`Some Effects of Climate Change Are Already Irreversible, U.N. Warns - Olive Oil Times

Some Effects of Climate Change Are Already Irreversible, U.N. Warns

By Ephantus Mukundi
Mar. 31, 2022 17:01 UTC

Many of the impacts of cli­mate change are now irre­versible,” accord­ing to the lat­est report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The United Nations panel warned that 40 per­cent of the global pop­u­la­tion – more than 3.1 bil­lion peo­ple – is at high risk due to the effects of cli­mate change.

This is really a key moment. Our report points out very clearly, this is the decade of action if we are going to turn things around.- Debra Roberts, co-chair, IPCC

The report added that cli­mate change is push­ing humans beyond their abil­ity to adapt despite con­certed efforts to mit­i­gate its effects.

This report is a dire warn­ing about the con­se­quences of inac­tion,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC. It shows that cli­mate change is a grave and mount­ing threat to our well­be­ing and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how peo­ple adapt, and nature responds to increas­ing cli­mate risks.”

See Also:Shifting to Plant-Based Diets Can Cut Global Emissions and Capture CO2, Study Finds

According to the IPCC report, the world faces mul­ti­ple irre­versible cli­mate haz­ards for the next two decades if aver­age global tem­per­a­tures rise 1.5 °C above the pre-indus­trial level.

Even briefly, exceed­ing this warm­ing level is likely to have severe ram­i­fi­ca­tions for low-lying coastal areas and infra­struc­ture.

Climate change has already been attrib­uted to the recur­rent droughts, wild­fires and floods impact­ing dif­fer­ent regions around the world.

These events have been push­ing plants and ani­mals to the edge of their tol­er­ance lev­els and caus­ing mass deaths of corals and some tree species.

Since these extreme weather changes are occur­ring simul­ta­ne­ously, they have spill-over effects that are hard to man­age.

Currently, extreme weather changes have exposed mil­lions of peo­ple to severe food and water inse­cu­rity in Asia, Africa and parts of Central and South America.

According to a study con­ducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2021, cli­mate change is likely to reduce the pro­duc­tion of wheat and corn by about 20 per­cent by the end of the decade.

See Also:Current Climate Pledges Will Not Avoid Irredeemable Consequences of Global Warming

Our report clearly indi­cates that places, where peo­ple live and work, may cease to exist, that ecosys­tems and species that we’ve all grown up with and that are cen­tral to our cul­tures and inform our lan­guages may dis­ap­pear,” said Debra Roberts, co-chair of the IPCC.

However, there is hope that things might not get out of hand if tem­per­a­ture increases are kept below 1.5 ºC.

So this is really a key moment,” Roberts said. Our report points out very clearly, this is the decade of action if we are going to turn things around.”

While burn­ing fos­sil fuels account for 70 per­cent of green­house gases released into the atmos­phere. Agriculture is also respon­si­ble for 14 per­cent of green­house gas emis­sions.

Modern farm­ing meth­ods are also blamed for defor­esta­tion, loss of bio­di­ver­sity, and soil ero­sion.

As a result, supra­na­tional enti­ties such as the European Union are try­ing to shift to sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion sys­tems and restore the continent’s nat­ural envi­ron­ment.

Planting and restor­ing tra­di­tional olive groves are among these efforts. A recent study from the University of Jaén found that tra­di­tional groves sequester up to 5.5 kilo­grams of car­bon diox­ide per kilo­gram of oil pro­duced.

Previously, the International Olive Council found that for each liter of olive oil (the den­sity of which is slightly less than a kilo­gram) pro­duced, the asso­ci­ated olive trees remove 10 kilo­grams of car­bon diox­ide from the atmos­phere.



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