Looking at climate impacts in California, and reading the new IPCC report
JAI continues its research into fighting climate change through the use of domestic and international law. Currently, the JAI team is looking at the impacts of climate change on waterways in California. Wetlands represent one of the most important wildlife habitats in the Golden State and are also essential as carbon sinks. Yet more than 90% of California’s wetlands have disappeared in the last two centuries.
Humans play a tragic role in this regard in two ways: First, the dense settlement of the California coast attacks the existence of wetlands. Second, human-made climate change has added an immense burden on this ecological system.
One incredible example of the impacts of climate change is the shrinking of the Salton Sea. Both wildlife and local human communities are massively suffering from climate-induced changes. The shrinking of the Salton Sea has exposed the toxic lakebed to the area’s powerful winds. The percentage of people with respiratory illnesses in the region is well above the national average.
On Monday, August 9, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a long-awaited report on the state of climate science. JAI is currently reviewing the report. This report states in unprecedented terms that climate change is not a problem of the future. It makes it abundantly clear that “[i]t is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.” By 2100, we can expect annual coastal flooding on a scale that used to occur only once every 100 years. The 1.5°C rise in global temperatures—considered a warming “red line”—may be reached as early as 2030, 10 years earlier than assumed in the 2018 report. Natural disasters such as the current wildfires in North America and Greece, or flooding in Germany and China, will descend upon the world with increasing frequency.
Nevertheless, the IPCC report does not leave us entirely hopeless. If greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by half by 2030 and net zero emissions are achieved by 2050, the 1.5°C target is still achievable.
JAI will be studying this report in great detail in the coming days in order to develop strategies and urge communities, states, and national governments to act in accordance with the best available science and to preserve and sustain a habitable Earth for generations to come.