A recent climate report has left me devastated – I beg you to read it | The Independent
Donnachadh McCarthy 6 days ago
Never before in my life have I read a report and felt to the core of my being that every parent who loves their kids must read it. And this is also the first time I have ever opened a column with a mental health warning that what follows may be emotionally disturbing. But when I read the Chatham House Climate Change Risk Assessment report last Friday, I was left devastated at how desperate our situation is.
As I thought how best to convey the essential, terrifying message of the report, I decided I should just lay out the raw facts and let them reach your soul.
The two most civilisation-shattering facts are these. Firstly, under the current global government commitments to cut carbon emissions, as laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement, we have only a 1 per cent chance of not breaching a 1.5˚C rise of global temperatures. This is the temperature that prompted 200 health journals around the world, including the British Medical Journal, to simultaneously issue an editorial last week telling governments that passing this 1.5C rise would pose the greatest catastrophic, irreversible threat ever to human health.
