FAQ
Get Informed
Is Climate Change real?
I do wish it wasn't, but unfortunately, it is. Much of the misunderstanding about climate change stems from its often slow onset and the near impossibility of attributing single impacts (large floods, or droughts, etc.) to the big bad of “Climate Change”. This is because these events occur do occur normally. The difference with climate change is that the fundamental atmospheric dynamics (the temperatures affecting pressures driving wind and moisture transfer) are different in a climate-changed world. This means that some areas may experience less rainfall annually (or more). That doesn’t mean that these areas won’t get good rains in future, but only that the baseline from while normal annual rainfall varies is decreased. This means that this area would be more prone to drought for instance. Another common impact is rainfall intensity increases. With a warmer atmosphere, water remains in vapour form for longer (like a boiled tea kettle) and allows the potential for rapid large scale condensation resulting in high-intensity rain.
There are also natural (Milankovitch) cycles that push us into ice-ages and interglacials (warmer periods). The problem with arguing that is that these cycles oscillate in the order of 26 000 years minimum. The rate that the world is changing currently is much much faster than that.
So… it’s real. Sorry
How bad is it going to be?
That’s a difficult question. Some unbearably cold areas may get warmer and some areas might be less prone to drought. These areas are however in the vast minority. As a rule of thumb temperatures will increase significantly with more and stronger heatwaves and more extreme temperatures. Rainfall is much more difficult but generally, most areas will have longer dry spells (despite sometimes getting more rainfall annually), and when it does rain it’ll be more intense resulting in more flooding event.
However, these are considered climate exposures. Perhaps, more importantly, is the local climate sensitivity or adaptive capacity. This does get a bit more abstract but if two houses are hit by the same tropical cyclone and are destroyed, they are both equally exposed, but if one house has insurance and one does not, one has reduced adaptive capacity. Alternatively, if two people work in the same area but one is a farmer and relies on rainfall and the other works in an office. If both have the same income/insurance/etc, they will have similar adaptive capacities, but the farmer would have a much higher climate sensitivity.
This is why it’s generally the most vulnerable people that have climate or environment dependant livelihoods that have the highest risk to climate changes.
Can we stop it?
Again, not a simple answer. We can stop “some” of it. The scary truth is that we are all ready experiencing climate change. Temperatures have risen in the lst century, and rainfall patterns are becoming more variable.
The future global climate is dependent on anthropogenic mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To accommodate uncertainties around future GHG emissions and the success of mitigation measures, a scenario set of four possible future trajectories is commonly used for climate modelling. These four representative concentration pathways (RCPs) are based on the main forcing agents of climate change — namely GHG emissions, GHG concentrations and land-use change. The different RCPs, described below, are based on the relative radiative forcing (in W/m2) target level for 2100.
RCP2.6 represents the best-case mitigation scenario, with a global focus on environmentally sustainable practices. Peak radiative forcing is ~3 W/m2 (~490 ppm CO2 equivalent) before 2100 followed by a decline to 2.6 W/m2 by 2100.
RCP4.5 represents the likely best-case scenario with a peak radiative forcing of 4.5 W/m2 (~650 ppm CO2 equivalent) at stabilisation after 2100.
RCP6.0 represents the likely worst-case scenario with a peak radiative forcing of 6 W/m2 (~850 ppm CO2 equivalent) at stabilisation after 2100.
RCP8.5 represents a very high GHG emission scenario with a peak radiative forcing of 8.5 W/m2 (~1,370 ppm CO2 equivalent) and no expected stabilisation in emissions. RCP8.5 indicates a ‘business as usual’ scenario where the rate of GHG emissions continues to increase with no mitigation measures.
We are currently on the worst possible track (RCP8.5) due to limited GHG reductions. Recent reports (IPCC 1.5 2018) have indicated that we’ve already failed to meet some of the earlier emission targets and RCP2.6 is pretty much out the window, but climate scientists are also starting to assume that RCP4.5 will not be achievable.
So we can stop it, and we have hit some hurdles along the way but we can at least aim for an emission scenario that’s lower than the current RCP8.5 path we’re on.
How do I help?
For the most part, people know what is needed recycling, commuting less or via public transport, buying locally, sustainable land-use practices. But the largest change can come from large scale policies changes, effective carbon tax, and incentivisation to deviate for the business-as-usual mindset in which we find ourselves. So while that might seem hopeless, the biggest difference we can make (other than the list mentioned earlier) would be to get a better understanding of climate change, both locally for you, but also for the most vulnerable people in your community, help fight disinformation on climate change by checking the source and not propagating non-constructive debates. The climate science community has a near-complete agreement on climate change and the cause being humans, what is up for debate is how to deal with it. That’s the constructive debate we should be having.