IMAGE BY OVOODOCORVO
They are terrified, but determined to keep
fighting.
‘Hopeless and broken’: why the world’s top climate
scientists are in despair
Exclusive: Survey of hundreds of experts reveals
harrowing picture of future, but they warn climate fight must not be abandoned
Damian
Carrington Environment editor
Wed 8 May
2024 11.00 CEST
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair
“Sometimes
it is almost impossible not to feel hopeless and broken,” says the climate
scientist Ruth Cerezo-Mota. “After all the flooding, fires, and droughts of the
last three years worldwide, all related to climate change, and after the fury
of Hurricane Otis in Mexico, my country, I really thought governments were
ready to listen to the science, to act in the people’s best interest.”
Instead,
Cerezo-Mota expects the world to heat by a catastrophic 3C this century,
soaring past the internationally agreed 1.5C target and delivering enormous
suffering to billions of people. This is her optimistic view, she says.
“The
breaking point for me was a meeting in Singapore,” says Cerezo-Mota, an expert
in climate modelling at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. There,
she listened to other experts spell out the connection between rising global
temperatures and heatwaves, fires, storms and floods hurting people – not at
the end of the century, but today. “That was when everything clicked.
“I got a
depression,” she says. “It was a very dark point in my life. I was unable to do
anything and was just sort of surviving.”
Cerezo-Mota
recovered to continue her work: “We keep doing it because we have to do it, so
[the powerful] cannot say that they didn’t know. We know what we’re talking
about. They can say they don’t care, but they can’t say they didn’t know.”
In Mérida
on the Yucatán peninsula, where Cerezo-Mota lives, the heat is ramping up.
“Last summer, we had around 47C maximum. The worst part is that, even at night,
it’s 38C, which is higher than your body temperature. It doesn’t give a minute
of the day for your body to try to recover.”
She says
record-breaking heatwaves led to many deaths in Mexico. “It’s very frustrating
because many of these things could have been avoided. And it’s just silly to
think: ‘Well, I don’t care if Mexico gets destroyed.’ We have seen these
extreme events happening everywhere. There is not a safe place for anyone.
“I think 3C
is being hopeful and conservative. 1.5C is already bad, but I don’t think there
is any way we are going to stick to that. There is not any clear sign from any
government that we are actually going to stay under 1.5C.”
‘Infuriating, distressing, overwhelming’
Cerezo-Mota
is far from alone in her fear. An exclusive Guardian survey of hundreds of the
world’s leading climate experts has found that:
77% of respondents believe global temperatures
will reach at least 2.5C above pre-industrial levels, a devastating degree of
heating;
almost half – 42% – think it will be more than
3C;
only 6% think the 1.5C limit will be achieved.
The task
climate researchers have dedicated themselves to is to paint a picture of the
possible worlds ahead. From experts in the atmosphere and oceans, energy and
agriculture, economics and politics, the mood of almost all those the Guardian
heard from was grim. And the future many painted was harrowing: famines, mass
migration, conflict. “I find it infuriating, distressing, overwhelming,” said
one expert, who chose not to be named. “I’m relieved that I do not have
children, knowing what the future holds,” said another.
The
scientists’ responses to the survey provide informed opinions on critical
questions for the future of humanity. How hot will the world get, and what will
that look like? Why is the world failing to act with anything remotely like the
urgency needed? Is it, in fact, game over, or must we fight on? They also
provide a rare glimpse into what it is like to live with this knowledge every
day.
The climate
crisis is already causing profound damage as the average global temperature has
reached about 1.2C above the pre-industrial average over the last four years.
But the scale of future impacts will depend on what happens – or not – in
politics, finance, technology and global society, and how the Earth’s climate
and ecosystems respond.
The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has convened thousands of
experts in all these fields to produce the most authoritative reports
available, which are approved by all governments. It was founded in 1988 by the
United Nations, which was concerned even at that time that global heating could
“be disastrous for mankind if timely steps are not taken at all levels”.
The IPCC’s
task was to produce a comprehensive review and recommendations, which it has
now done six times over 35 years. In terms of scale and significance, it may be
the most important scientific endeavour in human history.
The IPCC
experts are, in short, the most informed people on the planet on climate. What
they think matters. So the Guardian contacted every available lead author or
review editor of all IPCC reports since 2018. Almost half replied – 380 out of
843, a very high response rate.
Their
expectations for global temperature rise were stark. Lisa Schipper, at the
University of Bonn, anticipates a 3C rise: “It looks really bleak, but I think
it’s realistic. It’s just the fact that we’re not taking the action that we
need to.” Technically, a lower temperature peak was possible, the scientists
said, but few had any confidence it would be delivered.
Their
overwhelming feelings were fear and frustration. “I expect a semi-dystopian
future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,”
said a South African scientist who chose not to be named. “The world’s response
to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”
‘Running away from it is impossible’
So how do
the scientists cope with their work being ignored for decades, and living in a
world their findings indicate is on a “highway to hell”?
Camille
Parmesan, at the CNRS ecology centre in France, was on the point of giving up
15 years ago. “I had devoted my research life to [climate science] and it had
not made a damn bit of difference,” she said. “I started feeling [like], well,
I love singing, maybe I’ll become a nightclub singer.”
She was
inspired to continue by the dedication she saw in the young activists at the
turbulent UN climate summit in Copenhagen 2009. “All these young people were so
charged up, so impassioned. So I said I’ll keep doing this, not for the
politicians, but for you.
“The big
difference [with the most recent IPCC report] was that all of the scientists I
worked with were incredibly frustrated. Everyone was at the end of their rope,
asking: what the fuck do we have to do to get through to people how bad this
really is?”
“Scientists
are human: we are also people living on this Earth, who are also experiencing
the impacts of climate change, who also have children, and who also have
worries about the future,” said Schipper. “We did our science, we put this
really good report together and – wow – it really didn’t make a difference on
the policy. It’s very difficult to see that, every time.”
Climate
change is our “unescapable reality”, said Joeri Rogelj, at Imperial College
London. “Running away from it is impossible and will only increase the
challenges of dealing with the consequences and implementing solutions.”
Henri
Waisman, at the IDDRI policy research institute in France, said: “I regularly
face moments of despair and guilt of not managing to make things change more
rapidly, and these feelings have become even stronger since I became a father.
But, in these moments, two things help me: remembering how much progress has
happened since I started to work on the topic in 2005 and that every tenth of a
degree matters a lot – this means it is still useful to continue the fight.”
‘1.5C is a political game’
In the
climate crisis, even fractions of a degree do matter: every extra tenth means
140 million more people suffering in dangerous heat. The 1.5C target was forced
through international negotiations by an alliance of uniquely vulnerable small
island states. They saw the previous 2C target as condemning their nations to
obliteration under rising oceans and storms.
The 1.5C
goal was adopted as a stretch target at the UN climate summit in Paris in 2015
with the deal seen as a triumph, a statement of true multilateral ambition
delivered with beaming smiles and euphoric applause. It quickly became the
default target for minimising climate damage, with UN summits being conducted
to the repeated refrain of: “Keep 1.5 alive!” For the target to be breached
requires global temperatures to be above 1.5C across numerous years, not just
for a single year.
It remains
a vital political target for many climate diplomats, anchoring international
climate efforts and driving ambition. But to almost all the IPCC experts the
Guardian heard from, it is dead. A scientist from a Pacific Island nation said:
“Humanity is heading towards destruction. We’ve got to appreciate, help and
love each other.”
Schipper
said: “There is an argument that if we say that it is too late for 1.5C, that
we are setting ourselves up for defeat and saying there’s nothing we can do,
but I don’t agree.”
Jonathan
Cullen, at the University of Cambridge, was particularly blunt: “1.5C is a
political game – we were never going to reach this target.”
The climate
emergency is already here. Even just 1C of heating has supercharged the
planet’s extreme weather, delivering searing heatwaves from the US to Europe to
China that would have been otherwise impossible. Millions of people have very
likely died early as a result already. At just 2C, the brutal heatwave that
struck the Pacific north-west of America in 2021 will be 100-200 times more
likely.
But a world
that is hotter by 2.5C, 3C, or worse, as most of the experts anticipate, takes
us into truly uncharted territory. It is hard to fully map this new world. Our
intricately connected global society means the impact of climate shocks in one
place can cascade around the world, through food price spikes, broken supply
chains, and migration.
One
relatively simple study examined the impact of a 2.7C rise, the average of the
answers in the Guardian survey. It found 2 billion people pushed outside
humanity’s “climate niche”, ie the benign conditions in which the whole of
human civilisation arose over the last 10,000 years.
The latest
IPCC assessment devotes hundreds of pages to climate impacts, with irreversible
losses to the Amazon rainforest, quadrupled flood damages and billions more
people exposed to dengue fever. With 3C of global heating, cities including
Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Miami and The Hague end up below sea level.
“It is the
biggest threat humanity has faced, with the potential to wreck our social
fabric and way of life. It has the potential to kill millions, if not billions,
through starvation, war over resources, displacement,” said James Renwick, at
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. “None of us will be unaffected
by the devastation.”
“I am
scared mightily – I don’t see how we are able to get out of this mess,” said
Tim Benton, an expert on food security and food systems at the Chatham House
thinktank. He said the cost of protecting people and recovering from climate
disasters will be huge, with yet more discord and delay over who pays the
bills. Numerous experts were worried over food production: “We’ve barely
started to see the impacts,” said one.
Another
grave concern was climate tipping points, where a tiny temperature increase
tips crucial parts of the climate system into collapse, such as the Greenland
ice sheet, the Amazon rainforest and key Atlantic currents. “Most people do not
realise how big these risks are,” said Wolfgang Cramer, at the Mediterranean
Institute of Biodiversity and Ecology.
‘All of humanity needs to come together and cooperate’
In the face
of such colossal danger, why is the world’s response so slow and inadequate?
The IPCC experts overwhelmingly pointed to one barrier: lack of political will.
Almost three-quarters of the respondents cited this factor, with 60% also
blaming vested corporate interests.
“[Climate
change] is an existential threat to humanity and [lack of] political will and
vested corporate interests are preventing us addressing it. I do worry about
the future my children are inheriting,” said Lorraine Whitmarsh, at the
University of Bath in the UK.
Lack of
money was only a concern for 27% of the scientists, suggesting most believe the
finance exists to fund the green transition. Few respondents thought that a
lack of green technology or scientific understanding of the issue were a
problem – 6% and 4% respectively.
“All of
humanity needs to come together and cooperate – this is a monumental
opportunity to put differences aside and work together,” said Louis Verchot, at
the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia. “Unfortunately
climate change has become a political wedge issue … I wonder how deep the
crisis needs to become before we all start rowing in the same direction.”
Dipak
Dasgupta, an economist and former government adviser in India, said short-term
thinking by governments and businesses was a major barrier. Climate action
needed decade-long planning, in contrast to election cycles of only a few
years, said others.
A world of
climate chaos would require a much greater focus on protecting people from
inevitable impacts, said many scientists, but again politics stands in the way.
“Multiple trillions of dollars were liquidated for use during the pandemic, yet
it seems there is not enough political will to commit several billion dollars
to adaptation funding,” said Shobha Maharaj, from Trinidad and Tobago.
The capture
of politicians and the media by vastly wealthy fossil fuel companies and
petrostates, whose oil, gas and coal are the root cause of the climate crisis,
was frequently cited. “The economic interests of nations often take
precedence,” said Lincoln Alves at Brazil’s National Institute for Space
Research.
Stephen
Humphreys at the London School of Economics said: “The tacit calculus of
decision-makers, particularly in the Anglosphere – US, Canada, UK, Australia –
but also Russia and the major fossil fuel producers in the Middle East, is
driving us into a world in which the vulnerable will suffer, while the
well-heeled will hope to stay safe above the waterline” – even with the
cataclysmic 3.5C rise he expects. Asked what individual action would be
effective, he said: “Civil disobedience.”
Disinformation
was a major concern for scientists from Brazil to Ukraine. This was polarising
society, compounding a poor public understanding of climate risk and blinding
people to the fact almost all the climate solutions needed were at hand, they
said.
“The
enormity of the problem is not well understood,” said Ralph Sims, at Massey
University in New Zealand. “So there will be environmental refugees by the
millions, extreme weather events escalating, food and water shortages, before
the majority accept the urgency in reducing emissions – by which time it will
be too late.”
‘Capitalism has trained us well’
“Fight for
a fairer world.” That simple message from one French scientist reflected the
thoughts of many, who said the huge gap between the world’s rich and poor was a
giant barrier to climate action, echoing the chasm between those responsible
for the most emissions and those suffering most from the impacts.
Global
solidarity could overcome any environmental crisis, according to Esteban
Jobbágy, at the University of San Luis in Argentina. “But current growing
inequalities are the number one barrier to that.”
Aditi
Mukherji, at the CGIAR research group, said: “The rich countries have hogged
all the carbon budget, leaving very little for the rest of the world.” The
global north has a huge obligation to fix a problem of its own making by
slashing its emissions and providing climate funding to the rest of the world,
she said. The Indian government recently put a price tag on that: at least $1tn
a year.
Overconsumption
in rich nations was also cited as a barrier. “I feel resigned to disaster as we
cannot separate our love of bigger, better, faster, more, from what will help
the greatest number of people survive and thrive,” said one US scientist.
“Capitalism has trained us well.”
However,
Maisa Rojas, an IPCC scientist and Chile’s environment minister, said: “We need
to communicate that acting on climate change can be a benefit, with proper
support from the state, instead of a personal burden.”
She is one
of a minority of the experts surveyed – less than 25% – who still think global
temperature rise will be restricted to 2C or less. The IPCC vice-chair Aïda
Diongue-Niang, a Senegalese meteorologist, is another, saying: “I believe there
will be more ambitious action to avoid 2.5C to 3C.”
So why are
these scientists optimistic? One reason is the rapid rollout of green
technologies from renewable energy to electric cars, driven by fast-falling
prices and the multiple associated benefits they bring, such as cleaner air.
“It is getting cheaper and cheaper to save the climate,” said Lars Nilsson, at
Lund University in Sweden.
Even the
rapidly growing need to protect communities against inevitable heatwaves,
floods and droughts could have an upside, said Mark Pelling, at University
College London. “It opens exciting possibilities: by having to live with
climate change, we can adapt in ways that bring us to a more inclusive and
equitable way of living.”
Such a
world would see adaptation go hand-in-hand with cutting poverty and
vulnerability, providing better housing, clean and reliable water and
electricity, better diets, more sustainable farming, and less air pollution.
However,
most hope was heavily guarded. “The good news is the worst-case scenario is
avoidable,” said Michael Meredith, at the British Antarctic Survey. “We still
have it in our hands to build a future that is much more benign climatically
than the one we are currently on track for.” But he also expects “our societies
will be forced to change and the suffering and damage to lives and livelihoods
will be severe”.
“I believe
in social tipping points,” where small changes in society trigger large-scale
climate action, said Elena López-Gunn, at the research company Icatalist in
Spain. “Unfortunately, I also believe in physical climate tipping points.”
Back in
Mexico, Cerezo-Mota remains at a loss: “I really don’t know what needs to
happen for the people that have all the power and all the money to make the
change. But then I see the younger generations fighting and I get a bit of hope
again.”
Note:
Julian Ganz provided the technical support to conduct the survey, which was
sent on 31 January 2024. Men made up 68% of the respondents, women 28% and 4%
preferred not to state their gender. This mirrors the gender split of the IPCC
authors overall. A large majority of the scientists – 89% – were aged between
40 and 69 and they were from 35 different countries across the world, with
every continent represented by dozens of experts. The age and gender questions
were not mandatory but were answered by 344 and 346 respondents respectively.
Excerpts of
footage and images taken from the Guardian’s climate coverage
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