Industries and people around the world recorded record amounts of oil, gas and coal last year, releasing more greenhouse gases than ever before, a group of leading scientists say humanity is being questioned about “climate chaos.”
The attack on the global consumption of fossil fuels by 2024 contributed to extreme weather and severe disasters including heat waves, hurricanes, floods and wildfires.
“The important signs of the Planet are burning red,” the scientists wrote in their annual to make a report in the weather. “The window to prevent serious side effects is closing quickly.”
Some of the most alarming “significant signs of the world,” say the researchers, include the record temperature of the ocean Destruction of coral reefs, Rapidly shrinking ice sheets and again and again Loss of forests fires have been set all over the world. They mean the extreme intensity of Hurricane Melissa This week is another sign of how climate change is threatening lives and communities on an unprecedented scale.
“The climate crisis has reached a really dangerous stage,” said William Ripple, co-lead author and professor at Oregon State University. “It’s important that we measure future warming as quickly as possible.”
There is still time to mitigate the damage, Ripple said. It means switching to efficient electronic cleaning, cleaner transportation, fewer cows and dairy cows and other sources of harmful gases. These changes are happening in some areas, although not nearly fast enough.
For example, fossil fuel consumption actually fell in China in the first half of this year, a major change in the world’s largest climate change country. Renewable energy Building at a brutal pace there, short coverage worldwide. And in California, clean energy will provide two-thirds of electricity by 2023.
However, the total consumption of fossil fuels rose 1.5% by the year 2024, the researchers said, locking data from The Energy Institute. Energy-related emissions of carbon and other planet-warming gases have also reached an all-time high – the opposite of what climate change needs to happen.
The report notes that warmer temperatures are contributing to the increase in electricity.
“Avoiding all fractions of a certain level with heat is very important,” the scientists wrote. “We are entering a time when only bold, concerted action can prevent catastrophic consequences.”
This page to make a reportpublished on Wednesday in Bioscience Gene, is an annual joint review and colleagues have compiled since writing in 2020 paper Declaring a climate emergency – a statement more than 15,800 scientists have signed in support.
Scientists say that the current pace of warming greatly increases the risk of crossing critical climate points, including adverse cycles such as the collapse of ice sheets, the depletion of rich permafrost and the depletion of forests.
Ripple and its partners emphasize that adopting solutions now to reduce emissions can bring immediate benefits and that these solutions will be more expensive than dealing with the consequences of uncontrolled climate change.
Efforts by President Trump and his administration to increase production of oil, gas and coal threaten to slow the transition to clean energy, said Michael Mann, Professor of Climate at the University of Pennsylvania.
He and Author Peter Hotez argue for a recent book “Science under siege“That other nations must take greater leadership now that we and other oil-promoting governments are working to block action on climate change.
Some scientists who helped write the report say the Trump administration is turning threats including sea level rise, more severe droughts and wildfires, and agricultural fires.
“It’s a sign that the US is pulling back on any efforts to address environmental challenges,” said Peter Gleick, founder and senior fellow of the Pacific Institute, an OK think tank in Oakland. “The rest of the world should ignore US efforts to delay progress on these issues … and I hope that other countries will continue to step up.”
Next World Climate Conference Brazil in November can be transformative if countries agree to bold and dynamic changes, says Ripple.
Solutions should not only include getting rid of fossil fuels, scientists, but also face the fact that people are using resources faster than nature can reproduce them. The investigators, they noted, were Estimated that two-thirds of the warming since 1990 is caused by 10% of the world’s population because of “high consumption of fossil fuels, high per capita consumption, and investment.”
Scientists want a change including “reducing excesses” among the rich, protecting and restoring the environment, and moving away from a heavy meat diet to a Plash-based diet.
“It’s not just about cutting emissions. Dealing with climate change requires a lot,” said Rilple. “It requires a deep, systematic change in how societies value the environment, design economies, consume resources and define progress.”
