A study revealed that 77 percent of the major cities in the world will experience drastic changes in climate conditions by 2050. I won’t be around by then but my grandchildren will be around. So this is important to me.
Crowther Lab, a research group based in Switzerland studied the impact on 250 major cities’ temperature if the world’s temperature reaches 2 degree Celsius. The study is the first global analysis of the likely changes in climate conditions in major cities due to global warming.
The researchers found out that a fifth of the world’s cities will see unprecedented climate changes including intense dry and rainy seasons. These would include Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Madrid, Seattle, London, and Moscow to name a few.
Just how drastic will the changes be? The study says summers and winters in Europe will be warmer with 3.5 degree Celsius to 4.7 degree Celsius average increases. Another way of imagining it is by measuring the temperature change, which is by thinking that a city would shift by 620 miles further south.
Naturally, the cities farthest away from the equator will experience the most changes in the average temperature. But those near the equator or in the tropics such as Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta will feel the strongest impacts of climate change.
These changes don’t bode well for major cities says Jean Francis-Bastin, the lead author of the report. “It is a change in climate conditions that is likely to increase the risk of flooding and extreme drought,” said Francis-Bastin.
The Philippines and not just Manila will be greatly affected by climate change, too.
The Global Peace Index 2019, released last June showed that the Philippines is the country most susceptible to hazards due to climate change.
The study revealed that 47 percent of our country’s population is located in areas highly exposed to climate hazards such as tropical cyclones, tsunami, floods, and drought.
Our Southeast Asia neighbors such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia also made it to the list of the countries being at the highest risk because of climate change.
Manila also ranked seventh with most risk to a single hazard while our neighbor, Vietnam landed the first spot for this category.
Indeed, the Philippines and the rest of the world are constantly reminded to take serious efforts in limiting the effects of climate change. And we need to act fast as stressed by Francis-Bastin: “We definitely and very quickly need to change the way we are living on the planet. Otherwise, we are just going to have more and more droughts, flooding and extreme events.”.
Fortunately, nations responded to these warnings as early as 2015 by committing to limit global warming to just 1.5 c in the 2015 Paris Climate Change accord. But how is the world faring?
Unfortunately, the world’s temperature continues to increase. In 2018, the world recorded its fourth warmest year on record.
But this is not to say that nations are not making any progress at all in decarbonizing the world. On the contrary, data show increases in investments in renewable energy and rapid developments in the use of clean power around the world.
For example, the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) showed that 2018 was the fifth consecutive year that investments in renewable energy exceeded the $300 billion mark.
Similarly, the Business Renewables Center of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) also showed that in 2018, the United States renewables market has almost doubled its figure of corporate off-site deals since 2015
As most know, shifting to renewable power is one of the best ways to help limit the effects of climate change. But are these investments and developments enough?
Apparently not, says the United Nations Development Goals report 2019 after tagging climate change as “the defining issue of our time and the greatest challenge to sustainable development.”
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Liu Zhenmin, in his introduction to the report stressed that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is the most crucial task to mitigate the effects of climate change. He noted that “As we are already seeing, the compounded effects will be catastrophic and irreversible: increasing ocean acidification, coastal erosion, extreme weather conditions, the frequency and severity of natural disasters, continuing land degradation, loss of vital species and the collapse of ecosystems.”
Unfortunately, current scenarios and actions to help the environment are not enough. The world may be seeing an increase in renewable investments but the UN report emphasized that investments in fossil fuels still outpaced the $781billion recorded in 2016 as the figure is significantly higher than the $332.1 billion investments in clean power in 2018.
Indeed, we are racing against time if we want to save our environment for the future generations. Drastic actions must be taken. The UN report emphasized it best by saying “Unprecedented changes in all aspects of society will be required to avoid the worst effects of climate change.”