ISBA

Autumn 2021 | Environmental sustainability www.theisba.org.uk 4 Climate change has arrived The Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk Advice to Government Report (CCRA3) published in June 2021 stated “the world is now experiencing the dangerous impacts of a rapidly heating climate. And further warming is inevitable, even on the most ambitious pathways for the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions”. The subsequent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published in August 2021 has warned that temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C bringing widespread extreme weather. It revealed that the global surface temperature was 1.09C higher in the decade between 2011-2020 than between 1850-1900. António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said that the report “is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.” He has called for an end to new coal plants and to new fossil fuel exploration and development, and for governments, investors and businesses to do all they can to ensure a low-carbon future, adding “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.” IPCC report August 2021 key points • The global surface temperature was 1.09C higher in the decade between 2011-2020 than between 1850-1900. • The past five years have been the hottest on record since 1850. • The recent rate of sea level rise has nearly tripled compared with 1901-1971. • Human influence is “very likely” (90 percent) the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s and the decrease in Arctic sea ice. • It is “virtually certain” that hot extremes including heatwaves have become more frequent and more intense across most land regions since the 1950s, while cold events have become less frequent and less severe. This summer (August 2021) the Guardian reported that “almost half the world’s 2.2 billion children are already at “extremely high risk” from the impacts of the climate crisis and pollution, according to a report from Unicef. The UN agency’s head, Henrietta Fore, called the situation “unimaginably dire”. A billion children at ‘extreme risk’ from climate impacts – Unicef Report launched with youth activists including Greta Thunberg paints ‘unimaginably dire’ picture www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/20/a- billion-children-at-extreme-risk-from-climate-impacts-unicef New research from Harvard University, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, the University of Leicester and University College London, found that more than eight million people died in 2018 from fossil fuel pollution, significantly higher than previous research suggested – meaning that air pollution from burning fossil fuels like coal and diesel was responsible for about one in five deaths worldwide. www.hsph.harvard.edu/ c-change/news/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-for- 1-in-5-deaths-worldwide/