{"id":633827,"date":"2018-10-10T06:26:57","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T12:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=633827"},"modified":"2018-10-11T10:25:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T16:25:57","slug":"international-climate-report-warns-of-drastic-irreversible-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/10\/international-climate-report-warns-of-drastic-irreversible-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"International climate report warns of drastic, irreversible changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_633830\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-633830\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ElephantButte-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Elephant Butte\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ElephantButte-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ElephantButte-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ElephantButte-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ElephantButte-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ElephantButte.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Laura Paskus \/ New Mexico Political Report<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thanks to a poor winter and long-term drought, New Mexico&#8217;s largest reservoir, Elephant Butte, is currently at 3.2 percent capacity.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>If humans don\u2019t drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, we will not stop warming that\u2019s expected to have widespread and catastrophic impacts upon the Earth\u2019s ecosystems.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s one of the most pointed findings in a special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was tasked with studying how a 2.0\u00b0 Celsius rise in global temperature will affect the planet, its ecosystems and human communities, compared with a 1.5\u00b0C temperature increase.<\/p>\n<p>According to the IPCC\u2019s special report, if the Earth\u2019s temperature increases by more than 1.5\u00b0C, the changes will be \u201clong-lasting\u201d and \u201cirreversible.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/2018\/10\/10\/international-climate-report-warns-of-drastic-irreversible-changes-en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Mexico Political Report<\/a>,\u00a0a nonprofit news organization\u00a0focused on promoting a greater public understanding of politics and policy in New Mexico.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Already, the global temperature \u2014 averaged between land and sea temperatures \u2014 has risen 1\u00b0 Celsius, or 1.8\u00b0 Fahrenheit, since 1880. That change has contributed to sea level rise, the melting of Arctic sea ice, coral bleaching of ocean reefs and ocean acidification.<\/p>\n<p>In places like the American Southwest, warming is already affecting snowpack, forest die-offs, water supplies and wildfire season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe more warming that we cause, the broader and more intense are the impacts in general,\u201d said University of New Mexico Earth and Planetary Sciences Professor David Gutzler, in summing up the main message of the report. \u201cSo, even for regions or components of the climate system for which the difference between 1.5\u00b0 and 2\u00b0 doesn\u2019t represent a big threshold or tipping point, the impacts of climate change get considerably bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s true here in New Mexico, where average annual temperatures have already increased by 2\u00b0F just since the 1970s, according to a number of sources, including a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/statesummaries.ncics.org\/nm?utm_source=Environment+Wrap-Up&amp;utm_campaign=0ec459c755-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_07_12_COPY_01&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_be5ca4cdac-0ec459c755-142244685&amp;mc_cid=0ec459c755&amp;mc_eid=0f2a8ea932#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recent report<\/a>\u00a0from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<\/p>\n<p>The faster rate of temperature increase here is due to the fact that continents warm more quickly than oceans, Gutzler explained: \u201cThe world is mostly ocean, and we are in the middle of a continent, so when people talk about global warming of one, two or three degrees, for our region, we\u2019re thinking about double those numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Action requires \u2018rapid and far-reaching\u2019 changes<\/h3>\n<p>According to the IPCC\u2019s special report, limiting warming globally to 1.5\u00b0C will require \u201crapid and far-reaching\u201d changes in energy, transportation, agriculture, cities, land use and industry.<\/p>\n<p>The scientists wrote that globally, human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide \u201cwould need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching \u2018net zero\u2019 around 2050.\u201d The report also notes that \u201cany remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As<i>\u00a0NM Political Report\u00a0<\/i>has reported numerous times, including\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/2017\/08\/18\/leaked-climate-report-paints-dry-picture-of-u-s-southwest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">last summer<\/a>, the U.S. Southwest is warming more quickly than other places on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>According to the most recent federal climate assessment for the region, as winter temperatures continue increasing, less snow will fall, \u201cpotentially disrupting western U.S. water management practices.\u201d Together, higher temperatures and precipitation changes will decrease soil moisture and increase drought. Hot summers will become more frequent, and, wrote federal scientists in 2017, if carbon emissions remain high and water management systems aren\u2019t changed, chronic, long-term drought is increasingly possible by the end of the century.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Depending upon whether greenhouse gas emissions continue at current levels or rise, temperatures in the Southwest are projected to increase by 2.5\u00b0 Fahrenheit over the next few decades, they wrote, and between 2.8\u00b0 and 11.9\u00b0 Fahrenheit by the late 21st century.<\/p>\n<p>In response to the IPCC report released this week, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall said the U.S. must heed its \u201curgent warning\u201d and \u201ctake decisive action to halt climate change in concert with other nations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the federal government fails to act, we must look to states, cities, and the private sector to redouble their efforts,\u201d Udall added. \u201cThat means taking the necessary steps to reduce emissions as we transition to clean energy sources and make cleaner, more responsible use of our existing energy resources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise, said the Democratic senator, \u201cNew Mexico will continue to face disproportionately severe effects from climate change, like ongoing and worsening drought.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Udall criticized the Trump administration\u2019s recent rollback of a rule meant to reduce pollution from methane, a greenhouse gas, calling it a \u201ctragic failure of leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNatural gas flaring and leaks are wasteful, pollute the air we breathe, and undermine our best efforts to grapple with climate change,\u201d he said, calling for \u201csignificant\u201d investments in clean, efficient energy production.<\/p>\n<h3>Half a century of inaction<\/h3>\n<p>This week\u2019s report from international scientists was stark and urgent. But it wasn\u2019t necessarily new.\u00a0In the United States, people in positions of power have known about human-caused climate change and its impacts for decades.<\/p>\n<p>More than two decades before NASA scientist James Hansen testified about climate change before Congress in 1989, scientists told President Lyndon B. Johnson that the burning of fossil fuels was increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>In 1965, Johnson\u2019s science advisory committee wrote in a White House report: \u201cThrough his worldwide industrial civilization, Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment. Within a few generations he is burning the fossil fuels that slowly accumulated in the earth over the past 500 million years.\u201d The carbon dioxide humans were injecting into the atmosphere would cause changes, they wrote, that could be \u201cdeleterious from the point of view of human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In February 1965, Johnson addressed Congress over rising carbon dioxide emissions: \u201cThis generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, the U.S. never moved to curtail fossil fuel use.<\/p>\n<p>Decades ago, Congress refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which represented the first step toward meaningful international action on climate in 1992. And in 2017, President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Agreement, in which nearly 200 countries committed to cutting emissions to keep global temperature rise below 2\u00b0C, with the larger goal of trying to keep warming to 1.5\u00b0 above pre-Industrial levels.<\/p>\n<p>Under former Gov. Bill Richardson, the state of New Mexico undertook some climate initiatives, trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industries and studying how the impacts of warming would affect resources and its communities. In 2005, the state released a report on the potential impacts of climate change, examining effects on everything from tourism and forests to water and agriculture.<\/p>\n<p>All those\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/2017\/07\/28\/up-in-smoke-opportunities-on-climate-renewables-shunned-during-martinez-administration-en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">initiatives and studies ended<\/a>\u00a0once Gov. Susana Martinez took office in January 2011. Martinez has\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpoliticalreport.com\/2018\/08\/03\/drought-maintains-its-grip-on-nm-but-el-nino-is-on-the-horizon-en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">not convened<\/a>\u00a0the state\u2019s Drought Task Force since 2015, and drought planning\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmdrought.state.nm.us\/dtf_planning.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">links on the governor\u2019s website<\/a>\u00a0include a 2006 New Mexico Drought Plan and 2008 recommendations from the task force, two documents posted before Martinez was elected governor.<\/p>\n<p>For Gutzler, who is among the scientists working on the next IPCC assessment, the main message New Mexicans should glean from the special report and others like it is that climate change isn\u2019t coming \u2014 it\u2019s already here.<\/p>\n<p><em>The IPCC is the United Nations scientific body that assesses the state of climate science. Ninety-one authors and review editors from 40 countries prepared the special report. To read the entire special report:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ipcc.ch\/report\/sr15\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/ipcc.ch\/report\/sr15\/<\/a>\u00a0To read FAQ\u2019s about 1.5\u00b0C:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/report.ipcc.ch\/sr15\/pdf\/sr15_faq.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/report.ipcc.ch\/sr15\/pdf\/sr15_faq.pdf<\/a>\u00a0and to read the summary for policymakers:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/report.ipcc.ch\/sr15\/pdf\/sr15_spm_final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/report.ipcc.ch\/sr15\/pdf\/sr15_spm_final.pdf<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If humans don\u2019t drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, we will not stop warming that\u2019s expected to have widespread and catastrophic impacts upon the Earth\u2019s ecosystems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":633830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[284,147],"class_list":["post-633827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-climate-change","tag-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633827"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":633835,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633827\/revisions\/633835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}