Climate change will quickly become more damaging as the earth warms further. This is because consequences such as drought, heat and the decline of forests and biodiversity mutually reinforce each other. According to experts, these are the most striking insights from a large summary of climate research.
Every eight years, the UN climate panel IPCC presents the latest insights from global climate research. This is done at the request of nearly two hundred countries. Thousands of climate scientists are working on it.
The mountain of measurements, studies and analyzes is so large that it has been split into three reports: one on hard climate science, one on consequences and adaptations and a report on tackling the source of the problem.
In all, that’s many thousands of pages that have appeared in the past year and a half. You have already been able to read a lot about it on NU.nl. For example, we have already made a summary of the whole.
A summary of three major reports
A comprehensive official summary of the three recent major climate reports and a number of smaller reports on specific themes, such as sea level rise, land use and 1.5 degrees of warming, were published on Monday.
The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees of warming surprised me enormously.
There is therefore a lot of repetition in this final report. This is also striking if you compare the latest series of IPCC reports with those from eight or even fifteen years ago: many conclusions and key figures remain surprisingly accurate.
Consequences of climate change are increasing
So what’s new? NU.nl asked leading authors what surprised them the most. This shows that the consequences of climate change are greater and occur faster than previously thought.
The consequences are worse than we previously thought. All risks come at us faster.
“When I look at this entire trajectory, the huge difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees of warming surprised me the most. The consequences are already significant at 1.5 degrees, but the difference with further warming is dramatic and I did not see it coming” , says climate researcher Heleen de Coninck of Eindhoven University of Technology.
She was lead author of the IPCC report on combating climate change. She previously worked on a special IPCC report on 1.5 degrees of warming.
There are limits to our adaptability
The difference in climate damage between 1.5 and 2 degrees is also mentioned by Maarten van Aalst, lead author of the IPCC report on impacts and adaptations.
“Actually, all risks are approaching us faster. With the same temperature increase, the consequences are worse than we previously thought, and that also makes the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees so big.” Van Aalst is professor of climate at the University of Twente and since 1 February chief director of the KNMI.
We have also become more aware of the limits to our adaptability, he continues. “And the risks increase even faster, because different problems reinforce each other. Drought, for example, can amplify heat waves.”
Some of the measures we take to combat climate change themselves create new risks, says Van Aalst. For example, adjustments to drain more extreme precipitation more quickly can actually make us more vulnerable to drought. “And the production of biomass as an alternative to fossil fuels, for example, could put even more pressure on food security.”
‘Technological solutions are not enough’
So we shouldn’t think too simplistic about solutions for climate change, says De Coninck. “We now see more clearly that much more needs to be done than just technological solutions.”
To combat global warming, our behaviour, the financial system and the way we work together must also change, says the climate researcher. “If such conditions are not met, technology will again lead to new unsustainable situations.”
