Earth Today | Hurricane Dorian: A harsh reminder to prepare for climate change
Published:Thursday | September 5, 2019 | 12:00 AM
HURRICANE DORIAN has come as a cutting reminder of the need for, in particular, small island developing states (SIDS) to press for climate change readiness, informed by the Special Report on 1.5 Degrees Celsius of Global Warming.
That report – the work of the leading authority on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - puts the world on notice of a planet in peril, in the absence of significantly scaled-up actions to reign in the emission of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, while sharpening the adaptation response.
This is in the face of climate risks, including not only extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, the likes of which was experienced in The Bahamas this week, but also sea level rise and associated loss of livelihoods. This is in addition to the continued warming of the planet, which presents challenges for freshwater security and for the prevalence of diseases, such as dengue.
“To see yet another category 5 hurricane in the Caribbean and within two years of a string of category 5s that have passed, and certainly in the eastern Caribbean, is distressing to say the least. It speaks to what we have been saying about climate change being a kind of existential threat to the Caribbean region,” said Professor Michael Taylor, one of the lead authors of the special 1.5 report that was published last year.
“It is challenging our whole development, setting us back. It will certainly set back The Bahamas by years, and we don’t know yet what the death toll or devastation will be,” Taylor added.
According to the physicist, the hurricane, which sat over The Bahamas for more than two days, bombarding it with wind and unyielding rains, makes the case for concerted action on climate change – and now.
“It is making the case for even more urgent action by not just us (as SIDS) in building resilience, but by the global community in ensuring that small islands have a viable future. Climate change seems to be occurring a little faster than I think any one of us would be have anticipated,” he told The Gleaner.
“When I call for global action, it certainly means in light of the 1.5 report, which says there is still a slim chance of achieving 1.5 by the end of the century. Certainly, I think that what Dorian is doing is showing us that the world has to grasp that slim chance of 1.5 ,which will mean drastic reordering of greenhouse gases,” added Taylor, who is also dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the West Indies, Mona.
MORE RED FLAGS
Hurricane Dorian, he suggested, is but one more red flag in a stream of other red flags that provides an indication of what a world that is allowed to continue to warm beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius will be.
“Already, we can look and see the potential of what a 1.5 world will look like. So my call on the global community is to say that we have to ramp up action to achieve 1.5, because it is really the only way that small islands will have a chance for a viable future,” Taylor said.
“The science is saying that there is a chance and we have to really face what we are seeing and grasp that chance. This is a case of existence and non-existence, literally life and death,” he added.
The historic Paris Agreement, meanwhile, sets out the global committment to “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, recognising that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”.
However, there are countries opposed to the push for 1.5 degrees Celsius, given, among other things, the political will, technologies and drastic lifestyle changes it would require to have the warming stabilised at that level.