Climate change is here,
and it is straight-up destroying the planet.
But you already knew that.
In fact, you're probably used to seeing images like these
any time you turn on the TV or open a window.
There is no doubt that we have entered a code red emergency,
and it seems that no one is immune.
But let me be clear: The effects of climate change
won't be experienced equally.
Cruelly, the people and countries who have contributed
the least to climate change are already
suffering from it the most.
But hold up. Before we dig into that,
let's make sure we have an understanding
of the fundamentals of climate change.
And for that, I'm tagging in a climate change expert.
Hi, I'm Josh Willis.
And for the past two decades, I've been studying
how humans are changing the Earth's climate.
Now, we've learned a lot,
but the basics are still very simple.
Light from the sun passes right through the atmosphere
and it warms the surface of the Earth.
The surface then sends heat back out toward space.
But greenhouse gases - like carbon dioxide
and methane - that are produced by human activities,
they trap heat like a blanket and warm the Earth.
As the air warms, it can hold more water,
which makes storms more intense.
But the higher temperatures also mean
that droughts are more punishing,
and higher sea levels mean floods are more frequent.
So all of the extremes get worse in a warmer world.
And we're already seeing this happen today.
Thanks, Josh.
Humans have heated the planet by 1.1 degrees Celsius
since industrialization in the 1800s,
mostly through burning fossil fuels,
razing forests and industrial-scale factory farming.
At the 2015 Paris Climate Accords,
nearly every nation in the world agreed to pursue
limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
We are absolutely going to blow past that.
In August 2021, the IPCC released a dire report.
It confirms that even if we sharply reduce emissions
right now, a global temperature increase
of 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next two decades
is essentially locked in.
1.5 degrees of warming might sound like a small number,
but the effects that we will have to endure
will be anything but small.
So, what does 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming look like?
Hi, me again.
Well, we're already halfway there.
Ice sheets are melting, driving sea levels higher,
which is causing more frequent flooding.
And droughts and wildfires are already more severe.
Rising temperatures are even threatening to make
some places completely unlivable.
Multiply all of that by two, and you'll understand
what a degree-and-a-half-warmer world really looks like.
Yes, the changes will affect the entire globe,
but they won't affect everyone equally.
The Middle East is heating at roughly
twice the rate as the global average.
Temperatures, which already spike into the 50s
during the day, will not drop below 30 degrees Celsius
at night, rendering cities uninhabitable.
Elsewhere, islands in the Caribbean
can expect an increase in hurricanes,
which will pulverize infrastructure
faster than we can rebuild it.
And, as the ice caps melt, sea levels rise exponentially.
For a country like Bangladesh,
where a third of the population lives on the coast,
15 million people stand to be evicted by the ocean.
That's not to mention the hundreds of thousands
of Rohingya refugees.
They've already been forced to flee their homes
because of genocide, and now,
their settlements are imperiled by flash floods,
landslides and the rising ocean.
One way to understand how climate change
will disproportionately affect different parts of the globe
is through the concept of climate colonialism.
Colonialism is a form of domination,
where richer nations extract labor
and goods from countries largely in the global south.
Climate colonialism refers to
a similar kind of exploitation,
where wealthier nations live
and operate at the ecological expense of other countries.
In other words, global north countries
outsource the burden of climate change
to countries that have smaller footprints,
all while continuing to extract fossil fuels
and reap all the energy and wealth benefits
that ultimately worsen climate change.
Here's what I'm talking about.
The World Bank estimates that climate change
could displace 216 million people by 2050.
Taken together, that's a population
roughly the size of Brazil,
the world's sixth-largest nation.
Of those in danger of losing their homes,
North Africa can see the largest percentage
of its total population displaced,
at 9% in the most dire scenarios.
Africa, as a continent, only accounts for
about 3% of global emissions.
And yet, it suffers disproportionately.
The 50 countries with the smallest greenhouse gas footprint,
contributing to only 1% of emissions,
will be forced to face the brunt of the devastation
brought on by climate change.
Those devastations will come in the form of death,
but also drought, famine and starvation,
as crops bolt in the changing climate.
Damningly, the 10 most food-insecure countries in the world
contribute 0.08% of global carbon emissions.
To put that in perspective,
it takes well over 500 Burundians to generate
the same amount of carbon as one single average American.
Meanwhile, just 10 countries
are responsible for 70% of global emissions.
For many nations in the global south, it's a vicious cycle.
Less industrialized, they contribute
to less carbon emissions, but they're also
less equipped to deal with climate challenges.
And this leads them to be more vulnerable
as climate change worsens.
And it's not just nations in the global south
that are at a disadvantage.
According to the UN, poor communities,
women and ethnic minorities
within individual countries will suffer more.
In the Southwest United States,
there's a 2.2 degrees Celsius gap
in the neighborhoods of the richest 10%
and those of the poorest 10%.
With less access to shade,
housing security or disposable income
in the case of an evacuation, poorer communities -
even in wealthy nations -
are more exposed to the whims of nature.
People all over the world are working on
finding solutions to these issues,
but sometimes, even our plans to find ways
to lower emissions deepens inequality.
Let's take a look at carbon offsetting.
These allow buyers to offset the effects of their emissions
by investing in environmental projects,
such as planting trees
or investing in clean energy projects.
Sounds great, right?
The reality isn't so rosy.
In the case of tree planting,
the land earmarked for use is often
inhabited by those with the least political power.
In 2014, Norwegian companies caused forced evictions
and food scarcity for thousands of Ugandans,
Mozambicans and Tanzanians by gobbling up land
used for carbon offsets.
Separately, many of the world's wealthiest nations
have passed laws that make their environment safer
and their energy greener
in a way that shifts the burden to the global south.
In 2018, Germany banned domestic hard coal.
Anthracite, or hard coal,
is more difficult and damaging to mine.
However, there's a loophole.
There's no ban in importing hard coal into Germany.
Colombia, which now produces much of Germany's supply,
calls it blood coal, because of the human rights violations
and contract killings involved in extraction.
The Paris Agreement only limits emissions
produced within a nation.
There are no targets for external trade.
This means that the world's richest countries
are seemingly fighting climate change,
even as they outsource the damage
to other parts of the globe.
Of course, the worst of it
is reserved for those that are blameless.
I'm talking about children.
Kids are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate,
like dehydration, heat stress, pollutants
and vector-borne diseases.
And the scary reality is, these risks aren't going anywhere.
Those born in 2020 will endure an average
of 30 extreme heat waves in their lives -
seven times more than their grandparents did.
Children today will be dealing with the climate crisis
and its devastating fallout long after those of us
who have contributed the most carbon emissions are gone.
So, what can we do about all of this?
Actions can largely be divided into two groups:
Cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions
to prevent future destruction,
and mitigating the damage that is already happening.
Fossil fuels alone are responsible for
86% of carbon emission growth in the last decade.
Climate scientists argue that any realistic approach
involves ceasing oil extraction immediately,
and transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energies
like solar, wind, tidal and geothermal power.
Other steps to cut global carbon emissions
involves replenishing forests, ditching plastics
and moving away from factory farming.
We also need to fortify our communities
for the coming increase in weather devastation,
revamping our sewer systems,
reinforcing our electricity grids and insulating our homes.
The truth is, there is no silver-bullet solution
to this crisis, but we do know that disadvantaged groups
are the ones that are most at risk.
And we have to start listening
to their solutions to this crisis.
In California, controlled burns were banned for decades.
Now, government officials are listening
to Indigenous leaders whose tribes have, for centuries,
been using the practice to build forest-fire resilience.
What else can we learn from people
who, for too long, have been ignored?
Time is of the essence to reform how civilization is built,
before climate change does it for us.
Where will we place our bets?