AFP

The global economy’s business-as-usual approach to climate change has seen Earth’s “vital signs” deteriorate to record levels, an influential group of scientists said Wednesday, warning that several climate tipping points were now imminent.

The researchers, part of a group of more than 14,000 scientists who have signed on to an initiative declaring a worldwide climate emergency, said that governments had consistently failed to address the root cause of climate change: “the overexploitation of the Earth”. 

Since a similar assessment in 2019, they noted an “unprecedented surge” in climate-related disasters, including flooding in South America and Southeast Asia, record-shattering heatwaves and wildfires in Australia and the US, and devastating cyclones in Africa and South Asia. 

Of 31 “vital signs” — key metrics of planetary health that include greenhouse gas emissions, glacier thickness, sea-ice extent and deforestation — they found that 18 hit record highs or lows. 

For example, despite a dip in pollution linked to the pandemic, levels of atmospheric CO2 and methane hit all-time highs in 2021.

Greenland and Antarctica both recently showed all-time low levels of ice mass, and glaciers are melting 31 percent faster than they did just 15 years ago, the authors said. 

Both ocean heat and global sea levels set new records since 2019, and the annual loss rate of the Brazilian Amazon reached a 12-year high in 2020. 

Echoing previous research, they said that forest degradation linked to fire, drought and logging was causing parts of the Brazilian Amazon to now act as a source of carbon, rather than absorb the gas from the atmosphere. 

Livestock such as cows and sheep are now at record levels, numbering more than four billion and with a mass exceeding that of all humans and wild land mammals combined, they said.

Tim Lenton, director of the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute and study co-author, said the recent record-breaking heatwave in the Western United States and Canada showed that the climate had already begun to “behave in shocking, unexpected ways”.

“We need to respond to the evidence that we are hitting climate tipping points with equally urgent action to decarbonise the global economy and start restoring instead of destroying nature,” he said. 

– ‘Address the root cause’ –

The researchers said there was “mounting evidence that we are nearing or have already crossed” a number of climate tipping points. 

These include melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, which may now be irreversible on a centuries-long time scale, regardless of how or if humankind slashes its emissions. 

They said increasing ocean deoxygenation and warming waters were threatening warm-water coral reefs, upon which half a billion people rely for food, income and storm protection. 

“Given these alarming developments, we need short, frequent, and easily accessible updates on the climate emergency,” said the study, published in the journal BioScience. 

The authors echoed previous calls for transformative change in six areas: eliminating fossil fuels, slashing pollutants, restoring ecosystems, switching to plant-based diets, moving away from indefinite growth models, and stabilising the human population. 

They also called for climate change education to be included in school core curriculums globally in order to raise awareness.

In the immediate term, they proposed a trio of emergency responses to the climate emergency. 

These consisted of “a significant carbon price”, a global phase-out and ban of fossil fuels, and the development of strategic climate reserves such as restoring and maintaining carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots. 

“We need to stop treating the climate emergency as a stand-alone issue -– global heating is not the sole symptom of our stressed Earth system,” said William Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University’s College of Forestry.

“Policies to combat the climate crisis or any other symptoms should address their root cause: human overexploitation of the planet.”

pg/mh/nrh

The illegal mining of gold from Colombia’s rivers and waterways is on the rise, according to a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime published on Tuesday.

More than 52,000 hectares of nature reserves — an area similar to the size of Madrid — was affected by illegal alluvial gold extraction in 2020, the UN said.

In total, more than 100,000 hectares — 69 percent of which is illegal — of one of the most biodiverse countries in the world show “evidence” of alluvial gold exploitation, the UN report said.

It’s a process of extracting gold from the sediment at the bottom of rivers and other waterways, and results in the waters being contaminated by mercury and other toxic substances.

It is “a worrying situation because it has ties to organized crime,” said Pierre Lapaque, the Colombia representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime representative, as he  presented the report in Bogota.

The study shows that alluvial gold exploitation increased slightly from 2019 when there were 98,000 hectares affected, 66 percent of which was done illegally.

Organized crime is behind this increase, the UN said, adding that it was mostly affecting the northern, northwestern and western regions.

Those regions are blighted by violence raging between left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug-traffickers battling for control of the lucrative drug and mineral extraction trades.

“These illegal organizations are a threat to biodiversity and create violence and poverty,” said the US ambassador in Colombia, Philip Goldberg.

The report did not say how much gold has been extracted illegally, nor its commercial value.

Colombian authorities say the total gold production in the country increased from 37.5 tons in 2019 to 47.8 tons the next year, when prices reached historic highs.

In more than half of the areas affected by gold extraction there are also coca leaf crops — the main ingredient in cocaine — the report said.

Colombia is the largest cocaine exporter in the world, much of it destined for the US.