SINGAPORE – The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius is moving out of reach,
“We’ve run out of time because change takes time,” said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climatologist at Australia’s University of New South Wales. In India, one of the most climate vulnerable regions, deaths were reported to have spiked as a result of sustained high temperatures, and extreme heat has been recorded in Spain, Iran and Vietnam, raising fears that 2022’s deadly summer could become routine.
Global warming is the major factor, said Piers Forster, professor of climate physics at the University of Leeds, but El Nino, the decline in Saharan dust blowing over the ocean and the use of low-sulphur shipping fuels were also to blame.Thousands of dead fish have been washing up on Texan beaches and heat-induced algal blooms have also been blamed for killing sea lions and dolphins in California.
“The ocean is going to have a very slow response as it accumulates slowly but also keeps it for very long.”The Worldwide Fund for Nature, however, warned of a “worrying lack of momentum” during climate talks in Bonn this month, with little progress made on key issues like fossil fuels and finance ahead of November’s COP28 climate talks in Dubai.