“You can’t negotiate with the planet”, recalled a group of high-level climate scientists at COP27, in which they warned of new risks and the “structural and rapid changes” that would have to be made in order not to exceed 1.5 ºC of warming, something that “ It is not a goal, it is a physical limit.”
Those were the words used by Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in his presentation at the climate summit in Sharm el Sheikh of the ten new scientific assessments with which specialists aspire to guide negotiators to accelerate climate mitigation and adaptation.
The document, made public on the day dedicated to Science at COP27 -in addition to Youth-, gathers the main threats that poses the climate crisisfor example for health, because “tens of thousands of people are dying due to climate change,” stressed the expert from the University of Washington Krisie Ebi.
"We have to put human health and well-being at the center of the negotiations"said Ebi, who is also on the governing council of the Future Earth research program.
“We have scientific evidence that the health impacts of climate change are widespread and growing rapidly,” Rockstrom explained, referring not only to the effects of extreme heat, but also to the rise in infectious diseases, such as cholera, that entities like the World Health Organization have linked to the consequences of global warming.
Migration and security are also included among the greatest concerns of climate experts, since “climate change it is a conflict amplifier” and forced displacement, as they have reported on multiple occasions.
The specialists asserted that “the current approach to adaptation must be changed” in order to strengthen a "resilient development in the face of the climate crisis"but pointed out that “under no circumstances can adaptation replace mitigation”.
The UN Secretary General for Climate Change, Simon Stiell, also intervened in the session to stress that “the ability to adapt to climate change is not unlimited” and “will not prevent the loss and damage that we have already seen.”
The work presented this Thursday is the product of the “frustration” of the scientists, they admitted to the press, given the lack of financing and climate action consistent with the data, both from the political and public spectrum and from the private sector.
The financial sector, in particular, is one of the causes of the “scientific disappointment” referred to by Rockstrom, who emphasized that, if the world wants to stop warming in time and avoid passing irreversible tipping points -from which it would be impossible to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis -, it is not possible to exceed one and a half degrees of warming from pre-industrial levels, for which “rapid and structural changes” are needed.
The scientist stressed that these are "physical limits" of the planet, with whom "cannot be negotiated"and recovered the words of the British economist Nicholas Stern, author of the report that already in 2006 warned that “man-made climate change is the biggest market failure”.
“Sustainable private financial practices fail to catalyze a profound transition,” Rockstrom lamented, as they “continue to operate within the current system” and without “changing financial flows at the scale and pace required to decarbonize the economy.”".
The experts defended the need to protect the intact soil and biodiversity, in addition to repairing the most vulnerable countries for the losses and damages that climate change has already caused and to redirect the focus of economic planning, away from growth indicators. towards the wellness meters.
A third of the world’s population already lives in regions at risk of social instability and is threatened by the effects of global warming, scientists argued, to warn that this figure could double if the necessary measures are not taken in time to contain the increase in the average temperature of the planet below the safety threshold of 1.5 ºC, as contemplated by the Paris Agreement.