27th September 2024
Is climate change an existential threat?
What does ‘existential’ mean?
Existential means pertaining to existence – including relating to or affirming existence. When used as an adjective to describe a threat, it is used to mean a situation where continued existence is in question. For example, the threat of nuclear war can be described as an existential threat.
Is climate change an existential threat?
Rising global temperatures are a threat to human life. They are also a threat to the world’s flora and fauna. They are a threat to ice sheets and glaciers and so create the threat of rising sea levels. They are threat to weather patterns creating droughts, floods, heat domes, wildfires, storms etc – all of further increasing the threats to human and other life forms on earth. These threats to life – both present and future – have been widely and extensively studied by scientists across the world.
To quote from NASA’s website: “the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organisations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world.” https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/
Further more “It’s important to remember that scientists always focus on the evidence, not on opinions. Scientific evidence continues to show that human activities (primarily the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed Earth’s surface and its ocean basins, which in turn have continued to impact Earth’s climate. This is based on over a century of scientific evidence forming the structural backbone of today’s civilisation.
“NASA Global Climate Change presents the state of scientific knowledge about climate change while highlighting the role NASA plays in better understanding our home planet. This effort includes citing multiple peer-reviewed studies from research groups across the world, illustrating the accuracy and consensus of research results (in this case, the scientific consensus on climate change) consistent with NASA’s scientific research portfolio.” https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/scientific-consensus/
In February 2021, David Attenborough in addressing the UN Security Council called climate change “the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced”. He went in to say “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.” https://press.un.org/en/2021/sc14445.doc.htm
It is not just scientists that term climate change as an existential threat, but renowned world organisations too.
In 2019, Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change wrote, “Once a distant concern, climate change is now an existential threat and the greatest challenge facing this generation. It is abundantly clear that business as usual is no longer good enough. Rapid, deep and transformative hanger is needed throughout society – not only to reduce emissions and stabilise global temperatures, but to build a safer, healthier and more prosperous future for all.
“Our goals are clear and the science is non-negotiable. We must limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees and, on the road to doing so, achieve climate neutrality by 2050.This must be done urgently and cooperatively; a global project requiring the best efforts from all nations, all businesses and all people.” https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Climate_Action_Support_Trends_2019.pdf
In December 2020, five years after the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change by world leaders at COP21 in 2015, the International Energy Agency reported:
“The Paris Agreement has been ratified by 189 of the 197 signatories ─ with scope for more to do so. Since the signing, governments, companies and citizens around the world have started to take action. Indeed, addressing this existential threat is the global challenge we face.
“This has meant a special responsibility for the IEA, which as the global energy authority has a mandate to promote energy security, economic development and environmental protection. Keeping the lights and heaters on, keeping transport moving, these are themselves critical dimensions of our economies and lives. And we have to make sure we can keep doing them in a sustainable way. Energy is not a problem – emissions are the problem.
“The IEA has looked at the energy sector’s impact on climate for more than a decade, and we have significantly ramped up our efforts in recent years under the leadership of Executive Director Dr Fatih Birol, with a focus on supporting countries in their transitions to clean energy. Energy systems that continue to worsen climate change are making all of us more vulnerable and less secure.”
Two years later in September 2022, the IEA reported:
““We are in the midst of the first truly global energy crisis, with devastating knock-on consequences across the world economy, especially in developing countries. Only by speeding up the transition to clean sustainable energy can we achieve lasting energy security,’’ said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. “Through international collaboration, we can make the transition quicker, cheaper and easier for everyone – on the back of faster innovation, greater economies of scale, bigger incentives to invest, level playing fields and benefits that are shared across all parts of society. Without this collaboration, the transition to net zero emissions will be much more challenging and could be delayed by decades.” https://www.iea.org/news/international-collaboration-gap-threatens-to-undermine-climate-progress-and-delay-net-zero-by-decades
The previous year in the IEA’s report Net Zero by 2050: a Road map for the Global Energy Sector, laid out how across the globe different sectors would need to change to meet the 2050 net zero emissions target, including ramping up renewable energy supplies such as solar and wind power. The Report highlighted the need to ensure fair energy costs for consumers, transitioning jobs to maintain employment opportunities, replacing the internal combustion engine with electric vehicles etc. At the same time it was equally forthright in stating that polluting energy sources would have to be phased out, referencing coal (to be phased out first) oil and gas – and the Report was clear:
No new oil and gas!
“Beyond projects already committed as of 2021, there are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway, and no new coal mines or mine extensions are required. The unwavering policy focus on climate change in the net zero pathway results in a sharp decline in fossil fuel demand, meaning that the focus for oil and gas producers switches entirely to output – and emissions reductions – from the operation of existing assets.” https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050
As time has passed – and despite both the promises and the actual actions taken by nations – the rate at which the climate is changing has not slowed but accelerated.
In October 2023 an international group of scientists wrote: “We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered.” Their writing in the journal Biosciences, was reported by the Forbes magazine: “As scientists, we are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth about the crises we face in simple and direct terms. The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023.”
In January 2024 the World Economic Forum produced its Global Risk Report.
“Nature and climate risks are getting the attention they deserve — that’s a positive first step in addressing some of the greatest challenges that we, as a global community, face. Just this week, scientists announced that temperatures in 2023 reached 1.48°C above preindustrial averages, with the 1.5°C threshold that takes the Earth into an unsafe operating space likely to be breached in the next 12 months.
“The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 named three key climate issues as critical challenges facing humanity: Extreme weather events, critical change to Earth systems — which is a new entrant this year — and biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse….
“There is no doubt that the challenge is great — it is perhaps the greatest challenge humanity has ever or will ever face. The good news: the solutions are available to us.
“The priority solution is faster emissions reduction and credible steps by all actors in our economic system to accelerate the speed and scale of a clean transition. Human emissions is the swiftest lever to postpone or avoid critical changes to Earth systems…
“Given the nature of the existential threat, it is essential to pair a realistic view of risks alongside hope and optimism. Too much focus on the risks will leave humans with a trauma response of fight, flight, freeze and fold – leading to ecoanxiety and climate grief. These responses induce inaction and serve to propel the risk rather than mitigate it. On the other hand, an overly optimistic view that is reliant on technological fixes further down the line is also unhelpful, as decision-makers kick the can down the proverbial road.
“What is needed is a mindset that recognises the full scale of the climate risk, whilst maintaining the optimism that we can and will respond in a way to avoid and mitigate the worst risks from occurring.”
Their report also noted: “The good news: the solutions are available to us. The priority solution is faster emissions reduction and credible steps by all actors in our economic system to accelerate the speed and scale of a clean transition. Human emissions is the swiftest lever to postpone or avoid critical changes to Earth systems.” https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/01/climate-risks-are-finally-front-and-centre-of-the-global-consciousness/
In July 2024 the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) produced its Global Foresight Report. This is a report that aims to understand and predict those things that can or will disrupt planetary health and human wellbeing. The Executive Summary provides the following insights.
“Through the process, it has become clear that the world is facing a different context than it faces even ten years ago. Some of the issues are the same, but the rapid rate of change combined with technological developments, more frequent and devastating disasters and an increasingly turbulent geopolitical landscape, has resulted in a new operating context, where any country can be thrown off course more easily and more often.
“The world is already on the verge of what may be termed ‘polycrisis’ – where global crises are not just amplifying and accelerating but also appear to be synchronising. The triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste is feeding into human crises such as conflict for territory and resources, displacement and deteriorating health.
“The speed of change is staggering….
“The good news is that just as the impact of multiple crises is compounded when they are linked, so are the solutions …Key to a better future is a focus on inter generational equity and a new social contract reinforcing shared values that unite us rather than divide us. A new social contract would involve the global community pursuing transformative change across technological, economic and social factors and paradigms and collective goals.” https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/45915/English-Executive-Summary-Foresight-Report.pdf?sequence=8
For scientists and for those looking at the climate crisis from a global perspective, it is clear that climate change does present us with an existential threat. However looking at the responses from governments and business concerns – that is actual responses not just words and promises – climate change is not an existential threat. It is not even an urgent priority. Economic growth (measured by the unhelpful metric of gross domestic product), the exploiting of every last drop of oil and gas, increasing dividends, ensuring profits for banks, routes for airlines, roads for car drivers, and the maintenance of industrial farming and livestock production, all take precedence.
If global bodies are saying ‘existential threat’ but government and industry are saying ‘business as usual’ then we should not be surprised if most people think that the climate change is an important global issue but not an issue that should have any impact on their daily life. So governments and industries continue to say ‘Yes we will make change’ to the global bodies whilst continuing to say to the consumers ‘No don’t worry, we’ll delay these changes till a later date’.
One body that monitors the progress being taken by nations is the Climate Action Tracker.
“The Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific project that tracks government climate action and measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement aim of “holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.” https://climateactiontracker.org/
Their assessment shows that gap between where we should be and where we are.
The Green Tau 