We are currently one year on from the historic COP21 Negotiations in Paris, where some agreement was made between politicians of all nations to attempt to reduce emissions. This is obviously very important with respect to the potential changes to hydrological cycle I have already talked about. The target is to keep the warming of the earth's climate below 2C, but I personally believe that is now impossible. Why? This is a very popular animation of global temperatures that recently became viral, but it indicates an important point - we are coming close to pushing 1.5C of warming already, with 2016 being a year that has broken records temperature wise. Just look at the end of the animation; it will comfortably become the warmest year on record. Admittedly, it is a year with a strong El Nino (a climate phenomenon that leads to warmer temperatures globally), but even accounting for this, it is incredibly warm.
 |
| Credit: Ed Hawkins |
To celebrate anniversary of COP21 , I thought I'd share a cartoon that amused me. This is a bit of fun and not at all realistic, but behind the cartoon there is an important message - will we ever really do anything major to act internationally as things stand? Only time will tell if the agreements reached at COP21 will have any impact, particularly given events such as a the recent election of Donald Trump in the USA. I still worry for the changes to the hydrological cycle that are yet to come, but also remain optimistic that humans do have to power to enact change. We just have to give ourselves the chance to enact change - we are so dependent on water. Enjoy the cartoon.
| Credit: The Economist |
No comments:
Post a Comment