Yves here. Even though Trump is making headway on his project to reduce living standards in the US to the level of the 1890s, one area where he is coming up short is on climate change. A general rise in temperature levels and more and more wild weather is defying his desire to return to the past.
Since the early 2000s, the Pentagon has been briefed on what even then were depicted as inevitable climate-changed induced mass migrations, which would be enormously destabilizing. So the story line that major population movements are inevitable is not news. However, citizens in high income countries have a weird way of thinking they are not much exposed.
This article gives a needed, if sobering, update, that surpassing the temperature rise target of 1.5°C would produce seriously bad outcomes, and even merely holding at the current 1.2°C increase level will produce enough in the way of sea level rises to generate large-scale migration and population displacement.
By Jessica Corbett, a staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
With governments “scaling back their already meager” actions to tackle climate breakdown, said one ecologist, “our present-day human culture is on a suicide course.”
Less than six months away from the next United Nations summit for parties to the Paris climate agreement, scientists on Tuesday released a study showing that even meeting the deal’s 1.5°C temperature target could lead to significant sea-level rise that drives seriously disruptive migration inland.
Governments that signed on to the 2015 treaty aim to take action to limit global temperature rise by 2100 to 1.5°C beyond preindustrial levels. Last year was not only the hottest in human history but also the first in which the average global temperature exceeded 1.5°C. Multiple studies have warned of major impacts from even temporarily overshooting the target, bolstering demands for policymakers to dramatically rein in planet-heating fossil fuels.
The study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environmentwarns that 1.5°C “is too high” and even the current 1.2°C, “if sustained, is likely to generate several meters of sea-level rise over the coming centuries, causing extensive loss and damage to coastal populations and challenging the implementation of adaptation measures.”
“To avoid this requires a global mean temperature that is cooler than present and which we hypothesize to be closer to +1°C above preindustrial, possibly even lower, but further work is urgently required to more precisely determine a ‘safe limit’ for ice sheets,” the paper states, referring to Antarctica and Greenland’s continental glaciers.
Co-author Jonathan Bamber told journalists that “what we mean by safe limit is one which allows some level of adaptation, rather than catastrophic inland migration and forced migration, and the safe limit is roughly 1 centimeter a year of sea-level rise.”
“If you get to that, then it becomes extremely challenging for any kind of adaptation, and you’re going to see massive land migration on scales that we’ve never witnessed in modern civilization,” said the University of Bristol professor.
In terms of timing, study lead author Chris Stokes, from the United Kingdom’s Durham University, said in a statement that “rates of 1 centimeter per year are not out of the question within the lifetime of our young people.”
There are currently around 8.18 billion people on the planet. The study—funded by the United Kingdom’s Natural Environment Research Council—says that “continued mass loss from ice sheets poses an existential threat to the world’s coastal populations, with an estimated 1 billion people inhabiting land less than 10 meters above sea level and around 230 million living within 1 meter.”
“Without adaptation, conservative estimates suggest that 20 centimeters of [sea-level rise] by 2050 would lead to average global flood losses of $1 trillion or more per year for the world’s 136 largest coastal cities,” says the study, also co-authored by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Andrea Dutton and University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Rob DeConto in the United States.
DeConto said Tuesday that “it is important to stress that these accelerating changes in the ice sheets and their contributions to sea level should be considered permanent on multigenerational timescales.”
“Even if the Earth returns to its preindustrial temperature, it will still take hundreds to perhaps thousands of years for the ice sheets to recover,” the professor explained. “If too much ice is lost, parts of these ice sheets may not recover until the Earth enters the next ice age. In other words, land lost to sea-level rise from melting ice sheets will be lost for a very, very long time. That’s why it is so critical to limit warming in the first place.”
While the paper sparked some international alarm, Stokes highlighted what he called “a reason for hope,” which is that “we only have to go back to the early 1990s to find a time when the ice sheets looked far healthier.”
“Global temperatures were around 1°C above preindustrial back then, and carbon dioxide concentrations were 350 parts per million, which others have suggested is a much safer limit for planet Earth,” he said. “Carbon dioxide concentrations are currently around 424 parts per million and continue to increase.”
The new paper continues an intense stream of bleak studies on the worsening climate emergency, and specifically, looming sea-level rise. Another, published by the journal Nature in February, shows that glaciers have lost an average of 273 billion metric tons of ice annually since 2000.
Despite scientists’ warnings, the government whose country is responsible for the largest share of historical planet-heating emissions, the United States, is actually working to boost the fossil fuel industry. Upon returning to office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump declared an “energy emergency” and ditched the Paris agreement.
Responding to the new study on social media, Scottish ecologist Alan Watson Featherstone called out both the U.S. and U.K. governments. He said that with many countries “scaling back their already meager and [totally] inadequate actions to address climate breakdown, our present-day human culture is on a suicide course.”
Add rising sea levels to the fact that mountain glaciers are disappearing. As an avid mountain walker, I have seen an alarming decline in glaciers over just the last 20 years. Here in Italy, heavily reliant on hydroelectric power and high mountain reservoirs, the risk of running out of water reserves from glaciers and snowpacks for energy, irrigation, municipal use, etc. is practically unavoidable. The answer of the government in Rome and our regional government is….MORE TOURISM and more artificial snow for ski runs (since it does not snow any more, but skiers need to ski) as we “delocalize” the remaining productive industry.
The great Asian river systems depend on melt from the Himalayan range. If I am not mistaken, 3/5ths of the world’s population will be at risk of starvation when these water sources dry up – Jackpot writ large. I wonder how long we have to wait. Anyone keeping a list with names and photos of those who should pay the bill when the Mad Max-style Great Reckoning comes?
Re: tourism:
Based on my in passim reading of the Harvard Class of 1975’s Red Book, international travel is the pre-eminent status symbol among that part of the PMC. According to a recent study, the world’s richest 10% contributed 65% of global warming since 1990.
The Appalachians get a lot of rain which feed streams and aquifers downslope. There’s no snowpack. I understand the ecology in the Himalayas in general is going to get all screwed up, but still, no snow does not equal no precipitation.
I live in a state that has three months of rain followed by between nine months and several years of no rain. Snowpacks are an excellent and inexpensive way to store water that otherwise would require more dams, canals, and reservoirs. For California, large snowpacks can take several years to melt as well, which means that the semi regularly skipped yearly rains are buffered by the continued riverflows.
As flooding becomes a frequent event in US coastal cities, what then? Will the people be relocated. Where will they be relocated to exactly? FEMA camps perhaps? Who will pay for it all? The US Navy is set to lose a lot of their bases too for that matter. Will those flooded zone be abandoned as the sea water weakens the building there. Most important question of all – is anybody planning what to do as this all happens? I would guess no.
I wonder if new construction codes could be revised so that structures are inundation tolerant, and upper stories would remain habitable even if ground floors are too damp for use.
I have been told that things are kind of like this in Venice.
It’s IMO a silly idea but, given the inertia, perhaps cities will slide into this kind of “adaptation”.
that is already the case if someone is building within a 100 year flood zone
It can be done, at considerable expense, if it’s fully supported by the community and is standard for everyone (this is why it works in Venice). Otherwise, it’s harder than you might think:
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/24-02-2023/the-case-for-abandoning-this-flood-prone-part-of-auckland
Refurbished and repurposed shipping containers, like in the movie Ready Player One…
Rev “Most important question of all – is anybody planning what to do as this all happens? I would guess no.”
>>> Some people definitely are planning (Don Jr and the Thielverse crew among others). However their plan is to move to Greenland, surround themselves with armies of drones, and watch from afar as the jackpot really kicks in.
Their plan for us: we die/descend into Mad-Maxness
What’s their plan for feeding themselves?
So. It looks like the security that the Atlantic and Pacific presents the USA from national enemies is going to defeat it with sea level rise. Irony, indeed!
What the authors don’t seem to understand is that it is not the height of land above current sea level that matters. It is the height of municipal utilities (electrical, wastewater) above sea level that matters. It is clean water, cleaned effluent, and the transmission of electricity that makes cities livable. (And this ignores transportation corridors that may be affected by sea level rise.)
My small city (80,000) sewage treatment plant is now ~1 meter above level— All 80K citizens (some live 100′ above sea level) will lose out if the treatment plant is inundated. Los Angeles is in the same position, but services millions of homes/businesses.
And no, independent septic systems are not a solution. Most would fail from overuse, alone.
Cholera will be the new Covid.
Cholera might be the least of our worries. My BFF keeps me up to date on all the Japanese stuff. They have decided (at top levels of govt anyway) to simply give up. The LDP there exploited NIMBYism to put all their nuclear power plants and nuclear waste storage sites near water sources (understandable in some ways but very very short sighted in others) because the weakest factions in the LDP typically were agricultural low-lying places near the sea.
Now it won’t take much to give Japan 20 or so Fukushimas. And they’ve been reactivating their nuclear plants. They’ve apparently given up on their future because it’s just too big a task to move all that stuff 50 metres up.
Plus here in UK I just shake my head at any plan to expand the London underground etc. Start planning to move the capital NOW. But that is political suicide so it won’t be done until it is too late.
“They have decided (at top levels of govt anyway) to simply give up.”
I am afraid this is going to be the standard operating procedure not just in Japan, and not just for nuclear power plants.
The backlog of infrastructure maintenance is already immense in Western countries (bridges, dams, roads, electricity/gas/water/telecommunications/railway networks…), and growing by the day, while new challenges pile up because of climate change (subways, sinking cities, buildings and other infrastructure swept by fires or floods, etc), so the general attitude will be just to give up on saving/maintaning/hardening/displacing infrastructure, but fight like hell for the control of the remaining bits of civilizational legacy still standing.
Support for the suspicion that the American elites have long since decided to treat America as a burndown . . . as in, burn it down and make it look like an accident, then grab the insurance money and run — somewhere.
I imagine this package comes with collapsing ice shelves and accompanying tsunamis. And it’s not like inland is going to be much better, what with their floods and fires package featuring superstorms.
The En-roads climate simulator allows study of the projected sea level changes at coastal areas of your choosing. It is just one of many outcomes to review as you adjust its forcing parameters to 2100. The simulator is free and runs quickly online with nice graphical summaries and details if desired. Highly recommended.
Amen. I’ve preached that gospel here a few times in the past.
And always check the growth slider and its powerful effect on emissions. (They should increase the options to negative growth. Covid demonstrated how it works.)
Here’s hoping as I haven’t received my normal newsletter from Naked Captialism for awhile now.
It’s getting more difficult to know what’s -what’s and who to trust as a civilian So many scams and most within political domains. Where to go and how to ‘clean house’?
margsview, please re-subscribe to the newsletter. Or if you like, I can add you back to the list.
This study seems to be based on 1.5 to 2 deg C global temp increase by 2100. Recently the Hansen group had a paper linked to here saying they think there is a 99% chance of exceeding 3 deg C by 2100 and their best estimate is currently 5 deg C. The worst case IPCC RCP 8.5 may well start looking moderate with a couple more positive feedback loops triggered.
Just by 2050 we are looking at a 60% chance the gulf stream (AMOC) will stop, 95%by 2100 per a 2024 study.
Things are going to be getting pretty bad in just a decade or two!
Above, The Rev Kev wrote, “…Most important question of all – is anybody planning what to do as this all happens? I would guess no.”
Well, I think there are plans amongst the oligarchs, and they are as you’d expect: 1. because markets (we can’t afford mitigation or adaptation), 2. Can’t deal yourselves? Go Die!
That’s the basics. I know this not based on statements, but based on the choice of subterfuge and inaction for the past 50 years and as the article concludes, totally inadequate actions planned by any country or international group.
I’ve also noticed Overshoot seems to be being used for co2 levels (as in it’s ok we Overshoot 350 ppm, with our amazing future tech we will solve that with no problem). Overshot (past tense) is what we did to co2 and other pollution in the atmosphere. Overshoot is when we exceed the carrying capacity of the earth and billions go die.
The migrations will be much larger than just moves away from the coasts. The FEMA flood zones have been updated, and many real estate aggregation services include climate risk information, much of it derived from First Street risk estimates. I have been looking for property in Western, New York — Upstate where many existing houses are at high risk of flooding in the next few decades. Wind and fire along with heat, and air quality are other risk factors that the real estate portal I most often check tracks, although they do not appear as significant risks in the area Upstate where I am looking, at least for the present. Real estate services for Upstate do not include risk measures for drought and hail risks which First Street also models. Considering the prospects for increasingly severe weather in the near future as temperatures rise, I suspect these and perhaps other risk factors will be tracked in future real estate listings. I suspect all these factors will assume greater and greater importance when new home buyers look for house insurance and purchase loans.
The concern for mass migrations in this post needs to include concern for the consequences of these other climate risk factors, adding millions more to the great migrations. There are entire countries where climate risks, some of them lethal, will drive migrations, adding millions and millions more, probably billions to the great migrations. This concern in the post, while touching is also disquieting: “To avoid this [large scale coastal flooding] requires a global mean temperature that is cooler than present and which we hypothesize to be closer to +1°C above pre-industrial, possibly even lower, but further work is urgently required to more precisely determine a ‘safe limit’ for ice sheets ….” I believe governments have already indicated their ability and willingness to restrain business-as-usual in response to various and shifting safe limits. Governments have proven most effective at avoiding constraints on business-as-usual. Adaptation is at best a nice buzzword to enable creating and tapping into government funding lines.
>Yves here.
If He drags us along to that past, it will be quite different from the one in his addled imagination. The Robber Barons in the new era might hold forth in their castles, for a while, but their wealth will not be maintained by the exploitation of an obliterated working class.
Well, a few of them might get to Mars, but they will be sorry, just the same.
While I can take some comfort in ” but they will be sorry, just the same”, I still hope that one of the techno-plebs working on the Escape Vessels which those techno-plebs will not be permitted to board . . . will be able to sneak some time-delay bubonic plague germs onto the Escape Vessels.
Seems to me that a familiar model for what is coming, is that of a picnic cooler whose “cold packs” lose their cooling or melt. Food doesn’t do so well, and the esthetics of the outing lose their charm.