Climate change threatens Earth’s essential indicators

A damning report by a group of prominent researchers has revealed that climate change and other environmental threats are pushing the number of “vital signs” on Earth to record levels.

“We are on the brink of irreversible climate disaster,” they wrote. william ripple Oregon State University and colleagues. “This is an undeniable global emergency. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is at risk.”

The report issues a clear warning of what researchers say is a crisis, given the extreme conditions measured across key climate indicators, from greenhouse gas levels to tree cover loss. This is the fifth climate report led by Ripple.

“The climate crisis is not a distant threat, it is a crisis here and now,” he says. michael man One of the report's notable co-authors and historians at the University of Pennsylvania Naomi Oreskesgeoscientist Tim Renton and an oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf.

The researchers assessed 35 “planetary vital signs,” including ocean heat content and glacier thickness. Vital signs also include indicators of the human factors driving many of these changes, such as per capita meat production and fossil fuel subsidies.

The report reveals that of these 35 indicators, 25 have reached record levels this year, with most of them breaking records set in 2023. As the human population increased to 8.12 billion people earlier this year, the number of ruminant livestock, the main source of methane, increased. – Reached 4.22 billion animals. Greenhouse gas emissions exceeded 40.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent this year, with levels of atmospheric CO2, methane and nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas emitted from soil, reaching new highs. .

The impacts of climate change are also reaching record levels. Sea levels continue to rise while the oceans become warmer and more acidic. A record amount of mass has been lost from the Greenland ice sheet. Heat-related mortality rates in the United States are also increasing. The rate is now 0.62 per 100,000 person-years, an increase of more than 30 percent compared to 2023.

“We have now brought climate conditions to Earth that we or our prehistoric relatives within our genus never witnessed. homo” the researchers wrote.

Five of these indicators failed to set records last year, but will set records in 2024. This includes record consumption of coal and oil. The Antarctic ice sheet has lost more mass than at any time in the past 22 years of record. A record 11.9 million hectares of forest were burned. And global average temperatures are further above average than at any point in at least the past 145 years.

“In a world where billions of people are already suffering the effects of climate change, it is surprising that the rate of fossil fuel emissions and deforestation is increasing rather than slowing,” he said. I say. thomas crouseran ecologist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and co-author of the report.

Some indicators are setting records in the right direction when it comes to mitigating climate change. For example, solar and wind energy consumption has reached record highs, and in the world of finance, divestment from fossil fuels has reached record levels. The proportion of emissions subject to carbon prices also rose to record levels this year, and Brazil's deforestation rate fell.

But researchers say this is far from enough. “Sadly, we were unable to avoid serious consequences and can now only hope to limit the extent of the damage,” they wrote.

Such direct expression is unusual for a scientific report. However, the authors argue that this is legitimate and that this sentiment is: statement The document, published by Ripple and colleagues in 2020 and now signed by more than 15,000 researchers, states that scientists have a moral obligation to warn people about the dangers of climate change. are.

“The impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly undeniable, and a dire assessment is an honest assessment,” says a new report.