEP is at the forefront of supporting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature rise well below 2°C, and aiming for 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels. To do this, UNEP has developed the Sectoral Solution, a roadmap to reducing emissions across sectors in line with the Paris Agreement commitments and in pursuit of climate stability. The six sectors identified are: energy; industry; agriculture and food; forests and land use; transport; and buildings and cities.

Further Resources

UNEP’s work on climate change
The Sectoral Solution to Climate Change
Adaptation Gap Report 2023
Emissions Gap Report 2023

Related Sustainable Development Goals

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Leonardo DiCaprio addresses world leaders at the UN: Climate change is real

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio brought attention to climate change Tuesday by addressing world leaders meeting at the UN Climate Summit in New York.

"I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe that mankind has looked at climate change in that same way," DiCaprio told the UN Climate Summit . "As if pretending that climate change wasn't real would somehow make it go away, but I think we all know better than that now."

DiCaprio's remarks come days after the actor stood with thousands in New York City's People's Climate March on Sunday. The march brought in an estimated 400,000 people seeking to put an end to global warming.

"Every week we're seeing new and undeniable climate events, evidence that accelerated climate change is here right now," DiCaprio added in his speech. "None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact."

Related: Scenes from #FloodWallStreet: 'Corporate captalism = Climate chaos'

DiCaprio documented the summit by joining Instagram Tuesday morning and snapping photos of the general assembly and with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The "Wolf of Wall Street" actor spoke at the summit after being designated as a UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on climate change by the Secretary-General.

DiCaprio finished his speech by calling on the assembly to act on climate change, and to do so now.

"Honored delegates, leaders of the world, I pretend for a living but you do not," DiCaprio said. "The people made their voices heard on Sunday around the world and the momentum will not stop, but now it's your turn. The time to answer humankind's greatest challenge is now."

Related: Thousands rally for climate change action

Similarly, actress Emma Watson addressed the UN on Saturday in order to bring attention to the issue of gender equality .

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10 Facts That Prove the World Is in a Climate Emergency

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does not mince its words when describing the disastrous effect that humans are having on the planet. “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land,” reads its latest report .

From heat waves and wildfires to downpours and flooding, 2023 has given us a taste of the impacts we can expect over the coming decades and centuries. In short, it’s not good news. Without very significant reductions in greenhouse gases—beginning immediately—it is very likely that global surface temperatures will exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Even if we do curtail emissions, sea levels will almost certainly continue to rise throughout this century and may continue to rise for centuries or millennia beyond that. Extreme weather events have become more frequent since 1950 and will become more frequent and more severe as global temperatures increase.

The message could not be clearer: We need to do everything we can to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions right now. Unless we take major action to stop emissions, we’re facing an Earth that is hotter, plagued by more extreme weather, and less hospitable than the already-warmed planet we have today. Here’s everything you need to know about where we are with the climate crisis.

1. There’s more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than at any time in human history

The Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii has been tracking Earth’s atmospheric concentration of CO 2 since the late 1950s. In 2022, the global average concentration it recorded was 417.06 parts per million (ppm). Preindustrial levels were 278 ppm, which means that humans are halfway to doubling the concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere compared to the period between 1750 and 1800.

CO 2 concentrations fluctuate with the seasons, while the speed at which they increase yearly is affected by human behavior. For example, the rising concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere slowed during the early stages of the pandemic when emissions fell, but then rose steeply in 2021 as the world reopened. The annual rise in emissions and atmospheric concentration of CO 2 has since slowed down again.

The global average CO 2 concentration for 2023 is predicted to be 419.2 ppm. The last time Earth’s atmosphere contained this much CO 2 was more than 3 million years ago, when sea levels were several meters higher and trees grew at the south pole.

2. We’re accelerating down the path to exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming

In 2015, the nations behind the Paris Agreement set an ambitious target for keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The latest IPCC report spells out just how difficult it will be for the world to stay under that limit unless we drastically slash emissions now. The report models five different future emission scenarios—from very high emissions to very low emissions—and in each scenario global surfaces are expected to hit at least 1.5 degrees.

Extreme Weather Poses a Challenge for Heat Pumps

Of the emissions scenarios modeled, only the very low emission scenario estimates that the world would see less than 1.5 degrees of warming by the end of the 21st century. In that scenario, temperatures are likely to overshoot 1.5 degrees of warming between 2041 and 2060 before returning back down to 1.4 degrees of warming by the end of the century. This scenario would require the world to dramatically reduce its emissions with almost immediate effect.

But the point at which the world first steps over the 1.5 degree threshold could be much sooner. According to the World Meteorological Association , there’s a 66 percent chance that the annual average temperature will overshoot 1.5 degrees of warming for at least one year between 2023 and 2027. Indeed, the 1.5 degree limit has already been breached for shorter periods of weeks and months—in 2015, 2016, 2020, and 2023. July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded , with temperatures breaking records on four consecutive days.

Based on current emissions and policies, the world is likely to experience 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100.

3. Our remaining carbon budget is tiny

At its core, climate change is really simple to grasp. The more carbon dioxide—and other warming gases—that we put into the atmosphere, the higher global temperatures will rise. Between 1850 and 2021, humans released around 2,500 gigatonnes of CO 2 into the atmosphere (1 gigatonne equals 1 billion metric tons). So far, these emissions have led to 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming when compared to preindustrial levels.

To have a 50-50 chance of staying under 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, we can release only 250 extra gigatonnes of CO 2 into the atmosphere—and that includes emissions from the beginning of 2023. To put that in perspective, in 2022 we emitted 36.8 gigatonnes of CO 2 , and global annual emissions are still yet to peak. In other words, we’ve blown our 1.5 degree budget—it’s just a matter of when, not if, we pass the threshold.

By the same logic, other temperature thresholds have budgets, too. To have a 50-50 chance of keeping temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius of warming, we must emit fewer than 1,350 gigatonnes of CO 2 from 2020 onwards. As of mid-2023, roughly only 1,000 gigatonnes of that budget remains.

4. Extreme heat events have become more frequent and severe

You only need to think of recent devastating wildfires in Canada and Hawaii , the scorching temperatures in the southwestern United States , or the evacuation of tourists from Greece to see that climate change is leading to more frequent and more severe hot weather events.

The kind of extreme heat event that had a likelihood of happening once every 10 years between 1850 and 1900 is now likely to occur 2.8 times every 10 years. In a world that hits 1.5 degrees of warming, such events are likely to occur 4.1 times every 10 years. The same is true of once-in-every-50-years events. They’re now likely to occur 4.8 times in 50 years, and in a world that exceeds 1.5 degrees of warming, 8.6 times every 50 years.

Heavy rain is also more common because of climate change. The kind of heavy one-day rain that 150 years ago would have only happened once every 10 years is now happening 1.3 times every 10 years. In a world warmed by 1.5 degrees Celsius, that will go up to 1.5 times. And as frequency increases, so does severity—we can expect these extreme weather events to be hotter and wetter than those that went before them.

5. Humans have already caused 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming

The latest IPCC report estimates that global surface temperatures are now 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than they were between 1850 and 1900. Global surface temperatures have risen faster since 1970 than in any 50-year period over the past 2,000 years, and this has been particularly pronounced in recent years.

From 2023 to 2027, the annual average temperature is predicted to range between 1.1 and 1.8 degrees Celsius higher than the 1850–1900 average. There is a 98 percent estimated likelihood that one of the years in this period will surpass 2016 as the hottest year on record.

Global weather systems will be a factor in this. 2023 saw the beginning of an El Niño period, when sea temperatures get warmer in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean with the effect of raising temperatures worldwide and increasing the risk of extreme weather. But just in case there was any doubt, the IPCC’s latest report makes it clear that the principal drivers of rising global temperatures are human-released greenhouse gases.

6. Two-thirds of extreme weather events in the past 20 years were influenced by humans

The number of floods and instances of heavy rain have quadrupled since 1980 and doubled since 2004. Extreme temperatures, droughts, and wildfires have also more than doubled in the past 40 years. While no extreme weather event ever comes down to a single cause, climate scientists are increasingly exploring the human fingerprints on floods, heat waves, droughts, and storms.

Carbon Brief , a UK-based website covering climate science, has gathered data from 400 studies on “extreme event attribution” and has found that 71 percent of all extreme weather events studied in the past 20 years were made more likely or more severe by human-caused climate change—including 93 percent of extreme heat events.

7. Sea levels are rising faster today than ever before

Melting ice sheets and glaciers and warming oceans lead to higher sea levels. Since 1900, sea levels have risen faster than in any preceding century in at least the past 3,000 years, and this is set to continue for a very long time.

The process is also speeding up. Over the past 140 years, sea levels have risen worldwide by 21 to 24 centimeters. But roughly 10 centimeters of that rise has taken place since 1992.

Because oceans take a long time to warm, a lot of sea level rise is already baked in. If warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, then the global mean sea level will rise between 2 and 3 meters over the next 2,000 years. If warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius, global mean sea level will rise to between 2 and 6 meters above current levels.

8. Arctic sea ice is rapidly diminishing

Temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than almost anywhere else on the planet. Between 2011 and 2020, annual Arctic sea ice reached its lowest level since at least 1850, and late summer Arctic sea ice was smaller than at any time in at least the past 1,000 years. As of 2022, Arctic sea ice cover is decreasing at a rate of 12.6 percent per decade, compared to its average extent during the period from 1981 to 2010.

Under all the future emissions scenarios in the latest IPCC report, the minimum amount of Arctic sea ice will fall below 1 million square kilometers at least once before 2050—making the area practically free of sea ice altogether.

9. The world is getting hungrier and thirstier

For the first time in decades, world hunger is increasing —and climate change is a big driver of this. Extreme weather events from droughts to heat waves affect crop yields and their nutritional value, and some crops will become unviable in certain areas. Under heat stress, animals will become less productive and more liable to pests and disease, which might become more frequent and spread.

Across Africa, where many countries struggle with food insecurity, agricultural productivity has decreased 34 percent because of climate change. By 2050, the risk of hunger and malnutrition could rise by 20 percent worldwide because of the effects of climate change.

Crops, animals, ecosystems, and humans also depend on water—and already the UN estimates that roughly half the world’s population experiences water scarcity for part of the year. Over the past 20 years, climate change has intensified this shortage by lowering the water stored on land.

Water quality is also worsened by climate change, which accelerates urban migration, making water sources more polluted. It also causes flooding, droughts, and higher water temperatures, which can increase the amounts of sediments, pathogens, and pesticides in water.

10. Average wildlife populations have dropped by 60 percent in just over 40 years

The average size of vertebrate populations (mammals, fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles) declined by 69 percent between 1970 and 2018, according to the biennial Living Planet Report published by the Zoological Society of London and the WWF. That doesn't mean total animal populations have declined by 69 percent, however, as the report compares the relative decline of different animal populations. Imagine a population of 10 rhinos where nine of them died—a 90 percent population drop. Add that to a population of 1,000 sparrows where 100 of them died—a 10 percent decrease. The average population decrease across these two groups would be 50 percent even though the loss of individuals would be just 10.08 percent. And between 1 and 2.5 percent of animal species have already gone extinct.

Whatever way you stack the numbers, climate change is a factor. An international panel of scientists backed by the UN argues that climate change is playing an increasing role in driving species to extinction. It is thought to be the third biggest driver of biodiversity loss after changes in land and sea use and overexploitation of resources. Even under a 2 degrees Celsius warming scenario, 5 percent of animal and plant species will be at risk of extinction. Coral reefs are particularly vulnerable to extreme warming events; their cover could be reduced to just 1 percent of current levels at 2 degrees Celsius of warming.

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February 29, 2016

Leonardo DiCaprio Uses Oscar Speech to Urge Action on Climate Change

The world must “stop procrastinating” and tackle “the most urgent threat facing our species”

By Lisa Friedman & ClimateWire

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Leonardo DiCaprio used his Oscar acceptance speech last night to declare that climate change “is real” and to blast what he called the “politics of greed.”

DiCaprio won the Academy Award for best actor for his role in “The Revenant” as a 19th-century frontiersman who is left for dead after being mauled by a bear.

He said making “The Revenant” was “about man’s relationship with the natural world” and noted that the world in 2015 marked its hottest year on record. The production crew, he said, had to move to the “southern tip of this planet” in order to find snow.

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“Climate change is real; it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating,” DiCaprio said, to applause from celebrities and others inside Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.

“Let us not take this planet for granted,” he said.

As he did months earlier in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year, DiCaprio also decried “the politics of greed.” He called on viewers to support leaders “who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for humanity.”

Speaking to reporters after the Academy Awards ceremony, DiCaprio said he had hoped he’d be able to bring his message about climate urgency to the millions of people watching the Oscars. He also directly addressed the upcoming 2016 presidential elections.

“I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude, but I also feel the ticking clock,” he said. “The truth is this: If you do not believe in climate change, you do not believe in modern science or empirical truths.”

A longtime environmental activist, DiCaprio has been deeply involved in the climate movement. Last year, he attended a U.N. summit in Paris to lend support to an international accord.

DiCaprio also has bought the movie rights to a post-apocalyptic young adult novel, “The Sandcastle Empire,” which reportedly attracted the actor with its environmental themes ( ClimateWire , Feb. 26).

He said last night that he also is working on a documentary about climate change that has brought him to Greenland, China, India and elsewhere.

“This is the most existential crisis our civilization has ever known, and I wanted to speak out about that,” he said.

Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net , 202-628-6500

Climate Action: It’s time to make peace with nature, UN chief urges

The Earth, an image created from photographs taken by the Suomi NPP satellite.

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The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has described the fight against the climate crisis as the top priority for the 21st Century, in a passionate, uncompromising speech delivered on Wednesday at Columbia University in New York.

The landmark address marks the beginning of a month of UN-led climate action, which includes the release of major reports on the global climate and fossil fuel production, culminating in a climate summit on 12 December, the fifth anniversary of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

Nature always strikes back

Mr. Guterres began with a litany of the many ways in which nature is reacting, with “growing force and fury”, to humanity’s mishandling of the environment, which has seen a collapse in biodiversity, spreading deserts, and oceans reaching record temperatures.

The link between COVID-19 and man-made climate change was also made plain by the UN chief, who noted that the continued encroachment of people and livestock into animal habitats, risks exposing us to more deadly diseases.

And, whilst the economic slowdown resulting from the pandemic has temporarily slowed emissions of harmful greenhouse gases, levels of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane are still rising, with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere at a record high. Despite this worrying trend, fossil fuel production – responsible for a significant proportion of greenhouse gases – is predicted to continue on an upward path.

Secretary-General António Guterres (left) discusses the State of the Planet with Professor Maureen Raymo at Columbia University in New York City.

‘Time to flick the green switch’

The appropriate global response, said the Secretary-General, is a transformation of the world economy, flicking the “green switch” and building a sustainable system driven by renewable energy, green jobs and a resilient future.

One way to achieve this vision, is by achieving net zero emissions (read our feature story on net zero for a full explanation, and why it is so important). There are encouraging signs on this front, with several developed countries, including the UK, Japan and China, committing to the goal over the next few decades.

Mr. Guterres called on all countries, cities and businesses to target 2050 as the date by which they achieve carbon neutrality – to at least halt national increases in emissions - and for all individuals to do their part.

With the cost of renewable energy continuing to fall, this transition makes economic sense, and will lead to a net creation of 18 million jobs over the next 10 years. Nevertheless, the UN chief pointed out, the G20, the world’s largest economies, are planning to spend 50 per cent more on sectors linked to fossil fuel production and consumption, than on low-carbon energy.

Put a price on carbon

Food and drinking supplies are delivered by raft to a village in Banke District, Nepal, when the village road was cut off due to heavy rainfall.

For years, many climate experts and activists have called for the cost of carbon-based pollution to be factored into the price of fossil fuels, a step that Mr. Guterres said would provide certainty and confidence for the private and financial sectors.

Companies, he declared, need to adjust their business models, ensuring that finance is directed to the green economy, and pension funds, which manage some $32 trillion in assets, need to step and invest in carbon-free portfolios.

Lake Chad has lost up to ninety per cent of its surface in the last fifty years.

Far more money, continued the Secretary-General, needs to be invested in adapting to the changing climate, which is hindering the UN’s work on disaster risk reduction. The international community, he said, has “both a moral imperative and a clear economic case, for supporting developing countries to adapt and build resilience to current and future climate impacts”.

Everything is interlinked

The COVID-19 pandemic put paid to many plans, including the UN’s ambitious plan to make 2020 the “super year” for buttressing the natural world. That ambition has now been shifted to 2021, and will involve a number of major climate-related international commitments.

These include the development of a plan to halt the biodiversity crisis; an Oceans Conference to protect marine environments; a global sustainable transport conference; and the first Food Systems Summit, aimed at transforming global food production and consumption.

Mr. Guterres ended his speech on a note of hope, amid the prospect of a new, more sustainable world in which mindsets are shifting, to take into account the importance of reducing each individual’s carbon footprint.

Far from looking to return to “normal”, a world of inequality, injustice and “heedless dominion over the Earth”, the next step, said the Secretary-General, should be towards a safer, more sustainable and equitable path, and for mankind to rethink our relationship with the natural world – and with each other.

You can read the full speech here .

António Guterres, UN Secretary-General December 2, 2020

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Climate Change
Facebook Fact-checks

Did 1,609 scientists sign a declaration saying ‘there is no climate emergency’? Not quite

If your time is short.

Based on the descriptions and listed credentials of the 1,609 signatories, not all were scientists.

Several signatories were in fields including engineering, medicine, law, economics and psychology. Some did not list any background in science. Some were deceased.

There is wide consensus among climate scientists, scientific associations and institutions that climate change is real and primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels.

"There is no climate emergency," posts proclaimed on X, formerly Twitter, sharing a message allegedly supported by more than a thousand scientists.

Some X users circulated a " world climate declaration " that they claimed proves the climate crisis is a " hoax " and is " based on politics, not on science ."

"1,609 scientists, including two Nobel laureates, gathered together to sign a declaration, proclaiming that ‘there is no climate emergency,’" a Sept. 15 X post said.

The claim misleads by overlooking a few details.

First, there is wide consensus among climate scientists , scientific associations and institutions that climate change is real and is caused primarily by humans burning fossil fuels. Nearly 200 scientific organizations around the world assert that climate change is caused by human action. Second, the statement about this document being signed by 1,609 scientists glosses over key information about both the document and its signatories. The document was published by Climate Intelligence or Clintel, a group founded by science journalist Marcel Crok and geophysics professor Guus Berkhout, who began his career with oil giant Shell in 1964.

Clintel’s website says the group aims to "generate knowledge and understanding" of the causes and effects of climate change and climate policy. It makes its stance clear: "The climate view of CLINTEL can be easily summarized as: There is no climate emergency."

A scan of the 1,609 signatures shows that not all were scientists. Several were from other professions; some listed no science background at all.

In September 2022, Agence France-Presse analyzed a previous version of this document published in 2020, which then had 1,200 signatories. Many signatories were scientists of various kinds, including 40 geophysicists and 130 geologists. Only 10 of the signatories described themselves as climatologists or climate scientists, Agence France-Presse found.

About 200 signatories were engineers. Other professionals were mathematicians, medical doctors and agricultural scientists. Six signatories were deceased.

Featured Fact-check

The updated version with 1,609 signatories , published Aug. 14, marked 12 people as deceased. Among the scientists, specialties included geology, chemistry, physics and agriculture. Those with climate expertise were few.

The list included engineers, doctors, lawyers, mathematicians, architects, entrepreneurs, and economists. Others did not list any occupation at all. Some descriptions read:

"Sceptical (sic) Scientific Contrarian in the Climate Debate"

"Leadership development and coaching"

"Physicist and YouTuber"

"Sculptor, designer and innovator"

The two Nobel laureates who signed the declaration — John F. Clauser (the 2022 winner for physics) and Ivar Giaever (who shared the 1973 prize for physics — have a history of denying the climate crisis .

The declaration — a version of which was published as early as 2019 — made six claims, including that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Others downplay the threat, severity and impact of climate change such as, "warming is far slower than predicted," and "global warming has not increased natural disasters." This list of claims has been assessed as having "very low" credibility by scientists, as reported in a review published by Climate Feedback , a global network of scientists that debunks inaccurate climate change claims. The reviewers said the statement gave cherry-picked information about carbon dioxide and climate change impact and presented them in a "biased and misleading way."

The statement that "1,609 scientists signed a declaration saying ‘there is no climate emergency’" contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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X post , Sept. 15, 2023

X post , Oct. 1, 2023

X post , Aug. 16, 2023

Global Climate Intelligence Group, World Climate Declaration: There is no climate emergency , Aug. 14, 2023

Climate Intelligence, About Us page , accessed Oct. 3, 2023

Centre for Global Socio-Economic Change, Professor Guus Berkhout , accessed Oct. 3, 2023

Agence France-Presse, Climate 'declaration' recirculates debunked claims , Sept. 7, 2022

Climate Feedback, Letter signed by "500 scientists" relies on inaccurate claims about climate science , Sept. 23, 2019

Newsweek, Nobel Prize Winner Who Doesn't Believe Climate Crisis Has Speech Canceled , July 24, 2023

Scientific American, Climate Chatter Dominates Island of Nobels , July 13, 2015

PolitiFact, Copious evidence proves climate change is not a ‘fraud’ , Jan. 31, 2023

Yale Climate Connections, Scientists agree: Climate change is real and caused by people , Feb. 17, 2022

NASA, Scientific Consensus: Earth's Climate Is Warming , accessed Oct. 6, 2023

State of California, Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, List of Worldwide Scientific Organizations , accessed Oct. 9, 2023

The Nobel Prize, John Clauser , accessed Oct. 9, 2023

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1973 , accessed Oct. 9, 2023

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Search the United Nations

Un headquarters, 27 july 2023, secretary-general's opening remarks at press conference on climate, antónio guterres.

Secretary-General António Guterres briefs the press on new data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirming that this July will be the hottest month ever in recorded history. UN Photo/Mark Garten

The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy. No more excuses. No more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that. It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the very worst of climate change. But only with dramatic, immediate climate action.

A very good morning. Humanity is in the hotseat. Today, the World Meteorological Organization and the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service are releasing official data that confirms that July 2023 is set to be the hottest month ever recorded in human history.

We don’t have to wait for the end of the month to know this. Short of a mini-Ice Age over the next days, July 2023 will shatter records across the board.

According to the data released today, July has already seen the hottest three-week period ever recorded; the three hottest days on record; and the highest-ever ocean temperatures for this time of year. The consequences are clear and they are tragic: children swept away by monsoon rains; families running from the flames; workers collapsing in scorching heat. For vast parts of North America, Asia, Africa and Europe – it is a cruel summer. For the entire planet, it is a disaster.

And for scientists, it is unequivocal – humans are to blame.

All this is entirely consistent with predictions and repeated warnings.

The only surprise is the speed of the change.

Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning.

The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.

The air is unbreathable. The heat is unbearable. And the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable.

Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy. No more excuses. No more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that. It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the very worst of climate change. But only with dramatic, immediate climate action. We have seen some progress. A robust rollout of renewables. Some positive steps from sectors such as shipping. But none of this is going far enough or fast enough. Accelerating temperatures demand accelerated action. We have several critical opportunities ahead. The Africa Climate Summit. The G20 Summit. The UN Climate Ambition Summit. COP28. But leaders – and particularly G20 countries responsible for 80% of global emissions – must step up for climate action and climate justice. What does that mean in practice? First, emissions. We need ambitious new national emissions reduction targets from G20 members. And we need all countries to take action in line with my Climate Solidarity Pact and Acceleration Agenda: Hitting fast forward so that developed countries commit to reach net zero emissions as close as possible to 2040, and emerging economies as close as possible to 2050, with support from developed countries to do so. And all actors must come together to accelerate a just and equitable transition from fossil fuels to renewables -- as we stop oil and gas expansion, and funding and licensing for new coal, oil and gas. Credible plans must also be presented to exit coal by 2030 for OECD countries and 2040 for the rest of the world. Ambitious renewable energy goals must be in line with the 1.5 degree limit. And we must reach net zero electricity by 2035 in developed countries and 2040 elsewhere, as we work to bring affordable electricity to everyone on earth. We also need action from leaders beyond governments. I urge companies as well as cities, regions, and financial institutions to come to the Climate Ambition Summit with credible transition plans that are fully aligned with the United Nations’ net zero standard, presented by our High-Level Expert Group. Financial institutions must end their fossil fuel lending, underwriting and investments and shift to renewables instead. And fossil fuel companies must chart their move towards clean energy, with detailed transition plans across the entire value chain: No more greenwashing. No more deception. And no more abusive distortion of anti-trust laws to sabotage net zero alliances. Second, adaptation. Extreme weather is becoming the new normal. All countries must respond and protect their people from the searing heat, fatal floods, storms, droughts, and raging fires that result. Those countries on the frontlines -- who have done the least to cause the crisis and have the least resources to deal with it -- must have the support they need to do so. It is time for a global surge in adaptation investment to save millions of lives from climate [carnage.] That requires unprecedented coordination around the priorities and plans of vulnerable developing countries. Developed countries must present a clear and credible roadmap to double adaptation finance by 2025 as a first step towards devoting at least half of all climate finance to adaptation. Every person on earth must be covered by an early warning system by 2027 – by implementing the Action Plan we launched last year. And countries should consider a set of global goals to mobilize international action and support on adaptation. That leads to the third area for accelerated action – finance. Promises made on international climate finance must be promises kept. Developed countries must honour their commitments to provide $100 billion a year to developing countries for climate support and fully replenish the Green Climate Fund. I am concerned that only two G7 countries – Canada and Germany – have made until now replenishment pledges. Countries must also operationalize the loss and damage fund at COP28 this year. No more delays; no more excuses. More broadly, many banks, investors and other financial actors continue to reward polluters and incentivize wrecking the planet. We need a course correction in the global financial system so that it supports accelerated climate action. That includes putting a price on carbon and pushing the multilateral development banks to overhaul their business models and approaches to risk. We need the multilateral development banks leveraging their funds to mobilize much more private finance at reasonable cost to developing countries -- and scaling up their funding to renewables, adaptation and loss and damage. In all these areas, we need governments, civil society, business and others working in partnership to deliver. I look forward to welcoming first-movers and doers on the Acceleration Agenda to New York for the Climate Ambition Summit in September. And to hearing how leaders will respond to the facts before us. This is the price of entry. The evidence is everywhere: humanity has unleashed destruction. This must not inspire despair, but action. We can still stop the worst. But to do so we must turn a year of burning heat into a year of burning ambition. And accelerate climate action – now. Enfin, Permettez-moi de dire quelques mots sur la situation profondément préoccupante au Niger. Allow me to say a few words about the deeply worrying situation in Niger. Soyons clairs : Let me be clear: Les Nations unies condamnent fermement cette attaque contre le gouvernement démocratiquement élu – et soutiennent les efforts de la CEDEAO et de l'Union africaine pour restaurer la démocratie. The United Nations strongly condemns the assault against the democratically-elected government and supports the efforts of ECOWAS and the African Union to restore democracy. Hier, j'ai parlé au président Bazoum pour lui exprimer toute notre solidarité. Yesterday I spoke to President Bazoum to express our full solidarity, Aujourd'hui, je souhaite m'adresser directement à ceux qui le retiennent : Now I want to speak directly to those detaining him: Libérez Président Bazoum – immédiatement et sans condition. Release President Bazoum immediately and unconditionally. Cessez d'entraver la gouvernance démocratique de votre pays, et respectez l’État de droit. Stop obstructing the democratic governance of the country and respect the rule of law. Nous voyons une tendance inquiétante dans la région du Sahel. Les changements anticonstitutionnels et successifs de gouvernement ont des effets terribles sur le développement et la vie des populations civiles. We are seeing a disturbing trend in the region. Successive unconstitutional changes of government are having terrible effects on the development and lives of civilian populations. C’est particulièrement criant dans les pays déjà touchés par les conflits, l'extrémisme violent, le terrorisme et les effets dévastateurs du changement climatique. This is particularly glaring in countries already affected by conflict, violent extremism and terrorism, as well as the devastating effects of climate change. Les Nations unies sont solidaires du gouvernement démocratiquement élu et du peuple nigérien. The United Nations stands in solidarity with the democratically elected Government and the people of Niger.

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Climate Change ‘Biggest Threat Modern Humans Have Ever Faced’, World-Renowned Naturalist Tells Security Council, Calls for Greater Global Cooperation

Climate change is a “crisis multiplier” that has profound implications for international peace and stability, Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council today, amid calls for deep partnerships within and beyond the United Nations system to blunt its acute effects on food security, natural resources and migration patterns fuelling tensions across countries and regions.

Throughout the morning, the Council’s high-level open debate on climate and security heard from a range of influential voices, including naturalist David Attenborough, who called climate change “the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced”. In video remarks telecast at the outset, he warned that concentrations of carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere have not been equalled for millions of years.

“If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security,” he said: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperature and ocean food chains. The poorest — those with the least security — are certain to suffer. “Our duty right now is surely to do all we can to help those in the most immediate danger.”

While the world will never return to the stable climate that gave birth to civilization, he said that, if Governments attending the twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in November recognize climate change as a global security threat, “we may yet act proportionately — and in time”.

Climate change can only be dealt with by unparalleled levels of global cooperation, he said. It will compel countries to question economic models, invent new industries and recognize the moral responsibility that wealthy nations have to the rest of the world, placing a value on nature that “goes far beyond money”. He challenged the international community to finally create a stable, healthy world where resources are equally shared and where — for the first time in history — people “come to know what it feels like to be secure”.

Mr. Guterres echoed those calls, describing the climate emergency as “the defining issue of our time”. Noting that the last decade was the hottest in human history, he said wildfires, cyclones, floods and droughts are now the new normal. “These shocks not only damage the environment on which we depend, they also weaken our political, economic and social systems,” he said.

Indeed, where climate change dries up rivers, reduces harvests, destroys critical infrastructure and displaces communities, it exacerbates the risks of conflict, he said. A study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that 8 of the 10 countries hosting the largest multilateral peace operations in 2018 were in areas highly exposed to climate change.

The impact is greatest where fragility and conflict have weakened coping mechanisms, he said, where people depend on natural capital for their livelihoods and where women — who bear the greatest burden of the climate emergency — do not enjoy equal rights. He highlighted examples in Afghanistan, where reduced harvests have pushed people into poverty, leaving them susceptible to recruitment by armed groups, and across West Africa and the Sahel, where changes in grazing patterns have fostered conflict between pastoralists and farmers. In some Pacific small island nations, entire communities have been forced to relocate.

“The forced movement of larger numbers of people around the world will clearly increase the potential for conflict and insecurity,” he observed. He called for greater efforts to address climate‑related security risks, starting with a focus on prevention, and creating a global coalition committed to achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century. The United Nations is asking companies, cities and financial institutions to prepare credible decarbonization plans.

In addition, immediate actions are needed to protect countries from increasingly frequent and severe climate effects. He urged donors and multilateral and national development banks to increase the share of adaptation and resilience finance to at least 50 per cent of their climate finance support. Developed countries, too, must keep their pledge to channel $100 billion annually to the global South. “They have already missed the deadline of 2020,” he acknowledged.

Above all, he called for embracing a concept of security that places people at its centre, stressing that COVID-19 has laid bare the devastation that non‑traditional security threats can cause on a global scale. In all such efforts, it will be essential to build on the strengths of the Security Council, Peacebuilding Commission, international financial institutions, regional organizations, civil society, the private sector, academia and others.

Issuing a call to action, Nisreen Elsaim, Chair of the Youth Organization on Climate Change and the United Nations Youth Advisory Group, said young people around the globe are watching the Security Council as it grapples with climate change. Each of the organ’s four meetings on the issue — in 2007, 2011, 2018 and 2019 — have referenced serious climate-related security risks in Somalia, Darfur, West Africa and the Sahel, Mali and the Lake Chad Basin. “Science has forecasted many more countries will join this list if we did not take the right measures now, and if we did not start adaptation specially in Africa,” she said, adding that, in her country, “we are living in continuous insecurity due to many factors that put Sudan on the top of the list when it comes to climate vulnerability”.

She recalled that, in a 2018 Council resolution on Sudan, members recognized the adverse effects of climate change, ecological changes and natural hazards on the situation in Darfur, focusing specifically on drought, desertification, land degradation and food insecurity. “Human survival, in a situation of resources degradation, hunger, poverty and uncontrolled climate migration, will make conflict an inevitable result,” she said. Moreover, climate-related emergencies cause major disruptions in access to health, life-saving sexual and reproductive health services, and result in loss of livelihoods and drive displacement and migration. They also increase the risk of gender-based violence and harmful practices and force young people to flee in search of a decent life.

Welcoming the Council’s recent deployment of a new special political mission, the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in the Sudan (UNITAMS), she said it has a historic opportunity to speak to the root causes of the conflict. Climate change and youth participation is mentioned twice in the Mission’s mandate, and climate change challenges are included in the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement. Emphasizing that young people must be part of the solution, she declared: “We are the present, we have the future, let’s not repeat previous generations’ lapse.”

In the ensuing dialogue, Heads of State and Government, along with ministers and other senior officials described national actions to attenuate the negative impact of climate change and offered their views on the related security risks. Some pressed the Council to broaden its thinking about non-traditional security threats. Several — including leaders from Kenya and Niger — stressed that the link between climate and conflict could not be more evident, while others explored the ability of Governments to meet people’s basic needs, and still others cast doubt on the assertion that the relationship between climate and conflict is causal, instead pointing to political and economic factors that are known to drive tensions.

Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Council President for February, speaking in his national capacity, said the Council, while imperfect, has been willing to lead the way in confronting threats to international security. “That is exactly what climate change represents,” he said, acknowledging that, while there are some who disagree, these cynics “could not be more wrong”. While the causes of climate change may not sit within the Council’s traditional purview, its effects most certainly do. He asked delegates to consider the young man forced onto the road when his once‑fertile home becomes a desert — one of the 16 million people displaced by weather-related disasters each year — who becomes easy prey for violent extremists, or the girl who drops out of school because her daily search for water takes her away from her family — and into the sights of the human traffickers.

“If such scenes were triggered by the actions of some despotic warlord or internecine conflict, few would question this Council’s right to act or its duty to do so,” he assured. “This is not a subject from which we should shy away.” The world must move from 51 billion metric tons of greenhouse‑gas emissions each year to net zero, so that the increase in global temperatures remains within manageable levels. For its part, the United Kingdom Parliament passed a law committing to net zero by 2050, he said, drawing attention to his pledge that the nation would slash emissions by 68 per cent by 2030. He urged the Council to act, “because climate change is a geopolitical issue every bit as much as an environmental one”, stressing that, if it is to succeed in maintaining peace and security worldwide, it must galvanize and support the United Nations family of agencies into a swift and effective response.

Kaïs Saïed, President of Tunisia , agreed with Ms. Elsaim that the world must listen to youth on climate change. More broadly, humans — and not money — must be placed at the centre of the issue. Voicing support for the Secretary-General’s 2021 priorities, especially his efforts to galvanize Member States to confront the multiple impacts of climate change, he described it as ironic that humans are, at the same time, the phenomenon’s drivers and its greatest victims. “It is no one’s right to […] to commit all of humanity to death,” he stressed, noting that Council resolution 2532 (2020) confirmed that insecurity can be driven by a multitude of factors, not just armed conflict. One such driver is the deepening poverty and resource scarcity resulting from a changing climate, particularly in Africa. Climate factors often prolong conflict and create conditions conducive to deprivation, exclusion, terrorism and organized crime.

Calling on the Council to adopt a new, more comprehensive approach and for sufficient resources for all specialized agencies related to climate change, he underlined the need for early warning systems and better prevention strategies. Noting that the COVID-19 pandemic and other recent crises have once again revealed the need for States to strengthen their solidarity, he emphasized the need for prompt action while stressing that the burden borne by States must be differentiated based on their degree of responsibility for causing the crisis. Moreover, mitigation cannot be at the expense of developing countries, he said.

Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya , said that new approaches to investment by the public and private sector need to reach the countries and regions worst hit by climate change. Persistent droughts, constant sea‑level rise and increasingly frequent extreme weather patterns are reversing economic growth and development gains achieved over decades. The result is increased fragility to instability and armed conflict that then come to the attention of this Security Council. The implementation of the Council’s mandate to maintain global peace and security will only get more difficult with time if climate change remains on its present course. Rather than wait for a future tipping point, we must redouble the efforts to direct all the resources and multilateral frameworks of our rules-based international order to mitigate the effects of climate change. While the bulk of this work is happening outside the Council, no body with such a strong mandate should step aside from this challenge.

The climate-security nexus is already impacting Africa. “Listen to us Africans when we tell you that the link is clear, its impact tangible and the need for solutions urgent,” he said. Making recommendations, he said that the Council must do more when crafting mandates for conflict resolution and post-conflict resolution to ensure they dovetail with the efforts to deploy climate change mitigation and adaptation measures. In this regard, he applauded Council resolutions 2349 (2017) and 2502 (2019), respectively on Lake Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that have integrated measures to address the impact of climate change. The 15-member organ can also act strongly against illicit financial outflows, illicit resource exploitation, terrorism financing and money‑laundering in the most fragile regions in Africa. Doing so immediately boosts the resources available to Governments to undertake climate change mitigation and offer the public services and goods needed to consolidate and protect peace.

Brigi Rafini, Prime Minister of Niger , agreed that the impact of climate change on peace and security is increasingly evident, stressing that water scarcity exacerbated by climate change could see gross domestic product (GDP) in the Sahel fall by 6 per cent and hunger increase 20 per cent by 2050. Climate change has increased competition for diminished land and water resources, ramping up tensions between livestock owners and others. He underscored the collective responsibility to tackle this existential challenge, stressing that “climate change and land degradation are no longer purely environmental matters”. Rather, they are part of a broader view that links environmental goals with those for economic and social development, and the pursuit of international peace and stability.

“We need to consider climate change as a threat to peace and security,” he said, urging the Council to shore up its understanding of impact on security and to systematically consider climate change in its resolutions pertaining to specific country and regional contexts. In such efforts, it should rely on the advisory role of the Peacebuilding Commission, and the Informal Expert Group on Climate and Security, co-chaired by Niger and Ireland. The appointment of a Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Climate and Security likewise will raise the profile of this dimension within the Council’s work.

Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, Prime Minister of Viet Nam , said the Earth’s recent calamities have placed great burdens on the political and socioeconomic life of many countries, causing unemployment and poverty, creating instability and exacerbating current conflicts. Against that backdrop, the Council should galvanize the international community’s collective efforts with an approach that is balanced between traditional and non-traditional security challenges. That includes addressing the root causes of conflicts such as poverty, inequality, power politics and unilateral interference and coercion.

Calling for strict adherence to the Charter of the United Nations and international law, he said the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement on climate change must guide the way, and greater resources are needed to support developing countries, least developed countries, small island developing States and landlocked countries. The Council should also enhance its early warning capacity, bolster its mediation and conflict prevention roles, work more closely with regional organizations and fully respect States’ sovereignty and national ownership. Noting that Viet Nam is among the six countries most severely affected by climate change, he outlined various national efforts to address the challenge while requesting more international assistance.

Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway , emphasized that climate change is redefining the global security landscape. “We must rethink and adapt the Council’s approaches to peacebuilding and sustaining peace in three ways,” she said. First, the Council needs better information on climate-related security risks. International research networks and the informal expert group will be important in that regard. Norway has helped establish a Nordic-Baltic expert network. Second, the Council should discuss climate risks in specific country contexts, based on country reporting and briefings. The United Nations must be at the forefront of preventive diplomacy. To achieve sustainable solutions, peace diplomacy must be climate-sensitive, and climate action must be conflict‑sensitive. Third, it is imperative to strengthen partnerships within and beyond the United Nations system, including with affected States and regional organizations. The active participation of diverse groups, including women and youth, is also vital.

The national security communities in many countries have understood the security risks posed by climate change, she continued. While climate change can lead to hard security challenges, there are no hard security solutions. The first line of defence is ambitious climate action. It must begin with the full implementation of the Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda. Climate action depends on multilateral cooperation. By shouldering a common responsibility to counter climate change, the Council will be better prepared to maintain international peace and stability.

Ralph E. Gonsalves, Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines , emphasizing that the Council has a responsibility to address the consequences of climate change, said a failure to do so would be, in part, “an abdication of our duty”. It is time for the organ to seriously consider drafting a resolution on the matter and to map out a coherent approach, aiming for a working consensus. Affirming UNFCCC’s role as the primary body for dealing with climate change and the Paris Agreement as a major part of the rules-based international system, he said the Council should play its role without encroaching on the work of UNFCCC’s inclusive decision-making body. It should also engage with the Peacebuilding Commission and the General Assembly on climate and security risks that touch on issues of humanitarian support, sustainable development, health pandemics, peace and security.

Stressing that the first step to prevent or contain climate-security risks is for the major, and historical, emitters to fulfil — and indeed exceed — the commitments made in the Paris Agreement, he underlined the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. Climate change is an existential threat that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable, especially small island developing States such as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. “It has become distressingly commonplace for an entire year’s [gross domestic product] to be washed away by a hurricane overnight, even as we are hindered by a lack of a sufficient inclusion, on favourable terms, into the global financial architecture,” he said. Citing the many natural hazards in Haiti, in particular, he also drew attention to the Sahel region and the battle for dwindling resources. However, no country is immune to such human-made challenges and all must stand in solidarity, with the Council paying close attention to climate change as it crafts its mandates, he said.

Kaja Kallas, Prime Minister of Estonia , said 7 of the 10 countries most vulnerable and least prepared to deal with climate change host a United Nations peacekeeping operation or a special political mission — a fact the Council cannot ignore. She expressed support for the statement to be delivered by Germany’s Foreign Minister on behalf of like-minded countries pointing the way forward for the Council, stressing that “we need to acknowledge that the climate emergency can pose a danger to peace — and we must make it a part of our security policy planning and discussions here”. She pressed the Council to “do more” to fully

aspects of its work, noting that the Secretary-General must receive a mandate to collect data and coordinate policy to this aim.

Among other efforts, she said that Estonia cooperates with small island States and least developed countries in green technology solutions and know-how transfer. The Government also recently launched the Data for the Environment Alliance, a coalition of State and non-State actors that will support the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in developing a global environmental data strategy by 2025.

Simon Coveney, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence of Ireland , said that climate change has many complex impacts, not least on international peace and security, the very business of this Council. Climate change is already causing upheaval, affecting peace and security and the stability of societies. Pointing out that the relationship between climate and security works in complex ways, he said political instability undermines efforts to build climate resilience, and the impact of climactic shocks is compounded when institutions are strained. Ireland is proud to join the Weathering Risk Project to help guide action at the Security Council and beyond, and is keen to understand better not just how climate change contributes to insecurity but how climate action can build peace. Ireland chairs the Informal Expert Group of Member States on this topic, together with Niger, also partnering with Nauru and Germany, as Chairs of the Group of Friends on Climate and Security.

Ireland’s core message today is that the inclusion of climate in Council discussions and actions will strengthen conflict prevention and support peacebuilding efforts. Stressing the need to ensure the full, equal and meaningful participation of women and youth in decision-making processes related to climate issues and the management of natural resources, he declared: “But, in listening to and understanding the concerns and insights of future generations, we cannot abrogate our responsibility to provide leadership today”.

Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mexico , said the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that international peace and security can no longer be viewed through a single lens, but must also consider multiple drivers of insecurity. Food insecurity, water scarcity and droughts — all exacerbated by climate change — have reached severe levels in several regions of the world. Pledging Mexico’s support to the next Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in Glasgow, later in 2021, he said climate change requires a comprehensive global response with a focus on ecosystem preservations. Mexico recently submitted its own national plan in that arena, which is coupled with a focus on prevention and adaptation, as well as efforts to reduce inequality and strengthen communities. Stressing that all efforts must be taken in line with the 2030 Agenda, he welcomed the Council’s creation of an informal group to monitor the links between climate and peace and security as a timely measure. Underlining the importance of ensuring sustainable peacebuilding and protecting livelihoods, he agreed with the Secretary-General that post-pandemic recovery efforts are an opportunity to “build back better” and build more egalitarian, adaptable societies.

Emmanuel Macron, President of France , said protecting the environment has, in recent years, meant recognizing climate change as a peace and security issue. Of the 20 countries most affected by conflict in the world, 12 are also severely impacted by climate change, he said, spotlighting the impacts of desertification, the increase in forced migration and agricultural challenges — all of which have resulted in such fallout as the advent of climate refugees and growing conflicts over land and water. Endorsing the initiative to address such matters under the auspices of the Council, he echoed calls for the appointment of a United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Security, as well as for an annual Secretary-General’s report with relevant recommendations.

Recognizing that the effects of climate change are unfairly distributed worldwide, he recalled his recent call for France’s contribution to the Green Climate Fund to be increased to one third of its total. France strongly supports the creation of a “Great Green Wall” in Africa, which aims to restore 250 million hectares of land for agriculture, create 10 million green new jobs and sequester carbon. He also pledged France’s commitment to accelerating the preservation of biodiversity, while calling for strengthened dialogue between the African Union and the United Nations on climate and security. Turning to the Pacific, where many nations are struggling to implement mitigation measures, he called for additional international support and an easing of geopolitical tensions across the region.

Prakash Javadekar, Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change of India , recalled the global democratic effort to take climate action in a nationally determined manner, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities. He cautioned the Council against building a parallel climate track where such principles are “brushed aside”. Noting that there is no common, widely accepted methodology for assessing the links between climate change, conflict and fragility, he said fragility and climate impact are highly context‑specific. In fragile contexts, where Governments struggle to provide basic services, emergency conditions are largely driven by political violence disrupting harvests and aid supplies, rather than by climate factors alone. “A complete picture of climate vulnerability only emerges with an assessment of the State’s capacity to be the primary responder to interrelated environmental, social, economic and security dynamics,” he said. While climate change does not directly cause violent conflict, its interaction with other social, political and economic factors can exacerbate conflict drivers. He called for the building of robust governance structures at local, national and regional levels to address climate‑ and fragility-related risks, pressing donor countries to provide greater financial, technological and capacity-building assistance to help fragile States enact adaption and mitigation strategies.

John F. Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate of the United States , thanked European and other countries for their leadership on climate change during what he described as the United States “inexcusable absence” from the debate over the past four years. Though climate change is indeed an existential threat, the world has yet to adequately respond to it. Noting that the question of climate change is no longer one for debate, he declared: “The evidence, the science, is screaming at us.” Many of the world’s regions most impacted by climate change are also projected to become future conflict hotspots. Therefore, the issue must feature in all of the Council’s work and reporting. Emphasizing that President Joseph R. Biden understands that “we do not have a moment to waste”, he cited his new coordinated, whole-of-Government approach which aims to elevate the issue and put the United States on the path to sustainability that can never be reversed by any future President or demagogue.

Addressing climate change will require every country to step up and boost their level of ambition, he said, noting that the world’s largest carbon emitters bear the greatest responsibility. First and foremost will be the need to reduce the use of coal globally. “Inaction comes with a far higher price tag than action,” he said, stressing that, not since the industrial revolution has there been such potential to build back better in every part of the globe. Just by doing nothing, humanity will march forward in what is tantamount to a mutual suicide pact, he warned, spotlighting the importance of the climate summit to be hosted by President Biden in the coming weeks, as well as the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC to be held in Glasgow later in 2021. The United States will also work with like-minded countries in the Council, he said, urging Member States to begin treating climate change as the security crisis that it is.

Xie Zhenhua, Special Envoy for Climate Change of China , said that, even as global climate governance enters a new and crucial phase, the spread of COVID-19 poses serious threats to the global response. Given the differences in historical responsibility and development levels between States, he underscored the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and urged developed nations to lead the way. In building back after the pandemic, countries should respect nature, protect biodiversity, champion green lifestyles and “avoid old paths of giving without taking” from the Earth. In that context, he described climate change as a development issue, urging the international community to support developing nations, least developed countries and small island developing States in implementing mitigation and adaptation measures.

“We need to stay committed to multilateralism,” he stressed, underlining the importance of UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement as the main channels for those critical discussions. Any role to be played by the Security Council on climate change must fall under its purview, he added. Outlining China’s commitment to fulfilling its responsibilities under the Paris Agreement, he spotlighted its recently announced plan to have national CO 2 emissions peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality prior to 2060. He also pointed out that the country’s forest cover has been rising steadily for many years, that it leads the world in green power generation and that it tops the list of clean energy patents registered.

The representative of the Russian Federation agreed that addressing climate change requires a global approach that is coordinated, targeted at reducing emissions and implementing effective adaptation measures, especially through UNFCCC. Noting that the Council has discussed climate change on several occasions, he said the issue is often presented as a fundamental threat to stability and as a root cause of problems, particularly in Africa, with warnings about the increasing risks of conflict. While he agreed that climate change can exacerbate conflict, he questioned whether it is the root cause of violence. “There are serious doubts,” he said. The connection between climate and conflict can be examined only in certain countries and regions. Discussing it in the global context is not relevant. “Not all conflicts are threats to international peace and security,” he explained. In addition, considering climate as a root cause of security issues distracts from the true root causes, and thus, hinders solutions. Political and socioeconomic factors, which have a greater influence on conflict risk, cannot be ignored, he said, pointing out that COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities within and between countries and sparked an uptick in hunger — including in countries that were already in conflict. He urged donors to address the problem of “green protectionism”, seen in their refusal to exchange technology that would allow others to adapt. While discussing climate issues in the Council is seen as beneficial, the “real work” of improving coordination of international activities would be better accomplished in the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and UNFCC. Conflicts — in and of themselves — reduce the ability of States to adapt to climate change, he said, explaining that the increased security risks in the Sahel are, in fact, caused by countries pursuing regime change in Libya.

Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of Malawi , speaking for the least developed countries, said building resilience to mitigate the security risks associated with climate change must begin with reflections on COVID-19, as Governments have relegated many other priorities in the quest to fight the virus. Describing the impact of the nexus between climate change and security is “indiscriminate and consequential”, he said water scarcity, desertification and cyclones all foster competition for resources, and in the process, turn people into climate refugees. Least developed countries bear the brunt of these phenomena, despite that their emissions are 30 times lower than those of high‑income countries. Stressing that recovery from the coronavirus must be aligned with efforts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, he pressed developed countries to approach the 2021 UNFCC meeting with more ambition than in years past, as their current commitments to cut emissions remain “woefully inadequate”. They must fulfil their pledges to provide $100 billion in climate financing annually, answer the call to earmark 50 per cent of financing in the Green Climate Fund for adaptation, especially in least developed countries, and to meaningfully transfer climate‑friendly technologies to help least developed countries accelerate their green development efforts.

Gaston Alphonso Browne, Prime Minister and Minister for Finance and Corporate Governance of Antigua and Barbuda , spoke on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, declaring: “Make no mistake […] climate change’s existential threat to our own survival is not a future consideration, but a current reality.” For the past 30 years, the Alliance has been the single most consistent advocate on climate, he said, highlighting the often-overlooked threats faced by small island developing States. He urged the international community to simultaneously plan and operationalize a system to address inevitable loss and damage which uproot peace and security of small island developing States. Equitable solutions are needed to systematically address difficult issues, such as climate change displacement, including the treatment of climate refugees, and loss of territory. For the past three decades, small island and low-lying States have been sounding the alarm, sending the SOS distress signal. They are losing their territories, populations, resources and very existence due to climate change. The Secretary-General recently stated: “Without nature’s help, we will not thrive or even survive[…] For too long, we have been waging a senseless and suicidal war on nature.” Sadly, small island developing States continue to be the front line for this war. “Our appeal for the Council is to take this threat very seriously before it is too late,” he said.

Heiko Maas, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany , speaking for the Group of Friends of Climate and Security, said those countries are united by the common belief that climate change is the fundamental challenge of our time. The poorest and most vulnerable are suffering the most, with entire islands at risk of disappearing. “We are putting their future, their safety and their well‑being at risk if we don’t act,” he stressed, calling for concerted efforts by the United Nations in making climate change its top priority. Agreeing with other speakers that the issue has major implications for peace and security, he said it therefore belongs firmly on the Council’s agenda. In July 2020, the Nauru delegation presented the organ with a plan of action, including calling for the appointment of a Special Envoy on Climate and Security; regular reporting to the Council; climate‑sensitive peacebuilding; and more cooperation with civil society, regional and national actors on climate-related security risks. Now, it is time for the Council to adopt a strong resolution reflecting each of those points, he said.

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08-13-2024 IMPACT

Americans prefer ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ over more heated terms, research shows

You probably have been hearing phrases like “climate crisis,” “climate emergency” or “climate justice” more often lately as people try to get across the urgent risks and consequences of climate change. The danger is real, but is using this language actually persuasive? It turns out that Americans are more familiar with—and more concerned about— climate […]

Escalating the language might work in a rally, but the general public isn’t as swayed by it, a new study show. [Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket/Getty Images]

BY The Conversation 3 minute read

It turns out that Americans are more familiar with—and more concerned about— climate change and global warming than they are about climate crisis, climate emergency or climate justice, according to a recent survey we conducted with a nationally representative sample of 5,137 Americans.

Moreover, we found no evidence that the alternative terms increased people’s sense of urgency, willingness to support climate-friendly policies or willingness to act.

The familiar terms—climate change and global warming—did at least as well, and sometimes better, than climate crisis and climate emergency in eliciting concern, perceived urgency and willingness to act. Climate justice consistently tended to do worse, likely in part because it was the least familiar. The responses were similar among Republicans, Democrats and independents.

Just keep it simple

In our work as research psychologists , we have explored how Americans respond to the ways climate change is communicated and have uncovered a need to use straightforward language.

For example, people we interviewed for a study published in 2021 felt that climate experts were talking over their heads with terms like “adaptation,” “mitigation,” “sustainability” and “carbon-dioxide removal.” They wanted experts to use more familiar terms instead.

This inspired us to write a quick guide to climate jargon , published in The Conversation. Using everyday language makes information easier to understand, and even highly educated people tend to prefer it.

Yet, experts often use complex jargon because it is familiar to them, and they may not realize it is unfamiliar to others.

How the terms evolved

It has become common to talk about climate change and global warming as if they have the same meaning, but there are differences . Climate change refers to changes in the overall climate, while global warming refers specifically to rising temperatures.

A historical review found that, in the past, people were less likely to associate the term climate change with the idea that humans are actively warming the planet than they were with the term global warming. Perhaps this is why Democrats used to like the term global warming, while the popularization of the term climate change has been credited to Frank Luntz , an adviser to the George W. Bush administration.

Past surveys also found that Democrats used to think of global warming as being more serious than climate change, while Republicans thought of climate change as more serious than global warming. But according to a recent review , these partisan differences have now faded, and a majority of Republicans and Democrats tend to express concern about both terms.

Alternative terms such as climate crisis, climate emergency and climate justice have been used to emphasize other aspects of climate change and to try to raise concern. In 2019, the British newspaper The Guardian switched to using climate crisis and climate emergency because it wanted to convey urgency.

Activists use the term climate justice to draw attention to climate change as a human rights challenge: Low-income people around the world suffer the most from the effects of climate change, despite being the least responsible for causing it.

The takeaway: Avoid overheated language

Right now, the terms climate crisis, climate emergency or climate justice are less familiar and elicit less concern than climate change or global warming.

Even if these terms become more commonplace, there is no guarantee that they will heighten concern or inspire action. In fact, studies have suggested that phrases like climate crisis could backfire if they don’t resonate with people.

Our advice: Don’t make the mistake of using overheated language. Just stick with familiar terms that people understand – use global warming when referring to rising temperatures and climate change for overall changes in the climate.

Wändi Bruine de Bruin is a director of the Behavioral Science & Policy Initiative at the Schaeffer Institute of Public Policy & Government Service at USC Price School of Public Policy, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences .

Gale Sinatra is a professor of education and psychology at the University of Southern California .

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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Averting the climate crisis

climate change
environment
global issues
sustainability
transportation
renewable energy

How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points?

Earth’s warming could trigger sweeping changes in the natural world that would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse.

By Raymond Zhong and Mira Rojanasakul

Right now, every moment of every day, we humans are reconfiguring Earth’s climate bit by bit. Hotter summers and wetter storms. Higher seas and fiercer wildfires. The steady, upward turn of the dial on a host of threats to our homes, our societies and the environment around us.

We might also be changing the climate in an even bigger way.

For the past two decades, scientists have been raising alarms about great systems in the natural world that warming, caused by carbon emissions, might be pushing toward collapse. These systems are so vast that they can stay somewhat in balance even as temperatures rise. But only to a point.

Once we warm the planet beyond certain levels, this balance might be lost, scientists say. The effects would be sweeping and hard to reverse. Not like the turning of a dial, but the flipping of a switch. One that wouldn’t be easily flipped back.

Mass Death of Coral Reefs

Tipping point possible

Degrees of warming

When corals go ghostly white, they aren’t necessarily dead, and their reefs aren’t necessarily gone forever. Too much heat in the water causes the corals to expel the symbiotic algae living inside their tissues. If conditions improve, they can survive this bleaching. In time, the reefs can bounce back. As the world gets warmer, though, occasional bleaching is becoming regular bleaching. Mild bleaching is becoming severe bleaching.

Scientists’ latest predictions are grim. Even if humanity moves swiftly to rein in global warming, 70 percent to 90 percent of today’s reef-building corals could die in the coming decades. If we don’t, the toll could be 99 percent or more. A reef can look healthy right up until its corals start bleaching and dying. Eventually, it is a graveyard.

This doesn’t necessarily mean reef-building corals will go extinct. Hardier ones might endure in pockets. But the vibrant ecosystems these creatures support will be unrecognizable. There is no bouncing back anytime soon, not in the places corals live today, not at any scale.

When it might happen: It could already be underway.

Abrupt Thawing of Permafrost

In the ground beneath the world’s cold places , the accumulated remains of long-dead plants and animals contain a lot of carbon, roughly twice the amount that’s currently in the atmosphere. As heat, wildfires and rains thaw and destabilize the frozen ground, microbes get to work, converting this carbon into carbon dioxide and methane. These greenhouse gasses worsen the heat and the fire and the rain, which intensifies the thawing.

Like many of these vast, self-propelling shifts in our climate, permafrost thaw is complicated to predict. Large areas have already come unfrozen, in Western Canada, in Alaska, in Siberia. But how quickly the rest of it might defrost, how much that would add to global warming, how much of the carbon might stay trapped down there because the thawing causes new vegetation to sprout up on top of it — all of that is tricky to pin down.

“Because these things are very uncertain, there’s a bias toward not talking about it or dismissing the possibility, even,” said Tapio Schneider, a climate scientist at the California Institute of Technology. “That, I think, is a mistake,” he said. “It’s still important to explore the risks, even if the probability of occurrence in the near future is relatively small.”

When it might happen: The timing will vary place to place. The effects on global warming could accumulate over a century or more.

Collapse of Greenland Ice

The colossal ice sheets that blanket Earth’s poles aren’t melting the way an ice cube melts. Because of their sheer bigness and geometric complexity, a host of factors shapes how quickly the ice sheds its bulk and adds to the rising oceans. Among these factors, scientists are particularly concerned about ones that could start feeding on themselves, causing the melting to accelerate in a way that would be very hard to stop.

In Greenland, the issue is elevation. As the surface of the ice loses height, more of it sits at a balmier altitude, exposed to warmer air. That makes it melt even faster.

Scientists know, from geological evidence, that large parts of Greenland have been ice-free before. They also know that the consequences of another great melt could reverberate worldwide, affecting ocean currents and rainfall down into the tropics and beyond.

When it might happen: Irreversible melting could begin this century and unfold over hundreds, even thousands, of years.

Breakup of West Antarctic Ice

At the other end of the world from Greenland, the ice of western Antarctica is threatened less by warm air than by warm water.

Many West Antarctic glaciers flow out to sea, which means their undersides are exposed to constant bathing by ocean currents. As the water warms, these floating ice shelves melt and weaken from below, particularly where they sit on the seafloor. Like a dancer holding a difficult pose, the shelf starts to lose its footing. With less floating ice to hold it back, more ice from the continent’s interior would slide into the ocean. Eventually, the ice at the water’s edge might fail to support its own weight and crack into pieces.

The West Antarctic ice sheet has probably collapsed before, in Earth’s deep past. How close today’s ice is to suffering the same fate is something scientists are still trying to figure out.

“If you think about the future of the world’s coastlines, 50 percent of the story is going to be the melt of Antarctica,” said David Holland, a New York University scientist who studies polar regions. And yet, he said, when it comes to understanding how the continent’s ice might break apart, “we are at Day Zero.”

When it might happen: As in Greenland, the ice sheet could begin to recede irreversibly in this century.

Sudden Shift in the West African Monsoon

Around 15,000 years ago, the Sahara started turning green. It began when small shifts in Earth’s orbit caused North Africa to be sunnier each summer. This warmed the land, causing the winds to shift and draw in more moist air from over the Atlantic. The moisture fell as monsoon rain, which fed grasses and filled lakes, some as large as the Caspian Sea. Animals flourished: elephants, giraffes, ancestral cattle. So did humans, as engravings and rock paintings from the era attest. Only about 5,000 years ago did the region transform back into the harsh desert we know today.

Scientists now understand that the Sahara has flipped several times over the ages between arid and humid, between barren and temperate. They are less sure about how, and whether, the West African monsoon might shift or intensify in response to today’s warming. (Despite its name, the region’s monsoon unleashes rain over parts of East Africa as well.)

Whatever happens will matter hugely to an area of the world where many people’s nutrition and livelihoods depend on the skies.

When it might happen: Hard to predict.

Loss of Amazon Rainforest

Besides being home to hundreds of Indigenous communities, millions of animal and plant species and 400 billion trees; besides containing untold numbers of other living things that have yet to be discovered, named and described; and besides storing an abundance of carbon that might otherwise be warming the planet, the Amazon rainforest plays another big role. It is a living, churning, breathing engine of weather.

The combined exhalations of all those trees give rise to clouds fat with moisture. When this moisture falls, it helps keep the region lush and forested.

Now, though, ranchers and farmers are clearing the trees, and global warming is worsening wildfires and droughts. Scientists worry that once too much more of the forest is gone, this rain machine could break down, causing the rest of the forest to wither and degrade into grassy savanna.

By 2050, as much as half of today’s Amazon forest could be at risk of undergoing this kind of degradation, researchers recently estimated.

When it might happen: Will depend on how rapidly people clear, or protect, the remaining forest.

Shutdown of Atlantic Currents

Sweeping across the Atlantic Ocean, from the western coasts of Africa, round through the Caribbean and up toward Europe before heading down again, a colossal loop of seawater sets temperatures and rainfall for a big part of the globe. Saltier, denser water sinks to the ocean depths while fresher, lighter water rises, keeping this conveyor belt turning.

Now, though, Greenland’s melting ice is upsetting this balance by infusing the North Atlantic with immense new flows of freshwater. Scientists fear that if the motor slows too much, it could stall, upending weather patterns for billions of people in Europe and the tropics.

Scientists have already seen signs of a slowdown in these currents, which go by an unwieldy name: the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. The hard part is predicting when a slowdown might become a shutdown. At the moment, our data and records are just too limited, said Niklas Boers, a climate scientist at the Technical University of Munich and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Already, though, we know enough to be sure about one thing, Dr. Boers said. “With every gram of additional CO2 in the atmosphere, we are increasing the likelihood of tipping events,” he said. “The longer we wait” to slash emissions, he said, “the farther we go into dangerous territory.”

When it might happen: Very hard to predict.

Heat Raises Fears of ‘Demise’ for Great Barrier Reef Within a Generation

A new study found that temperatures in the Coral Sea have reached their highest levels in at least four centuries.

By Catrin Einhorn

A Collapse of the Amazon Could Be Coming ‘Faster Than We Thought’

A new study weighed a range of threats and variables in an effort to map out where the rainforest is most vulnerable.

By Manuela Andreoni

In the Atlantic Ocean, Subtle Shifts Hint at Dramatic Dangers

A warming atmosphere is causing a branch of the ocean’s powerful Gulf Stream to weaken, some scientists fear.

By Moises Velasquez-Manoff and Jeremy White

How Much Ice Is Greenland Losing? Researchers Found an Answer.

The island is shedding 20 percent more than previously estimated, a study found, potentially threatening ocean currents that help to regulate global temperatures.

By Delger Erdenesanaa

Rapid Antarctic Melting Looks Certain, Even if Emissions Goals Are Met

It may be too late to halt the decline of the West Antarctic ice shelves, a study found, but climate action could still forestall the gravest sea level rise.

By Raymond Zhong

Methodology

The range of warming levels at which each tipping point might potentially be triggered is from David I. Armstrong McKay et al., Science .

The shaded areas on the maps show the present-day extent of relevant areas for each natural system. They don’t necessarily indicate precisely where large-scale changes could occur if a tipping point is reached.

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Former BP Head Reflects on His Call for Climate Action 25 Years Ago

Lord John Browne talks about his 1997 speech at Stanford and current efforts to slow global warming.

July 05, 2022

Photo of Lord John Browne. Credit: Reuters/Paul Hackett top/key/full

Browne was chief executive at BP when he called for immediate steps to address climate change. | Reuters/Paul Hackett

In 1997, John Browne, MS ’81, gave a speech at Stanford on the subject of “the global environment.” What he said back then might seem uncontroversial today, but at the time, speaking as an oil industry leader (he was group chief executive officer of the UK-based BP), his remarks sent shock waves through the industry and the American Petroleum Institute that represented it.

Browne — Lord Browne of Madingley — spoke of a “discernible human influence on the climate,” a “link between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the increase in temperature,” and a “need for action and solutions.”

BP, he told the audience, would be taking steps to control its own emissions, fund scientific research, invest in the development of alternative fuels, and contribute to public policy debates on solutions to the problem, measures that he said went “well beyond the regulatory requirements.” This was at a time when most oil companies were lobbying against environmental regulation and questioning the science around climate change.

Today, among other roles, Browne is chairman of BeyondNetZero, a climate investing venture established in partnership with the global growth equity firm General Atlantic. BeyondNetZero invests in high-growth companies developing climate solutions in areas such as supply chain and industrial process decarbonization, energy efficiency, resource conservation, and the measurement, management, storage, and removal of greenhouse gas emissions.

Twenty-five years on, Browne reflects on his Stanford speech, on what progress has since been made on environmental sustainability, where the biggest gaps remain, and what could have been done differently. His comments have been edited for clarity and length.

In 1997, I imagine you knew your Stanford speech would cause a stir. Why did you feel so strongly about speaking out on climate change?

I felt it was a real risk that had to be handled, and it wasn’t just me — it was the leadership of BP. So I felt very confident being part of a team that believed we needed to do something. And we realized that we had to be at the table when people were talking about our future.

How did your peers in the oil industry react?

Most thought it was eminently ignorable, a view that was supported by the industry’s trade associations and other powerful groups, which said, “Let’s ignore it and if we need to do something we can wait 20 years; we can kick the can down the road.” They were still lobbying against climate change and saying the science wasn’t there.

Which stakeholders — from environmental groups to the policy world — were most receptive to your arguments?

Most people were skeptical, and they tested us in a variety of ways: talking to our team and watching our actions to see if there were any inconsistencies. But eventually a lot of them came round. Environmental Defense Fund began to work with us, as did the World Wildlife Fund and, from time to time, Greenpeace .

What were the biggest challenges BP faced in meeting the expectations of these stakeholders?

We could not be fully consistent from the start. There was a lot to iron out inside BP in the way things worked, and we had to correct certain harmful practices. One example is the flaring of excess natural gas [which emits carbon dioxide, other noxious gases, particulates and methane]. It took a long time to get that under control.

Knowing what you know today, would you have framed the speech differently — and if so how?

Quote “There are plenty of global applications, but they need investment and they need customers ready to commit in the long-term to buy supplies of clean energy.”

I would have been much clearer about saying that we must set targets and then externally audit performance in this area on a consistent basis, because what gets measured gets done. Second, I would have been clearer about the level of investment needed. You cannot do this without significant investment. Third, we needed to engineer the solutions to get the costs down. Twenty-five years ago there was a lot to engineer. We’ve engineered quite a few of the solutions but now we need to apply them.

You mention the importance of standards and measurement. We’ve seen some progress on this with the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, which imposes standards on financial products claiming to be sustainable, and the launch of the International Sustainability Standards Board at the COP26 climate summit. Are you encouraged by such developments?

I’m quite hopeful — but it’s very patchy around the world and not everyone is going to be synchronized. BeyondNetZero is focused on solutions that have the potential to deliver real-world reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. We have adopted a rigorous approach to measuring and reporting that is driven by data and aligned with the Science-Based Targets initiative.

If that’s the case, where are the leaders on environmental standards, and where are the laggards?

It looks like Europe is doing a good job. I hope they’re not destabilized by what’s going on at the moment [in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine], but high energy prices and lack of energy security should demand diversification, which means that there will be lots of new energy sources, including renewables left.

China is being transparent on objectives but not on measures and America is kind of between the two. But the SEC is taking a bold approach to greenwashing — a really bold approach — and they have every intention of putting in place measures that will require people to report on what they’re doing.

If the oil industry had taken your words to heart in 1997, where would we be today with respect to the net-zero emissions needed by 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels?

We would have definitely been on a path to 1.5 degrees or less, because the problem was rather smaller 25 years ago and we would have not had to retrofit so many things. We would have had new infrastructure in place that might have reduced greenhouse gas emissions already. So we would have been on a much better path, and without the amount of reinvestment we have to make today. It’s the reinvestment that’s the tough bit — taking infrastructure that is still way into its useful life and replacing it with new.

In your speech you said that the climate measures you planned to take were voluntary. Would you have welcomed more regulation at the time?

Yes, probably, because there is a limit to what you can achieve alone. There were cost savings in things like capturing more natural gas and methane, but boards have to work within a regulatory framework or they may be accused of doing things that are not in the best interests of shareholders. You have to balance it all, and regulation does give you a way of balancing it.

How realistic is it for an industry to abandon its core product?

The world cannot abandon oil and gas in the short term. When you look at whatever energy mix there will be in the future, oil and gas will be needed for a long time. If you shut down all the oil majors, it wouldn’t make a huge difference to the world because the oil would be produced by OPEC. It would, however, make a big difference to economies in North America and Europe, and to energy security. Of course we’d all love like to have carbon-free energy everywhere and we need to push on this as hard as we can but we have to be realistic. This is a multi-decade transition.

In 1997, you talked about the importance of developing alternative energy sources. Progress has been made, and renewables are now competing with fossil fuels on price. But what is needed to accelerate the move to clean energy?

In the developed world, it’s about planning and regulations and getting transmission systems to connect distributed pods of energy into the central grid. That may be more complicated than building the wind farm itself, as you need to get all the consents in place.

There are plenty of global applications, but they need investment and they need customers ready to commit in the long-term to buy supplies of clean energy and, for example, hydrogen.

The technology will get better and better over time — it always does — and costs will come down. We have to crack long-term storage for intermittent energy and that hasn’t happened yet. Energy storage remains a very important part of the supply side.

We also need to come back to decarbonization of fossil fuels. We can capture CO 2 and lock it away forever. But we need to investigate how to do it without pumping all this CO 2 down into used reservoirs.

Nuclear is a zero- or ultra-low-carbon energy source but it has issues around its reputation as being very dangerous and it has a high price tag. We can solve the second but the first we have to work through.

Now, 25 years after your Stanford speech, are you optimistic that the world can meet its ambitious net-zero goals?

If we add up all the goals we’ve set, we’ll be under 2 degrees, but it does mean we have to implement it all. As an optimist, I hope we can. But as a realist, I know we have a lot to do to keep anywhere close to 1.5 degrees. I do believe that humankind will do the right thing.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

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December 02, 2021 Want to Kick-Start Climate Action? Make Companies Report Their Carbon Footprints. A “modest proposal” to give corporations a real incentive to cut emissions.

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May 01, 2005 BP’s John Browne: Corporate Vision Key to Creating Shareholder Value In any business, “it’s absolutely critical not to lose the plot,” says Browne.

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2024 on track to become Earth's warmest year on record despite slight global temperature drop: Copernicus

The last time Earth recorded a cooler-than-average year was in 1976.

For the first time in more than a year, the planet did not set a new monthly global temperature record. However, Earth did experience its two warmest days on record globally in July, and it's becoming increasingly likely that 2024 will end up as the warmest year on record, according to a new report by Copernicus, the European Union's Climate Change Service.

Last month registered as both the second-warmest July and the second-warmest overall month on record globally, marking the end of 13 months of record-breaking global temperature values for the respective month of the year, the report , released Wednesday, found.

A slight drop in the global average temperature was expected, according to scientists, due to the end of El Niño and the development of La Niña conditions over the equatorial eastern Pacific in the coming months.

The long-term global average temperature trend keeps going up due to human-amplified climate change, despite other variables driving shorter-term fluctuations.

"The overall context hasn’t changed, our climate continues to warm. The devastating effects of climate change started well before 2023 and will continue until global greenhouse gas emissions reach net zero", Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said in a statement.

Although July 2024 was not quite as warm as July 2023 on average, Earth experienced its two warmest days on record in July, according to the Copernicus ERA5 data record.

The daily global average temperature reached 17.16 degrees Celsius, or 62.89 degrees Fahrenheit, on July 22 and 17.15 degrees Celsius, or 62.87 degrees Fahrenheit, on July 23. Given the small difference, it cannot be determined with complete certainty which was the warmest, the report found.

MORE: Earth sets daily global temperature record for 2nd day in a row: Copernicus

Researchers at Copernicus say that it is increasingly likely that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record. The year-to-date global average temperature anomaly through the end of July currently ranks .27 degrees Celsius, or .49 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than the same period in 2023.

The average anomaly for the remaining months of this year would need to drop by at least .23 degrees Celsius, or .41 degrees Fahrenheit, for 2024 not to be warmer than 2023. This has rarely happened in the organization's ERA5 dataset.

The last time Earth recorded a cooler-than-average year was in 1976, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization (NOAA).

MORE: Why it matters that Earth is on the brink of 1.5 degrees Celsius in warming: Copernicus

July 2024 had an average surface air temperature of 16.91 degrees Celsius, or 62.44 degrees Fahrenheit, registering just shy of the all-time highs for both, set in July 2023, according to the report.

The month as a whole was 1.48°C, or 2.66 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than an estimate of the July average for 1850 to 1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period set in the Paris Agreement.

The global average temperature over the past twelve months, August 2023 through July 2024, was 1.64 degrees Celsius, or 2.95 degrees Fahrenheit above the pre-industrial average, the report found.

The Paris Agreement goals aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.

Scientists say that it is important to note that exceeding the 1.5 degree Celsius warming threshold temporarily is not seen as a failure under the Paris Agreement since the agreement looks at the climate average over multiple decades. However, short-term breaches of the threshold are an important signal that those higher averages are likely to happen in the next decade if emissions aren’t reduced significantly.

Global daily sea surface temperatures across most of the world’s oceans remain well above average. The average global sea surface temperature for July 2024, between the latitudes of 60 degrees south and 60 degrees north, was 69.58 degrees Fahrenheit, the second-highest value on record for the month, the report found.

This marks the end of 15 months of record-breaking sea surface temperature values for the respective month of the year, according to Copernicus.

However, persistent marine heatwaves are keeping sea surface temperatures at near-record levels across parts of the globe. This is particularly concerning for forecasters tracking the tropics and the health of the world's coral reefs.

MORE: 4th global coral reef bleaching event underway as oceans continue to warm: NOAA

Tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic Basin historically ramps up quickly during the month of August ahead of the season peak on Sept. 10, according to the National Hurricane Center. Persistent near-record ocean temperatures in the Atlantic were one of the primary factors that lead forecasters to issue the highest-ever May outlook calling for a very active season.

Persistent marine heatwaves are also a major concern for the world's coral reefs. In April, NOAA reported that the second global coral reef bleaching event in the last 10 years was underway.

MORE: It may be too late to prevent significant melting on West Antarctic ice shelf that includes 'Doomsday Glacier': Study

Antarctic sea ice extent dipped to its second-lowest value on record for the month of July, 11% below average. Arctic sea ice extent was 7% below average for the month and lower than the values observed during July 2022 and 2023, according to Copernicus.

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Climate change

Elon musk is wrong about climate change.

Elon Musk seems to have forgotten some of the basics of how climate change works, so we’re going to set the record straight about it now.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, participated in a call last night with three-time republican nominee for President, Donald Trump.

One portion of this discussion was particularly relevant to our coverage of electric cars and climate change, and thus, it behooves us at Electrek to clear up some of the misconceptions that people might have taken away if they listened in.

Musk, despite previously showing some understanding of climate issues – at one point remarking correctly and succinctly that “ Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world ” – instead tonight repeated several fossil-industry talking points which show a lack of understanding of how climate change works

Mr. Trump, for his part, pushed even more severe climate disinformation than Musk, some of which Musk offered mild pushback to, though Musk largely compromised to a position that is still incorrect. For example, a basic understanding of geometry shows us that higher sea levels result in less shoreline, not more as Mr. Trump suggested.

It should not be a surprise that Mr. Trump showed ignorance of an issue that he has consistently shown ignorance of , so it is less interesting to focus on his comments than on those of a person who has claimed for more than a decade that his personal and corporate missions have been to solve climate change.

To begin with, here are some facts :

The global climate is warming, and it is warming due to human activity.
The human activity that is warming the global climate the most is fossil fuel combustion.
There are other things warming the global climate as well, including the meat industry (both through methane emissions from livestock and through deforestation of the land to grow them and their feed), construction (cement releases significant CO2, though not as much as the previous influences), and others. But fossil fuels are the primary cause.
That global temperature rise puts many ecosystems out of balance, with disastrous results for those ecosystems.
Humans rely on functioning ecosystems for their most basic needs – water, air, food, temperature regulation, and so on.
As ecosystems are disrupted, this will make humans’ lives harder and worse, and lead to greater conflict.
The fossil fuel industry spends a lot of money and effort to deny and obfuscate these facts, and their tactics have shifted over time, retreating from a hard-line “it’s not happening” position to softer-sounding, but similarly-insidious, positions that still minimize the importance of the problem or delay action.
The longer we wait to solve climate change, the harder it will be.
Thus, climate change is a huge and real problem we all need to work to solve quickly, and will require collective cooperation from everyone, whether they be corporations, media, governments, or individuals.

Now that we all understand some basics facts about climate change, we must address some of the points that were made.

CO2 is rising rapidly, and is already too high

In the call, Musk wrongly claimed that current CO2 levels, and the rate they’re rising at, are not particularly dangerous. He suggested that CO2 only becomes a problem around 1,000ppm, at which point it gets hard to breathe, you get headaches, and so on.

1,000ppm is indeed roughly the threshold at which CO2 concentrations directly affect human health , but this is not so relevant to outdoor CO2 levels, rather indoor ones. Indoor levels can be much higher than outdoor levels – though higher outdoor levels set a higher baseline, meaning indoor levels will be even higher when outdoor levels are high.

Musk seemed to think that, since atmospheric CO2 is currently nowhere near 1,000ppm, there’s no rush to handle carbon reduction. This is false. It is false because environmental problems start happening much earlier than 1,000ppm.

Atmospheric CO2 is currently 425.55ppm, a bit above the 400 number Musk mentioned. Musk said that it’s rising around 2ppm per year, and that it would only be a problem if that was closer to 5ppm per year, or if the rate of change were increasing.

It turns out both of those things are happening. In the last year, atmospheric CO2 went up from 421.83 to 425.55ppm , an increase of 3.72ppm. This is closer to Musk’s danger zone of 5ppm than it is to 2ppm. And the rate of change is indeed increasing, not staying flat or going down. You can see that in this chart, with its curve upwards:

These increases are also at least 10x faster than the rate of CO2 increase during the Permian-Triassic extinction period, the largest mass extinction event in Earth’s history (when CO2 levels reached around 2,500ppm).

Climate change is about ecosystem disruption, not headaches

And the problems of climate change are not simply limited to headaches or difficulty breathing.

As should be clear to anyone with even a little knowledge about this topic (or, anyone who read the list of facts above), the real problem with climate change is ecosystem disruption due to rising global temperatures. Musk correctly pointed this out when he said that widespread fossil fuel use is “ the dumbest experiment in human history ” in 2018.

This disruption takes many forms, including higher temperatures that lead to drought or affect agriculture , sea level rise due to melting glaciers and thermal expansion of water which disrupts coastal communities (where a huge chunk of the world population lives), ocean acidification as CO2 combines with H2O to form H2CO3 (carbonic acid) which harms ocean life, even perhaps a potential collapse of ocean currents . This is just the start of disruptions that can happen from climate change.

That point about agriculture is relevant to another complaint of Musk’s, who remarked that “we don’t need to stop farmers from farming,” which is not a real thing that is happening.

But in fact, human agricultural activities, particularly animal agriculture and the use of nitrogenous fertilizer (which is manufactured with fossil fuels), both contribute to climate change and suffer from it. Some croplands are already becoming unsuitable for traditional crops , which shows how climate change from unsustainable agricultural practices will indeed “stop farmers from farming,” highlighting the need to move to more sustainable agricultural practices, precisely so that farmers can keep farming.

Climate is already affected, and needs cleanup now

These effects do not happen at 1,000ppm, they happen much earlier. Many of them are already happening now. Storms are getting stronger due to warmer water, fires are getting harsher , and even very cold places like Norway are seeing myriad strange effects going on, as seen in Norwegian broadcaster NRK’s excellent climate change feature which I encourage everyone to experience .

These effects do not only affect the natural world – which humans are nevertheless a part of, being living creatures on this planet – but affect human societies as well. More environmental disruption will inevitably lead to more conflict, which the US Department of Defense recognizes as a serious national security threat .

To avoid these effects, the world needs to limit its carbon emissions, and it needs to do so quickly. The optimal level for atmospheric carbon dioxide is between 280 and 350ppm , so we need to reduce carbon from our current 425ppm mark, not increase it, to get there.

Limiting the rise in carbon emissions will take a lot of effort from a lot of people, and reducing atmospheric carbon levels will take even more . But these efforts will only become more difficult and more costly as atmospheric carbon concentrations rise. So, in contrast to Musk’s assertion that we “have quite a bit of time” to confront climate change, in fact, the faster and harder we fight against it, the better .

The Oil & Gas industry is the main culprit

Musk also stated that we should not “vilify” the oil & gas industry. This is an odd statement, considering his history with this industry and his previous statements.

The fossil fuel industry has opposed Tesla since early on, being responsible for much misinformation about electric cars , for lobbying against regulations that Tesla lobbies for , for working to impose additional costs on electric vehicles , and even to stop Tesla from selling cars altogether .

Musk has called out the industry multiple times for doing exactly this , recognizing that this industry is the largest opposition to his company and its mission.

“Tesla is affecting powerful vested interests. Big auto and oil companies aren’t known for their gentle behavior.” -Elon Musk

Also, as stated in the facts above, the oil & gas industry is responsible for the most climate change. Fossil fuels are responsible for 75% of greenhouse gas emissions . It is difficult not to vilify an industry that causes a majority of a huge problem, that they know is a problem , all while lying about their efforts .

In fact, Tesla itself released a “ Master Plan Part 3 ” last year which focused on how to move the world to sustainable energy, using current technology, more cheaply than if we were to use fossil fuels. This could happen without “starving” everyone, as Musk suggested that vilifying oil & gas would doom society to on the call.

Top comment by Ed

Elon has clearly entered Trump territory where he can say and do as he pleases without consequence. I think it's sad because he is turning so many off Tesla vehicles which I feel are an important part of fighting climate change.

Despite these plans being the centerpiece of Tesla’s strategy since Tesla’s original secret master plan , Musk seems to have forgotten about the current plan just over a year after its publishing.

In the end, Musk’s comments overall were not nearly as disastrously wrong as those that Mr. Trump consistently makes, but they still represent a significant departure from scientific understanding of climate change, and a retreat from Musk’s both previous correct statements on the issue, and from the mission that he has previously claimed, and his company still claims, to have.

Elon on sustainability in 2024: "I think we should just generally lean in the direction of sustainability." Elon on sustainability in 2015: "How do we accelerate this transition away from fossil fuels to a sustainable era and what happens if we don't? If we wait and if we delay… — Fred Lambert (@FredericLambert) August 13, 2024

So the question is, for those who are still invested in Tesla (either emotionally or financially) and its mission to move the world to sustainable transport to further the goal of fighting climate change: does it seem reasonable that the CEO of said company would repeat climate misinformation, while talking to and funding one of the loudest global voices against climate action and spouters of EV disinformation … or does something feel, you know, kind of strange about that?

One correct thing Musk pointed out in the call is that solar is a great way to get energy. EnergySage is a free service that connects you with trusted, reputable installers in your area – without having to give up your phone number until you select an installer. Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way through EnergySage. Get started today! – ad*

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Jameson has been driving electric vehicles since 2009, and has been writing about them and about clean energy for electrek.co since 2016.

You can contact him at [email protected]

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Co-Founder and Director of Carbon Projects at Cool Effect , Dee Lawrence has 14 years of experience in the carbon offset industry.

It’s true: We have an urgent problem with climate change mitigation. The 2015 Paris Agreement set a goal of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It proposed the global community do so by decreasing greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible through financial investment, technological research and building our capacity for climate mitigation. While these goals require huge transformations, they also open up opportunities for businesses to play a critical role in mitigation.

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) is one of the most efficient mechanisms available to businesses that are looking to channel climate finance into mitigation solutions. The VCM is a decentralized marketplace where buyers interested in voluntarily supporting efforts to reduce or compensate for global warming carbon emissions can find (and fund) carbon projects doing that work. Carbon projects generate emission reductions through natural or technological solutions which are measured, monitored and verified, and then issued in the form of carbon credits (also called carbon offsets). One carbon credit equals one metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, a greenhouse gas emission reduction or removal from the atmosphere. However, the VCM has faced intense scrutiny in the last few months, leading to uncertainty in decision-making for businesses. This is nothing new. Every market in the world carries uncertainty, and the VCM is no different. In the VCM, the uncertainty is two-fold: businesses are uncertain as to whether the carbon credits purchased on the voluntary market will be seen as an “acceptable” route toward net zero, and they are uncertain as to whether carbon credits themselves are making a tangible impact on the environment.

With regard to the first source of uncertainty, businesses are waiting for a signal from other entities and voices to receive guidance on the acceptable use of carbon credits. In the absence of guidance, businesses are often simply proceeding as best they know how: purchasing removals credits for their direct emissions (Scope 1), buying energy from renewable sources for their emissions from electricity (Scope 2), and using either reduction or removal carbon credits for compensating for emissions over which they have no control (Scope 3), like airline travel or employee commuting, for example.

Now, let's address the second source of uncertainty: Are credits making a tangible impact on the environment and the people? The fact that carbon credits were a $2 billion market in 2021 (up from $500 million a few years prior) should suggest that yes, an impact is being made. But what developments are underway to help make decision-making easier?

I’ve spent 14 years in the carbon offset industry, and the current developments surrounding the VCM are some of the most exciting of my career. The urgency of the climate problem dictates that we cannot wait any longer for action. Seeing improvements to methodologies, review of guidelines and increased transparency means that businesses can support emission-reducing activities with confidence. Some of the changes we are seeing include the following:

Greater scrutiny by carbon crediting programs: Many project credits are undergoing another layer of scrutiny by the carbon crediting programs. Their technical review is the final step before credit issuance and takes place after the project submits a monitoring report, undergoes a site visit or desk audit by a third-party auditor, and completes a verification document by answering all questions by the auditor. Now, technical reviews are taking longer and sometimes encompass a review of the entire project documentation.

Reliable and improved technologies: New technologies are increasing our ability to accurately measure the amount of CO2 being sequestered in forests over time so that we can have more confidence that the emission reductions being recorded and claimed are accurate. We need our standing forests, and these advances mean we have greater certainty over claims regarding carbon removals by a forest.

New technologies that lock carbon away permanently: Investments and technological improvements now mean we are able to trap carbon in concrete, rock or soil for long-term removal. These technologies are more expensive and don’t necessarily have the community benefits associated with many carbon projects, but the permanent storage of CO2 is attractive.

Improvement of methodologies: Although the methodologies used to evaluate carbon offsets have been developed by scientists and are peer-reviewed, the complexity of carbon projects and their accounting systems means improvements to accounting are continuously made so that methodologies are strengthened and changed. Some of the greatest areas of recent scrutiny are on setting baselines, assurance of social safeguards and reporting on social benefits. All carbon crediting programs that issue credits are not-for-profit, so they are putting considerable resources into hiring talented environmental and social scientists for project review and methodological improvement.

With these changes in mind, there are several key takeaways for businesses interested in purchasing carbon credits. Most importantly, carbon credits are not a free pass to pollute. They are best thought of as a critical tool in a larger plan for decarbonization and getting to net zero. In my experience, the businesses that are investing in carbon offsets are also the ones leading the way in decarbonization efforts. Putting a price on carbon by voluntarily purchasing carbon credits makes the entire organization aware of the external effect of their actions on climate and forces it into their financial reporting.

This is a tough fight we are in! We need every tool at our disposal to make reductions in our emissions. So don’t wait to wade in on taking climate action. Get a handle on your emissions. Develop a plan for decarbonizing. Take fewer air trips, change your thermostats, turn off your lights, buy renewable energy and buy carbon credits to cover the rest. There are trusted providers that know the projects and that understand the market and can help you navigate it to get the most impact for your voluntary investment in carbon-reducing efforts all over the world. Our planet and all its life cannot wait.

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