What could our future look like?

On the last day of 2023 I wanted to look at what the future could look like based on the current projections for temperature rise. A word of warning, this is a rather depressing post but rather than dismissing it as doom and gloom I think it is important to look at where we could be headed in order to understand how to avoid the future described.

The United Nations Environment Programme warned in November that the world was on track for a 3 degree Celsius rise in temperature by the end of the century. Climate Action Tracker, which makes projections based on policies announced by countries, has a slightly more optimistic forecast of 2.7 degrees.

For an idea of what a world 3 degrees warmer will look like, the video below from The Economist highlights some of the issues that will be faced:

Even before we reach the end of the century there is a risk that extreme heat stress will prove deadly in parts of the world and that billions of people could face negative effects on their health due to extreme heat, food insecurity and infectious diseases. Adding to the injustice is the fact that the parts of the world most at risk are ones that have often contributed the least to global greenhouse gas emissions - as Adam Tooze describes it:

“This is the triple inequality that defines the climate global equation: the disparity in responsibility for producing the problem; the disparity in experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis; and the disparity in the available resources for mitigation and adaptation.”

The Arctic Ocean could be completely ice-free in the summer by the 2030s and the collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet may already be inevitable. On its own this collapse could push sea levels up by five metres and would directly affect 4.1% of the world’s population.

If all that’s not enough, then take a look at some of the other warnings that have been issued by scientists this year:

• Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn

• Earth ‘well outside safe operating space for humanity’, scientists find

• Earth’s ‘vital signs’ worse than at any time in human history, scientists warn

The scenarios described above are on the basis of currently policies - for something truly terrifying take a look at this image from BigThink of what the world could look like at 4 degrees of warming, which we could hit if we gave up hope completely and burned all the fossil fuel we could lay our hands on.

To paraphrase an old proverb, the best time to take action was 30 years ago, but the second best time is now.